had been draining the life out of her, stealing all her satisfaction and joy in the career she loved.
It went deeper than that, though. If she were honest, her ferocious need for independence had probably been rooted in her childhood, watching her mother drink herself to an early grave because of a man and then being shuttled here and there in the foster care system.
She learned early she would never be able to please the endless parade of busybody social workers and foster parents who marched through her life. She couldn’t please them, and she couldn’t depend on them. Too often, the moment she began to care for a family, she was capriciously yanked out and sent to another one. Eventually, she learned not to care, to carefully construct a hard shell around her heart. The only one she could truly count on was herself.
This was her chance. Hers and Dylan’s. The opportunity to build the life she had dreamed of since those early days cleaning cages.
She wasn’t ready to give up that dream, patients or none.
Besides that, she had SueAnn to consider. With the animosity between the two, she and Steve would never be able to work together, and she didn’t want to lose her as a friend or as an assistant.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Steve,” she finally said. “It’s a good offer and I appreciate it, really I do, but I’m just not interested right now.”
If Dylan had given her that same look, Ellie would have called it a pout. After only a moment of sulking, Steve’s expression became amiable again. “I’ll keep working on you. Eventually I’ll wear you down, just watch.”
He picked up the case of vaccine and headed for the door. “Thanks again for the loan. I’ll drop my shipment off tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”
“That would be fine,” she said.
At the door he paused and looked at her with a grin. “And have fun working with Matt Harte. The man can be tough as a sow’s snout, but he’s a damn hard worker. He’s single-handedly built the Diamond Harte into a force to be reckoned with around here. I’m not sure that will help when it comes to planning a school carnival, but it ought to make things interesting.”
Interesting. She had a feeling the word would be a vast understatement.
* * *
He was hiding out, no denying it.
Like a desperado trying frantically to stay two steps ahead of a hangin’ party and a noose with his name on it.
A week after visiting Ellie at her clinic, Matt sat trapped in his office at the ranch house, trying to concentrate on the whir and click of the computer in front of him instead of the soft murmur of women’s voices coming from the kitchen at the end of the hall.
As usual, he had a hundred and one better things to occupy his time than sit here gazing at a blasted screen, but he didn’t dare leave the sanctuary of his office.
She was out there.
Ellie Webster. The city vet who had sneaked her way into his dreams for a week, with that fiery hair and her silvery-green eyes and that determined little chin.
He thought she was only driving out to the Diamond Harte to drop her kid off for a sleepover with Lucy. She was supposed to be here ten minutes, tops, and wouldn’t even have to know he was in here.
Things didn’t go according to plan. He had a feeling they rarely would, where Ellie Webster was concerned. Instead of driving away like she should have done, she had apparently plopped down on one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, and now he could hear her and Cassie talking and laughing like they’d been best friends for life.
They’d been at it for the last half hour, and he’d just about had enough.
He wasn’t getting a damn thing done. Every time he tried to focus on getting the hang of the new livestock-tracking software, her voice would creep under the door like a sultry, devious wisp of smoke, and his concentration would be shot all to hell and back.
Why did it bug him so much to have her invading his space with that low laugh of hers? He felt itchy and bothered having her here, like a mustang with a tail full of cockleburs.
It wasn’t right. He would have to get a handle on this awareness if he was going to be able to work on the school thing with her for the next few months. As to how, he didn’t have the first idea. It had been a long time since he’d been so tangled up over a woman.
Maybe he should ask her out.
The idea scared him worse than kicking a mountain lion. He wasn’t much of a lady’s man. Maybe he used to be when he was younger—he’d enjoyed his share of buckle bunnies when he rodeoed in college, he wouldn’t deny it—but things had changed after Melanie.
He had tried to date a few times after he was finally granted a divorce in absentia after her desertion, but every attempt left him feeling restless and awkward.
After a while he just quit trying, figuring it was better to wake up lonely in his own bed than in a stranger’s.
He wasn’t lonely, he corrected the thought quickly. He had Lucy and Jess and Cassidy and the ranch hands. He sure as hell didn’t need another woman messing things up.
He cleared his throat. The action made him realize how thirsty he was. Parched, like he’d been riding through a desert for days.
The kitchen had water. Plenty of it, cold, pure mountain spring water right out of the tap. He could walk right in there and pour himself a big glass and nobody could do a damn thing about it.
Except then he’d have to face her.
He heaved a sigh and turned to the computer until the next wisp of laughter curled under the door.
That was it. He was going in. He shoved back from the desk and headed toward the door. He lived here, dammit. A man ought to be able to walk into his own kitchen for a drink if it suited him. She had no right to come into his house and tangle him up like this.
No right whatsoever.
Chapter 5
As soon as he walked into the big, warm kitchen, he regretted it.
He felt like the big, bad wolf walking in on a coop full of chickens. All four of them—Ellie, Cass and both of the girls—looked up, their cutoff laughter hanging in the air along with the sweet, intoxicating smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he muttered. “I, uh, just needed a drink of water and then I’ll get out of your way.”
“You didn’t interrupt,” Cassie said. “Sit down. The cookies will be done in a minute, and I know how much you love eating them right out of the oven.”
Information his baby sister didn’t need to be sharing with the whole damn world, thank you very much. Made him sound like a seven-year-old boy snitching goodies after school. “I’ve got things to do,” he muttered.
“They can wait five minutes, can’t they?”
His jaw worked as he tried to come up with a decent-sounding excuse to escape without seeming rude. How was a man supposed to think straight when he had four females watching him so expectantly?
Finally, he muttered a curse under his breath and pulled out a chair. “Just five minutes, though.”
Like a tractor with a couple bad cylinders, the conversation limped along for a moment, and he squirmed on the hard chair, wishing he were absolutely anywhere but here. He was just about to jump up and rush back to the relative safety of his office—excuse or none—when Lucy ambushed him.
She touched his arm with green-painted fingernails—now where did she get those? he wondered—and gazed at him out of those big gray eyes. “Daddy, Dylan and her mom aren’t going anywhere for Thanksgiving dinner