One Man and a Baby. SUSAN MEIER
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his veins. Wild thoughts scampered through his brain. Luckily he was smart enough to ignore all of it.
“So screaming won’t do any good. Besides, I’m here to get you for work, not for what you apparently offered somebody last night.” He shook his head. “I’ll bet you have some dreams in that getup.”
She snatched her cover-up in midair. “My dreams are none of your concern.”
“Except your dream about running this farm.” He crossed his arms on his chest. No matter what his percolating hormones thought, he didn’t intend to deviate from his plan to get rid of her. Not even for the various and sundry fun and games that automatically sprang to mind just looking at that nightgown.
“Now get up.”
She tied the belt of the pointless robe. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am up.”
He looked at his watch. “Great. And only twenty minutes after everybody else is in the barn.”
She gaped at him. “What?”
“What do you think? Horses sleep until noon? Fat chance. Kiss your late nights goodbye, sweetheart.”
She drew a breath. “If farm managers have to get up at—” she peered at the digital clock on her bedside table “—four-thirty! Are you insane?” She jumped out of bed and stormed over to him.
Rick forced his eyes away from her legs only to find himself staring at her breasts, then the long column of her neck, then her blazing green eyes.
“I’ll get up at five.”
“All rightie, then. When your dad calls I’ll tell him you must not want to learn because you refuse to get up when everybody else does.” He turned and strode toward her bedroom door.
“You wouldn’t!”
He faced her again. “I would. You think a farm is a big game?” he asked, motioning around the room. “With your pretty pink foo-foo stuff all over the place? But most of us live and die by whether or not this farm makes money and while I’m here, it will.” With that he pivoted toward the door again. “You’re in the barn in ten minutes or I’ll be telling your dad.”
He left the room and Ashley fumed. Not because he threatened her but because he’d had the audacity to come into her room. She ripped off her cover-up as she marched into her walk-in closet and searched for a pair of jeans suitable for a day in the barn.
He hadn’t merely come into her room, he’d come in and pulled off her covers. She glanced down at her basically see-through nightgown and groaned. It would probably take less than five minutes for her fetish for pretty nighties to get around the barn. She’d just handed Rick Capriotti the ammunition he needed to keep her from gaining the respect of the hands.
Damn! This was not at all how she had pictured this morning would turn out. She hadn’t exactly seen herself arriving at the barn, shaking hands with Rick and giving everyone in the barn a pep talk. She hadn’t even imagined herself and Rick Capriotti getting along. But she had envisioned some sort of compromise. This farm was her home and her heritage and she wanted to run it with the grace and dignity of a well-bred Southern lady. But right at this very minute, Rick Capriotti was probably robbing her of that chance by telling everyone she wore a little pink nightie trimmed in fur that made her look like one of Santa’s off-season elves.
She took a breath, told herself not to panic and decided the only way to handle the gossip would be to meet it head-on. That was the lesson she’d learned when she came home after her marriage crumbled. For four long weeks every room she had walked into had suddenly gotten quiet. Then she had realized that if she would talk about her disastrous marriage, admit she lost half her trust fund and answer any questions, eventually the gossip would die, if only because the townspeople would have nothing to speculate about. They would know everything.
So, she’d spilled her guts to Ellen Johnson, wife of the diner owner, who usually acted as hostess, and it worked like a charm. Within a week, everybody knew her story, and bored because there were no unanswered questions, they moved on to the next gossip topic.
And that was exactly how she’d handle the nightie scandal. She would address it head-on.
Ten minutes later she was in the main barn, striding down the cement aisle that separated the two long rows of stalls. When she stepped into the office, Rick glanced at her, looked at his watch, then smiled. “You had thirty seconds to spare.”
Not about to be baited, she returned his smile. “I didn’t shower.”
“Most of us don’t before a day of mucking stalls.”
Her pretty smile collapsed. “Mucking stalls!”
“What? You think you’re going to start at the top?”
“I am the top! I own this farm.”
“Let’s get something straight. Your dad owns the farm or I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be putting up with me.”
Toby Ford walked into the office, carrying the morning paper and a cup of store-bought coffee, and wearing a flat tweed cap that made him look like the epitome of the English gentleman that he was. Though he was close to forty, his boyish face and rakish charm reminded Ashley of someone her own age.
“Morning, Miz Meljac,” he said, taking off his hat, and not meeting her gaze. From his awkwardness Ashley guessed Toby was the first person Rick had told about her nightgown, and the place she’d have to start with damage control.
She straightened her shoulders. “No need to be so formal, Toby, since it’s clear you probably know more about me this morning than you knew this time yesterday.”
Toby peeked at her. “Excuse me?”
“Oh come on, now. If we’re all going to work together, we might as well be honest.”
“About what?” Toby’s eyes widened.
Ashley glanced from Toby to Rick, who was smirking, and then back to Toby again. “He didn’t tell you anything…about…well, this morning?”
“I just got here,” Toby replied at the same time that Rick said, “A gentleman doesn’t tell what he sees in a lady’s bedroom.”
Ashley’s eyes narrowed.
This time when she spoke she had to ungrit her teeth. “Mr. Capriotti felt it was okay to come into my bedroom to wake me this morning.”
Leaning back on the old-fashioned wooden office chair that sat behind the gunmetal-gray desk, Rick linked his hands behind his neck. “Let me ask you something, Toby. If you had a laborer who wasn’t on time for work, what would you do?”
Toby shrugged. “Fire him.”
“My point exactly.” Rick turned his gaze on Ashley. “So you had a choice, sunshine. Get your butt down to this barn or get fired. Since I suspected you didn’t know that rule, I did you a favor by waking you.”
He rose. “Let’s go get you set up to do some mucking.”
“Mucking?” Toby gasped.
“Sure.” Rick smiled at Toby. “Isn’t that how you started most hands when they came to that big farm you ran in England?”
“Well, yes.”
“But I’m not really starting here,” Ashley said, turning her smile on Toby. “Right, Toby? I’ve been around my whole life.”
“Yet, you’ve never mucked a stall,” Rick said.
She took a breath. “No. But I’m fairly certain I have the principle down pat.”
“You probably do,” Rick agreed. “But if you really want to become the boss over people who have been here for the decades you were only riding the horses they cared for, you have to let them see that you don’t think you’re better than they are. That you understand what