Sage crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
He ignored her and started peeling away layers of clothing, taking the time to hang them on a coatrack just inside the back door. He didn’t stop until he was down to jeans, socks, and a red and black flannel shirt.
What have you done, Grand? she thought.
The blizzard would end. The sun would come out and melt the snow. Electricity would be restored along with power lines and cell phone coverage. And Sage could have talked her out of the sale a hell of a lot easier face-to-face than over the telephone—if they ever got service back in the canyon.
This was Sage’s home and it wasn’t supposed to be sold to some rank stranger, even if his green eyes were sexy as hell with snow hanging on the lashes like that fake stuff out of a can that she and Grand sprayed on the windows when she was a little girl.
“Coffee smells good. Reckon it’s about ready?” he asked. “Thank goodness for a full propane tank. Miz Ada told me that she has a standing order with the propane company out of Claude. And you can wipe that mean look off your face, lady. We’re stuck here together until this ends. I’m not real happy about being holed up with you either, but it’s the way it is and we might as well make the best of it.”
Her eyes narrowed and her brow wrinkled.
You want your face to freeze with that nasty look on it? Her grandmother’s words came back to haunt her.
“Number one, Mr. Riley, you don’t tell me how to look or what to do. Number two, Mr. Riley, Grand won’t ever sell you this place, so don’t get too comfortable.”
“Rule number one, lady, I speak my mind, so get used to it. Rule number two, I’m settling in and getting comfortable because I think she will sell the ranch to me. The deed will say that you get to live on the ranch as long as you want when the sale is sealed, signed, and finished. And back to rule number one, darlin’, if you want your face to freeze like that, then just hold on to that nasty look,” Creed said.
Her face softened, but she wasn’t ready to smile and welcome the damn cowboy. Not yet, probably not ever.
“She wasn’t supposed to leave until today.”
Maybe the blizzard was a blessing. He’d see right quick that life in the canyon was too hard and he’d be ready to get the hell out of the place as soon as he could. Sage didn’t mind doing chores. She hated milking a cow, but she could do that too if the cowboy would ride on out of the canyon as soon as the roads were cleared. Hell, she’d call a helicopter and pay the bill out of her own money if he wanted to get out of the canyon before the snowplow arrived.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asked.
“Whatever you can scrounge up. I didn’t take you to raise,” she said shortly.
He smiled down at her. “Miz Ada said you’d be a handful and you’d come in here mad as a wet hen after a tornado. She was dead on, but darlin’, I am buyin’ this place. You are welcome to live on it. We can be friends, barely acquaintances, or enemies. Your choice and you don’t even have to make it today. But it’s going to be a long three weeks until she comes back and in this storm we’ve got no one but each other, so it can be pleasant or pretty damn miserable. Remember as you drink your coffee that this house ain’t very big and we are stuck in it together.”
The arrogance of the man!
He went on. “She left because of the storm and because her sister needs her, not because she was a bit afraid of you. That woman gave me the impression that she could face down the devil and own half of hell before the fight was over. You wouldn’t pose much problem.”
“You got her right, but you got me all wrong. I’m every bit as mean as she is. She raised me,” Sage said.
Creed wiped the snow from his cheeks as it melted from his lashes. “I like my eggs scrambled.”
“I like mine easy over.”
Creed raised an eyebrow. “Who’s cookin’?”
“Not me,” she told him. She wasn’t about to start cooking for him or feeding that dog he’d brought in either.
The ugly mutt looked from one of them to the other. Finally, he ambled toward the fireplace, where he curled up in a ball, covered his nose with his paw, and shut his eyes.
Creed brushed past Sage and poured two cups of coffee. He set hers on the table beside the bucket of milk and leaned against the kitchen side of the bar separating the two rooms.
“You going to strain that and put it in the refrigerator or am I?”
“I’ll do it. You probably wouldn’t do it right anyway.”
It wasn’t his ranch or his cows or his milk. She’d wear Grand down with the sheer volume of her arguments even if she had to whine and pout. Like she had said, he probably wouldn’t do the job right anyway.
She went to the huge walk-in pantry, then picked up a gallon jar and a piece of clean cheesecloth. She put the cloth on top of the jar, made an indention in the top with her fist, and deftly wrapped a rubber band around the edge of the jar. Then she carefully poured the milk through the cloth and into the jar.
When the job was finished she removed the cloth, tossed it into the empty milk bucket, and set the bucket in the kitchen sink. She squirted dish soap into the bucket and ran warm water in it, washed out the cheesecloth, hung it on the dish drainer, and turned the bucket upside down in the drainer.
“You don’t waste time or motions. That’s good,” he said.
Sage picked up her coffee and carried it to the living room where she curled up in the rocking chair. Creed followed her, and she did her dead level best to ignore him. He had no right to be sitting in Grand’s rocking chair with his long legs pushed toward the fire that she’d built.
* * *
Sage was prettier than the picture of her sitting on the mantel and a lot bigger than he’d imagined she would be. She was almost six feet tall and there wasn’t one thing delicate or dainty about her. She looked like she could take down a full grown bull with one hand tied behind her back. And yet, with black hair floating on her shoulders, eyes the color of milk chocolate, and those full lips, she was sexy as hell. Tall women had never appealed to him but he had to admit, she was a looker, alright.
Hearing that her grandmother had up and sold the ranch had to be the shock of a lifetime. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if his parents sold the ranch he’d lived on his whole life.
Of all the scenarios he’d imagined, this certainly wasn’t the way he intended to meet Sage Presley. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he stole a sideways glance toward her. She looked at the dog as if she could wish him out of the house. It wouldn’t work. If she wanted him out of the house, she’d have to grab him by his wiry fur and throw him out, and then she’d better shut the door real fast or else he’d beat her back inside.