Angel Creek by Linda Howard Page B

after all,the door had been left unbarred for that precise reason.
    It gave her no small measure of satisfaction to see his black eyebrows snap downward in a scowl when he saw her standing at the stove turning bacon with a fork.
    â€œYou shouldn’t be doing that.”
    â€œI told you, I’m feeling better. I can manage this.”
    â€œBut not putting on your shoes,” he observed, looking down at her bare feet.
    She had tried but hadn’t been able to bend down far enough to pull on her stockings or shoes. It was also true that she still wore his shirt, but it served well enough as a blouse. She had struggled until she had donned her underdrawers, a petticoat, and her skirt and tucked the shirt in. After two days of being bare or almost so, the heavy clothes had given her a certain sense of comfort.
    He tossed a small package on the table. She looked at it, then lifted her brows inquiringly at him. “It’s a nightgown. To replace the one I cut off of you.”
    She was glad that he had thought of it, for she only owned two. “I’ll wash your shirts and return them.”
    â€œNo hurry.” He was watching her so intensely that she began to feel uncomfortable and had to resist the urge to check if all of her buttons were buttoned. But he only reached out to take the fork from her hand and said, “Sit. I’ll finish this.”
    Lucas was very aware of the short pause before she did as he said, and he didn’t relax until she was safely sitting down. He had ridden up to the cabin with every nerve alert, waiting for a shotgun blast at any second. He had pushed her too hard and too far theday before, and he knew it. With most women—hell, any other woman—he would have expected nothing more than a temper tantrum at worst, and more likely tears or sulking. But Dee was likely to do just as she said and greet him with buckshot. Which was, he thought grimly, just what he deserved for having been so stupid. He had been thinking with his gonads, not his brain. Just because he had been hot and hard and frustrated he’d let his temper get the best of him.
    After breakfast he knelt and slipped plain white stockings on her feet, smoothing them up her legs and tying the garters just above her knees. After the past two days such a service didn’t even bring a blush to her face. Then he laced her into her sturdy work shoes, and his face became grim again as he thought of the dainty cloth slippers she could wear if she didn’t insist on working like a horse. This time, however, he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.
    He took her outside to walk around, her first trip past the cabin door since the morning after she had fallen. She insisted on inspecting the garden plot she had plowed, and she told him what she planned to plant. “Corn, of course, and peas. 1 had good luck selling squash last year, so I’ll add another row of it this time. Here I’ll make the beds for the onions and carrots, and a few pepper plants. And I think I’ll try potatoes this year. Mr. Winches always has them, but I imagine he pays a pretty penny having them shipped in.”
    Her eyes were shining as she looked at the plot of raw earth; she saw green food-bearing plants, plants that fed her through the winter and gave her a means of living. Lucas looked at the same earth and thoughtof the work she would have to do, first planting, then the daily battle with weeds and insects, and finally the harvesting days, when she would have to work the hardest, for she would not only be doing her normal chores but working in the kitchen to put up in canning jars the vegetables she would need over the winter. A farm woman didn’t have it easy at the best of times; a farm woman on her own was likely to work herself into an early grave. Unless she had sense enough to sell out.
    Dee was strong, her slim body lithe and well muscled, but eventually the work would get to be too much for her.