To Love and to Cherish by Leigh Greenwood Page A

wicked for a wife to long for and enjoy the embraces of her husband, how much more wicked would it be for her to lust after a man who was a virtual stranger? She hoped he would leave after breakfast and not return until supper. If they were never alone, she would be safe.
    ***
    Laurie had steeled herself for the men’s return, but hearing them ride into the ranch yard caused her stomach to clench. She wasn’t worried about the food. She was a good cook. Noah had demanded it. It was simply that she would be meeting four men she’d never seen. They would be judging her, her cooking, her reasons for being there. Men were such creatures of habit; they were nearly always resistant to change in their routine.
    Steve was the first through the door. “What’s for supper? It smells good.”
    â€œHam. Have you washed up?” The question was merely polite. From the looks of him, he hadn’t been near water since morning.
    â€œI don’t need to wash to eat.”
    â€œYou need to wash if you expect to eat at my table.”
    It was clear a battle was going on inside Steve. Did he allow his admiration for her to cause him to yield and wash, or should he stand up for his male prerogatives? If he chose the latter, would the wonderful smell of food vanish as suddenly as it had appeared? Being fifteen, his schoolboy crush and the demands of his stomach carried the day.
    â€œI’ll tell everybody. They come in here smelling worse than their horses.”
    Laurie questioned whether she’d done the right thing, but she couldn’t endure sitting down to supper surrounded by the smell of horses mingled with human sweat. She had found little to like about Noah, but he had insisted on cleanliness.
    She waited the five to ten minutes she thought were enough to wash up and maybe change a shirt. When no one had entered the kitchen, she started to get nervous. She walked to the window, but it looked out over the front of the house and she saw nothing but the road that led to town. She opened the side door, but that part of the yard was empty. She heard no sounds. She might as well have been the only person at the ranch. That had been a comfort earlier. Now it meant something was wrong.
    The wait stretched so long she worried that the food would be cold and dry before they sat down to the table. What could be keeping them? They weren’t getting ready for a formal dinner or a party. This was just supper after a long day’s work. She had become so tense that the opening of the door between the kitchen and the hallway caused her to jump. She spun around to see Jared standing in the doorway, the look on his face one degree short of murderous.
    â€œWe’ve cleaned up. May we come in?”

Five
    â€œOf course. You don’t have to ask to enter your own kitchen.”
    â€œSteve said that you said now there was a lady around the house, we had to act like gentlemen.”
    â€œAll I said was he needed to wash up before he sat down to the table.”
    â€œYou didn’t say we needed a bath and to change our clothes?”
    â€œOf course not. Why would I want you to take so long that the biscuits have gone cold and the ham dry? I expect the coffee is strong enough to walk out of here by itself.”
    Jared’s expression forecast a stormy session ahead for Steve. He called behind him, “Come in, fellas, before the food gets any colder.”
    Steve nearly bounded through the door, but the four men who followed marched in as solemnly as if they were going to their own execution. All six men were dressed like they were ready to go to church or attend a wedding. She was certain Jared and two others had taken the time to shave. Her hopes for a good beginning evaporated. No meal, regardless of how delicious, could make up for the humiliation she’d put them through. Jared must be desperate for her money to have agreed to it. She’d have to find a way to make up for it, but