She noticed. “Is something wrong?”
Not one for beating around the bush, he said, “You’re eating.”
“It’s supper time.”
“You never eat when you’re upset.”
“That’s true.”
“When I left here this afternoon, you were mad enough to have target practice with my heart.”
She took a delicate bite of chicken stew. Washed it down with some milk, and then took a bite of biscuit. He watched her. His gaze lingered on her lips. A predictable response started trickling through his body. Damn! The woman could heat his blood just by eating.
She ran her tongue over her lips, scooping crumbs and butter as she went. The trickle of desire roared into a flood. He dragged his gaze from her lips and found her staring at him. In her eyes, there was humor, knowledge, and something softer he couldn’t name. When she finally deigned to answer him, her response cleared up nothing. “I admit I was mad this morning, but you’re overreacting. I was thinking more along the lines of buckshot in your posterior.”
God help him, he could picture it—her with a shotgun and him with a stinging butt. “Buckshot, huh?”
“I wanted to make a dent in your arrogance.”
“And you figure I keep my arrogance in my hindquarters?”
She shrugged. “It seemed as likely a spot as any.”
“I’m going to miss your sense of humor, darlin’.”
“You’re admitting I have one, finally?”
“I’ve always known you have one. It’s just been a darn shame the care you have of it.”
She answered his smile with a sigh. “I admit I wasn’t the best of wives for a while.”
“You came along just fine,” he answered, as serious as she was.
“I was thinking while you were gone.”
“That when you came up with the buckshot plan?”
She shook her head and motioned for him to eat. “No. That’s when I realized how unreasonable I’ve been.”
“You, darlin’?”
“Don’t go teasing, Asa.”
“I am serious here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re in a strange mood, but I’m hoping you’ll be back to your old self by the time we finish our conversation.”
“Must have been some understanding you came to.”
She shrugged. She didn’t speak, just waited. From the way her eyes were glued to his plate, he figured she was waiting on him to eat. He took a bite. As if on cue, she started talking. “Ever since we married, you’ve been taking care of me.”
He shrugged, hampered to do more by a mouthful of food.
She didn’t seem to mind his lack of response. “After I got over my mad this morning, I started thinking on what kind of man you are.” She patted his hand. “You’re a taking-care-of man. You handle everything by yourself. You always have. It was unreasonable of me to expect that, just because we’re married, you’d automatically understand you no longer have to do things on your own.”
“I don’t?”
“No,” she said gently, as if she thought this was going to hurt. “I blame it on a lack of family life that you don’t know you’re supposed to treat your wife like a partner rather than a child.”
“And your family taught you this?”
She shook her head “No. Millie and Doc did.”
“And I need to follow their example?”
She nodded earnestly. “Yes.”
And she thought he was in a strange mood. She sat there across from him, looking as delicate as a flower in a white lacy-necked blouse tucked into a blue serge skirt, and she didn’t want him to protect her? The woman was clearly out of her mind.
“You spent all morning thinking on this?”
“Yes.” This time, after she patted his hand, she ended the motion by curling her fingers around his. “We can do this, Asa.”
He stared into her earnest face. Her beautiful green eyes framed by their sooty lashes glowed like gems in the lamplight. She was the most beautiful thing in the world, and, for a few precious weeks in his life, she’d shown him heaven, but she was looking for a hero. God, he hated to be the one to break the news to her. “You were right when you said there aren’t any heroes.”
She looked confused.
He pulled his hand from hers before she could do the rejecting. “I promised you I was going to save this ranch, Elizabeth, and I aim to do it.”
“I know you will.”
He pushed his plate away, his dinner half-eaten. “This isn’t one of your books, Elizabeth. You’ll keep the ranch, but it won’t be clean or pretty. There are going to be sacrifices.”
She frowned at his plate, then at him. “I told you, Asa. I’m not a child. I understand responsibility and sacrifice.”
“Even if your pal Aaron is one of those sacrifices?”
She sat back in her chair, guard up. “What are you talking about?”
“In order to save your ranch, I’m going to take Aaron down.”
“What does Aaron have to do with anything?”
“He’s the one who’s been driving the Rocking C into the ground.”