“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
“Which question?”
“Is this building the lodge office?”
“No.”
No. That was it. All of it. Could a person actually feel her blood pressure rise?
“If it isn’t the office, what is it?”
“I told you. It’s the Triple G.”
“Dammit, Bannister—” Lissa swallowed the rest of her words. She drew a long, steadying breath. She had to calm down. Letting this—this unpleasant cowboy piss her off wouldn’t solve anything. “What I mean is, is this all of it?”
He paused at a big, weathered wood door and turned toward her.
“What you mean is where are the hot tubs? The fire pit? The luxury accommodations? The candlelit dining room? The bar with its four-hundred-bucks-a-bottle vintage wines?”
There was an edge to his voice. And there was something else about his voice…
It seemed familiar.
How could that be? She’d yet to get a real look at his face, but if she’d ever met him before, she’d know it. Who could forget somebody this unpleasant? Still, he seemed familiar in other ways. His height. Those shoulders. The way he held himself. And that voice, aside from the edge to it, was, well, familiar, too. Deep. A little rough. And, despite everything, sexy.
Lissa blew a strand of snow-dampened hair out of her eyes.
Ridiculous.
The man was a stranger. She’d never seen him until today.
As for what he’d just said, and with such disdain… Well, he was a cowboy. He was a man accustomed to a rugged life. Things like hot tubs and saunas wouldn’t mean much to him, but they were the amenities that attracted the kind of clientele she wanted to cook for, the kind of clientele that had brought her here, and she wasn’t about to apologize for that.
And, really, there was no logic in making an enemy of a man who worked on the Triple G, so she forced herself to speak pleasantly.
“You’re right. I am wondering where those things are. I did notice several outbuildings, but where’s everything else? Maybe it’s the snow, but I can’t see much from here.”
“There’s a bunkhouse a couple of hundred yards away.”
“I’m not interested in the bunkhouse. It’s a nice touch, though. Authentic.”
He laughed again. God almighty, she hated that laugh! Remaining pleasant was going to be difficult.
“Oh, it’s authentic, all right.”
“Look, I’m not trying to pick a quarrel. I just want to know where the lodge is.”
“There is no lodge.”
So much for trying to be pleasant! Lissa slapped her hands on her hips.
“Are you being deliberately dense? So I’m using the wrong word. You know what I mean.” The cowboy dropped the suitcase, opened the massive wooden door and kicked the suitcase through it. “And do not, I repeat, do not treat my luggage as if it were a—a soccer ball!”
She swept past him, snatched up the suitcase…and found herself standing in an entry hall that looked pretty much like the entry hall in lots of ranch homes back in Texas. Not El Sueño, of course; despite its prize-horse-breeding program, its cattle, its acres of land given over to oil, El Sueño was a mansion disguised as a house, but growing up she’d had friends who lived on working ranches and they’d all looked like this. Dark wood paneling. Dark wood floors. Dead animals staring glassy-eyed from the walls. The smell of coffee and the faint-but-always-there scent of horses permeating the air.
A knot formed in Lissa’s belly. She heard the despicable cowboy limp up behind her, felt his presence loom over her.
“Welcome to the Triple G,” he said.