Fire and Rain Read Online Free PDF

time the walls had been scrubbed. He couldn't.
     "I'll have one of the men wash them down."
     "Don't bother, unless you plan to keep eating off them."
     Unwillingly, Luke smiled. "It does look sort of like we've been serving dinner off the walls instead of the table, doesn't it?"
     "Mmm," was the most tactful thing Carla could think of to say. "Do you want a late or early dinner?"
     "Six and six."
     "What?"
     "Breakfast at six and dinner at six. The men who need a cold lunch packed for them will tell you at dinner the night before. Otherwise just see that the bunkhouse kitchen stays stocked with snacks and sandwich stuff."
     Luke ran a finger lightly over the huge, six-burner gas stove and came up with a greasy fingertip for his trouble. He muttered something and wiped his hand on his jeans.
     "What?" asked Carla.
     "I've been so busy working on the ranch that I didn't realize the house had gone to hell."
     "Nothing a little soap and water won't cure," Carla said with determined cheerfulness.
     Or dynamite, she added silently, looking around. When she looked up again, Luke was studying her.
     "If any of the hands bother you, let me know," he said.
     "I don't mind them coming around and asking me to bake cookies for them," Carla answered, remembering other summers. "I could live without king snakes in the pantry, though."
     Luke's lips twitched as he remembered the incident when an ambitious king snake had followed mice into the pantry. The snake had set up housekeeping among the sacks of rice and flour. At least, that was what each and every hand had solemnly sworn when Luke had heard Carla's scream and come running. He had caught the snake and taken it to the barn, where its predatory efforts would be more appreciated. Then he had begun questioning the hands very closely.
     The shadow of a smile faded from Luke's mouth.
    "I wasn't worried about that kind of snake. It's the two-legged variety I had in mind. If one of my men makes you uncomfortable, let me know."
     Carla looked perplexed. "I've never had any trouble with the hands before."
     "The last time you spent a summer here, you looked more like a boy than a girl," Luke said bluntly. His gaze went from Carla's gold-streaked chestnut hair to her slender feet and back up again, silently cataloguing each lush curve. "No such luck this time. My men aren't blind. So if anyone crowds you, don't try to take care of it yourself. Come running to me or Ten and come fast. Got that?"
     "I don't dress to catch a man's eye," Carla said matter-of-factly, indicating her summer uniform of jeans and one of her brother's old shirts with sleeves rolled up and trailing ends knotted to one side. "There shouldn't be any problem."
     Luke's left eyebrow climbed as he followed Carla's gesture. "Maybe. But if you swipe another one of my shirts, I'll take it out of your soft hide."
     "This is my brother's shirt," she said indignantly, holding up a black shirttail in her hand.
     Luke shook his head. "I got oil on it working on Cash's balky Jeep, so he loaned me a clean one for your birthday party."
     "Figures," she muttered. "It's so comfortable I've been tempted to use it as a nightgown. Nylon is too cold or too hot. Your shirt was all soft and perfect."
     Abruptly Carla's mouth went dry. The thought that the cloth draped so intimately around her body had once been wrapped just as intimately around Luke's sent an arrow of sensation glittering from her breastbone to the pit of her stomach. She swallowed and looked away from his clear, penetrating eyes.
     "Don't worry," she said huskily. "I'll give it back to you as soon as it's washed."
     "No hurry. I've still got Cash's shirt."
     Silence stretched and then stretched some more, leaving Carla feeling breathless, uncertain. She looked back at Luke, only to find him watching her with unnerving intensity, as though he were measuring precisely where the disputed shirt fit her differently than it fit him.
     "How do you want to