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they thought they could get work elsewhere.”
    He paused. “I didn’t realize the full extent of the situation. Okay, let me check on Shadow then I’ll be back to go over the paperwork with you. You can show me the ranch tomorrow.”
    She nodded, hiding her elation he’d been so easily sidetracked.
    “But don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said smoothly.
    Giving him a cheeky grin, she tossed her head. “So what, if it works?”
    “I don’t need a mother hen. I’ve been taking care of myself for years,” Jase said slowly, his eyes burning into hers.
    “I’m not a mother hen, but even I know if you do too much before you’re ready you’ll have a relapse and then who would have to nurse you? I don’t have time for that.”
    “I’ll meet you in the office in thirty minutes.”
    Jase walked quickly to the barn. He didn't know whether to swear about the woman he'd just left, or admire the way she stood up to him. Glancing around, he noted the barn seemed to be in good shape. The area around the house looked well kept. The house itself was sturdy. Large for a single person, but of course she and Bobby had the place together. Maybe they'd planned on a big family.
    She didn't know how lucky she was not to have children in the mix. What if Bobby had died and she'd had a bunch of kids to take care of.
    Shadow greeted him with a soft nicker when he reached the stall. Someone had already fed the horse, Jase could tell by the remnants of hay in the trough.
    “Hey, boy, you settling in okay?” He rubbed between his eyes and noted the stall had also been cleaned. He had to meet those cowboys who could do the chores without prompting. Shannon might have lost money with the theft of the ranch manger, but she obviously had some good men working for her.
    He walked around the barn, noting the fresh hay in the loft, the cleaned empty stalls. Through one of the open doors, he saw several horses milling around in a corral behind the barn. He wandered outside and around to the back to study the horses. There were six. Two came right up to the fence and stared at him. He patted them and softly called to the others. Slowly they ambled over. They looked like good, sturdy stock.
    Returning to the house, he noted the bunkhouse a few hundred yards from the barn. That's where he should be staying. Maybe he'd move in later today.
    Not that staying with that feisty woman gave her any ideas of settling him down. He smiled in remembrance. She could barely tolerate him. Man, she argued about everything.
    Yet, he provoked her. He knew it. Why, just to see her eyes flash and the color rise in her cheeks?
     
     
    It was a mistake. Shannon knew that ten minutes into the session. She couldn’t concentrate on the ranch’s books and records, she was too intensively conscious of Jase sitting only inches away. She could see his every gesture from the corner of her eye. While she was supposed to be tallying the latest count of cattle from the different sections of range, all Shannon could do was watch his fingers dance across the calculator as he figured the feed usage for the last year.
    She threw down her pencil and stood up, anxious to put some distance between them.
    “Now what?” he asked, glancing up.
    “I need the calculator. I can’t add all these numbers.” She’d always been great at math, but now she found it impossible to add two plus two in such close proximity.
    “I’ll be finished with it in a minute.” He looked back down to the feed receipts and continued his analysis. “I can't believe you don't have a computer to handle all this. I didn't know anyone still kept paper records.”
    “Well, now you do,” she snapped. She had suggested one to Bobby when they'd first been married. She used computer equipment all the time at the bank. But he'd said no. This way no one could hack into their records.
    She had wondered if he had any knowledge about computers, but hadn't argued.
    Now that things had turned