Just when Luke had opened his mouth to say something savage on the subject of cooks who couldn’t get dinner ready on time, Carla grabbed Ten’s wrist and looked at his watch.

"The pasta should be done by now, if the hands don’t mind it al dente."

"What?"

"Chewy," she said succinctly.

"Hell, after a day on the range, we’ll eat whatever we can get, any way we can get it, including raw."

Carla grimaced. "Yuck. Pasta sticks to your teeth chat way."

Laughing, shaking his head, Ten leaned forward and tugged gently on a shining strand of Carla’s hair. "I’m glad you’re back. You bring sunlight with you."

Almost shyly, Carla said, "Thanks, Ten. It’s good to be back. I love this place."

"The place or the owner?"

The question was so soft that Carla could pretend not to have heard it at all. So she smiled at Ten and turned toward the kitchen without answering, not knowing how much her sad smile revealed of her thoughts. As soon as she was through the door she spotted Luke leaning against the counter, impatience and anger in every hard line of his body.

"I was wondering when you’d remember that you were hired to cook, not to flirt with my ramrod."

"I wasn’t flir – "

"Like hell you weren’t," Luke said curtly, interrupting Carla. "Watch it, schoolgirl. Ten smiles and is handsome as sin, but that soft-drawling SOB has broken more hearts than any twelve men I know. He’s not the marrying kind, but he’s plenty human. If you throw yourself at him hard enough, he might just reach out and grab what’s being offered. And we both know how good you are at throwing yourself."

Carla went pale and turned away.

Luke swore harshly beneath his breath, furious with her and Ten and himself and everything else that came to mind. He watched with narrowed, glittering eyes while Carla grabbed two pot holders and went to the kitchen range. By the time he realized that she was reaching for the wildly boiling kettle of spaghetti and water, it was too late. She was already struggling with the huge kettle, her whole body straining as she lifted at arm’s length the weight of Ave gallons of water and ten pounds of pasta.

Just as Carla realized that she couldn’t handle the kettle – and hadn’t the strength to lower it without splashing boiling water down her front – Luke’s arms shot around her body. He covered her hands with his own and lifted, taking the weight of the kettle from her quivering arms. Together they gently set the heavy pot on the back burner once more. For a few moments neither one moved, shaken by the realization of how close Carla had come to a painful accident.

Luke bent his head, brushing his cheek so lightly against Carla’s hair that she couldn’t feel it. When he took a breath he smelled flowers. The scent was dizzying, for it carried with it a promise of womanly warmth, a promise that was repeated in Carla’s curving hips pressed against his body. She was trembling, breathing with soft, tearing sounds.

Desire turned like an unsheathed knife in Luke’s guts, hardening him with shocking speed. He lifted his hands and stepped back as though he had been burned. And he had, but by something hotter than boiling water.

"My God, schoolgirl!" Luke exploded. "Don’t you know better than to try to lift five gallons of boiling water off the back of this stove?"

Carla shook her head and said nothing. Nor did she turn around.

"Are you all right?" Luke demanded.

Slowly she nodded.

The line of her neck and shoulders tugged at Luke’s emotions, reminding him of how vulnerable she was, how close she had come to hurting herself. The thought of boiling water scoring her soft skin made him feel as though he himself had been burned.

"Sunshine?" Luke said softly. "Are you sure you didn’t burn yourself?"

The unexpected gentleness made tears burn beneath Carla’s eyelids. She blinked fiercely, not wanting to cry in front of Luke, who already thought her a child. Schoolgirl.

"I’m fine," she said, her voice husky.

Carla took a steadying breath and inhaled the scent of Luke, a compound of leather and male heat and the clean fragrance of soap. She longed to turn and put her arms around him, to feel his arms around her, to hold and be held and never let go.

But she hadn’t come to the Rocking M for mat. She had come to let go of something she had never held.

"Thank you for saving dinner," Carla said, closing her eyes, trying not to breathe, for with each inhalation she took in the warmth and male scent of Luke.

"Dinner?" he asked.

"The spaghetti."

Gently Luke turned Carla around and brought her chin up until he could see her eyes. His breath came in hard, bringing with it the promise of flowers and warmth.

"You could have dumped that spaghetti all over the floor and I wouldn’t have given a damn, so long as you weren’t burned."

He examined her face intently, then unclenched her fingers and examined them for damage. Gently he traced the backs of her hands and arms until he reached the barrier of rolled-up black sleeves. His sleeves, his shirt, her wide blue-green eyes watching him. He traced her smooth, fine-grained skin one more time and felt desire roll through him like thunder through a narrow canyon, a force that made even stone tremble. He dropped her hands and turned away abruptly.

"Not a mark. You were lucky, schoolgirl. Next time you better think before you grab something too big for you. I might not be around to bail you out."

The change in Luke from tender to abrupt was disorienting to Carla. Before she could stop herself, she said, "I’m not a schoolgirl."

"Last time I checked, the University of Colorado was a school. What do you want me to do with that damned kettle?"

There were several tempting options, but Carla limited herself to the most practical one.

"Pour off the water in the sink."

Luke handled the heavy, awkward kettle with an ease that made Carla flatly envious.

"Now I know why cave women put up with cavemen," she muttered to herself, thinking Luke couldn’t hear.

But he could. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the compound of admiration and desire in Carla’s eyes as she watched him, and didn’t know whether to smile or swear at the renewed leap of his blood. As he poured gallons of steaming water into the sink, he couldn’t decide whether having Carla around for the summer was the worst idea he had ever had – or the best.

By the time Carla had the spaghetti loaded into a serving dish, the ranch hands were seated around the table in hushed expectancy. As she carried the fragrant, steaming mound of pasta into the dining room, she felt like a lion tamer carrying a single lamb chop into a cage full of big, hungry cats.

"Start a this round," she said. "I'll be back with the sauce in a minute."

The pot with the sauce in it wasn’t as awkward as the kettle of boiling water had been, but Luke had taken care of the job anyway. The sauce was now in a soup tureen. A ladle that was twenty inches long stuck out of the rich red sauce.

"Thank you," Carla said, smiling briefly at Luke as she grabbed the tureen. "Go sit down and eat I can handle the rest"

Without a word Luke lifted the big tureen from Carla’s hands and walked into the dining room. She found a big crockery bowl and filled it with green beans. She hurried out to the men.

"Here you are. All I have to do is find a spoon."

An assortment of mumbles greeted her. She didn’t hear. She stood rooted to the floor, staring in horrified fascination as the spaghetti bowl made the rounds of the table. Each man heaped his plate with pasta, piling it high and wide, cramming aboard every bit possible and then some. By the time each man had been served, not so much as a single limp strand was left in the huge bowl.

Cosy, who had been the last to be served, took the green beans from Carla and gave her the empty pasta bowl in return.