Free Running Blind by Linda Howard Page B

necessary. You’ve picked up a stray and you can’t afford to keep her on through the winter, so you want to pawn her off on me. How close is that to the truth?”
    Kat frowned. “Carly’s not a stray,” she snapped, then lowered her voice. “She can cook well enough to cover the basics, she needs the work, and you’re desperate.”
    “Not
that
desperate.” He knew better. Cautious Carly would be trouble on the ranch. He’d already been through that once, with three of the hands going after the youngish, unattached woman he’d hired, and he’d almost had to fire all three of them just when he needed them most. Being shorthanded in the middle of haying would have been disastrous. He wanted a male cook; failing that, a woman who was at least middle-aged was his second choice. One of Kat’s strays, and an attractive one with asassy mouth to boot, was dead last on his list; he could only imagine the trouble she’d cause.
    Besides, if she worked for him that would complicate things. Even a moderately pretty woman on the ranch was a bad idea, he knew that now. A young, pretty woman who made his dick stand up and salute? Disaster.
    As it was, he couldn’t get that extra-fine ass out of his mind; when he had more time he might do something about it.
    Kat slid out of the booth, and keeping her hand low so no one but him could see, she shot him a quick but decisive middle finger. He laughed and returned to what was left of his meal, which wasn’t much; he’d eaten most of it on autopilot. It was no wonder the male customers lingered after their lunches were long gone, drinking coffee, talking to one another and eating dessert, watching the two women who all but danced around the place. This place was like a male fantasy: Kat and Carly—one brunette, one blond; both good-looking. Good food. Hell, the only thing missing was a stripper pole—okay, forget the stripper pole, because Kat was his cousin. Or reserve the stripper pole for Carly. Yeah, that worked for him.
    Kat disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Carly working the counter. Zeke caught her eye and said, in a voice just loud enough to carry, “Hey, Cautious, how about a piece of pie and a refill on my coffee?” He lifted his half-empty mug. The Pie Hole was a casual kind of place where customers thought nothing of calling out comments to each other or to Kat, and now Carly was part of it.
    “Sure thing, Sherlock,” she shot back. “Blueberry or caramel?”
    Either one would be good, though he’d been kind of hoping for apple. “Surprise me,” he answered, then settled back to see what she brought. As long as it wasn’t a cow pie, he was good.

    “T HAT COUSIN OF yours is …” Carlin searched for the right word, as she and Kat sat on stools in the kitchen and ate fat sandwiches. Their work was done for the day; the shared supper had become a ritual, one Carlin enjoyed.
    “Hot?” Kat supplied with a grin. “Having part of the same DNA doesn’t make me blind. Immune, but not blind.”
    Carlin waited until she’d swallowed the bite of chicken salad on whole wheat that was in her mouth, then she gave a decided
pfft
. “I was thinking of a word more like annoying.”
    Kat shrugged. “That, too. He’s a lot of things, but the one thing he isn’t, is boring.”
    “He’s a cowboy, right?” The worn, scarred boots, the hard hands, the sun-browned skin made that a foregone conclusion.
    “Pretty much. He owns a good-sized ranch about an hour away.”
    “Are you first cousins?”
    “Yep. His dad and my mom were brother and sister. We grew up here together—well, almost together. He’s a few years older than I am.”
    “Zeke—is that short for Ezekiel, or something?” It was kind of an unusual name, but somehow very fitting for the area, and for the man himself.
    “Zeke’s a nickname. His real name is A.Z. Just the initials, they don’t stand for anything. But on his first day of school the teacher called him A.Z. and some of the other