NEVER BEEN IN LOVE

He'd have to make up something real sweet and he wasn't good at thinking up things like that without a lot of advance warning "Yeah, I guess you could say that. I worked for Bobby's grandfather."

"So you have lived here a long time?"

"All my life," he said, wondering what the girl was getting at.

"Bobby said that you are going to show my aunt around."

"Yes ma'am, that true."

Francisca stopped in front of the kitchen door. "Can you try-I mean, 'really' try-i make her like it here? I mean..." she stammered prettily "that's why she came. I wanted her to see that I'd be happy."

"And you think you will be?" He thought she was awfully young.

Her smile was similar to her aunt's as she pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen. "I'm sure of it. Do you believe in love at first sight?"

Andrew saw Rose by the window. He watched as she turned to meet his gaze, but quickly looked toward Francisca instead. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. "I have never been in love."

He didn't know why he'd admitted that, but it sure made Rose look at him again.

"Never?" Francisca sounded incredulous.

"Nope." He walked toward Rose and handed her the dog. "Does he ever walk?"

"He walks," she said, managing to take Pookie without touching Andrew's hands. "Sometimes. But he gets confused about where he's going that it's simply easier to carry him or put him in his bed."

"He has his own bed?" Andrew asked.

"It's a little one, she said, a bit defensively.

"Do you take him everywhere?"

"I don't have much choice," Rose said, petting the animal's head. "He wouldn't know what to do in a kennel."

Except sleep, Andrew figured. "He doesn't look much like a dog. Not with that hair on top of his head like that."

"No." she took a step sideways as if she intended to flee the room.

"Are you sure we haven't met before?" Andrew couldn't help himself. He knew exactly who she was. He didn't have to wonder any longer if she had a twin sister or a look-alike cousin who'd been stuck in O'Hare airport last February. He didn't have much to lie awake at night and wonder if he would ever find her again.

And what she'd do if he did.

Now he knew. The woman would look through him, ignore him, talk to him as if that one night had never happened, just like she wasn't the same woman he last saw naked and asleep, her soft breasts touching his forearm.

"I can't imagine how," she replied, not looking at him.

"I can."

"where's Bobby?"

Rose turned toward her niece and used the question as an excuse to step around Andrew. "Some girls came looking for someone named Marty, who must be one of the other cowboys. They went off to find him.

"The twins were here?" Andrew knew there wouldn't give up Bobby Calhoun easily.

"Yes."

"Okay," Francisca said. "If you point me in the right direction I'm sure i can find him."

"I will bet he will be right back," Andrew assured her, figuring this was no time for Francisca and Lynettes to meet each other.

"Over there," Rose said, pointing out the window toward the bunkhouses. "I'm sure you can catch up with them."

The woman knew exactly what she was doing damn her. Andrew watched Francisca hurry out of the kitchen, the door slamming behind her.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said.

"She has to find out sooner or later."

"Find out what?"

"That her new boyfriend has old girlfriends."

"Yeah," he agreed, studying those beautiful lips of hers. "Doesn't everyone?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Chicago," he said, taking a step closer to her.

"O'Hare airport. February fourteenth."

"I really don't..."

He interrupted her as he moved within inches and the little dog she cradled in her arms. "You don't remember the snowstorm?"

"Doesn't it usually snow in Chicago in February?"

"Nice try," he said, knowing damn well from the expression in those green eyes of hers that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I think you must have me confused with someone else." Holding the dog against her, she edged away from Andrew toward the hall. "It happens to me all the time."

"Yes."

Andrew went over to a tall cupboard and opened it.

He pulled out a bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey. "I don't suppose the kid offered you a drink?"

"No, but I really don't..."

"Whiskey, wine, beer? What's your pleasure?"

"Nothing, thank you."

"Now, why would I think you like red wine?"

She didn't reply, but she looked surprised enough to please Andrew. He helped himself to a generous amount of whiskey before suggesting she sit down and make herself comfortable.

He then went to a cupboard and retrieved a bottle of wine.

*****

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