The Bridal Path: Sara by Sherryl Woods Page B

made her wonder a little wistfully if she and Jake might not have made good partners, if things had been different.
    She glanced up and realized that Jake had stopped sweeping. His gaze was fixed on her. The intense expression in his eyes was enough to set off that unfamiliar trembling in the pit of her stomach all over again.
    “I’ll get right on it,” she promised, heading for the house.
    “If you find it, dinner’s on me,” he called after her.
    Stunned by the apparent invitation, Sara turned back to stare. “Are you asking me out?”
    He shrugged, but his bold gaze remained riveted on her. “I’m offering you a bribe for doing the books,” he corrected.
    Sara nodded. “As long as we’re clear about it.”
    “I always try to make my intentions crystal clear, sweetheart.”
    Sara’s breath snagged in her throat. She wondered if he knew that the look in his eyes indicated far different intentions than his words had.
    * * *
    Jake wasn’t sure what had possessed him to ask Sara to dinner. Maybe it was a perverse reaction to Annie’s warning to steer clear of her. Maybe it was admiration for the way she’d tackled her chores even though she was visibly sore and exhausted.
    Or maybe it was simply the fact that now that he’d noticed her as a woman, his hormones had kicked in with predictable results. On a purely physical level he wanted her and dinner was a prelude to getting what he wanted. Flirting and seduction were second nature to him. He could no more have ignored that pull than his horse could resist nosing his pockets in search of sugar.
    He had no doubt that dinner was a done deal, either. There had been no false flattery in his claim that Sara was a whiz with the books. He lost patience when the mistakes weren’t obvious, but she was content to fiddle with the numbers like a skein of twisted yarn until she found the right thread to untangle the puzzle.
    Showered and changed, Jake went up to the main house. He used the separate entrance to the office Trent had created specifically for him and decorated with family cast-off furniture. It was next to his own. Sara was in there as often as Jake was, though it was doubtful her father knew that.
    Jake loved this room even more than his boss’s larger office. Panelled in rich, dark wood, one wall was filled with bookcases, another with a huge painting of a rodeo rider that managed to capture every bit of the agony and joy of the sport. That painting reminded Jake of the difficult path he’d chosen and the rewards that were finally within reach.
    The scarred desk and ancient leather chair had the look of well-used heirlooms, something that had been in short supply in Jake’s life. When Trent had offered to replace both with something newer and fancier, Jake had declined.
    He loved rubbing his fingers over the nicks and scratches in the desk and thinking of the men who’d used it before him. When he sank into the chair, he couldn’t help thinking of its history and wondering if Trent Wilde’s ancestors would have been proud to claim a man like him, as his own father wasn’t.
    Frank Dawson had never even bothered to come to the rodeo to see him ride. And if he had, Jake conceded ruefully, he probably would have been blind drunk anyway.
    This room, which had once been used for little more than storage for the bigger office beyond, suited him. Amidst its very masculine, solid decor, he could make believe that he was a man of substance, a man without pretense, when the exact opposite was true. Here he could achieve some vague sense of what it might have been like to have a proud history. Trent might dismiss the furnishings as little more than old junk, but Jake thought otherwise.
    The only modern concession in the room was the computer. That was where he expected to find Sara, her brow furrowed in concentration, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth as she studied the screen.
    Instead, she was curled up in the matching leather chair by the fire,