35 YOU NOT AN OLD LADY

"I will hold onto him." She bent over and put him on her lap, then opened the truck door.

"I'm not real worried," Andrew said, figuring the dog could take care of his business on the way across the yard, which Pookie proceeded to do a couple of times after Rose set him down to walk beside her.

Andrew took her hand as she started up the steps beside him. Her skin was warm and soft, her fingers curling gently around his as if they were old friends.

But they were old lovers instead, and the urge to tug her against him was almost impossible to control. It was all purely physical, he assured himself.

Making love to her once again would take care of everything, would settle his senses into some kind of calm. He hadn't had a woman since February, since she'd left his bed and disappeared from his life. He hadn't wanted to anyone else but her, even though common sense had told him he'd never see her again.

To hell with common sense. Andrew kept hold of her hand until she pulled away to retrieve Pookie, who had hesitated at the stairs. Rose went back to get the dog.

"He's afraid of stairs," she explained. "I taught him to go up, but sometimes he forgets how."

Andrew could believe it, considering that vacant look in the dog's eyes. There was probably a lot that dog forgot he ever knew, which made the dog a heck of a lot smarter than the rancher standing on the porch watching the animal. Andrew unlocked the front door and waited for Rose to join him. "He's not exactly a ranch dog, is he?"

She smiled, and his heart stopped beating for the time it took to remember to breathe. "No, I guess not. But he was the perfect dog for an old lady."

"Which you're not," he pointed out, as he pushed the door open and gestured for her to step inside the house.

"He's good company."

"Yeah, you've said that before." Andrew followed her into the house and switched on the light to the right of the door frame, illuminating the center hall and stairs leading to the second story.

"It's beautiful," she said, and for a second he almost believed she really thought so.

"It needs work." He pointed to the room to the right. "Living room," he said. "Runs the length of the house."

"That's a beautiful fireplace." Rose pointed to the stonework that covered the middle section of the far wall.

"The kitchen's on the other side," Andrew told her but he led her into the empty room on the opposite side of the hall. "I guess this was the dining room but I'm not sure."

"It's a shame no one lives here."

Rose set Pookie on the tiled floor and walked over to the black iron cookstove with a pipe that went into the stone chimney. "This is amazing," she said, gazing around her. "It looks like something out of a magazine."

"It does?" Andrew looked around, seeing nothing fancy in the rectangular room. He was partial to the long table that took up the center space. Rough and stained, it had withstood a hundred years of cooking for the ranch hands and families. Pots still hung from ceiling hooks near the stove, and a worn braided rug covered the center of the floor. The window over the sink faced East, the back door led to the kitchen garden and the west windows showed his favorite view, the barn and outbuildings across the yard, the sun low the horizon.

"I can see why you love it." Rose smiled at him, and he knew it was just about too much to resist.