She sneaked a quick glance at him. His hands were fisted on his knees, and his attention was locked on her. She turned back to the winding road in front of her. She didn’t want him here out of pity. “You can stop feeling guilty. I have another job lined up.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re excellent at what you do.”

Her temper flashed. “You don’t have to give me a pep talk. I’m not your teammate.”

The cheese cave came into sight, and she heaved a sigh of relief. The conversation would be over soon.

“I don’t tell my teammates they’re good if they’re not.” She could hear a flicker of irritation in his voice. “Look, I was a—”

“We’re here,” she said, jerking the wheel around to veer into the parking area. She felt a twinge of guilt when she heard his elbow bang against the door as her sudden turn threw him off balance. She didn’t want to give him a chance to undermine her anger. Without the strength it gave her, she would suffocate in the breath-clogging misery of her longing.

She heard him speak her name as she shoved open the door and jumped out of the truck. The SUV pulled up behind them, its doors swinging open to disgorge the rest of the crew. She stepped toward the huge men, feeling like Alice after drinking the shrinking potion. She’d been grateful for their muscular heft until she realized that the three largest ones wouldn’t fit into the coveralls Dennis kept in the cheese cave.

She felt rather than saw Luke come up beside her. “Gorman here tells us that we can’t all go tromping through a cheese cave because it will disturb the bacteria or something. So we’ll create a kind of bucket brigade and pass the cheeses along it,” he said. Again, the undertone of command resonated under the Texas twang. “Kort, you handle the van. I’ll work inside with Miranda.”

“Always quarterbacking,” Gavin Miller said, slouching against the SUV’s fender.

Miranda looked sideways to see how Luke reacted.

“You wanted to come. You play by my rules,” Luke said, his eyes narrowed.

She’d thought that Miller was a friend of Luke’s, but their interaction seemed more fraught than amicable.

“I’ve never been good at that.” Miller pushed off the truck.

Miranda pivoted toward the cheese cave, and Luke fell into step beside her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t ignore the muscles of his thighs under the worn jeans as he matched his stride to hers. Before she could reach for the big metal handle, Luke had grasped it and swung the substantial door open as though it were cardboard.

She led the way into the changing room, plucking the largest coverall off the wall and picking up the hired hand’s boots. “I don’t know if these will fit, but give it a try,” she said, offering them to Luke. It was the first time she had faced him directly since the kitchen. He took the clothes but didn’t move to put them on. Instead, his gaze roamed over her face.

“You look tired,” he said.

“I can jog in Jimmy Choo stilettos, but I’ve lost my cow-milking muscles,” she said, trying to ward off his concern with feeble humor. If he was nice to her, she would lose it. So she put up a wall of gratitude. “I really appreciate all the help you brought with you. Especially because it’s very strong help. Cheese is darned heavy.”

“Miranda, I want to—”

Gavin Miller poked his dark head inside the door. “Heigh-ho, the derry-o, where stands the cheese?”

Luke’s eyes blazed with annoyance, but he kept his tone neutral. “We have to suit up.”

The writer came inside and glanced around. “I had imagined something more picturesque when I heard the word cave.”

Miranda stepped into the coveralls and pulled them up. “It’s just a cement tunnel dug into the hill. The ground provides natural temperature control.”

Luke was cramming his shoulders into the coveralls with difficulty. She stifled the urge to help him work the fabric over the swell of his muscles.

Miranda tucked her hair into the hairnet. “High fashion in the world of cheese making,” she said, posing with one hand on her hip and inviting Gavin to laugh with her.

“I’m not wearing one of those,” Luke said, eyeing her headgear.

“You wear a helmet to play football,” she said, even though she had no intention of forcing a hairnet on him. “It’s the same principle.”

He shook his head so that his blond hair rippled. “Do you know how much sh—er, garbage they’d give me?”

The writer smiled an evil smile. “Even worse, they’d put it on Twitter.”

“Okay, no hairnet,” Miranda said. It was the first time Luke had shown any concern about his image. There was some comfort in seeing a tiny crack in his composure. “Try the boots.”

He toed off one cowboy boot and shoved an athletic sock–covered foot into the rubber footwear. She heard him mutter a curse as his toes hit the front of the boot while his heel was still inches above the sole.

“We weren’t expecting to clothe giants,” she said. “You can wear your own boots. Just don’t go into the aging rooms.”

The relief on Luke’s face as he slid his boot back on almost made her laugh out loud. This was an improvement over her mood in the truck.

Gavin scanned Luke, encased in the white polyester fabric like a sausage. “I may have to tweet this myself.”

“Go right ahead.” Luke’s voice held such a threatening edge that Miranda took a step backward. When she caught the look he directed at the writer, she shuffled a few more inches away. This was the man who faced down entire defensive lines on the field. She was glad he was looking at Gavin and not her.