by Claire Adams
“You have to meet the old timers,” I said. We walked over to the round table in the corner, all but one chair taken. The old guys called out to me as we approached. The leader, Big Tom, took a good long look at Emma.
“Hey, Petey,” he said, smiling up at us. “Come join us.”
“I can’t this morning, Big T. This here’s Emma. I just hired her last week. She’s my breakfast date for today.”
I looked over at Emma. Her cheeks were blazing red, but the rest of her face was serene and unaffected as usual, her pretty mouth pressed into a thin line. Had I embarrassed her in front of the guys by calling this a date?
“I’ll catch up with y’all tomorrow morning. We’re gonna get something to eat before heading back to the farm.”
We sat down at a booth and grabbed the menus already on the table. While Emma’s eyes were averted, I took stock of her thick hair pulled back into a ponytail and tousled by the wind, the deep v of her t-shirt plunging down from the bottom of her long neck to the tops of her rounded breasts. My eyes darted to my own menu as soon as she looked up at me.
“What’s good here?” she asked.
“You were born and raised in Round Rock and have never been to the Texan?”
She lifted her chin in that defiant way she had. “My daddy didn’t believe in eating out when he could make a perfectly good meal for us at home.”
I could appreciate that. “My daddy used to bring me to the Texan most days before school. He had a game he liked to play to see who would end up paying for coffee. It was always a lot of fun. Things sure could get pretty damned competitive over a tab of a few dollars!”
That drew a smile out of Emma. I even saw some teeth. I counted that as a victory. I was getting into that safe slowly but surely.
“My daddy made breakfast every morning for us at home when we were little,” she said. “Once we grew up, we took turns.”
She was damned near chatty this morning, or at least that was how it felt. When the waitress wandered by, we ordered our food. When it came, Emma looked impressed.
“This is pretty great,” she said. She dug into her eggs while I poured a bowl of white gravy over my plate of biscuits.
“Is it just you and your daddy at home?” I asked in between bites of sopping biscuit.
She shook her head, lifting her eyes to meet mine. She held my gaze longer than usual, her green eyes widening before they darted back down to her breakfast. I still couldn’t read her worth a damn, but I’d felt something just then, a buzz of electricity between us. Or had I imagined it?
“I live at my own place now. But I have a sister who still lives at home. It’s just the three of us.” She glanced up at me again, her lips curling into a shy half smile.
“Three’s not bad,” I said, smiling, too, loving the feeling of her eyes on me and the sight of the sexy little grin on her pretty mouth. “I’m all that’s left of my family. Well, besides Lacey.”
“She said she grew up with you.”
I nodded. “Yep, we took her in like the stray she is.”
Emma’s mouth twitched into what closely resembled a smile. Reading her might not have been getting easier, but I was learning how to make her smile. I’d happily take what I could get.
We drove back to the ranch after breakfast, the silence companionable. I kept half of my attention on the road and the other half on Emma as she watched the countryside whip by through the passenger side window. She jumped out of the truck as soon as we came to a stop in the driveway. I did the same, nearly running into her as she came around the front of the pickup to get past me and to the barn. It was the closest we’d been to each other since she started here. She backed up with a few shuffling steps.
“Thanks for breakfast, Pete,” she said, her eyes dancing all over my face before locking onto mine. She had a deep, steady gaze that knocked the breath out of me.
“Anytime.” I was standing awkwardly in her path, just staring down at her as she stared up at me.
“I’m gonna get on feeding the horses.” She stepped to one side of me, and I turned to watch her walk off. A thought occurred to me as I was enjoying those swaying hips and the tightness of the denim over her round ass.
“Emma!”
She turned back, eyebrows lifted and emerald eyes wide in a questioning expression.
I walked a few paces closer. “This morning was nice. Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?”
The open expression on her face slammed shut, her eyes shadowed with something I couldn’t quite read, but that made them appear much darker than before. The look on her face never stopped being serene, but it was no longer open. She shook her head, her ponytail moving over her back.
“I’d like to keep my personal and professional life separate, Pete,” she said, and sounded honestly sad about it, which heartened me to hear, even if she was turning me down flat.
“Yeah, I understand,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
She nodded once, then went on her way. After a moment of watching those swaying hips, I went my own way, too, kicking my boots through the dusty driveway as I walked up to the house. I sank into my seat on the porch just as Emma was pulling open the alleyway door to the barn.
“Shit,” I said, speaking low to Riley, who was sleeping on his side right next to my chair. “She’s getting to me, Riley. I just can’t help the way I feel about her.”
Riley didn’t budge, his breaths staying short and even.
“I’m going to figure out a way to get her out to dinner with me. She opened up at breakfast. We just need another change of scenery.”
Riley didn’t respond. Or wake up. I’d have to figure this Emma thing out on my own.
Chapter Twelve
Emma
Thursday
I waved to Pete on the porch before getting in my car and driving away at the end of the day. I couldn’t get my mind to sit still around him anymore. Part of it was from going to breakfast with him the other day and listening to him talk about his daddy. But that wasn’t all of it.
I couldn’t stop watching him walk around the ranch like he was putting on some lurid show for my eyes only. Lacey sure didn’t seem to notice how sexy he was in his fitted jeans that were tight in all the best places. And those blue eyes. Goddamn. I could hardly stand to have him staring at me anymore. Not after he asked me out to dinner.
I could pretend breakfast hadn’t been a date. But dinner would’ve been. And, I’d wanted to go something terrible. But I couldn’t let my feelings for Pete interfere with this job, not now that I was enjoying it so much and making good money, too.
Daddy’d asked me over to dinner a few days earlier, so I drove straight there. I stepped into the house and Kasey hollered my name from all the way in the dining room.
“We’re back here!”
I went to the rear of the house and sat down at my place at the table.
“I cooked tonight!” Kasey exclaimed, still shouting though I was right in front of her. When she left to get whatever mess she’d made and bring it to the table, Daddy and I shared a long, flat look that seemed to say Lord help us, our lips twitching into tight lines to keep from lifting into matching smiles.
Kasey brought out her latest concoction, which actually wasn’t half bad — meatloaf, lumpy mashed potatoes, and string beans. We served ourselves as the conversation bounced between her and me, with Daddy playing the part of spectator, as usual.
“You still liking that job?” she asked, lifting eyebrows that were much darker than they should be. She had on a full face of makeup just to eat dinner with the two of us. I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel honored.
I had to chew up a mouthful of spongey meatloaf to answer. She’d put too much cracker crumbs in there, but I wasn’t about to tell her. This was one of the best meals she’d ever made. “I love it, actually. I get to do all the things I like. And, you know how I feel about horses.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically and answered in a droning vo
ice. “You like them better than people.”
“Smart girl,” Daddy said, not even the hint of a smile on his face. I cracked a big enough smile for the both of us.
“The trainer’s great, too. Her name’s Lacey. She does barrel racing in the rodeos.”
“I’d never do that,” Kasey said, wrinkling her stub nose. “I wouldn’t want to risk getting hurt.”
“You can ride just fine, Kase,” Daddy said.
“I know I can ride. I just wouldn’t want to race.” She made a face down at her meatloaf. Her fingernails were painted light blue today. She redid them constantly, sometimes twice a week. Her toenails, too. I didn’t know when she found the time. Or the energy. But if part of her wasn’t painted or sparkly, she just couldn’t sit still. It was kind of like me wanting to be dirty, sweaty, and tired at the end of every day. If I wasn’t at least two of those things, I didn’t feel right at the end of the day. If I was all three, I could sleep like a baby for seven hours straight, no problem.
“What do you have planned this weekend, Daddy?” I asked.
He lifted his pale blue eyes long enough to meet mine. “I got some work needs doing in the barn if you want to come over Saturday morning.”
“Sure,” I said. I liked having plans that would keep me busy outdoors for hours at a time.
“Gross,” Kasey said, screwing up her heart-shaped face as she scrunched her tiny nose again. “Y’all have fun with that.”
“What’ll you be doing?” I asked her.
She brightened immediately, trading the overdone ugly face for one of her glittery, gorgeous smiles, all teeth and flashing eyes. “I have to work on Saturday, but Amanda and I are going out after that. You should come!”
I shared another quick look with Daddy. He was swallowing back a grin, probably at the thought of me out partying like some dumb kid. I had to look away from him to keep from busting out laughing.
“No thanks, Kase. I’m gonna help Daddy around here this weekend.”
“Booooring!” she burst out, eyes rolling again before settling back on mine. “But I’ll have enough fun for the both of us.”
I didn’t doubt that.
I cleared the dishes after dinner. The person who cooked never had to take care of the dishes, so Kasey bopped outside while I stacked everything by the sink. I shooed Daddy off to read the paper in the living room while I washed, rinsed, dried, and put the dishes away. I hung up the damp kitchen towel when the job was done and went to find Kasey out back. I needed to talk to someone about what was going on at work, and I couldn’t think of anyone to turn to besides my surprisingly experienced little sister.
She was on the wooden swing, moving lazily while she checked her phone for whatever gossip she’d missed while we were eating dinner. Daddy didn’t allow electronics at the table. We hadn’t even gotten cell phones until after high school. I plopped down next to her on the swing, wrecking the rhythm she had going. I pushed off with my heels, rocking us back so hard, Kasey squealed and grabbed for the arm rest.
“Em!”
“I need to talk to you,” I said, letting us relax into a less choppy rhythm, our legs moving in tandem to keep the swing going smoothly.
She looked over at me, her green eyes wide. “What is it?”
I drew a deep breath and let it out again, considering how to best put all of this — my feelings for Pete, blooming like stubborn weeds no matter how much I’d tried to chop them off at the root, the little thrill I felt in the mornings at getting to the farm, and spending the morning sneaking looks at him while we sipped our coffee.
“Pete took me out to breakfast last week,” I said, speaking in a hot gush of exhaled air. “It wasn’t supposed to be a date. Just a boss taking out his employee. But it sure felt like a date.”
She dropped her phone into her lap, its glowing face forgotten. She leaned closer to me, her eyes so wide I expected them to pop out of her head. “You didn’t tell me about going to breakfast!”
“I’m telling you now,” I said, giggling a little. “After we got back to the farm, he asked me to dinner.”
“Oh my God, Emma! That’s so great!”
“I told him no.”
Her face fell along with her shoulders. She sank back onto the swing, making a disappointed noise as she shook her head, her hair bouncing all over her shoulders. “What? Why would you do something like that? You like him!”
“I have to work with this man, Kase. And, I love the ranch.”
“Who the hell cares about the ranch?” Her voice had dropped to a deadly whisper, the way it always did when she was being serious. This was Daddy’s mark on her — getting quieter the madder she got. Her wide eyes searched my face, but it was dark out here, so she couldn’t see much. “If you like him, you should go out with him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It sounds pretty simple to me. You like him. He likes you.” She smiled, maybe to demonstrate just how simple it was.
I shook my head. But I couldn’t find the right way to argue. Because I did want to go out with Pete. I’d seen something different in him that morning at breakfast. He became more than a set of mile-wide shoulders and a bottomless pool of bad jokes. I’d gotten to see something else: a soft, serious part behind the show he put on nonstop when he was around anyone else. The silliness was part of who he was just as much as the piercing blue eyes were, but he used it to keep attention away from that other, more vulnerable part, the part I was desperate to get to know.
Kasey seized on my hesitation. “What do you have to lose, Em? Maybe things get uncomfortable and you have to quit, or you’re fired. You’ll just be in the same place you were before you started working there. You’re smart and hardworking. You’ll find somewhere else. But there isn’t another guy like Pete just waiting for you around the corner. If you like him, you have to take a risk.”
I chewed on my lip, thinking hard. I wanted to go out with him. No matter how silly he was. I was actually coming around to liking that silliness quite a bit. Getting away from the ranch had made a difference that morning at the Texan. I was desperate to see that softer, gentler, less comical side of him. That wouldn’t happen at the ranch. It wouldn’t happen around Lacey.
Kasey was right. I had to take a risk.
Chapter Thirteen
Pete
Friday
I was on the porch, tapping my leg like crazy as I tried to relax. Riley was asleep on the floor next to the steps, completely ignoring the tension in the air like the selfish little beast he was. The week started out so well — taking Emma to breakfast and getting a few smiles out of her while we exchanged stories about our lives. But then I had to go ruining it by asking her out to dinner.
I just thought I’d seen something warm and inviting in her eyes at breakfast. Now I wasn’t even sure if she’d stay on at the ranch. Things weren’t bad between us, just unnatural. She refused to meet my eyes and avoided me like the plague in the mornings to keep from being asked to breakfast again. I’d made up my mind not to pursue this. Not if it was making her this uncomfortable. I liked her too much to lose her.
Emma walked out of the barn and turned to slide the alleyway doors shut. She leaned in to listen to the noise on the other side of the door for a minute, a small smile on her face, before starting across the driveway and up to the house. I’d caught her doing that before — just listening to the whickering of the horses in the morning before she opened the door and after she closed it in the evening. Her love for the horses was another thing that softened my heart towards her.
She walked up the steps to the porch slowly. It was the end of the week, so I owed her five days’ worth of wages. Her eyes were guarded, the tiny smile she gave me perfunctory.
“I have your money inside,” I told her. The envelope was sitting on my kitchen table.
“I’ve been thinking about what you asked the other day,” she said, staring down at the snoozing shape of the dog. “About dinner?”
“Yea
h?” I asked.
She looked up at me, her wide eyes needy in a way I hadn’t seen before. “I’d like to go sometime.” Her shy smile widened just a little. “If you still want to.”
I did a ten count in my head to keep from leaping from my chair and whooping with joy. I played it cool. Well, mostly cool. I couldn’t stop the grin that spread over my face, so wide it hurt my cheeks.
“Of course, I still want to.” I stood, shifting the dynamic between us so she was looking up to see my face and I was looking down to see hers. “Do you have a place you like? Or do you want me to pick? We can go right now.”
She giggled at that, and I smiled wider, loving the sound of her laughter. “I’m gross from working with the horses all day.”
“We’ll be gross together,” I told her. I’d been out in the field all day. I probably stank to high heaven, but I didn’t want to give her an excuse to wiggle out of the date. Because this was definitely a date. I didn’t wait for her to come up with another reason why we couldn’t go out tonight. She followed as I walked out to my truck. I started it up, turned around in the driveway, and drove out to the main road.
“I have just the place for us to go,” I said.
She relaxed into the seat, smoothing her ponytail over her shoulder. “I’ve never done this before.”
I looked over at her, grinning, and had to keep from reaching to make sure she was really sitting here next to me after a long week of thinking she might never meet my eyes again. “What? Gone on a date?”
She laughed, and I felt that tingling in my gut. Goddamn, I could sit and listen to her laugh all day and never get tired of it.
“I’ve been on a date before, Pete. But never spur of the moment like this.” She wrinkled her long nose again, still grinning. “And never without taking a shower first.”
I had to laugh. “Yeah, this is a first for me, too. I normally don’t stink quite so much.” And, I did stink. But if she didn’t care, I didn’t either. The tension of the week was gone. Whatever I’d done wrong on Monday had been forgiven, and she didn’t seem so careful around me anymore.