Page 72 of A Marriage Pact for the Cowboy

“Did she ask you where I was? Because you could have told her.”

“I did tell her, but Maxwell? She didn’t ask. She looked like she expected to be ghosted all along, and now it had come true.”

Ouch. Ghosted was a nasty word. But that was basically what he’d done, if only for a day. He braced himself. “I was bound to disappoint her sooner or later.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’ve got?”

Maxwell spread his hands. “Whatever I do, it’s never enough.”

“Hold everything, boss man, and back up a bit. You’ve accomplished far more in your, what, thirty? years than most anyone I’ve met.”

“Twenty-nine, thanks, anyway.” He was willing to own the extra week before his birthday, but an entire year? Nope.

“Even more impressive.”

“Get real, Janessa. Thanks for bringing lunch. How’s painting going over in Four?”

“I’m giving you free advice.” Her jaw took an obstinate edge.

“Which is likely worth exactly what I paid for it.” Maxwell pointed at the door.

“Pretend for a minute you’re not Maxwell the Great, just an ordinary guy who works too much and is lousy at relationships.”

He really ought to fire her. This was more liberty than even Heather had ever taken, and he’d known her for a decade. Janessa? Barely over a year.

On the other hand, she wasn’t completely wrong. “Pass me my lunch, and have at it. You’ve got ten minutes to get this all off your chest, and then you get to never mention it again.”

“Gotcha, boss man.” She held out the cooler. “It’s soup, so you might want to sit at a table somewhere.”

The orders never ceased, but he’d granted her ten minutes, and he’d let her use them. Then she could shut it or walk.

He followed her to the small deck, where they’d set up a portable table and a couple of folding chairs. He opened the container and inhaled the aroma of green bean soup, something Aunt Nadine had introduced into his life, along with dozens of other tasty, home cooked foods like he’d never had in his life.

Eryn probably had made the soup. She may even have made the sourdough bread cradling ham salad between the slices.

She’d never been far from Kansas but had uprooted her entire life, everything she’d ever known, to follow where Maxwell had beckoned. Sure, she’d come with her dad, but this might as well have been a foreign land to both of them.

And now he was too wrapped up in work even to set her mind at rest.

But hadn’t he proved to himself that he was just like his father? And that meant work first, second, and third. Relationships were down in fourth place, if even there.

“Boss?”

He focused on Janessa as he took a bite of the sandwich then motioned her to talk.

“There’s more to life than work.”

For some people, maybe. He chewed. She had ten minutes — nine, now — and she might as well spend them all talking.

“I hear you’re a Christian. I’ve never heard you cuss, and you go to church.”

That was her definition of Christianity? Ugh. He’d definitely failed.

“I’m no expert, but doesn’t that mean you answer to a higher power than the almighty dollar?” Janessa held both hands as though in defense. “I know your family is filthy rich, and I get that we need money to make the world go ’round, but it’s not God. Or it shouldn’t be.”

Against his better judgment, he was with her so far. He took a bite of soup. Waited.

“You’ve watched the Christmas Carol movie or read the book, right?”

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