Page 56 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

We moved a little closer, then stopped. Brooke didn’t let go of my hand, and after a moment, she looked up at me. “It’s okay if you come to the barley harvest.” She squeezed my fingers. “But I’m warning you, it’s hard work.”

“Harder than what we’ve been doing?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

Chapter 15

-Brooke-

“Aunt Brooke, why does this taste funny?”

I whipped my head around and found Conner eating a waffle from my first batch of batter. “Because,” I said as I grabbed him a different one and put it on a plate, “I mixed up some ingredients.”

“Oh.” He immediately forgot about the old one and started filling the empty recesses of his new acquisition with butter and syrup.

“You seem distracted this morning.” Rick said as he walked past me to flip the bacon. His eyes flicked to the table where William and Patrick sat talking to Todd, my dad, and Xavier. “This wouldn’t happen to be because of a certain handsome billionaire, would it?”

I hit Rick with my best sisterly glare of spontaneous combustion. He was still in trouble for the whole rescue thing. “No, it’s because Mom’s waffle iron broke, and this one is new.”

Rick’s eyes softened just a little at the mention of Mom, but his smirk remained. “Uh-huh.”

“Just turn that bacon,” I growled.

“Yes, master.” He used a Quasimodo voice.

I ground my teeth and tried to focus on the last batch of waffles. Or, more accurately, stop focusing on the handsome billionaire whose hand I had held.

I’d spent the last day trying not to think about him. About how hard he worked and about how good he looked as he did so. The week of “Work William into Weeping” hadn’t gone as planned. He was tougher than I’d anticipated and actually seemed to care about the ranch.

And maybe me.

I shook the memory of his fingers around mine away and focused on the hope that today’s barley harvest would finally cause him to retreat.

Yeah right, he’s been nothing but enthusiastic about working since he got here.

The whiff of almost burnt batter filled my nostrils, and I quickly opened the top of the waffle maker to save the last one from an incendiary fate. I wrestled it off the grill and placed it on top of two others. When I looked up, William had somehow made his way from the table right to me.

He wore a new pair of jeans—yes, I could tell because they made his back side look even better than the pair I’d picked out—and a long-sleeved white and black plaid shirt. He smelled suspiciously like bath salts and gave me an easy category-two smile.

“You haven’t eaten yet,” he said softly.

“The cook always goes last.” I used my plastic spatula to point at the table. “The boys tend to get a little whiny if they don’t get food.”

“I could see that being a problem.” He gestured toward the small tower of waffles. “You eat. I’ll clean up.”

Be still my beating heart. Was this guy offering to wash dishes?

I needed to start picturing him with a giant wart on his chin that had three grizzled hairs sprouting from it so I’d stop thinking about how attractive he was. I’d name the wart Pete.

Before I could tell William to go sit back down, Patrick appeared. “Don’t worry, I’ll help him.”

“You guys don’t need to do that,” I said.

“But we’re going to,” Patrick said. “So you’d better eat before we have a problem.”

I held gazes for a moment with the tall, handsome man whom, if William wasn’t here, I would be swooning over, before Kathline, who was finishing up with the eggs, handed Patrick a towel. “Just try not to break anything.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave Kathline a nod.

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