Page 40 of Hot & Bothered

Though, sometimes Asher liked to pull the uncle card and demand respect.

Of which Hannah rarely obliged. It was just too much fun to poke the gruff old bear. Though, he had softened substantially since marrying Hannah’s best friend Triss. And now the two of them were expecting a baby. So not only was Hannah’s best friend also her aunt, but she was giving Hannah a little cousin soon. That would surely soften up Asher even more … hopefully.

They headed to one of their trucks and she stood on the front porch, tugging the sides of her long, cable-knit gray cardigan around her and crossing her arms. There was snow on the ground, but not so much that flights were getting canceled. And as it stood right now, there wasn’t snow in the forecast for a few days, so the guys needed to take this window of pleasant weather and get their asses to the airport.

Normally, they had ranch hands that worked daily on the ranch, but most of them were off for Christmas. A few would pop by to check on things, but Hannah knew she had everything under control.

“Behave!” Asher said with a stern glare of warning before swinging his big frame behind the steering wheel.

“I always do,” she teased.

“Yeah, right.” He shut the truck door and pretty soon the Ford pickup was rumbling down the gravel driveway toward the main road.

Hannah didn’t stand on the porch for long before her toes started to tingle, so she headed inside, where a cup of tea called her name.

Since Triss moved in and married Asher, the farmhouse had experienced a significant facelift. The kitchen cupboards were freshly painted a clean and bright white. The kitchen walls were now a friendly butter-yellow with no-nonsense roll-down blinds over the window. And the living room was far less dark than Hannah remembered. Triss mentioned painting that a brighter beige color, too.

There were also quite a few feminine touches, like throw pillows, blankets, houseplants, and other homey things. Nothing kitschy, and certainly no knickknacks, but you could tell a woman lived in the house now.

Asher and Triss were building a house elsewhere on the property, but they’d hit a snag so building was at a standstill. There was a supply shortage that builders were experiencing across the country. Which meant small, rural builds suffered because all available supplies went to the big cities first. So even though they had broken ground on their new place, it wasn’t quite ready for them to move in.

And now, Triss’s sister, Mieka, was also living on the ranch, since she fell in love with Nate over the summer. As far as Hannah knew, Mieka and Nate were going to continue living in the farmhouse, while Asher and Triss eventually moved to their own place with the new baby.

Triss and Mieka flew out to the wedding ahead of Asher and Nate, since it was their baby sister, Rayma, getting married. They needed to help with wedding prep, the bachelorette party, and they also just wanted to spend some time with their other sisters.

It was bizarre being in a house that was usually so full of life, noise and happiness, but was suddenly eerily quiet.

As someone who worked and lived in downtown Manhattan, Hannah wasn’t used to the quiet that surrounded her as she padded through the warm farmhouse into the happy, spacious kitchen with the live-edge table and old mismatched chairs.

Normally, she could hear street noise all day long, and her upstairs neighbors stomping around in her apartment building. There was no such thing as true “silence” when you lived in the chaos that was New York.

But she also loved it. It’d been her home since she finished grad school and got a job at the clinic she was with now. She loved her job as a speech pathologist. It was her true calling. And it was grad school where she met Triss. Her BFF and now, technically, her aunt.

Theclick clickof nails on the hardwood floor had her heart rate relaxing. Bruno, her uncles’ merle Australian Shepherd, came sauntering into the kitchen. He did a classic downward dog stretch, giving her some serious puppy eyes. Only his puppy eyes differed from most, since his eyes were actually different colors. He was a beautiful dog, though, and smart as a whip.

“It’s just you and me for a few days, buddy. Are we going to spoon at night? I’m cool with it as long as you promise not to fart in the bed.”

Bruno sat down and cocked his head to the side.

She filled up the kettle and set it on the gas stove to boil.

“Uncle Asher thinks I can’t handle it here for a few days. But I’ll show him. Nay,we’llshow him. We’ll clean the house from top to bottom, muck stalls, and maybe I’ll even teach you some new tricks.”

Bruno just kept tipping his head from side to side.

“Or should I take on a real challenge and teach Fumble to be a civilized goat who doesn’t pee on himself, anyone else, or escape?”

Bruno yawned, then fell to his belly, gazing up at her with enormous eyes of doubt.

“Yeah, I thought that might be a little much for the time we have. Don’t want to flytooclose to the sun the first time around.”

Eventually, the kettle whistled, and she pulled it off the stove just as there was a knock at the door.

Bruno barked and trotted to the front door while Hannah set down the kettle on a cool side of the gas stove and turned off the element on the side she’d just been using. Last thing she needed was to torch her uncles’ house twenty-minutes into her house-sitting gig.

She headed to the front door and swung it open.

Her jaw dropped.

---