Page 36 of Mister Cowboy
“Done. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
18
January
“Ouch!” she cursed as she yelped and jumped back from the stove.
Michael scooted in front of her and turned the knob on the gas range. “You have to turn the heat down or the bacon grease will pop all over you and the stove.” Pointing with the spatula, he motioned her away. “Why don’t you chop some onion for the omelets.”
Pouting but secretly thankful to be out of the line of scalding hot grease, she sat at the kitchen island and began mincing.
“Any plans for the night?”
Sunday was Michael’s night off from the bar, which he typically treated more like a Saturday night, setting up Tinder dates or dressing nice and heading to the grocery store—yeah, the grocery store. He could pick up a woman anywhere, but a sweet, unassuming woman mulling over tomatoes was his weakness. And somehow, he was theirs. A perfect match. If only for a night.
“Nah, staying in tonight. Are you seeing Brecken?”
She shook her head. “No, he’s gone all week on business.”
“Oooh. So, that explains the perma frown on your face. The boyfriend is away.”
Michel crossed his arms over his chest, and a large grin broke out on his face. She stuck her tongue out at him but then smiled back, feeling giddy at the idea of Brecken being anything close to her boyfriend. “I don’t have perma frown, and he isn’t my boyfriend.”
“Is that what you tell yourself? Well, you can’t fib to me. You like Brecken. I can tell.”
“Of course, Ilikehim, but I’ve only known him a week.”
“A week with someone like Brecken is the equivalent of six months of dating in the real world.”
He emptied the bacon from the pan onto a plate, and she slid the chopping board across the island. Michael scooped it up and added them to the leftover grease.
“This is the real world.Myworld. It’s only been a week.”
He worked quickly and efficiently in front of the stove, making her a bit jealous of his culinary skills. Hers were in the mediocre category, at best. Growing up without a mother and having a father who left anything outside of work to his very capable staff, meant she’d missed out on things like sitting around the kitchen, watching and learning how to make pies or flip a pancake.
Michael leaned against the counter and snatched a slice of bacon before eating half the strip in one bite. “A week in which you’ve seen him every single day. That isn’t how dating works in the real world, darlin’,” he mumbled around the food in his mouth.
“Okay, the situation is different, but it doesn’t change the fact that I barely know him.”
“Well, I know everything that Google knows about him, so fire away.”
“Nope. I’m not going down that rabbit hole.” She shook her head adamantly. “I know the type of journalism that gets splashed about for entertainment. I’m not torturing myself.”
“That seems naïve. If he were anyone else, you’d be checking out his social media pages and looking for any shred of information you could find. Youdolike Brecken.”
“I already admitted that. He’s different. He’s confident and a little prickly and he doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of him, but—”
“Ah, of course there’s a but.” Michael flipped the omelet and then grabbed two plates from the cabinet.
“I don’t want to be a part of that world. Business meetings, fundraisers, being recognized and noticed everywhere we go.”
“Okay, first of all he isn’t Prince Harry. Yes, within the confines of Denver, he’s a big deal, but outside of it, he’s just another rich, good-looking guy.”
“Fair point,” she conceded.
Michael slid her a plate and fork and took a seat across from her.
“He invited me to a dinner on Friday night with one of his business partners and his wife.”
