Page 67 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

“Oh, baby, we can’t tell you that,” Mom said. “I can see why you felt the way you did though. She shouldn’t have to give up her company to be with you.”

“It’s crazy,” he said. “Do I go ask Olli where she is? Call her brothers?” How desperate did he want to be? The truth was, hewasdesperate, and maybe Ginny needed to know. He took out his phone. “I’m going to call Olli.”

“That’s right,” Mom said with a smile. “You go find her, son. Tell her how you feel. That’s what she wants.”

“Probablyallshe wants,” Daddy said, forking up another bite of quiche.

Cayden nodded, his hard feelings of refusal from the past few days melting into foolishness once again.

“Cayden,” Olli said. “Hey. You realize I’m in church, right?”

“Sorry,” he said, getting up from the table. His nervous energy wouldn’t allow him to sit still for very long. “I actually have no idea what time it is. I’m trying to find Ginny.” He moved into the kitchen and looked out the window. “Do you know where she is?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t. She left my house this morning before dawn. I wasn’t even up.”

Cayden sighed and nodded. He hadn’t known she’d stayed at Olli’s last night, but that made sense. She’d told him once that she always called Olli in times of emergency. “Okay, thanks.”

“Spur might have seen her. I’ll have him text you.”

“Okay.” Cayden hung up and immediately started thumbing through his contacts. Ginny had given him Elliot’s number when she’d said he might be interested in having the Whiskey Cakes food truck at the Smash.

“Please, Lord,” he whispered as he found the name and tapped on it. “I know I messed up. I acknowledge what I did wrong. I need to fix it, but I can’t do that if I can’t find Virginia Winters.”

“Amen,” Mom said as she joined him at the counter to refill her coffee mug.

The line started to ring, and Cayden kept praying. He’d buy a thousand quiches and drive any number of miles to get to Ginny. He just needed to know where she was.

20

Ginny turned to stir the crisping bacon, moving from one task to the other easily. She loved having time and energy to cook. After she’d left Olli’s house that morning, Ginny had called one of her real estate acquaintances and said only a few words, “I need a rental I can be in today. What have you got?”

Mother had frozen her business accounts, but Ginny had plenty of money in her personal accounts that Mother couldn’t touch. She didn’t even know about them, and she’d thought she’d cut Ginny off from everything. When she’d run from Drake’s country house yesterday, Ginny let her believe that.

She’d let her tower over her and lecture her. She’d let her say harsh and cruel things. None of it mattered. Nothing hurt more than Cayden’s departure from her life, and Ginny was done caring what her mother thought of her.

Thankfully, Karyn had three houses that were available for immediate lease, and Ginny had chosen the one with the biggest gardens, the largest kitchen, and that sat the furthest from Dreamsville.

She could still get back to Olli’s in half an hour, but she had no plans to do that. Her plans only included this baked potato salad she was currently putting together, a romantic comedy she hadn’t watched yet, and staying in the silk pajamas she’d bought on her way to sign the rental agreement for the house.

She’d left the country house with only the clothes on her back, her purse, and her dogs. “Yes, I couldn’t leave you three behind, could I?” she cooed at the pups. Uncle Joe was the bravest of them, and he got to his feet and dared to come into the kitchen.

“Out,” she said with a smile, though she understood the siren’s call of bacon. She loved it herself, and she couldn’t wait for it to be brown and crisp so she could taste the salty bits.

After signing the lease, she’d stopped at a big department store and grocery in Jeffersonville, and she hadn’t seen a single person she knew. She had dog food now, and new bowls, fresh towels, her favorite shampoo and conditioner, plenty of toothpaste, and more carbs in the house than she’d eaten in a year.

She hummed to herself as she turned back to the cutting board and kept dicing the potatoes into half-inch chunks. The tune was melancholy, and it took her a few seconds to realize it was one of the hymns she’d learned over the months as she’d attended church with Cayden.

Instant tears pressed behind her eyes, and she fought against them. She’d felt like this before, but she wasn’t sure she’d recover this time.

She’d loved Darrel Brown, and Mother had deemed him inadequate. Ginny had let her, as satisfying her mother was far more important than love at age thirty-five. She’d done it again when she’d fallen for Oliver Hansen.

With two broken hearts in her thirties, Ginny had taken a break from dating for a few years. As time wore on and she continued to heal, she’d started to think she’d never find someone who would want her as she was and that who could meet Mother’s expectations.

She’d learned that no one could meet Mother’s expectations, not even her.

“Tell me what to do,” she said as she scooped up the last of the potatoes and put them in the huge glass measuring bowl with the others. “I will do it. My time is yours, Lord. I have nothing to offer but that.”

She turned to the stove and poured the potatoes into the boiling water. She stirred the bacon. She got out the broccoli and began tearing it into tiny trees. The Lord did not tell her what to do with her time, and Ginny’s frustration grew as she continued working in the kitchen.

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