Page 37 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

This was something else though, and Ginny felt like she’d stepped into a five-star restaurant and would have an amazing dining experience that evening.

“Al right,” Blaine said with a sigh. “I’ve got the chocolate slowly heating, but we can start with the first two courses.” He indicated the cheese fondue. “This is a Wisconsin sharp cheddar, with parmesan and aged mozzarella. It’s great for the apples and pears, smoked hams, salami, and sausages, and the pickles, pretzels, cauliflower, and roasted potatoes.”

He pointed to the other tray. “This is all raw meat and veggies. You skewer these and put them in the pork broth to cook. Most of it is cut to an appropriate size so each item will take about five minutes, depending on how full the pot is.” He reached over to adjust the thermostat on the burner under the pork broth, which was boiling away.

“There’s steak, chicken, and pork. Potatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, and squash. I’ll bring out the dessert spread once we’ve eaten as much as we want here.” He pulled out a chair, sat down, and took off his cowboy hat before looking at Cayden.

Everyone looked at Cayden, and he flinched when he realized it. “Okay. I’ll say a prayer, and then we’ll eat.”

“Don’t feel like you have to do the cheese course first,” Blaine added. “Eat what you want whenever.” He smiled at Ginny and reached for Tam’s hand.

Ginny smiled back and took Cayden’s hand in one of hers, and then stretched to meet Tam’s across the table from her. With the four of them joined, Cayden bowed his head and started his prayer.

Ginny barely heard it, because the powerful feelings moving through her drowned out his voice.

When everyone else said, “Amen,” she opened her eyes and withdrew her hands from the others. As dinner began, and chatter broke out among them, Ginny knew one very important thing: She belonged here.

She wanted to be here, in this homestead, for a good long while, and she just needed to figure out a way to make that happen that would allow her to keep Sweet Rose and the decades of her life she’d already invested in the family company.

Please bless my mother, was all she could come up with as she reached for a skewering stick and poked it through a roasted potato.

11

Cayden knotted his tie at his throat, his nerves out of control already and he hadn’t even left to pick up Ginny for church yet.

He hadn’t taken a woman to church in a very long time. Longer than Terri Wilson, even. He’d only dated her for a few months, and she hadn’t been that interested in attending church with him. In the end, she hadn’t been that interested in doing anything with Cayden, and they’d broken up over a text.

He looked at himself in the mirror, and said, “Calm down.” He knew the source of his anxiety, and it was a petite, blonde powerhouse who’d run a family of eight boys, a beyond-busy husband, and a six-hundred-acre horse ranch.

His mother.

As he looked into his own eyes, he realized how complicated parental relationships could be. Sympathy for Ginny filled him, and he regretted all the times he’d asked for her reassurance that their relationship would survive being in the shadows.

“It works in proportion to how much you put into it,” he said, a repeat of something Blaine had said to him last night after Ginny and Tam had left. He and Blaine had stayed up far too late—so late that Cayden had enjoyed a second round of dessert fondue by the time the conversation wrapped—last night, discussing their girlfriends.

Cayden had been the focus of most of the conversation, which he normally hated. Blaine was the best brother to talk to about matters of the heart, though, and he’d told Cayden that he and Ginny were “the perfect couple.”

He could see easily how much they liked one another, and Cayden had liked that Blaine could see Ginny’s affection for him. Sometimes, he couldn’t see it.

Cayden turned away from the mirror and picked up his phone. He could text his mother, and she’d answer in moments, as she never went very far without her device. He called, though, because he knew that brightened her whole day.

“Cayden, my darling,” she said, and he smiled.

“Hello, Mother,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately, the cheerfulness in her voice extinguishing.

“Nothing,” he said easily. “I have a few minutes before church, and I thought I might stop by for coffee.” He left his bedroom as he said it, his words smooth and even as they came out of his mouth. There was a reason he ran the public events on the ranch. He didn’t stutter. He always knew what to say and how to say it. He could cover surprise in the blink of an eye and smooth over any problem.

“That would be great,” she said.

“You have time?”

“Yes, I’m ready too.”

“See you in a few.” Cayden didn’t stop in the kitchen where Blaine sat with Lawrence and Conrad. They were poring over something in one of Conrad’s notebooks, and none of them looked up at him as he left the homestead.

It was a quick six-minute drive down the lane to the T-junction and then down the road and around the curve of the ranch to his parents’ house.

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