Page 15 of His First Baby Rodeo

And Mac felt bad.

She’d come all this way to help him. True, she was being paid, but that didn’t give him any right to make the experience unpleasant for her. After all, what had she done wrong? It wasn’t her fault he was unbearably attracted to her. She shouldn’t be punished for that. He should try to find a way to treat her like he would any other employee, as difficult as that might seem right now.

He turned off the heat under his soup. “All right,” he agreed. “Let me try a few of those.”

“Changed your mind?”

“They smell good.”

She shrugged, scraped a couple of the beef tips onto a separate plate, and dropped it on the table in front of him with no fanfare. Mac was immediately awakened to another drawback of his current condition — he couldn’t operate a knife and fork. He speared one of the beef tips on the end of his fork and ripped off a bite with his teeth.

El snorted.

He looked at her.

“Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t seem able to control her laughter. “Really, I’m sorry. I’m not making fun of you. I just… it’s been a while.”

“A while since what?”

“Since I had dinner with a man, I guess.”

“Haven’t you been living with Jeff?”

“Yeah, but Marilyn would never let him eat like that at the table. I’m not saying it bothers me,” she added quickly. “It’s really the only way that makes sense for you to eat a piece of meat like that with one hand. It would be stupid for you to try to cut it.”

He was just glad she hadn’t offered to cut it for him. That would have been humiliating. “I’m usually alone here,” he said. “It’s been a while since I had dinner with anyone at all.”

She nodded. “I get that. You know, I meant what I said. With both of us eating here, it doesn’t make sense to cook separate meals every day. We’re going to end up wasting food. I think it would make more sense if we planned to share meals.”

“I’m not much of a cook,” Mac said.

“Well, I’m decent at it,” El said. “I could do the cooking.”

“You’re doing enough around here without adding cooking to your list of responsibilities.”

“It isn’t that big a deal,” she said. “I don’t mind. I’d have to cook for myself anyway. And this way, I can probably cut down on my food spending, and that’ll definitely help me out.”

“Well, that’s a fair point,” he said. “All right, then. If you really think it’s such a good idea, we can share our meals, and I’ll put you in charge of them. You’re happy with that?”

“I think it’ll be fun, honestly,” she said. “Marilyn does all the cooking at Jeff’s. I mean, sometimes they let me prepare a meal, but Marilyn doesn’t work, so usually she wants to do it, and it would feel like I was taking something away from her if I tried to butt in. It’ll be nice to be in charge of meals here.”

It would be nice to have meals prepared for him, Mac thought. Cooking definitely wasn’t something he enjoyed. And even though he was making a bit of a mess, he was really enjoying these beef tips. If they were any indication of what was to come, he was in for some very good meals while El was here.

Of course, the fact that she was such a good cook wasn’t helping at all when it came to the problem of his feelings for her. Now he was thinking about how nice it would be to wake up and find her in the kitchen making breakfast, how much he would enjoy putting his arms around her and holding her for a moment at the start of the day. That was something he really shouldn’t be thinking.

God, was it going to be impossible to shut down these thoughts?

Well, maybe it was. And if that was the case, maybe the best thing he could do was to accept them instead. Maybe, instead of trying to fight the way he was feeling, he should just admit it to himself and try to move on from there.

All right. So he was attracted to his best friend’s little sister. His new ranch hand. That didn’t mean he was going to do anything about it. In fact, he definitely wasn’t going to do anything about it, because that would be a horrible idea. He had self-control on his side.

El was good at her job. She was an excellent cook. And if, secretly, he enjoyed the way she looked on horseback and the feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when she was around, that didn’t really have to be anyone’s business other than his own.

“Hey,” he said. “Would you like to go out riding on the ridge with me tomorrow?”

“The ridge?”

“Yeah, it’s a path that winds out a few miles from here. Don’t let the name freak you out. It’s not dangerous or anything.”

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