He wasstunninglygorgeous, and he had to know it—with that sandy blonde hair swept to the side just-so, and that sexy beard trimmed exactly right. Lenore had expected him to show up in his Sunday best—slacks, white shirt, and tie—but he sported a bright blue polo with thin black stripes and a blackcowboy hat that looked like it had never been worn a day in its life.
“Coffee, Brandon?” Jane asked, as if they were old pals.
“Sure,” Brandon said, reaching to turn over his coffee cup. “And I didn’t get a menu.”
“I’ll get you one,” Jane chirped. As she poured the coffee, she looked at Lenore, and their eyes caught for a long moment before she walked away.
Lenore watched her for a breath, and then looked over to Brandon.
“Hey,” he said easily. “You’ve been waiting long?” His eyes swept the table where, surely, he had to see the used sugar and cream packets.
“Not long,” Lenore said, unwilling to tell him she’d been so nervous about this meeting. “You know Jane?”
“Yeah,” Brandon said, but he didn’t elaborate.
The tension had definitely dissipated, but the hot, snapping crackle between her and Brandon had not. He smiled at her, and by some miracle, Lenore found her own mouth curving up in response.
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
“I’m just relieved you showed up,” she admitted with a light laugh.
Brandon’s soft chuckle joined hers. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
Lenore wanted to roll her head and press against her temples—a measure of exhaustion that always accompanied her suddenly descending on her in an overwhelming way. “I know the homestead is a complete mess,” she said.
“It’s a disaster, all right,” Brandon agreed, but he sounded like it didn’t bother him.
“I kind of expected you to text this morning and say you changed your mind.” She dared to peek at him, her eyes latchingonto his pretty hazel ones. With the blue shirt, they almost danced like murky water, as the blue fought to find its way into his more green and golden depths.
“Oh, I think about texting you and quitting every day,” he said with another laugh. “But I need the work. And I’ll admit, having a place of my own is a high priority on my list.”
Lenore frowned as he picked up a sugar packet and ripped it open. “A place of your own?”
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “I’m thirty-six, right? And I’ve always lived with someone else. I’ve never had anything that was just mine. And that cabin at the homestead is going to beall mine.”
He grinned, like the eight-hundred-square-foot cabin would change his life in the best way possible.
Lenore blinked, trying to catalog everything he’d said. She’d suspected he was older than her, but five years wasn’t all that much. She’d made assumptions about why he would leave his family ranch and come work for her, but she’d never asked outright. So she opened her mouth and asked, “Why don’t you have a place of your own?”
Brandon dimmed again, his smile disappearing. “I love Hidden Hills. I do.” He lifted his coffee cup and took a tentative sip, then quickly reached for another sugar packet. “I forget how bitter the coffee is here.”
She gave him the moment to put more sugar in his coffee, as he clearly wanted to contemplate what he had to say.
“But I’ve got two older brothers,” he said. “They’re both married. They’ve got kids. And while there’s plenty to do at Hidden Hills, I feel dissatisfied there.”
He nodded and pressed his lips together. “Yep, that’s the truth of it, even if I haven’t said that to my daddy or brothers. I don’t see a future for myself at Hidden Hills. My older brother is only in his mid-fifties, and he has plenty of life left to run the ranch. He’s got four kids, and they all work there too. So doeshis wife. And my next oldest brother is only a couple years older than me, and he’s integral to the operations at Hidden Hills as well.”
Brandon shrugged, lifted both hands as if to saywhat are you gonna do?clapped them together lightly, and let them fall to the table. “Of course, I can live there and work there for the rest of my life. I just don’t want to.”
Lenore nodded, though she had no siblings and didn’t understand the dynamics of families like that. “You haven’t thought about buying a place of your own?”
“Have you seen real estate prices?” he countered.
Lenore gave him a small smile and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen them.”
In fact, Lenore had been thinking a lot about real estate prices and what she could reasonably get if she sold the homestead. Enough to start over somewhere else—that was for sure. Enough to buy a nice house in town and find a job that could support her for the rest of her life. Enough to not have to work twenty hours a day, or shower at the truck stop, or worry constantly over the livestock and if they’d be alive in the morning.
And yet, the thought of selling the homestead turned Lenore’s stomach in such a violent way that she leaned forward, an ache moving through her body and soul with it.
