just saying that because you’re happily married and don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“Well, there is that.”
Ella laughed and grabbed her purchases. “At least I won’t have to worry about it long. I’m guessing Austin Bryant heads home before the week is over.”
“Oh, that’s plenty of time for Verona to work her magic. Plus, even if he leaves, she’ll just try to find you someone else.”
Ella stuck out her tongue at Keri before heading toward the door, which just made her friend laugh as if she hadn’t had so much fun in ages.
As Ella headed toward her truck, she thought about what Keri had said and tried to figure out who Verona might try to pair her up with should Austin pull a Houdini out of town. She couldn’t think of a single person who interested her.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The fact that she’d bought an extra coffee and monster cinnamon roll proved that, didn’t it?
She shook her head and made a sound of frustration at herself as she started the engine and headed off toward her long day of work. That’s what she needed to focus her attention on, not the long, tall Texan she’d be seeing again in about fifteen minutes.
As she pulled onto the road that led back to the ranch, her nerves started that annoying dancing thing again. Jeez, it was as if she’d never seen a handsome guy before. Heck, there were plenty traipsing through Blue Falls on a daily basis, locals and cowboys in town for the regular rodeos. Why did this particular owner of a Y chromosome set her insides to doing funny, not normal things?
Yes, he was hot as a firecracker, but he was also sort of grumpy. Granted, that could be chalked up to grief and too much to do in too short a time, but still. It wasn’t as if he was going to up and sweep her off her feet. Not that she wanted to be swept. Did she?
Crap, maybe she had suffered a heatstroke the day before.
When she pulled within view of the house, Austin’s car wasn’t there.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.” She glanced at the bag with the two cinnamon rolls and at the extra coffee container riding in her cup holder. “More for me, I guess.”
Not willing to go into the house even if it happened to be unlocked, she unloaded the ladder, leaning it against the side of the house, then retrieved her breakfast. She hopped up on the lowered tailgate and dug in. At the first bite, she closed her eyes and paid attention to nothing but the cinnamon and sugar tangoing across her tongue. No matter how many times she ate something from Keri’s bakery, she never ceased to be amazed at the woman’s magical ways with sweets.
Opening her eyes, she took a drink of coffee and looked out beyond the barn to the field stretching toward the horizon. It really was peaceful out here. She liked her little rental house fine, but it didn’t have this kind of view. One couldn’t call a highway and the back side of Blue Falls’ small industrial park particularly scenic.
The quiet of the morning gave way to the sound of a car engine heading toward her. She almost choked on the bite she’d just taken when she spotted Austin’s car.
Oh, get a grip. You’re here to work, not ogle and daydream.
“You’re here early,” he said as he got out of the car.
“Lots to do.” She lifted the white paper bag that contained the second cinnamon roll in one hand and the extra coffee in the other. “Breakfast?”
He gave her an odd look, as if he didn’t quite understand her one-word question. “You brought me food?”
“I was already at the bakery. Not hard to add an extra cinnamon roll. Plus, I didn’t know if you were staying out here without the kitchen being stocked.”
“I’m not staying on the ranch.” He said it quickly, with the same tone she could imagine him using if she’d accused him of sleeping in a pigsty.
“Okey-dokey,” she said.
Austin ran his hand back over his hair. The movement drew attention to his rather nice arm. She wondered what else was hiding underneath his navy blue T-shirt.
“Sorry,” he said as he closed the distance between them. “Didn’t mean to snap at you. Just got a lot on my mind.” He peeked inside the paper bag and whistled.
“Yeah, it’s big.”
He glanced over to where she’d made her way through about half of hers. “You can eat that whole thing?”
“Every delectable bite.” She smiled, and when he offered a bit of a smile back, she dang near melted and slid off the tailgate.
If that wasn’t bad enough, when he took a bite of his cinnamon roll then licked at some of the icing at the edge of his mouth, she was pretty sure she spontaneously got pregnant.
Before she embarrassed herself so much she’d have to move out of Texas, she hopped down to the ground and wrapped up the rest of her cinnamon roll for later, when Austin Bryant wasn’t standing in front of her making her want to take a bite out of him instead.
As she rounded the back of the truck to put the bag in the cab, she pointed toward the house. “You can now have fun cleaning the gutters.”
Austin glanced toward where she’d propped the ladder and nodded. “Thanks. I think.”
She laughed a little. “Not looking forward to it?”
“Have you ever known anyone who looked forward to cleaning gutters?”
“Excellent point.”
Not knowing what else to say to keep their limited conversation going, she grabbed her tablet from the glove compartment and nodded toward the front porch. “Well, I better get busy, too.”
As she walked toward the house, she thought how it was a good thing Verona Charles wasn’t anywhere nearby. Because one look at Ella’s face would be all the encouragement the older woman needed to go full-on matchmaker, no matter the fact that Austin was clearing out, not moving in.
She took another big swig of her coffee to fight off the fatigue brought on by too little sleep the night before. And, honestly, several nights before that. Tonight wasn’t looking as if it was going to be any different. But sacrifices had to be made if she wanted to build her business, move into a bigger space where she could store her finds, have an area to spread out and work, and eventually have a storefront.
Not wanting to get any more behind on her inventory tracking than she already was thanks to the load from the day before, she set up her tablet on the kitchen table and started listing everything as she went through it. Logging everything before she carried it out to the truck slowed her down, but she knew from experience that if she allowed herself to get too behind she ended up overwhelmed. She probably didn’t have the best tracking system in the world, but it worked for her.
She was in the midst of inputting a box of vintage sewing patterns, already imagining decoupaging them onto tables and chairs and old sewing machine cabinets, when the unholiest racket came from outside. Fearing Austin had fallen off the ladder, she jumped up and ran out the front door.
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