shook his head. “The look on your face just now says otherwise.”
More attracted to him than ever, Emily wiggled into her jeans. “I admit, I’ve never had an out-and-out fling before.”
Dylan pulled on his clothes and boots. He gave her the same look her parents gave her when they thought she needed to delve deeper into the workings of her heart. “How many boyfriends have you had?”
Emily picked up his brush and ran it through her hair. “Casual?” Meaning the kind she left with a kiss, at the door? “Tons.”
He frowned. “Serious.”
Emily sighed. “Two. One in college. One about four years ago.”
Dylan took her hand and led her toward the hall. “What happened?”
Emily followed him down the stairs. “The first one felt it was his duty as my significant other to try and control me.”
Dylan let go of her hand as they wandered into the kitchen. “I bet that went over well.”
“You can only imagine,” Emily admitted drily.
He looked in the fridge. “And the second?”
Emily lounged against the counter, observing the enticing play of muscles in his chest and shoulders beneath his shirt. Within her, desire started all over again.
Forcing herself to keep her mind on the conversation, she replied, “He couldn’t get along with my family.”
He set a smoked chicken from Sonny’s Barbeque on the counter. Added flour tortillas and a hunk of Colby-Jack. “Why not?”
Curious—because she had assumed Dylan couldn’t cook—Emily moved back to give him room to work. “Ridge liked his family better. He thought they were superior to mine, and he wanted us to spend all our time—every holiday and a lot of other weekends, as well—with them.”
Dylan added olive oil to a cast-iron skillet. “Doesn’t sound fair.”
“It wasn’t.” Emily paced while Dylan chopped up an onion and green pepper and added those to the skillet, too. “I tried to get Ridge to be reasonable about the situation—to at least divide the extended-family time fifty-fifty, but he wouldn’t budge, so that ended that.” The kitchen quickly filled with a delicious aroma.
“And since then...”
“There’s been no one serious.” Emily hadn’t wanted to get hurt. “I haven’t wanted to put myself out there, emotionally, unless I knew everything else was falling into line, that we were going to be compatible in all the ways that mattered, even if that meant one...or both of us...had to change.”
Dylan wrapped the tortillas in foil and set them in the oven to heat. “And you were willing to do that,” he murmured, as he grated the cheese.
Emily nodded. “Sometimes the guys were, too. But ultimately, that didn’t work, either, because if you have to make yourself over to be with someone...you sort of start questioning if it’s worth it.”
Dylan brought out some premade guacamole, pico de gallo and sour cream. “I can understand that.”
“Anyway, I got frustrated with working so hard on a personal life and failing, so two years ago I decided to start pouring all my energy into my career.”
Dylan added smoked chicken to the sizzling vegetables. “And that’s when you started the café.”
Emily nodded, edging closer to the stove. She watched as he gave the ingredients a stir. “And then, it became my baby,” she said softly. “So to speak.”
Dylan brought out two bottles of cold dark beer. Emily set the table. Minutes later, they sat down to eat their smoked-chicken tacos. Emily was pleased to find the pulled-together feast was every bit as delicious as it looked.
Deciding to satisfy her curiosity as well as her appetite, Emily murmured eventually, “Okay, enough of a confessional from me. What is your romantic history like? Have you ever been head over heels in love?”
Dylan paused. “I thought I was at the time. Looking back, I’m not so sure.”
“What happened?”
“I was working on a horse ranch in Wyoming, and I fell hard for the boss’s daughter. Mariah was in college at the time. I only had my GED. She knew her parents wouldn’t approve, so we had to see each other on the sly.”
This did not sound good.
“She kept telling me that it would be all right once she finished her undergrad and got into vet school—that her parents would know she wasn’t going to give up on her dream to be with me.”
“But it wasn’t,” Emily guessed.
Dylan shook his head. “In her parents’ view, a line had been crossed. There is the hired help—”
“You.”
“And the rest of the cowboys and house staff. And then there is the landowner. In their view I was never going to be part of the latter.”
That had to have hurt. “Did they fire you?”
Dylan nodded. “Oh, yeah, and they refused to give me a recommendation, which made it hard as hell to get another job—at least a good one—for a while.”
“I see,” she murmured. “Employers want to know why you left.”
His face hardened. “I wasn’t going to lie.”
“But at the same time...”
“When you say you had to leave because of an unfortunate romantic entanglement with the boss’s daughter, it doesn’t look good.” He exhaled sharply. “And you can forget it, if the prospective employer has a daughter of courting age.”
“Which brings us back to that talk you had with my father...” she prompted gently.
Guilt flashed across Dylan’s handsome face.
Emily leaned toward him. “He wanted to know what your intentions were, didn’t he?”
Dylan’s expression grew cagey. “He didn’t put it like that.”
“But he said something in the vicinity.”
Dylan lifted an infuriatingly autocratic hand. “You don’t need to worry about it.”
“But I—” Emily stopped abruptly at the sound of high-pitched whinnying. “Dylan, did you hear that?” she asked in alarm.
“Yes.” Dylan rose. “I sure as heck did.”
Emily and Dylan rushed out to find Andrew letting himself into the paddock with the three wild mustangs.
