Down Home Cowboy

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know. But I do want to help. So after work we’re going to tackle more cake. If you think you’re up to it.”

“Definitely,” Violet said, looking a little more certain now.

“Great.”

Alison attacked the rest of the day with a solid sense of determination. She felt...a renewed sense of something. And she was rolling with it. By the time they closed up shop, she was feeling even more amped up.

Last night’s sense of...whatever that had been had faded. She didn’t need attraction. She didn’t need flirting. She had this. She was making a difference.

“Are you ready?” she asked Violet, grabbing a few of the ingredients she would need to do some more specialized baking tonight and piling her arms high with them.

“Yes,” Violet said. “Do you need help?”

“Yes. If you could get those icing bags and a couple of different extracts—whatever you’re in the mood for—that would be great.”

Violet complied, pausing briefly in front of the various flavored extracts. “What should I choose?”

“If we were making your birthday cake, what would you pick?”

“Lemon. And vanilla. Lemon for the cake, vanilla for the frosting.”

“Then choose those. We are going to make a badass lemon vanilla cake.”

Violet looked absolutely delighted by that. And Alison wasn’t sure she had ever seen the teenager delighted before.

Violet was almost chatty on the drive out of town, up to the ranch that she and her father were living on. Alison had never been to Finn’s house, though given the fact that Lane was almost living there now, she had a feeling that she would have been invited up soon enough.

The house itself was set back from the main road, at the end of a long, winding driveway. A stunning log creation that almost seemed to flow with the nature around it. “This is... Well, it’s beautiful,” Alison said as she pulled up to the expansive dwelling.

“I guess so,” Violet said, her enthusiasm noticeably dampened.

“You don’t like it here?” Alison asked, turning her car engine off and unbuckling.

“I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like it, I guess.” Except she clearly didn’t.

“An issue with ranch life or small-town life?” Alison asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just different. It’s cold and there’s nothing to do in town. We lived on a ranch in Texas but we were closer to a city.”

“I’ve never lived anywhere but Copper Ridge,” Alison said. “Though I’ve fantasized about running away a few times.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I just don’t know where I would run to.”

“Adults can’t really run away. They just move.” Violet let out a heavy sigh. “They have all the control.”

“That isn’t true,” Alison said. “Adults can most definitely run away. Mostly when they feel like they aren’t in control. Anyway. Let’s get all of the baking stuff.” She got out of the car, inhaling a deep breath of the sweet, pine-scented air. She loved her little apartment on Main Street, right above the bakery. Right in the heart of town. But sometimes, she craved an escape. A sanctuary.

She certainly wouldn’t say no to a luxury cabin in the middle of the woods.

She and Violet collected the ingredients, and the two of them walked up to the porch together. Violet pushed the door open, and Alison followed her inside.

Then she followed the girl into the most beautiful kitchen she had ever seen. The rest of the cabin was nice, but there was nothing like a custom kitchen with a view to get Alison’s heart pumping. For some strange reason, the sight threw her mind back to the tiny house she’d lived in on the outskirts of town only four years ago.

Four years. It felt like a lifetime. Like it had been another person. Pale, beaten down.

For some reason, when she took a step forward she could almost feel that tacky yellow linoleum beneath her shoe. She shook her head. She was walking across a gorgeous stone floor, in a beautiful home that bore absolutely no resemblance to the house she had once shared with her ex-husband, Jared. There was no reason to think of him now. And yet, she found herself thinking of him sometimes at the strangest moments. Moments that shouldn’t remind her of him, but somehow did.

Resolutely, she set the ingredients down on the granite-topped island in the middle of the room, the sudden motion and the noise that it made forcing her back into the present. “Okay,” she said, “let’s get baking.”

CHAPTER SIX (#u4c65c955-b2e9-56f0-8268-8c30bc43b85b)

WHEN CAIN CAME back in from his evening chores, the house smelled amazing, and the sound of clattering dishes was filtering out of the kitchen. He wondered if Lane was here cooking something for dinner. That was his favorite part of his brother having a girlfriend. The fact that she fed all of them, and happily. In fact, she saw to it like it was a mission.

Lane owned the Mercantile in town, and specialty foods were her passion. That meant that she simply wouldn’t let any of them go unfed on her watch, or fed on cruddy, frozen meals.

It suited him just fine. Though Finn’s disgusting happiness and constant look of satisfaction got a little bit old. But there was food.

He made his way into the kitchen, and stopped, feeling like he had been slugged in the stomach.

Because there she was, red hair piled on top of her head, bent over in front of the oven, showing off an ass that was even more perfect than he had imagined it might be. He knew it was Alison. There was no one else it could be. Nobody else affected him like this. Wasn’t that a joke?

“What’s going on?”

Both Violet and Alison jumped. “Baking practice,” Violet responded, lifting a red spatula.

“Okay,” he said, but it wasn’t okay at all. Because temptation had walked right into his house, and he was doing his very best to stay away from temptation.

“I thought... I thought you knew,” Alison said.

“No,” he returned.

“Sorry,” Violet said, looking more angry than sorry. “I said that Alison was bringing me home. I didn’t think you needed details. I figured I wouldn’t see you at all.”

What struck him was the way that his daughter’s body language had changed since realizing he was there. When he had walked in she had looked happy, at least the small blips he had gotten of her before his gaze had fixated on Alison’s butt. And now she was back to looking angry. Angry and tense.

So, it was just him, then.

“The cake is almost done,” Alison said. “Do you want to do the honors, Violet?”

Violet gave him a wary look. “I guess.”

“It’s okay that I’m here, right?” Alison asked him.

That woman. She had no problem coming at him from the front. Of course, not exactly the way that he fantasized about her coming at him from the front. He’d like to come at her from behind. He tried to ignore the kick of heat that pooled in his gut at that thought.