A Cowboy In Shepherd's Crossing

He was standing there, stock-still, arms folded, watching her. And a hinted smile softened his jaw and put a sparkle in his eyes. “Forgetting something?”

“You are a particularly annoying person.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before.” He indicated the house with a tip of his head. “Let’s grab sandwiches, head to my place and then you can march off indignantly. Okay?”

“It’s not okay at all,” she grumbled as they climbed the steps. “It totally loses punch in the delay, so what sane woman wastes a great walk-off when it’s already been defeated. No.” She turned to face him at the door, and she wasn’t afraid to add a slight splash of Southern geniality to her tone. “I will save my stomping for moments of necessity. Right now, we have work to do. You. Me. And my design program.”

“So I can expect the cold shoulder at a future time?”

“Only as needed, Jace.”

Sassy. Saucy. And strong, despite her diminutive size. Did she know her stuff?

The magazine pictures said yes, but while the pictures looked great, he worried. Did someone have to rein her in and explain bearing walls and structural integrity?

“I smell something amazing.”

“Cookie’s beef-and-onion soup.”

“Be still my heart.” She set her bags onto the couch and inhaled deeply. “Who’d have thought soup would smell so amazing on a summer’s day?”

“Cookie makes soup all year round, don’t you?” Jace asked as they entered the kitchen. “Are we too early?”

“Give me fifteen,” answered the cook. “Bread’s in the oven. Nothing like hot beef-and-onion soup with fresh-baked bread. There’s sandwich makings in the fridge.”

“I’m waiting on soup,” Melonie declared.

“I’ll call the roofers, see who’s available to get on the job quickly.”

“Because of the farm timing, right?”

He turned slightly. “Because I’m scheduled to leave town by Labor Day and that’s already going to have to be delayed with this project.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Jobs have pretty much dried up around here. I have little choice.”

Doubt clouded her features. “But you stand to make a year’s worth of money on this project. Correct?”

“That will all depend on costs and labor, but we should both do all right.”

“Then why leave now? Why not take the year God’s given you and see what happens?”

Just what he needed, a stranger pointing out the flaws in his logic—logic that had worked until yesterday, when he discovered his whole life was a lie.

“I don’t mean to interfere.”

He was pretty sure that’s exactly what she meant.

“But to become an instant father, tackle a huge project and have your moving time delayed until winter, why not put it on hold? Unless you’re precontracted there?”

“I’m not.”

She faced him, waiting, then she turned.

He hated that she was right, but it did make sense. He’d have plenty to live on with Gilda’s project, and using that as a showcase in his portfolio would make sense during the next building season. “I’ll add the Realtor to my list of calls.”

She grabbed a cookie from the old-fashioned cookie jar that had a place of honor on the counter. Then she paused, grabbed two more and handed them to him as she went back to the living room for her tablet. “Best appetizers ever.”

He made the first calls and wasn’t sure what soothed him more, getting the roofers to meet him at Gilda’s place tomorrow, canceling the sale of his house, or the two macadamia-nut, white-chocolate-chip cookies.

It almost didn’t even matter that she was right. He could relist the house if he regretted the decision, but renovating his house while prospective buyers were coming through would be a lost cause. He only wished he’d thought of it first.

He called Rosie quickly. “How are the girls doing?”

“Fine, as always, so adorable these two and getting busy! Ava is determined to walk, but, of course, that means falling.”

“You let them fall?” Babies weren’t supposed to fall. Were they?

“I blame this on gravity, Jace. Not ineptitude.”

“No, of course, I didn’t mean...”

She laughed. “I must go—Annie is crawling faster than her sister is walking along the sofa’s edge and she seems determined to trip her.”

Sibling rivalry already?

He put off the next roofing call to hop online and order three how-to-raise-your-child books. Then he called two more roofers for scheduled meetings at Hardaway Ranch. He might be in over his head when it came to raising babies, but he knew building and he knew ranching. And with three books slated to be here in two days’ time, he’d have a firm handle on raising children, too.

“Soup’s on!” Cookie jangled the porch bell. Midday meals were casual. Cookie knew folks couldn’t just drop what they were doing and run to the house in the middle of the workday.

Suppertime wasn’t formal, but it was more structured. At least it had been. With the arrival of the Fitzgerald sisters, new foals dropping, Annie and Ava staying in the big house temporarily and Rosie’s infant daughter, Jo Jo, the plethora of small people meant change. Flexibility. And a mountain of diapers, he’d realized yesterday.

He went inside. And saw Melonie busily making notes into her device. She looked up when the door smacked shut behind him.

She smiled.

Those eyes...like mercury.

Mercury’s poisonous, in case you’ve forgotten.

He knew that, but there wasn’t one hint of poison in those pretty gray eyes. “Any luck on roofing estimates?” she asked.

“Two can meet me tomorrow.”

“Us?”

“Sure, if you want to be there. But it’s roofing,” he continued. “Pretty cut-and-dried if you’re keeping the original lines.”