The C.e.o. & The Cookie Queen

“And I told you I don’t trust you.”

“But, Mom—”

“Not now, Jenny.” Carole put her hands on her hips and faced Greg Rafferty. “You bought that steer fair and square at the auction, Mr. Greg Rafferty. You can’t give him back.”

“Of course I can. I know some people might think it’s extravagant, but—”

“That’s not what I’m thinking at all,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “And I don’t mean that you shouldn’t give him back. I mean you can’t give him back.”

“Mom—”

“Now, Jenny, I know this is hard for you, but we all have to accept the fact that Mr. Rafferty owes three thousand dollars toward your college fund, and he now owns Puff.”

“I don’t want to own Puff!”

“Mr. Rafferty,” Carole said, leaning close and saying each word succinctly, “that steer eats about thirty-five pounds of feed each day. Even though I’ve grown a little attached to him, too, I don’t want to own him, either.”

GREG USED his monogrammed handkerchief to wipe the sweat and dirt from his forehead, wincing at the sight of dark, wet smears across the white linen. So this is why cowboys wear bandannas, he thought as he leaned against the fence and watched his three-thousand-dollar rack of prime rib graze contentedly in the rented pasture.

“This is all your fault,” he muttered to the unconcerned steer, even though he knew the culprit didn’t have four legs. No, Greg acknowledged, at least to himself, yesterday he’d gotten himself into this mess by making a bunch of assumptions. The words of a college professor came back to haunt him: “Assume makes an ass out of u and me.” Well, he’d made one big fool of himself this afternoon. Every action he’d taken had dug him deeper and deeper into a pit of mistakes and culture clashes.

Of course, Carole Jacks hadn’t helped him dig his way out of the hole. In fact, she seemed happy to shovel dirt in around him as he’d flailed away, wondering which way was up. The only thing he’d been sure of was that he was even more attracted to Carole Jacks, reclusive cookie queen, than he was to his blond cowgirl.

Damned if he could figure out why, though. She fought him at every opportunity. She made a point of showing how much she disliked him, making a scene yesterday at the arena even though she claimed she hated publicity. Maybe she felt comfortable enough around her neighbors to be a bit more…expressive.

So maybe the attraction he felt for her wasn’t one-sided. Maybe she felt it, too, and that frightened her. He had no doubt she really didn’t believe him, or trust his motives. That obstacle didn’t bother him, because she was obviously the kind of person who needed proof. Simply telling her that he hadn’t bought Puff, the grand champion steer, to impress her didn’t carry much weight with Carole Jacks.

A smile spread across Greg’s face as he recalled the way she’d grabbed his shirt. And the way his hands had settled so naturally around her waist, as though they belonged there and nowhere else.

At least, nowhere he could put them in public.

Thinking about Carole Jacks made him even hotter than this Texas summer. Not even noon and the temperature must be nearly ninety degrees! Pushing away from the wooden fence post, Greg walked through the brown, dying grass toward the brick and frame house he’d rented late yesterday afternoon. As soon as he’d realized he was stuck with Puff—at least temporarily—he’d looked up realty companies in the phone book and made an appointment with a cute, efficient redheaded lady named Gina Summers.

Fortunately, this house had been available on a monthly lease. Fully furnished, it was more than he needed, but at least he’d be comfortable during his stay in Ranger Springs, Texas. He walked up the three steps to the front porch, pulled open the storm door and slipped into the absolute necessity of air-conditioning.

Of course, if Carole Jacks hadn’t been so bullheaded, he thought as he walked across the hardwood floors toward the back patio, she could have taken the steer home with her. Greg would have been more than happy to check into a hotel or motel until he could convince her to modify her contract with Huntington Foods. Everyone, including Jenny and Puff, would have been much more content with that arrangement. But leasing a house and forty acres for a month was just another example of how unusual this trip had become.

At least the house had a pool. He loved to swim, and having the water to himself rather than sharing it with fifteen screaming kids at a hotel was worth a lot. He didn’t particularly enjoy children, maybe because he hadn’t been around them very much. His older brother, Brad, the hotheaded former C.E.O. of his mother’s family-owned company, hadn’t married yet. Neither had his younger sister, Stephanie, the current C.F.O. of Huntington Foods. Some of his college friends were married, but most of them had babies, and they got baby-sitters when he went out with them.

Older children like Jennifer were okay, he guessed, but he struggled to talk to them intelligently. At least with her he’d had a topic of conversation. One of his biggest fears was being left alone with a small child who wanted to talk. He was afraid he’d say the wrong thing.

Just like everything else he’d done or thought since arriving at the county livestock arena, his attention came back to Carole Jacks. His blond cowgirl. The object of his professional quest. The mother of a ten-year-old girl with a pet who ate thirty-five pounds of feed a day. Plus grass and hay, he’d been informed by a helpful rancher at the arena.

With a sigh, cursing his luck for becoming mentally obsessed and physically attracted to a woman who was all wrong for him, Greg began removing his clothes, all the way down to the stretchy black Speedo beneath those stiff new jeans.

He’d take a swim right now. The exercise would do him good, and maybe the water would be cold enough to take his mind—and other parts of his body—off the exciting, unusual Ms. Carole.

Chapter Three

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Carole said as she drove up the gravel road toward the formerly empty brick house. Only Jenny’s overly dramatic reminder that she’d be leaving for camp soon and might not ever see Puff again had prodded Carole into finding out where Rafferty had holed up.

“Why don’t you like him, Mom?” Jenny asked, leaning forward to see over the dash of Carole’s pickup. “I thought he was pretty nice.”

Carole sighed, remembering the way her normally reserved daughter had actually giggled—giggled, for heaven’s sake!—at Greg Rafferty’s teasing comments yesterday. He had charmed her daughter, but his obvious talents weren’t going to work on the mother. No way. All she had to do was keep reminding herself that he was a businessman whose only concern was his company. He didn’t even care that she had a very clear, very valid contract with Huntington Foods! Before he’d come to Ranger Springs, she’d been perfectly happy with her arrangement, which allowed her the financial freedom to work part-time baking desserts for the Four Square Café and giving cooking classes at upscale retail stores periodically in Austin and San Antonio. Most of all, she got to be a full-time mother to Jenny.

But she did owe her daughter an explanation of why Greg Rafferty wasn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, just because he’d saved Puff from Big Jim’s big Labor Day chow-down.

“He’s in Texas to convince me to change my agreement with Huntington Foods, Jenny. Even after I told him I wasn’t interested in his proposal, he came back to the arena and bid on your steer. His motives seem pretty obvious to me.”

“What do you mean?”

Carole winced as the pickup hit a pothole in the gravel road. She steered to the other side of the drive and slowed down. “I mean he bought Puff because he thought it would get him in our good graces.”

“Mom, he spent three thousand dollars! Are you sure he’s just trying to get you to change your agreement? And what kind of things does he want you to do?”

“He wants me to do all kinds of things! Go on a publicity tour, make television appearances and get interviewed by everyone and their cousin. He wants my picture on the cookie packages, and worst of all, he wants people to write articles about us. He tried to make it sound very normal, like I should be glad to do this for him.” She snorted in a very unladylike way that she hoped Jenny didn’t emulate. “I’m not about to change my life just to help his company get out of some bad publicity.”

“That’s kind of stubborn of you,” Jenny observed with the wisdom of youth. “If I said something like that, you’d get after me for being bullheaded.”

Carole smiled. “You’re probably right, honey, but believe me, I don’t want to become a public figure. Once you do, there’s no end to the things people can say about you.”

“So did you explain all that to him?”

“Oh, I think he knows exactly how I feel.”

Carole pulled behind a luxury auto parked on the concrete pad in front of the garage. A discreet sticker on the bumper identified the rental car company. Greg Rafferty obviously went first-class, from his extravagant gestures of “goodwill” to his expensive new boots. And he was the kind of man who could pull off such shows of wealth, with his lean but muscular build and model good looks.

He probably spent a lot of time posturing in front of a full-length mirror, she speculated as she turned the key to kill the engine. He’d better not object to her parking their four-year-old, slightly battered pickup in the same driveway as his fancy rental car, because she wouldn’t mind giving him another piece of her mind.

“Mom, you’re getting that look on your face again.”

Carole nearly jumped at the sound of Jenny’s voice. She’d blocked out everything but the infuriating man who’d come to town just to torment her. For the second time in as many days, he’d made her forget her daughter. Another black mark against Greg Rafferty.

“Sorry, honey. I was just thinking about what I was going to say to Mr. Rafferty when I saw him.”

“You’re not going to yell at him again, are you?”

“I never yell.” She didn’t meet her daughter’s eyes, scanning the darkened windows of the house for signs of movement.

“Yes, you do, and you look really mad.” Jenny placed her hand on Carole’s arm, bringing her attention back to the interior of the pickup. “You should think about what he wants you to do. Maybe you could do just a little bit. He seemed like a nice man.”

“Jenny, just because he was nice to you doesn’t mean his intentions are good.”

“But you always tell me to keep an open mind when I meet new people. I’m just saying you should do the same thing.”

Carole reached for the door handle. “Okay, I’ll talk to him again. But I’m not promising to agree with him. I like our life just fine, thank-you-very-much.”

Jenny giggled at their familiar banter. From the beginning, they’d been closer than mother and daughter. Without a father around to distract them, they’d clung to each other through good times and bad. Carole had once worried that Jenny would suffer from not having a dad, but with the help of friends and relatives, they’d coped just fine. Jenny rarely talked about her biological father anymore, and for that, Carole was grateful. Her ex hadn’t wanted a child ten years ago; he didn’t deserve one now.