Page 8 of Last Chance Cowboy
She was nothing like Zane Barton. Nothing at all.
And yet, maybe she was destined for that kind of future. To be alone, by herself, walls up around her heart, her life, but instead of doing whatever he had been doing, off in the woods without a shirt, it would be her, her cup of tea, and her murder mystery shows.
It was a sobering thought.
Then she pushed it out of her mind as she picked up her yarn.
This was a problem for another day.
Chapter Two
He wasn’t going to go and get a pastry this morning.
He didn’t need to see her again. Not after she had come up to his place yesterday unannounced, looking like a little pink confection in that short floral dress.
Violating his space. Not listening when he had told her he didn’t want anyone coming on his property.
No respect at all.
He didn’t need to go get a pastry because he didn’t want to see her again.
And yet, he found himself driving along the road that would take him to Juniper and Sage bakery before he went to the main barn to begin ranching duties.
Zane didn’t work in the tourist part of the ranch.
Zane worked with the cattle and marginally with the ranch hands. With Cody’s attention being pulled more and more to the resort, Zane was becoming the boss when it came to the actual ranching operation. That hadn’t been the plan when he moved out here. But then, if he was honest, he didn’t have a plan.
He had been like a drowning man, and Cody had been arope, showing him a path back to brotherhood, which had been missing from his life for a long time.
So he had come out to Oregon. A transplant from Texas, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. He hadn’t called Texas home for a very long time.
He hadn’t calledanywherehome for a long time.
He didn’t really call this place home either. It was a place where he hung his hat. He had a bed he could put his boots under.
And he now had access to the best goddamn sweet rolls he’d ever eaten. Of course, now he had a haul of strawberry ones out at his place.
He had eaten four of them. He wasn’t proud of that, and he had thought about her the entire time. Because the only thing sweeter than the rolls was Cara herself.
If there was anyone more off-limits to him in the entire world, he couldn’t readily name her.
Her showing up at his house like that had startled him, because he’d been half convinced that he was having some kind of a fever dream. A waking hallucination that bordered on fantasy.
He’d been coming up from bathing in the creek, half-dressed and still wet, and there she was, holding a little basket, looking up at him with large eyes.
Looking at his body with keen interest.
It made his teeth ache just to remember it, and he should not be stopping at the bakery.
But she always left a sweet for him on a plate in the kitchen. Half the time, he didn’t see her. Hell, more than half the time. She was always busy. That was why her assertion about them needing the trail on his property for her to get more business was ridiculous. The girl had more business than she could possibly handle.
She was undoubtedly swimming in business.
They were just using her to manipulate him. To bug him into saying yes.
They knew you couldn’t tell her no.
That disturbed him. That was probably Walker. The fucker. He was too damned intuitive for his own good.
