Page 66 of Her Boss, Her Rancher: Sunrise On The Ranch

Etta set the prime rib in front of Blake for him to carve. She returned with a bowl of steaming asparagus that she served.

After the first bite of prime rib, Sierra sipped her wine and smiled at Blake. “I have to agree—you have a fabulous cook. This is delicious.”

“Wait until you try her homemade ice cream. Wendell helps her with that.”

“No wonder you like the ranch so much.”

He smiled. “The food is the best, but there’s more than food. Have you ever been to a rodeo?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Actually, one of the best is in New York City, the Professional Bull Riders at Madison Square Garden,” he explained.

“Do you ever participate locally?”

“Sometimes—not as much now as I used to. I have ridden bulls a couple of times, but not seriously. That’s a bit rougher than I’m up for.”

“Aw, shucks,” she said, smiling. “So I won’t see someone I actually know in a rodeo. The pictures I’ve seen look wild.”

“That’s the thrill of it,” he said, and she laughed.

Through dinner, he was charming, keeping the same professional manner as if they were at a business dinner in Kansas City. Even so, there was an undercurrent of sensual awareness, and every minute spent in his company drew her closer to him and heightened his appeal.

As Wendell removed her dinner plate, she smiled. “My compliments to the chef. That was one of the most delicious dinners I’ve ever eaten. I don’t know which was best—that prime rib or those fantastic biscuits.”

“Thank you,” Wendell said, smiling as he started toward the kitchen. “I’ll tell Etta.”

Sierra looked at Blake. “I meant every word of that. What a marvelous cook you have.”

“I do everything I can to hang on to both of them. Etta has a reputation throughout the county—and probably farther than that. If she decided to leave, she would have so many offers, I don’t know how she would decide.”

The peach ice cream was served with white chocolate chip cookies, and they lingered over coffee, which Sierra barely touched. Once again, she thought about the homeless people at the shelter and how they often lived with hunger. Blake’s check would provide food for so many, and again, she felt enormous gratitude for his donation.

“Etta should open a restaurant—talk about natural talent for a job.”

“Don’t put ideas in her head,” he teased.

“Did she cook for your family before cooking for you?” she asked. For a fleeting second, she saw a hard look cross his features. It was gone so quickly, she thought she must have imagined it.

“No. The family she cooked for decided to move to South Texas and sell their ranch. I was friends with her son growing up. We’re the same age and went through school together. He’s a great guy. After graduation from high school, he went to the Air Force Academy and now flies fighter jets. He’s stationed in Europe. They have four other kids who are scattered except for an older, married daughter who has four kids. She lives in Dallas, and the grandkids come out here a lot and stay with Etta and Wendell. They’re cute kids, and we have horses for them—except the little one, who’s too young to turn loose yet.”

“That’s great. Were you born and raised in Dallas?” she asked. This time she had no doubt about the shuttered look she received.

“Yes. My father divorced my mother before I was a year old. He severed all ties with us, so I grew up without knowing him. He has never been a part of my life. If he’s ever spoken to me, it was before I was old enough to remember. I don’t know why, but my mother has never remarried.”

He spoke in a flat voice, and she realized she had touched on a sensitive area. “I’m sorry, Blake,” she said, meaning it, unable to imagine how devastating it would be if her father had rejected her. She thought about her generous, loving dad who had always been a big part of all his children’s lives.

Blake’s voice dropped, and she heard a note of amusement. “Sierra, don’t ever play poker. You look like you’ll start crying over me any minute. Of course, if you want to hold me close and try to console me for being abandoned—”

“Forget it, Blake,” she interrupted, laughing at him. “I see you survived and grew up quite well.”

“I’m friends with my father’s other sons, my half brothers, now because the oldest one and I went to school together. He’s a little younger, but we played football together in high school. Enough said on that subject. Where are you from? New York?”

Still thinking about his abandonment by his father before the age of one, she shook her head. “No. I’m from Kansas. That’s why I came back to work in Kansas City. My dad’s a minister, and I have a big family with a lot of contacts in the city. My mother is a retired teacher, and most of my family is involved in charity projects related to my job. Mom and two of my sisters volunteer at our animal rescue shelter. Dad runs some programs to help people from the shelter get to church. He has free breakfasts at his church every morning... I could keep going. There are six kids in my family, fourteen grandkids and a foster grandchild—soon to be adopted. I’m the one with no kids.”

“That’s a big family. It’s a very different lifestyle from my background, where I grew up with just two of us at home—Mom and me.”

“We were always free to bring our friends home with us, so we constantly had a house filled with kids,” she said, unable to imagine a home of just two.