Funny, that.
“You want to pay me to teach you how to cook? You ate those tough-as-nails pork chops, right?”
“I don’t need to know how to make five-course meals. I just need to know how to put a few things together that might, on occasion, taste better than some crap I put in the microwave. Maybe the pork chops were a little chewy, but it was still better than ‘Budget Frozen Meals for One.’”
She should tell him to talk to Georgia. Or find some old ranch wife who was lonely and bored. But instead, because his smile was kind and she was tired and felt things she didn’t want to feel, the truth slipped out. “I’m not sure we should be spending extra time together.”
His kind smile morphed into that “I’m Dan Sharpe sexy and I know it” smirk, and suddenly she felt less mushy toward him. A lot less mushy.
“Oh really? Why is that?”
She smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes. “I might be forced to murder you, and Shaw will really be in trouble if I’m in prison.”
He chuckled, but then his expression loosened, grew serious again. He looked at her, right in the eye, and whatever toughness or humor she thought she’d grabbed faded away. Her heart hammered, her breath came faster, and before she could think better of it, her eyes dropped to his mouth.
If he kissed her…she would smack him. Push him. Kick him in the balls and ream him out good.
Or you could kiss him back and enjoy something for once in your sad, pathetic adulthood.
“I know I don’t know jack shit about jack shit, but I can’t image anything you run could ever fail, Mel.”
His sincerity might have broken a lesser woman, but for her—tough, sturdy, responsible Mel—it was a reminder.
She didn’t have time for Dan Sharpe. For enjoying herself. She had a ranch to save. For her father, and for Caleb, but most of all for herself. It was the one thing that could not leave her. So, nothing was more important than Shaw. Nothing ever had been, and nothing ever would be.
“You ready to go?”
He nodded, and surprise of all surprises, Dan finally shut the hell up and did what she wanted.
*
Dan woke up to pounding on his door. He rolled over and pulled the pillow on top of his head, trying to drown out the sound.
But it didn’t stop. It got louder and pounded into his bed. Cursing, Dan gave up and rolled off the mattress, trudging to the door.
Halfway down the hall, his brain engaged enough to know it was Mel. But he was too tired to care, or put a shirt on, or muster up the required apology.
He swung the door open. “Go away. I’m tired.”
Her jaw dropped, then firmed. “I’ll remind you this is a business relationship, and you should be clothed at all times, but first, learn this and accept it: you don’t get to run a ranch and sleep in.” She pushed past him, and though he supposed she tried to keep enough distance so they didn’t touch, her hip kind of grazed his…underthings.
So so not what he needed with her right now. Not after last night. Not this morning when exhaustion would undermine any attempt to be easygoing and charming.
Unfortunately, erections didn’t seem to understand the word exhaustion.
“Surely, once in a while, even if you’re running a ranch, you can sleep in. Being your own boss has to have some perks, right?”
“You are so clueless it breaks my brain. Animals don’t give a crap who’s the boss. They need to be cared for every morning. So, no, no perks.”
“I don’t have animals.”
“You have a llama! And if you want to be profitable, you’ll have more than that.”
He took in the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hair wasn’t pulled back quite as tight as it normally was. In fact, her shirt was even buttoned crooked. “You look like you could use a sleep-in.”
“I could. I could use a sleep-in every damn day for the rest of my damn life, but I do not have that luxury, and, this summer, neither do you.” She slammed a hand onto the counter next to the coffeepot. “You could at least have coffee going at this point.”
“Well, you’re pleasant this morning,” he muttered. He’d drum up some sympathy for her later, but right now he needed coffee. Even if what he really wanted was sleep.
He’d stayed up way too late being an idiot. Sitting next to that damn llama pen in the pitch dark and reading article after article online about his future.
The picture the media painted wasn’t pretty. The picture his agent painted wasn’t pretty.
Forced retirement.
When he was still as good as he’d been when he’d led his team to the Stanley Cup the first time. He’d done that. Practically on his own. No one had picked them to make the playoffs, but he’d been the best damn player in the league, and he’d motivated the rest of the team to step up and follow his lead.
Everyone had said so. He’d been the reason they got there.