Page 10 of The Maverick’s Legacy

“Who’s the lucky man?” the baker asked as she handed Carly the pie.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Carly insisted as she took it from the waitress. “Just my apology for being a douche, like Remi said.”

Remi looked like she was about to burst from holding in her laughter.

“Anyway, we should go,” Carly said, her ears burning.

“Come see us again soon,” Betty replied, looking more than a little amused. They waved goodbye and hurried outside.

“I cannot believe you said all that,” Carly said under her breath when she and Remi made their way back to the car.

“It was going to be all over town anyway that you were buying a mystery gift for someone. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off now and give the gossips some fat to chew on.”

Carly rolled her eyes, but a part of her worried if that was true. What if the press got a hold of it? Carly Hawkins breaks Fletch Alistair’s heart for hot Montana cowboy.

Her agent, Dex, would have a panic attack.

She didn’t want to deal with the press again anytime soon. Despite her best efforts, she thought back to that time after she and Fletch broke up. The media had gotten so ugly. The paparazzi had been relentless, following her everywhere. She couldn’t deny that they were a tiny part of why she’d decided to leave Australia. She’d be perfectly fine if she never had a camera shoved in her face again.

When Remi started driving toward Ambling Hills instead of back to her house for Carly to get her car, Carly snapped back to attention. “Wait, where are you going?”

“You didn’t think I was going to miss this, did you?” Remi said. “Besides, you said you wanted to distract me. Color me entertained.”

Carly leaned back in the passenger seat and closed her eyes, accepting defeat. “Let’s just get this done.”

They eventually turned down the only road that ran along Ambling Hills. On one side of the road was a fenced-in area that had cattle roaming freely. On the other side was a half-assembled fence.

“This is all Grayson Abernathy’s property,” Remi explained. “It was really nice of him to let his brother have a piece of land.”

“Yeah, it was.” It warmed Carly that Jesse came from a family like that, and then she scolded herself. She was only here to apologize and then move on with her life.

The land grew more structured as they came up to a small house on the hill. In the distance, she could see two men hammering vinyl siding on one part of the house. They were both about the same height with the same color hair.

“Looks like Grayson is here too,” Remi said as she pulled up the driveway.

“Awesome,” Carly mumbled. One more person there to witness her eat crow.

Once they were parked, Remi winked at her. “Go get ’em.”

“What? After all this, you’re not coming with me?”

“I’m just here for moral support,” Remi replied, her face angelic. “You’ve got this.”

Carly glowered at her. “Thanks.” But she couldn’t help the snort that slipped out when Remi winked back.

She got out of the car, careful not to dump the pie. As she headed toward the house, one of the men came toward her. He looked like Jesse. It had to be his brother.

“Hello,” she said.

“Can I help you?” His face was polite, even as his eyes drifted down to what she was holding. He did a double take, as though it was unusual for a strange woman to show up at a construction site bearing pie. Which was completely fair.

Carly bit her lip at how ridiculous she was starting to feel. “Uh… I was hoping I could speak to Jesse?” she said.

The man she figured was Grayson nodded before calling out, “Jess, there’s someone with pie here to see you.”

She resisted the urge to bury her face in said pie, but she stopped thinking completely when Jesse came around the corner. He didn’t see her at first because he was using the end of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his brow, putting his abs on full display.

“What?” he said, his voice muffled.