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“It is a feeling I share,” Rosie assured him, laughing. “I’ll see you next week, God willing. And after that?” She shrugged lightly. “Who knows?”
“I’ll bring my dinosaurs!”
“And we’ll create a habitat for them, a perfect spot for them to roam, beneath the old cottonwood tree.”
“Okay!”
Zeke scrambled into his booster seat, adjusted his belt, then got down to the important matters of the day. “What’s for supper?”
“Whatever Cookie came up with, but I thought I smelled beef and potatoes cooking.”
“Stew?” Eyes wide, the boy wriggled in excitement. “I love stew, Dad! And cake. And ice cream. And sometimes hot dogs.”
“A well-balanced diet is a boy’s best friend,” Heath teased as he drew closer to the main house again.
“And I get to have supper with our new company!” Zeke aimed a heart-melting grin at him through the rearview mirror. “That will be the most fun of all!”
From the boy’s vantage point, maybe. Heath held a different view, but that was his problem. Not Zeke’s.
“You sure do.” He pulled the car around to the back parking area, and climbed out. He was just about to remind Zeke about the basic rules of behavior around women…simple things, like wiping your face, washing your hands, no barreling through the house like a young elephant, and flushing the toilet, thank you very much…
But Zeke had spotted Lizzie coming their way across the square of grass. He raced toward her like a flash. “Hey! Hey!” He skidded to a stop along the dirt walk, spattering her jeans with fine brown dust. “Oops. Sorry!”
“I’ve been dirty before. I expect it will happen again, my friend.”
That voice. The drawl. Softened by years of education, but still enough to draw a man in, which meant he’d have to watch his step because the drawl and the beautiful woman were far too familiar.
She’d bent to talk to Zeke at his level, then looked up at Heath, smiling.
The smile gut-punched him. Was that his fault? Or hers?
She turned those rusty brown eyes on him and all he wanted was to go on listening as she spoke. Meet her gaze above that pretty smile. Since those were the last things he could do, he put the trip down memory lane on hold.
The kitchen gong sounded, the perfect segue into something else. Anything else. Anything that didn’t remind him of old losses and broken hearts. He’d made a grievous mistake by taking things too far. Yes, they’d been young. And in love.
But he should have known better.
“There’s my young helper.” Cookie grinned when they walked into the kitchen, and the hulking Latino’s face lit up a room when he smiled. “Where you been, little fellow? Usually you’re in here, pestering me for cookies we don’t mention to your father when it gets this close to supper time.”
“He is a bottomless pit these days,” Heath acknowledged. “And you’re mighty good to him, Cookie.”
“We’re good to each other,” the cook teased. Then he spotted Lizzie coming through the door and his grin widened. “And this young woman might have come to help with horses, but she brought reinforcements which only endears her to me more.” His grin indicated Lizzie had won his heart as well. “A man can deal with a whole lotta crazy on a spread like this, but some extra help in the kitchen is appreciated. And Miz Corrie mentioned something about Kentucky ribs that made me even happier,” Cookie added. “We’re gonna try those right soon.”
“The best way to survive on a ranch is by being nice to the cook.” Lizzie gave Cookie one of those utterly sincere smiles she’d practiced on Heath years before, but this time he noticed a difference in the smile. It was older. Wiser. Not jaded, and that was a surprise. But he’d be blind not to see the touch of sadness in her gaze, which made him wonder what had put it there.
She turned toward Cookie. “Do you mind if I take a plate out back? I don’t want to offend, but I want to study some things while I eat.”
“We like ambition in these parts,” the cook assured her. “Miz Corrie told me the same thing. And don’t you be worrying about cooking for yourself in those empty rooms.” He pointed a fork toward the premier horse stables. “You grab food here as needed. It don’t much matter where you lay your head, the food bag’s on for all.”
“Thank you.” Sincerity marked her voice and her gaze. “Corrie and I will appreciate that a lot. I’ll go get her now.” She went up the front stairs just before Jace and four other hungry stockmen strode in.
