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In these late winter months—which was part of February and most of March—they didn’t have a full lodge during the week. So their activity schedule wasn’t as robust either.
“I have work to do,” he said, turning away from Nash’s knowing grin and Jesse’s familiar frown.
“Wait,” Nash said, and Blake breathed in deeply through his nose before he turned back to face his youngest brother. “I need you to sign off on the new riding boots for guests. Adam brought me an invoice…” He opened a drawer and then rifled through a stack of loose papers on his desk before finding it.
Their mother still ran the finances for the ranch and the lodge, and another brother, Adam, organized and oversaw all of their outdoor activities with animals. Specifically horses, as the man possessed the ability to speak to equines and had since birth. Nothing got through the accounting department of Sharon Stewart without Blake’s signature on it, and he scratched it out with the pen Nash presented to him.
He finally left his brothers’ office and returned to his own. He considered closing his door, but he did so rarely, and he needed to be available to anyone coming to him this morning. The pull to go back into the kitchen to see how Gina was getting along had him checking the doorway every few minutes.
When his eight o’clock alarm sounded, he actually got to his feet as if he’d go get breakfast now. “You go get breakfast every morning at eight,” he grumbled to himself, because he did. That was why he had the alarm set on his phone in the first place.
Today, he had an additional reason to get on down the hall and load his plate with bacon, eggs, and biscuits and gravy. He didn’t usually concern himself with seeing how things were going in the kitchen or on the buffet. Starla ran a tight ship, and they hadn’t had problems since she’d taken over a few years ago.
The food came out of the kitchen hot if it was supposed to be, and cold if not. She’d come up with the grab-and-go lunch program that guests paid a premium fee to get, and that had been really popular with families who didn’t want to leave the ranch and drive to town for lunch. The guest cabins had kitchens too, but not everyone wanted to cook on vacation, even at a dude ranch.
His step slowed as he approached the main room, the chatter and laughter of happy guests meeting his ears. He liked that, and he paused as the large space that filled over half of the lodge opened up before him. The dining area buzzed with activity, but he had no problem spotting Gina.
The woman called to him in a way no one else ever had, and he didn’t think he’d be able to stop himself from looking her way. She lifted an empty pan of scrambled eggs from the hot buffet and replaced it with a fresh one, her smile wide and bright as she set the spoon back in place.
She wiped down the counter, taking in the bar, and Blake didn’t detect any unrest or stress in her. She’d worked in some premier kitchens, and running food from the kitchen to the breakfast bar wasn’t going to be something she couldn’t handle.
In fact, as he watched, she chatted with a mother and her son, cleaned up the spilled fruit in front of the platter, and then headed for the kitchen with her dirty pan. With her absence, Blake kicked himself into gear to go get his food.
He didn’t particularly appreciate fruits and veggies, but he took a couple of obligatory pineapple chunks. Then he got the things he ate every day for breakfast—bacon, eggs, and two biscuits with plenty of sausage gravy.
“This hasn’t changed,” Gina said, and Blake looked up to find her standing across the buffet from him. She smiled at his plate and lifted those gorgeous eyes to meet his.
“I’m very routined,” Blake admitted. He put the ladle back in the gravy and met Gina’s eyes again. His brain went on vacation, which left his bodily functions to operate all on their own. “Are you seeing anyone?”
Gina’s eyes rounded, and that was Blake’s first clue that he’d said something stupid. His stomach growled, and his blood rushed through his ears in a stream of white noise. “Excuse me,” he said gruffly. He took a couple of steps past her, seizing onto the fact that Kyle had just entered the dining area.
“Kyle,” he very nearly barked. “How did things go with the bread delivery?”
“Great.” His brother looked over Blake’s shoulder. His eyebrows rose. “She…wants you.”
Blake wanted to hurl his plate of hot food against the nearest wall and go back to his office hungry. Instead, he turned to face Gina again. She now held an empty container which had once been full of strawberries, and she blinked at him once, then twice. “Do friends eat lunch together around here?”
Blake did the blinking next. “Do you have time for lunch?”
“If we go out back for twenty minutes while the pecan tarts bake.”
Blake didn’t know how to say no to her, and he glanced toward the kitchen as if he could summon Starla and ask if they had grab-and-go lunches that day. If they did, could he possibly get a couple of extra for him and Gina?
Instead of being completely transparent with these resurfacing feelings racing through him, he looked at Gina and said, “If you can get Starla to get us two grab-and-go lunches, I think friends can eat them on the picnic table under the bald cypress.”
She swallowed and looked toward the kitchen. She started in that direction, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll text you.”
Blake watched her go, forgetting that his gossipiest brother had just witnessed the whole exchange. Until Kyle said, “I thought you said there wasn’t anything between you.”
Blake glared at him and walked away. “There isn’t,” he tossed over his shoulder. Friends ate lunch together. Heck, his mother and sisters went to lunch in town at least once a week, meeting other ladies to socialize as they tried the new restaurants in Chestnut Springs.
This was no different, though every cell in Blake’s body screamed otherwise.
CHAPTERFIVE
Gina’s feet remembered what it was like to support her body for hours on end. They hurt, but she didn’t mind the pain. It meant she wasn’t at her parents’ house, wishing she had something better to do.
She didn’t want to ask Starla about “grab-and-go lunches,” and that was the biggest item on her to-do list all of a sudden.
