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Blake settled his weight onto one cowboy booted foot. He wore jeans too—Gina had never seen him wear anything but jeans—but he’d paired his with an equally denim shirt in a light blue that made his dark features even more handsome.
Her mouth watered, and it wasn’t for the brownies and ice cream out front.
He folded his arms, and she cleared her throat to speak.
“Is that right?” he asked. “Well, I think the job’s filled.” He held her gaze for one more moment, turned toward the other cowboy, and said, “Thanks, Baby John.” Then Blake turned and headed down a hallway Gina hadn’t seen yet.
Baby John turned toward her, surprise and confusion on his face simultaneously. “Oh-kay. I guess the job’s filled?”
Gina watched Blake until he disappeared, and then her muscles thawed enough for her to move. “No,” she said, her vocal cords tight but functional. “He just said there was no one good for this job.” She smiled up at Baby John, though by the look on his face, it wasn’t a happy gesture. More like terrifying.
“I’mgood for this job,” she said. “I’m just gonna head back and see what he thinks of my résumé, okay?” She started after Blake, her step as sure as his now. She’d driven all this way. He couldn’t just dismiss her like that. Not after everything they’d been through.
He’d been her best friend for years. Her boyfriend. Her everything. So she hadn’t come back. All that sentence needed was ayet, and she wasn’t going to let the stubborn cowboy close the door on this opportunity she needed so badly.
In the hallway, several open doors greeted her, and Gina took a deep breath. She’d poke her nose into all of them until she found the one with Blake inside. Then…well, then she’d deal with whatever she had to in order to leave the Texas Longhorn Ranch as its newest employee.
CHAPTERTWO
Blake Stewart’s pulse leapt through his body like some sort of jackrabbit. The big kind. The kind that had just seen a coyote and run for its life.
“You can’t hire her,” he said to his reflection in the mirror on the inside door of the coat closet in his office. He turned away from it, the other side of the room his goal now. He paced in front of the open doorway, his breath coming in spurts.
Regina Barlow. Gorgeous, flirty, fun, kissable Regina Barlow.
He’d been in love with her once, even if he was only eighteen years old. He’d told his mother a bunch of times that love didn’t have age boundaries. Of course, Gina had fled Chestnut Springs by then, and she’d written him for the duration of her culinary education.
He really thought she’d come back.
He’d been a fool.
“A darn fool,” he whispered to himself when he reached the lamp in the corner. A recliner sat there too, and Blake didn’t think he’d ever actually reclined in it. Todd would sit there while Blake would rant about something from the safety of his desk. Sometimes Kyle would text from the recliner while Blake went over the finer points of their meeting.
His sisters sat there and told him about the problems out on the ranch or in the lodge, and it was up to Blake to solve them all. All of his brothers and sisters came in and out of his office at-will now, especially since Daddy had announced his partial retirement at the New Year. He’d be out of his office and living duty-free by June first.
The weight of the world sagged onto Blake’s shoulders, the fire Gina had relit inside him burning up against it. He turned and rolled his eyes as he started striding toward the other side of the office again.
On one step, he was alone, and on the next, he’d collided with a very solid, warm body. A grunt and a grumble escaped his mouth, and his hand slid down cloth and over bones as he tried to steady himself and the curvy woman in front of him.
He and Gina came to a standstill, his hands on her waist and hers braced against the outside of his biceps. Dang it if his pulse didn’t turn into a jackhammer then.
“Blake,” she said, the word mostly breath. “There you are.”
He could only blink at her. It was definitely her, with all that shiny blonde hair, and those deep, gorgeous, ocean-blue eyes. She even had the freckles dashed across her nose she used to cover up with makeup.
She wore makeup today, especially on her eyes, but she hadn’t used anything to blot out those freckles. Blake wanted to kiss them the way he once had, but just as quickly, his desire to get away from this woman shot through him.
She seemed to get the same idea, because they backed up simultaneously, his hands falling back to his sides. They knew the shape of Gina’s body though, and his nose understood the scent of her perfume.
She’d changed over the past couple of decades, but she was still herself too. Stunningly beautiful, full of fire, and completely confident. Who else would’ve followed him down this hallway and started poking her head into every room until she found him?
Along with the makeup and perfume, she wore a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt in a shade of purple that made her eyes almost seem violet too. It was a tie-dye actually, that started out purple, and faded into blue near the hem.
He sure did like it, and Blake curled his fingers into fists to keep himself from grabbing onto her again.
Friends, whispered through his mind. Gina had been his best friend since the fifth grade, when they’d been paired in a science experiment. She had the brains, and he had the fearlessness, and they’d taken first in the district fair.
They’d been inseparable since, even when she started dating Tony McCollins in ninth grade, and he’d had a fairly terrible stint with dating Veronica Turnby. After that, Blake had only had eyes and feelings for Gina, and it had taken him all of his sophomore year to tell her about them.
