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“Nice,” Kyle said with a smile.
A thrill moved through Maddy. No, she hadn’t put the bag in the hole, but she’d come really close. Not bad for not playing for a decade.
Kyle threw, and his bag didn’t even hit the ramp. She laughed, and the game continued. She won easily, but Kyle didn’t seem to care at all. He gathered up his bags after her victory and grinned as he took hers from her. “You’re great,” he said.
“Not quite championship level,” she said.
“Will you be my partner?” Adam barked, and Maddy startled as she looked at him. Adam was definitely the darkest of the Stewarts, and she had no idea how to answer him.
“You can’t have her,” Kyle said, stepping a bit in front of her. “She’s my partner.”
“She’s real good,” Adam said, his eyes still trained on Maddy. “You can have Jesse.”
“Hey, I was gonna ask Maddy to be my partner,” Jesse said.
Maddy’s pulse settled into a normal rhythm. “Boys,” she said as diplomatically as she could. “No one wants to be my partner. I’m going to make you train day and night.” She lifted her eyebrows as Kyle stepped next to Jesse. With all three of them facing her, Maddy put a smile on her face she hoped looked predatory. She wasn’t quite sure, but Adam swallowed.
“That’s right,” she said. “Day—and night. I don’t care what temperature it is. We’ll be out here throwing corn bags.”
The three brothers exchanged a glance, and Jesse turned away first. “I miss Starla,” he said. “Though she kinda reminds me of her.”
“I already have a really demanding lady in my life,” Adam said. “Good luck, Kyle.” He retreated with Jesse, leaving Kyle to grin at Maddy.
“You were joking, right?” he asked.
She bent and picked up the black bag the bags had been in. “I was not, Mister Stewart. I only got one bag in the hole the first time. That’s unacceptable.” She held the bag while he dumped the red and blue ones into it.
“Competitive and a perfectionist,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“My children are doomed?” Maddy suggested.
Kyle burst out laughing, and Maddy sure liked the sound of it. He quieted quicker than he had yesterday, and he gazed at her as he cinched the bag closed. “Do you want kids, Mads?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling the atmosphere sober around them. “You?”
“Sure,” he said. “Maybe not eight, and maybe not the majority of them boys, but yeah. I’d take a couple of kids.”
“I don’t think you get to decide if they’re boys or girls,” she teased.
“Actually,” he said. “The maledoesdecide that.”
She rolled her eyes and bumped him with her hip as they started toward the far set of stairs. “Not consciously.”
“Fair point.”
Maddy swung their hands between them, hopeful that if she felt like floating up into the clouds on the morning of the second day here at the ranch, surely she and Kyle could build something that would weather the distance that would come between them again when autumn arrived.
ChapterTen
Kyle worked from his laptop in Todd’s office, seated at Sierra’s desk. If his sister knew he sometimes came in here to taste of the air conditioning and sit where she did, she wouldn’t be happy. Todd had assured him that she’d gone out with Little Nick and another cowboy named Colt to check a fence line that one of their neighbors had called to say was down.
If the cattle had gotten out, Sierra would call Todd, and then it would be all Stewarts on deck to get them back where they belonged. He’d actually like it if some cattle got out of line this summer. Then Brewster could have a chance to round them all up.
Last night, while he’d been cleaning out the staging rooms where the bands stayed when they came to the ranch, Brewster had rounded up all the kids playing soccer in the nearby field. He’d had to go out there and rescue them from being put in the goal and kept there.
He chuckled now just thinking about it. He sent the responses to emails he needed to send, and he’d just slapped his laptop closed when Todd entered the office. “Hey.”
Kyle got to his feet and took in Todd’s expression at the same time. “Uh oh. What’s goin’ on?”
