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“I’m going to miss you,” she murmured, and she tilted her head back. He lowered his to kiss her, and Maddy hoped she could tell him how she felt though her touch.
ChapterTwelve
Holly Stewart went around the dining room in the lodge, her customer-service smile stuck to her face. She chatted easily with the guests, laughed at jokes she didn’t find all that funny, and kept one eye on the dinner buffet.
She loved her job, almost as much as she loved her family. She enjoyed working here at the ranch, because Blake saw her skills and expertise and valued them. She’d tried her hand at other jobs, and none compared to working here with her brothers and sister, as well as the other men and women who helped make sure the ranch ran smoothly, both on the commercial side and the private end.
Her smile slipped as she pushed through the black plastic door and into the kitchen. She tried to remain positive and upbeat for everyone, but she was really dragging tonight. Her feet hurt in her heels; her skirt didn’t move as much as she wanted it to; her head ached.
She ignored the busyness in the kitchen and went past all of it to the office in the back corner. It was dark inside, and she didn’t bother to flip on the light. All she’d see was the complete chaos Nash and Ashley left behind.
“I need an office of my own,” she said as she closed the door and pressed her back into it. Light leaked in through the window behind her, and Holly pressed her eyes closed. Sierra shared an office with Todd. Nash had moved into this one with Ashley when Starla left.
Holly looked up at the ceiling. “I miss you, Star.” She at least had kept things neat. She’d tidied up every day before she left, so Holly could have a space too. Nash didn’t do any of that, and Holly had cleaned up fast food bags, dirty dishes, and more since Starla had left.
There wasn’t anywhere in the lodge for Holly, because she didn’t want to share a space with Adam. They got along okay, but her cheerfulness annoyed him, and she had little patience for the dark cloud he allowed to sit on his shoulders day and night.
She just needed five minutes of silence, but Holly didn’t often stand still. She flipped on the light and moved over to the desk. She’d already taken fifteen minutes to clean it up that afternoon, and she lifted the top folder. The front page inside listed six names—all the men coming for interviews tomorrow morning.
She didn’t normally work until two o’clock in the afternoon, and she’d be on her game until at least midnight before she went home. Even then, she needed at least an hour to get the noise and bustle out of her soul before she could go to bed.
Sierra lived with her, and her sister got up at the crack of dawn to head out onto the ranch. They lived opposite schedules, but there wasn’t a person on this planet that Holly loved more.
“Silas Money,” she murmured. Her first interview in the morning. She didn’t recognize any of the names on the list, but she’d hand-selected them from the pool of applicants for the evening help Holly needed.
The turnover at the Texas Longhorn Ranch was incredible, and a lot of the hiring fell to her. Blake handled what he could, but her oldest brother had so much on his plate all the time that Holly felt bad putting more on it.
She’d do the interviews, and she’d staff the evening maintenance crews, as Blake wasn’t even here during that time. She’d have to manage them anyway, and she’d rather do the interviews and the hiring for the people she had to work with on a daily basis.
She tossed the folder back onto the desk and opened the cabinet above the desk to retrieve the painkillers there. She swallowed a couple, then faced the door again. “Back into the lion’s den,” she said.
She shouldn’t be so negative. It wasn’t like she had anything else going on in her life. No boyfriend who she couldn’t see because she literally worked seven evenings a week. The single girlfriend she had tolerated Holly’s ranting texts about the lodge, and they went to lunch every few weeks. Holly loved Laura, and she’d listened to plenty of blind date horror stories over the past couple of years.
She didn’t want to be set up on a blind date. She didn’t want to meet a man on a dating app. She simply wanted the man of her dreams to show up on her doorstep and sweep her off her feet.
Fairy tales don’t happen in real life, she told herself as she opened the office door and prepared to face the fray that was the kitchen and then the dining room at the height of dinner service.
* * *
The following morning,Holly arrived at the lodge and pulled her big truck around to the back. She loved this vehicle, as it had once belonged to her grandfather. She’d inherited it when Granddaddy had died, and she’d taken the old, 1950s truck to the custom paint shop in town and had it beautified with a bright blue. She’d put new tires on it, and she’d made sure the engine was in tip-top shape.
She didn’t know how to fix it should something happen to it, and it had only broken down once in the past eight years since it had become hers. That had been a very expensive fix, but the truck hadn’t given her any problems since.
She parked in the shade, a sigh pulling through her. Her feet hadn’t fully recovered from their stint in heels last night, and though she’d chosen a pair of wedges this morning, she still had to mince her way through the gravel to the more solid steps. Up she went and in the back door, where a wall of breakfast noise hit her. She frowned into the kitchen, because they should be finished with breakfast by now.
Nine o’clock was when that service ended, and it was nine-fifteen. She’d texted Nash over and over about using the office for interviews, but one glance into the room and she knew that wasn’t happening.
Irritation sparked through her, and Holly went inside to collect her folders. She could find somewhere else to do the interviews. She turned as her phone chimed, and she plucked it from the pocket of her dress. At least she’d chosen to wear a maxi dress, which flowed around her body easily and allowed her to take a full stride.
With her head down and so much activity in the room beyond, Holly didn’t notice the man standing in the doorway of the office until she ran into him. She emitted a noise similar to what a startled moose would make, dropped her phone, and couldn’t maintain her grip on the folders in her hands.
They tumbled to the ground too while a very strong set of fingers clenched around her elbows and held her in place. “Whoa,” the man said, his voice deep and rumbly…and very familiar.
Holly looked up and into his face, nearly getting blinded by the handsomeness of the cowboy in front of her. Now, she worked with a plethora of cowboys. There had to be at least fifty or sixty who’d come through the Longhorn Ranch in the past few years alone. She’d gone to school with them, grown up with them, and dated a few of them back in her college days.
None of them held a candle to this man.
Not only that, but she knew exactly who he was—and it wasn’t Silas Money.
