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“Wow.” I take a deep breath as I look over the spread on the table. “I’m already late. I can just grab something to go…” I really don’t want to. I want to sit here and enjoy their family presence, soaking up all the love they have to offer. And I really, really want to eat everything on this table. It’s been since the airport yesterday that I had anything, and good god, this food looks and smells amazing.
“Fine by me,” Rhett mumbles from where he holds Jolene on the other side of the kitchen.
“Mumbling is bad manners,” she scolds him. Her little finger pokes at his chest, and her eyebrows furrow.
“Yes, it is,” he agrees. “My apologies, sweet girl.”
“Don’t be silly!” Katherine says, wiping her hands on her apron. “You had a long day yesterday, and Wells has been doing this by himself for quite some time. He’ll be okay if you sit down and eat for a minute.”
Her eyes swivel to give Rhett a look, but he just rolls his eyes and sets Jolene back on the floor.
“Fine. Eat your breakfast. Then get yourself over to the rescue barn. Those animals aren’t gonna take care of themselves.” He kisses his mom. “Momma, thank you for the breakfast. It was delicious.”
“Ignore him,” Clyde tells me under his breath as he fills up a plate for me and the back door slams shut behind Rhett. “He’s always been a bit of a grump. But the last few years haven’t been easy on him.”
“Why not, Gramps?” Wade asks, sticking his body in between us. He steals a biscuit off my plate, and I swat playfully at his hand. He disappears under the table in a fit of giggles.
“Quit eavesdropping. And quit callin’ me Gramps!”
Clyde smiles at me and sits back down.
“I always said I’d be a grandpa. And the moment Jo over there started calling me Gramps and got a reaction out of me, it’s been Gramps ever since.”
It’s all in good humor. I can tell he loves these grandkids of his more than life itself. He sets Jolene up on his lap and pushes some flyaways back into her space buns. She is a spitting image of Rhett, and it’s so strange to see his hard features on a small girl. But she’s gorgeous, with that brown, wavy hair with highlights from spending so much time in the sun and her light brown eyes.
Goodness, she’s going to be a heartbreaker.
My stomach growls, making Wade and Jolene laugh.
“You sound hungry,” he says from under the table. “Want your biscuit back?”
His hand pops out from under the table, holding half a biscuit with little teeth marks on it from where he’s eaten the other half. His fingernails are dirty from playing on the ranch and just being a little kid.
“We have plenty,” Clyde says at the same time I say, “Um, no, thank you, Wade.”
We sit like that for twenty minutes. I eat my breakfast, the kids play around the house, and Clyde and Katherine chat with me about my life. They’re interested in my schooling, what I do for fun, and what made me want to move to Montana.
I answer everything truthfully, telling them I’ve never really felt settled, that I wanted a fresh start somewhere with plenty of room to grow — mentally and career-wise. Not that I’m throwing my hat in the ring to become anything more than what I am to this ranch yet, but that thought had crossed my mind when I accepted the job. Surely there’s room to grow here. Over two hundred thousand acres…there’s got to be a reason to keep me on.
“Momma!” another brother — I’m assuming anyway — shouts as he runs in through the front door.
“Uncle Hayes!” the kids shout in unison, running through the front hallway. I hear them tackle him and a loudoofas they knock the wind from him.
“In the kitchen!” Katherine shouts back, rolling her eyes when she catches me smiling. “That boy,” she says to me. “Nothing but trouble.”
Hayes walks in and gives his mom a kiss on the cheek before turning to say hi to his dad and seeing me sitting at the table. His whole demeanor changes, and I can justseethe troublemaker flirt come out in him. Katherine is right — Hayes is all trouble.
Hayes has the same color hair as Wells but just a bit lighter, like he spends more time in the sun. But from the guitar hanging at his back, I doubt he works as hard as the other boys. Something tells me he likes to slack off a bit. His eyes are hazel, like my own, and when his hands make contact with the table to lean into my space, I can’t help but appreciate the strong hands and fingers from all that guitar playing.
But still, something is missing. Wells and Hayes are attractive. Very, very attractive. Katherine and Clyde gave them some golden genes. But when they look at me and are all smiles, I miss the way Rhett scowls. I don’t know what that says about me, but the well-mannered boys just don’t do it for me.
I like ’em a little mean.
“And who might you be?”
“That’s Poppy!” Jolene says.
“She’s new!” Wade says as he crawls back under the table, presumably to finish his biscuit in peace.
