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Jill didn’t dare look at Slate as she ate. She took small bites and ate slowly, because she didn’t want Slate to leave. She also had no idea what to say to him. The wedding had been beautiful, and she’d enjoyed eating lunch with him. There’d been dancing after that, but Slate had disappeared for that part.
She hadn’t known where he’d gone, but Luke had disappeared too. They’d come back to the ranch with Ted and Emma, and Jill couldn’t help feeling like Slate had slighted her. She’d been trying to tell herself he hadn’t, but her mind tended to wander down self-loathing paths when she was alone—which was why she didn’t like being alone.
“Feeling better?” he asked, and Jill nodded, her eyes still on the salami.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said.
She glanced up and met his eyes for a moment. He looked real serious, and Jill didn’t like that.Yes, you do, she told herself. She was tired of playing the fun, flirty blonde. That woman got a lot of dates, but she didn’t settle down. Jill was ready to settle down.
“I shouldn’t have held your hand the other day,” he said. “Luke said it wasn’t very fair, and he’s right. I just want to apologize.”
“It’s fine,” she said, her throat narrowing. She looked away, but her food was gone, and she didn’t know what to focus on.
“I, uh, haven’t done a lot of dating in my life, and I didn’t get, ahem, much physical contact in prison, and it was just sort of this…” He blew his breath out. “I did like holding your hand, because I just needed the human touch.”
She looked at him again, and he was so vulnerable and so real in that moment. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Slate nodded and focused on his hands in his lap. “I was thinking I’d like to get to know you better.” He looked at her for a microsecond and back at those hands. “But maybe we could start with something like lunch or dinner.”
“I eat lunch and dinner,” she said.
“Just not breakfast,” he said.
“Just not breakfast.” Jill smiled. “Though I’m going to from now on, because I don’t want to repeat what just happened.” She hadn’t even dealt with Ginger yet, and she knew she’d have to.
“How’s your mom?” Slate asked several seconds later.
“She’s doing good,” Jill said, her voice pitching up on the last word. “My daddy’s doing a good job with her. The chemo treatments aren’t as severe anymore, so she’s doing good.” She realized she’d said the same thing twice, but she couldn’t take it back now.
Emma came back into the living room. “It was Ginger.”
“Great,” Jill said, though she didn’t think it was great. “She’s upset with me, right?”
“I had to tell her,” Emma said. “I’m sorry. She’s on her way in, and she wants to talk to you.” She switched her gaze to Slate. “I just need another half-hour with you.”
He stood. “Sure.”
Emma left, and Slate paused. “So…I’ll…we’ll…go out sometime.”
“Yes,” Jill said.
“Okay.” Slate left, and Jill laid back down on the couch. She’d have to face Ginger, and she still didn’t have Slate’s phone number, but right now she just wanted to breathe in and out.
Sometime later, Jill opened her eyes when she heard the door close. Footsteps came into the house, and she groaned as she pulled herself to a seated position. Her head swam, and she blinked. After the third time, everything settled, and Jill met the disapproving yet concerned eyes of her boss.
“Jill,” Ginger said, quickly coming to her side and looking into her eyes. She lifted her hand and touched her fingertips to Jill’s forehead, exactly the way Jill’s mother would’ve done.
Her heart squeezed, the strings connecting it to her body so tender these days, especially when she thought about her mom.
“I’m okay,” Jill said. “I just need to eat in the morning and drink throughout my chores.”
“I sent a memo about it two days ago,” Ginger said. She didn’t wear makeup and her auburn hair was pulled into a pony tail beneath her cowgirl hat. She was gorgeous anyway, and Jill smiled at her.
“I know,” Jill said. “I was just…” She didn’t want to admit that she had so much on her mind that she’d simply forgotten. Ginger managed everything at Hope Eternal, though she had plenty of women to help her. She still oversaw everything and held meetings every Friday afternoon with her supervisors over school programs, finances, construction, equipment, maintenance, animals, and agriculture.
Jill attended the meetings, as she worked exclusively with their honeybee program with schools around the Coastal Bend area of Texas, all of their honey production and sales, and the budget for that tiny arm of the ranch. Her pulse sent out an extra beat when she realized Slate would probably start attending the meetings too, just to see what Emma did.
She shouldn’t be so excited about that prospect. The man had let more than a week go by before even speaking to her again. He clearly wasn’t in a place where he was ready to date a woman, and Jill knew better than to push a man to do that.
