How Cassie Got Her Grind Back(Divine Creek Ranch 23)(24)

Samson took a swig from his drink, remembering what Chance and Clayton had told him she did for a living. “You’re a chef, aren’t you, Lydia?”

Lydia nodded and then gasped and pointed to Ivan. “Chef!”

“Austin?” Ivan said with laughter in his voice, and she nodded and trotted around the table to him. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?” he said as he rose from his chair and hugged her back.

“I didn’t recognize you with shorter hair,” she said. “Are you still teaching?”

Ivan shook his head. “No, I wanted to get back to running a kitchen fulltime, or at least I thought I did.” He rubbed his knee, and Samson’s knee gave a sympathy twinge.

That was the first he’d heard of Ivan wanting out of the fast pace of fulltime restaurant work.

Cassandra excused herself to visit the ladies’ room, and after the conversation had moved on to other topics, Samson nudged Ivan with an elbow. “You’d consider retiring?”

Ivan leaned toward him. “Not completely, but the hours are getting old, and so is my knee.” He looked to see if Cassandra was near and added, “So is going home to a dark, empty house.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I wouldn’t consider it, except my investments are doing well. It’s a good thing Mom and Dad taught us how to manage money and not go into debt, considering the way things are nowadays.”

“Thank God. Things are good with me, too, though I don’t squeak when I walk like you do.”

“I’m not tight. I’m frugal,” Ivan said with a chuckle. “Why did you ask about me retiring? Not you too?” His brother’s expression was incredulous.

“I know. It’d drive me crazy to not have work, but the stress of the job and this knee…”

Ivan grinned. “We should rent an operating room and have a surgeon do knee replacements for both of us and get it over with together. Are you thinking of going part time?”

Samson sighed. “I don’t know. You just got me thinking.”

“Cassie looks as if she’s having a good time,” Ivan said as he cast another glance around, probably looking for her.

Samson could relate. “I enjoy watching her have fun.”

“Me, too.”

A few minutes later, a gentle hand squeezed his shoulder, and her delicate scent invaded his senses again as she said, “Grace and Jack are talking about heading over to the Dancing Pony in a little while, and I wondered if you’d like to go over there after we’re done here. Hank said he might head over with Travis and Veronica later as well, after his duties as senior class president are completed.”

Ivan got up and gave her his chair so she could sit between them. She smiled and sat down, her cheeks flushing a little at the way they angled their chairs toward her.

Samson said, “Is that what you’d like to do? Do you have to work in the morning?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m old school. Divine Drip is closed on Sundays so my employees can go to church and have time with their families. And I need a day off, too. One day a week people can make their own coffee.”

Ivan caught his attention and flared his eyes in a purely hopeful way, and Samson smiled. “We’d take you to the Dancing Pony, as long as it doesn’t mess up your schedule.”

“It won’t,” she murmured as she gazed at him with a merry sparkle shining in her eyes. “Can I have this dance?” She gestured toward the floor with her head, and then giggled when he heard what was playing. “Back in Black” by AC/DC.

And they say I’m a sadist.

Ivan laughed and turned to converse with Chance, Clayton, and Lydia while Samson escorted Cassandra to the dance floor since she was dying to dance.

“Wasn’t this one of your favorites?” she called, lifting her arms into the air as she swung her hips to the beat, throwing a grin at Grace as she and Jack joined them on the dance floor. Samson was impressed by how willing Cassie was to shake her tail feathers and hoped his knee could keep up.

She giggled as he played a couple of chords of air guitar but then threw it over his shoulder and pulled her close. Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes sparkled with merriment as she shouted over the loud music. “I hope the next one is a slower song. This is gonna kill me, but it’s so fun!”

He ignored the twinge in his knee for a bit longer, watching her move to the music and got caught up in it himself. She paced herself and made it through the whole song with classic rock style, and then Ivan breezed past him as the beat of the next song began and said, “I’ve got this one, old man.”