True Love at Silver Creek Ranch(85)
“True. But I admit, I like watching you work with him. I think you’re a good influence.”
He winced. “Unfair. Next you’ll expect me to be a saint.”
She tweaked his navel. “Never.” The she sighed. “He’s not totally enthusiastic. Maybe his buddies have been giving him a hard time. It can’t be easy trying to change your life.”
“It’s not, but then, you know that.”
She looked up at him with a frown. “Me? I don’t know anything about that. I’ve always been this way, with ranching as my goal. I’m pretty boring.”
“Really?” He studied her. “I think people can have more than one goal, and maybe you’re figuring that out.”
Her smile was slow in coming. “What are you, a mind reader?”
“I just know you.”
“Okay, maybe you’re right.”
Adam listened as she told him about her enjoyment working with teenagers, and her mom’s suggestion that she might like to become a part-time riding instructor.
“So what’s the problem?” he asked. “Seems to me you’ve been handling your work duties and Tyler. How would teaching be any different?”
“Because Josh is going to expand his work, too,” Brooke explained. “I just don’t know if we can all pull back like this.”
“So Nate and Josh get to do what they want, but not you?”
Her gaze on him softened, and when she caressed his cheek, he turned to kiss her fingers.
“My champion,” she murmured.
“I’m being serious,” he countered.
“I know you are. I guess I just have to . . . see how it goes. But I came up with a way to test myself where kids are concerned.”
“Should I even ask?”
She grinned. “I’d like to volunteer to host an outing for the Chess Club. I could get the greenhorns on a horse, maybe lead some of the more experienced ones on a trail ride up into the mountains. But I’d need help. You up for it?”
“Wow, give a woman great sex, and she expects a favor in return.”
“Excuse me, but I think I gave you great sex, so I’m asking a favor in return.”
“You’re my boss. I think I have to do everything you say.”
Laughing, she leaned to kiss him, and the kisses turned passionate.
“Whoa!” she said at last, gasping. “We can’t do this again. I have to sneak back to my own bed.”
He groaned and rolled away. “This sucks.”
“So . . . what would you think if I moved into the apartment over the bakery?”
He lifted his head and stared at her. “You’re considering that?”
“Just considering because I have to also consider my mom’s health. But I think it would be pretty good to fall asleep with you sometimes,” she added, wearing a sexy smile.
He sat up. “I think you’d be shocked at how male and gross I am in the morning in my skivvies.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Tuesday morning, Brooke texted her invitation to the Chess Club for a Friday afternoon riding instruction, a sleigh ride, followed by a bonfire. By Wednesday, Steph excitedly responded back that everyone was in.
Brooke was just telling Adam about it when Tyler’s mom, Wendy, drove up to drop off her son. Instead of racing away when the teenager hopped out, she leaned toward the open door and peered out.
Her smile was tired but genuine. “Hey, Brooke, I can’t thank you enough for asking Tyler to work here. He’s having a good time and learning so much.”
“Glad to help, Wendy.” She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Tyler was already walking toward the barn. “How’s Cody?”
That was a mistake. Wendy’s gaze dropped, and she turned to grip the steering wheel. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s learned a lesson, other times . . . that he’s given up. I guess I can only wait.”
She drove away, and Brooke stood there wincing at her own stupidity. If she were in Wendy’s place, she wouldn’t want people ignoring the existence of her older son, who’d made a mistake, paid the price, and was starting over. But Wendy had two sons in trouble, even as she was struggling to support them without their dad’s help.
With a sigh, Brooke turned around, wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck, and saw Adam and Tyler together, leaning on the corral fence looking at the horses, talking. She liked looking at them together, and it made her think of Adam as a dad. The sweet tenderness of it shocked her, and she knew she had to put it out of her mind, before she started angsting over him leaving town.
As Brooke moved closer, Adam glanced over his shoulder at her. “Tyler here has volunteered to be your assistant Friday night. I told him it would be okay to enjoy his time with his friends, but he disagrees.”