Page 18 of A Mustang River Christmas

“Yeah,” Laney said, trying to keep her tone casual. “It is. It turned out great, didn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Chloe said. “Like I said. My dad is the best at that.”

She was suddenly so curious. About everything. Pike had told her so much about his life, about the mistakes that he’d made, and yet also, he had told her very little. He had spoken in broad sweeping terms about how he hadn’t been able to be there for Chloe, but she was curious when that had changed. How many years had he been out of her life? At what point had his marriage begun to dissolve, and he’d found himself alone? Had Chloe forgiven him easily, or had it taken a long time?

None of that was anything she ought to ask Chloe, of course. Chloe was her employee, and Pike was... well, they’d slept together. A very pretty euphemism for what had occurred last night. Whatever he wanted to share or didn’t want to share was entirely up to him, and she had no business being too curious about the deep inner workings of his life.

He had kind of started it, of course.

It was obvious he felt like he’d had to disclose his history of addiction, probably because it related to the extended bout of celibacy he’d had, and it was obvious that he’d felt required to disclose that as well.

She realized that she had been standing there staring straight ahead, not moving, not chopping anything, for far too long. “Well, he really is. He’s fantastically talented. It’s... amazing that he’s been here all these years and just working on the ranch.”

“My dad has taken his ego death pretty seriously,” Chloe said. Then she winced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say much of anything about that. I know my dad spent the night with you,” she said, a strange expression on her face. “And I’m glad, frankly, because he has been in this martyr space where it’s like he cuts himself off from everything that could possibly bring him joy. So as much as I don’t want or need to delve into my dad’s... sex life? Or my boss’s, sorry. I would rather know that he has someone that he’s connected with? I don’t know. I worry about him.”

Laney really wasn’t expecting that. She looked around the room furtively, hoping that nobody had overheard any of that. “Do you and your dad both feel compelled to speak the truth no matter what?”

“I wouldn’t have said that,” Chloe said. “But apparently. Actually, I think my dad and I pretty habitually just lay everything on the table.”

It seemed like there was more Chloe wanted to say, but she held it back, and Laney didn’t feel like it was right to push. Out of respect for Pike.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that we... I don’t know your dad that well,” Laney said.

“Right. Well enough,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough. I didn’t know about you,” she said. “Not until the day he came to talk to me about hiring you.”

Chloe winced. “And if he hadn’t intervened, would you have hired me?”

“Yes,” Laney said, without hesitation. “You’re extremely qualified, and you interviewed very well. I absolutely would have hired you. And, you can’t blame him for doing a little bit of mild meddling. I hear that parents are like that.”

“You hear?”

Laney shrugged. “I’m not one. And my own were... not all that supportive. I guess that’s not really fair. They just weren’t interested. They didn’t understand where my love of all things culinary came from. They certainly weren’t going to pay for me to go to culinary school.”

“I’m lucky. Obviously, Dad values this.”

“Yes. That I do know about him. And also that he’s your number one fan.”

“That’s nice,” Chloe said.

It was an easy, cordial conversation and Laney was left wanting to know more. Thankfully, she was meeting Pike tonight to work on the underlying structure for the full-size gingerbread house. She had all the supplies for it, and she had plans drafted. But given how difficult she’d found making the scale model of the larger-size gingerbread house, she was certain that she would have needed a lot more help than she’d anticipated to get the larger one finished.

Dinner service was a total rush, and she ate standing over the sink, before apologizing and dashing out before everything was clean. She was meeting Pike, and she told herself that it was excitement about the project that made her heart race in overdrive. And not just that she thought he was hot, and was really hoping for a repeat performance of last night. When she pulled up to the area she was using as a workshop, Pike’s truck was already there. She took a deep breath, did her best to steady her racing heart, and shut the engine off.

It was crazy that she was being this obsessed. She wasn’t inexperienced. Her parents had basically left her to her own devices at eighteen, and she’d been something like feral roaming around the Bay Area, getting thrown into the hyper emotional, passionate world of restaurants. She wasn’t one to get overly sentimental or emotional about sex. She had always been able to separate work from personal.

But this felt... it felt different, and it wasn’t only the confession he’d made to her that he hadn’t been with anybody in a decade. It wasn’t only the vulnerability that he’d shown in telling her about his addiction.

There was just something about Pike Malone, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it or if she wanted to run away from it. But currently, she was running toward it, so she supposed it didn’t really matter.

When she got out of her truck, he got out of his, and she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to go and touch him, kiss him. She didn’t. She just walked past him, and into the shop. “So, your daughter knows that you spent the night with me,” she said, because if he was going to say any old thing, and so was Chloe, then she was too.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t very subtle with my long walk of supposed shame.”

“Well, she was very cool about it.”

“That’s... good. And also, not all that surprising. Chloe and I have a particular sort of relationship.”