Page 5 of A Mustang River Christmas

By the end of the interview, Laney was sure that he hadn’t, in fact, needed to do that. Chloe was competent and delightful, and definitely knew what she was doing. All her same reservations about somebody young persisted, but they were surmountable.

She offered Chloe the job on the spot.

After saying goodbye to her, and nailing down her start date, Laney went back into the kitchen and did exactly what Pike had suggested.

She Googled him.

And after reading everything she found, she sent him a text.

Yes. I want your help.

Chapter Two

Pike was genuinely tickled when he walked through the door and smelled dinner cooking. It had been a long-ass time since anyone had lived with him. Since anyone had taken care of him like this.

Having Chloe home was... great. And yeah, there were complicated feelings tied up around all of it. There were years with her that he was never going to be able to make up for. He hadn’t been the father that she needed for all of her life. But she was here now. She chose to be. Had chosen to come and be closer to him after she graduated from culinary school.

He could only be grateful for that.

And now, she was cooking for him.

He rounded the corner of his small house into the kitchen. She was cheerfully flipping vegetables aggressively in a pan.

“Good technique,” he said.

“It should be,” she said. “For as much as you paid for it.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Well. I’m glad that you got to go.”

“Me too. You’re right. Laney is great.”

His stomach tightened at the mention of Laney. “Good. I’m glad. You think she’s going to be a good boss?”

“She’s definitely a hardass. And a perfectionist. So, yeah. She’s going to be a great boss.”

“Glad you think so.”

Laney.

That woman had been under his skin from the moment she had first come to the Painted Ridge Resort. He had been working on the ranch two years before the resort had opened, and it was good. It was meditative work. It wasn’t the kind that engaged his passion, but he was a little bit suspicious of his passion at this point in his life.

It was the kind of work he liked. It exhausted his body, and didn’t leave his mind any energy to wander.

It was just fine with him.

But then Laney had been hired as the chef at the restaurant and he’d gone from being content with his celibacy to feeling like he’d been born again as a horny teenager. She flirted with him too, not lightly, in a dangerous way.

Laney wasn’t shy. Hell, she was forward enough she might even be teasing him but he’d been ready to table the whole conversation today and give her the one-night stand.

Which would have been stupid and disastrous in myriad ways.

The whole restaurant thing had been complicated from the start anyway.

He hadn’t put any of his work history as it related to restaurants on his resume when he had applied to work at the ranch. He’d touted his skills as a ranch hand. Which he’d grossly under-aggrandized. He had owned his own ranch for years. Worked it, managed it. All while running the pastry side of a Michelin-starred restaurant at a resort in Wyoming that catered to celebrities.

Which was exactly what Laney would see when she Googled him.

There were probably some other things she would see too. Like the news article about his motorcycle accident. About some of the things that it had led to.