“With you? Anytime.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jasper
Jasper
Good Morning, Daddy
Daddy
Mornin’, sugar, what’s up?
Jasper
I’m working on some recipes this morning. I need a taste tester that isn’t a goat. None of them does anything but eat more.
Daddy
Well, they are goats, so that’s gonna happen.
Jasper
You’re going to hurt Tammy’s feelings. She thinks she’s your favorite.
Daddy
She is extra cute…
Jasper
So that’s a yes?
Daddy
It’s a yes. See you at noon.
“Oh, hey, handsome.” I’d spent the whole morning working on a rotating menu with enough variety to keep long-term guests happy—if I ever had any—and keep myself from wanting to gouge my eyes out due to making the same thing every day.
Since moving here, I’d spent too much time…or maybe just enough…thinking about the ways I’d screwed up. Lack of organization? Check. Say hello, my many, many lists. Boredom? That’s why we have rotating menus. Getting distracted by a man? Yeah, well, no one’s perfect. I needed to double down on the other two as an offset. It felt like the kind of logic you’d get from someone who made a lot of lists.
“Lemme wash up a little. I was out checkin’ fences, and I’m grimy,” Daddy said, holding up his dirt-smudged hands, knuckles rough from work.
“Here, I’ll get the handle,” I said, stepping in so he wouldn’t smear it on my clean kitchen.
“I promise I tried to knock the dust off outside.” Daddy’s grin was bone-melting and dick-hardening. I wondered if he had any idea how good-looking he really was. He acted like it was nothing, but I swooned a little each time.
Daddy disappeared into the bathroom, and I hurried to finish my offerings. Was it dumb to name the dishes after my goats? Maybe. But I was doing it anyway. I laid everything out across the counter and moved two stools over so we could sit and snack.
“You smell yummy, sugar,” Daddy said when he snuck up behind me.
“I think that’s the food.”
“Nope, it’s all you.”
Well, how could you not kiss a man who said such sweet things? I was powerless. What was supposed to be a sweet little brush of a kiss turned hot and heavy. I was left panting, and he looked smug.
“What were we doing?” I asked with my chin propped on my fist. This man made every thought in my head fly away. Instead, I just wanted to look at his double row of dreamy lashes.
