“Why do you say that, Zeb?”
“I might have issues with city folk, Katie, but I ain’t blind. You’re gorgeous, and I can’t see how you can be Tiffany’s mom when you don’t look to be older than twenty-seven.”
“Try thirty-four, but I appreciate it.”
I didn’t want to blush in front of him, but that comment just warmed me up from the inside out, and I didn’t know how to feel about that.
Chapter 6
Zeb
Iwalked into the main house, needing coffee like it was a drug.
Because at this point, it was going to be.
Last night was a rough sleep. I spent countless hours tossing and turning, unable to get my thoughts to stop steam rolling through my head. I think I finally found sleep around three this morning. And being up at seven was not enough hours.
I grabbed a mug and then the coffee pot, pouring myself a cup, then inhaled the scent, closing my eyes to the delicious smell.
“I’ll take one of those,” someone spoke from behind me.
I nearly groaned because it was the same voice that haunted me over and over last night. Although, she was doing other things with that mouth, and other sounds were coming out.
“Here,” I told her, grabbing her a cup and pouring. “Take anything with it?”
“Usually, yes. Right now, this will be fine.”
I watched as she wrapped her hands around the mug, blew on it lightly, then took a deep sip, sighing as the liquid worked down her throat.
“Late night?”
“Yup. I was working on the blog and the pictures and before I knew it, my phone was saying it was three. Way past my bedtime. And then I had to be up way too early this morning.”
I chuckled before saluting her with my cup, feeling exactly the same.
“I’m curious about something,” I hedged, making her raise her brow in question.
“Which is what?”
“How did you get into photography?”
“I’ve been doing that since I was in middle school, actually.” She pulled out a seat at the table, and I sat down next to her. “I saw this magazine ad, best photo won three hundred bucks, and as a kid, that was a lot of money. Second place wasn’t bad either. I really wanted to enter it but didn’t have any decent cameras.
“So, my mom took me to the goodwill, found something that was okay, and then would take me to the parks where I could capture things. Most of what I had were blurry or horrible shots. But I did have one that was a sunset filtering through the trees. It was beautiful.
“I submitted it and it got third place, which was still twenty-five dollars and my name was mentioned. But it put a love in me to capture moments, and it helped me to train my eye to lead the camera and how to wait for the best shot.”
“That’s awesome. And the blogger is just something you fell into?”
“Yeah. When I got married, my ex-husband didn’t want me to work, but I was so bored at home and taking pictures just wasn’t cutting it. Sure, I had a baby, but I needed something else todo. So, I blogged about my baby girl who was precious. And that took off like crazy.”
“That sounds like fun times.”
“It was. Did you always want to be a counselor?”
I took a sip of my coffee, thinking about it and slowly shook my head.
“No, I can’t say that I did. But I didn’t have the best childhood. However, someone on this ranch pushed my path more on the straight and narrow and from that moment on, I wanted to help kids who were like me.”
