Page 59 of Roping Her In

“Yeah, I didn’t either.” Jake shook his head, and he didn’t want to talk about Chantelle and her ideas and opinions. “It doesn’t matter. Church today was pretty great. I haven’t been in a while, and I really needed to feel that spirit.”

“Me too,” Hailey murmured. While he would’ve told her what his personal armies were should she have asked, she didn’t. Instead, she moved over to the fridge and opened it.

It only took her a couple of seconds to say, “Yeah, you don’t have very much in here.”

“I need to go grocery shopping,” Jake said. “The ice storm really put a wrench in everything.”

She closed the fridge and opened his freezer. “What are these?” She pulled out a white-paper-wrapped package and held it up.

“I have no idea,” Jake said. “Which doesn’t speak well for how long it’s been in there.”

Hailey giggled, and she started to open the package. “Oh, these are those stuffed chicken breasts,” she said. “My momma gets these from Mills Parlor. He raises all of his own chickens and sells out of that little stand in front of his house.”

She raised her eyebrows as sudden memories flooded Jake’s mind. “Right,” he said. “I did some work for him, and he paid me in chicken.”

“How long ago?” Hailey got out a sheet pan even as she asked, so apparently, they were having broccoli-and-cheese-stuffed chicken for dinner.

“Only a couple months,” Jake said. “Right before Christmas.”

“Perfect, we can make these, and if you’ve got a couple of potatoes or a little bit of rice, we can make that to go with it. And I know how to make gravy.” She grinned at him like she’d just solved one of the world’s greatest mysteries, and Jake was here for it.

“I invited you here to eat with me,” he said. “You don’t have to cook.”

“Well, I said cereal would be fine, and someone said they’d get in trouble for that—as if their mother’s going to find out.”

“Hey, you can never discount a Texan momma.” He grinned and then moved into the kitchen with her. “I’m pretty sure I have some potatoes.”

Sure enough, he found a paper bag with a couple of handfuls of yellow fingerling potatoes. “I can make these up in no time.”

Hailey set the frozen chicken breasts in the oven, which Jake thought would take at least an hour though he was no chef, so he abandoned his potato prep and pulled Hailey into his arms again. “I really liked sitting with you at church.”

“Me too.” She smiled up at him. “And the Valentine’s dance is this weekend, so we won’t be on-call then either.”

Jake smiled down at her, another memory coming forth. “You asked about the dress code.”

“Mm-hm, that’s right. You won’t believe this, but I don’t exactly own a lot of dresses.”

He felt the silky quality of the fabric on the one she currently wore, and said, “Yeah, I don’t really believe that.”

“Well, it’s true,” she said. “And this feels like something that I might need to go shopping for.”

“It’s a dance at the ranch where we work,” he said.

“Wrong,” Hailey said. “I don’t work here. I’m volunteering.” She giggled and stretched up to press her mouth against his. “Maybe I just want a new dress to go to a small-town ranch dance with my handsome boyfriend.”

“Well, that’s fine,” he said. “But you really can wear anything you want. Heck, Joelle usually just wears jeans and her plaid shirts, the same as usual.”

Hailey settled back down on her feet. “She does?”

“Yeah, and it’s fine,” Jake said. “I really don’t care what you wear.”

“Sure, but what will you be wearing?” she asked. “I can’t show up in a ballgown and have you in ripped shorts.”

Jake really wanted to see Hailey in a ballgown, while simultaneously unable to conjure up such an image. She was steel-toed boots, and jeans, and a pretty coat to suggest something feminine to her form.

He stepped back and looked down at himself, as he wore a pair of navy blue slacks, a white shirt, and a pale blue tie with pink, purple, and white thread stitched in paisley patterns across it. “Probably this, to be honest. This is my nicest tie, and my best pair of slacks.”

“So no steel-toed boots and jeans.”