Page 84 of Roping Her In

“Ah, I see,” Hailey said.

“Glory Rose is hosting it this month,” he said. “So I can’t even be in my own house.” He grinned and gestured for her to follow him up the steps. “I’ve got my kids in here, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Hailey said, though she’d been under the impression that Conrad would be taking her on a tour of the farm. She supposed they could do that while his kids rode along in the back seat. She looked left and right across this peaceful property as she climbed the steps and followed him into the house.

Air conditioning met her like an old friend, and Hailey smiled into the cool interior. “Oh, it’s totally different in here than I was expecting.”

Conrad laughed again. “I get that reaction from every person who comes inside,” he said. “Trap had to put a lot of his outdoor projects on hold this winter, so we’ve been working on the inside for a couple of months now.”

“It’s beautiful,” Hailey said, taking in the dark hardwood floors at her feet, the white crown molding along the baseboard and ceilings, and the light blue walls that reminded her of an early spring sky. The house opened up into a living room, which Conrad had already furnished.

It held two full-size couches made out of light wash denim, positioned on either side of a fireplace that looked like it belonged in a castle or a magazine boasting high-end finishes for kings and queens. The windows all had treatments in the form of blinds or drapes, and the house extended back into a fully remodeled kitchen with white tile and black countertops to fit with the monochromatic color scheme.

“So, this is the house,” Conrad said. “Sari, this is my friend Hailey Winters. I’m going to be taking her around the house and showing her the backyard. Will you please stay right there on the couch?”

He moved over in front of her and crouched down. “You gotta stay here with Chance, okay? You’ve got your walkie.”

She lifted it.

“You just press that button and say, ‘Daddy, Chance needs you,’ and I’ll be right back, okay?”

“All right, Daddy,” she said.

Conrad swept a kiss across her forehead and straightened. “She’s a good girl,” he said.

“She’s very sweet.” Hailey smiled at the little girl and waved at her. Sari waved back, because they’d at least seen each other at church before.

Conrad indicated a door on the right side, behind the dining room table. “It came fully furnished, and I’ve already got a house full of furniture so…it’s going to stay fully furnished.” He grinned at her. “But if you have some things you want in here, once I get the garage cleaned out, I can move some stuff out there.”

Hailey blinked as she looked around, because she wasn’t sure what this was.

“Garage through there,” he said. “But it’s pretty impassable right now. It’s full of construction tools and supplies.” He paused. “Kitchen here; we’ve got a double oven, dishwasher, fridge and freezer, and there’s a freestanding freezer in the garage as well. We added a mudroom off the laundry room, and that’s the main way to get into the backyard.” He stepped down the hallway and indicated a room with a washer and dryer already in it.

Hailey went inside and saw the mudroom beyond, with the bench where she could sit and pull her boots on and off. She moved over to the door, which had a window in the top half, and showed her the backyard.

“It’s a bit overgrown,” Conrad said. “I didn’t do much with it last year, and it needs a lot of work because of that.”

Hailey nodded and turned back to him. “Is that what I’ll be doing? Yardwork?” she asked. “Because if so, I don’t want this job.”

“That’s some of it,” he said. “The farm manager needs to take care of the property, and obviously, room and board come with it. You get the whole house.”

Hailey nodded. “Are you just looking for singles?” she asked.

Conrad turned back to her, though he had already started walking down the hall. “Are you and Jake getting serious?”

“I don’t really date if it’s not serious.” She flashed him a smile. “But no, it’s not like he’s asked me to marry him or anything.”

Conrad swallowed, his mouth tightening. “He lives out at the ranch.”

“He sure does,” Hailey murmured, and she nodded past him to get him to move down the hall.

He did, and he cleared his throat. “The house used to have four bedrooms, but we took two of them and made it into a master suite. So these two on the front of the house are pretty small, but you’ve got a really big space back here.”

Hailey took in the bedrooms and the bathrooms. They were pretty standard house stuff for someone who had a billionaire’s budget to spend on finishes and furnishings. Conrad did, and he clearly had.

Hailey once again had the thought that she had no idea what she was doing here.

“The real work is outside,” Conrad said. “We’ve been focusing on the inside of the house, but I’ve also been working with a landscape architect to refigure my pastures, stables, and barn space. We’re expanding it beyond my back fence and onto this property, and I’m adding a half-dozen horses and…an undetermined amount of milk goats.”