Page 15 of Falling for the Maverick

“Do you have enough ingredients to make two batches?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because Gram was talking about baking something for the daycare staff, but I think she would really appreciate it if you gave her your recipe for the pumpkin squares.”

Michelle thought about telling her mother it wasn’t her recipe, but one she’d copied from a website. She ordered jars of pureed pumpkin to have on hand whenever she wanted to bake the delicious dessert. She thought of herself as an adequate cook, but it was baking that had become her passion. Whenever she found a cake, cupcake, tart or cookie recipe she liked, she added it to her to-make list.

“What else had you planned to do today?” Patty asked.

“I was going to take Betty Boop out for a run.”

Patty made a sucking sound with her tongue and teeth. “I can’t believe y’all got that finicky filly to stop bucking folks off.”

“That’s because Miss Boop didn’t want men to ride her.”

“If your father had known that, he wouldn’t have had to pay that professional wrangler to break her.”

“I love riding her,” Michelle confessed. “If she’d been a Thoroughbred, she definitely would’ve been a winner.”

“I don’t know why you feel the need to race a horse. If you fell off, you’d either break your neck or every bone in your body,” Patty complained, frowning.

“I think of it as a challenge, Mom, to see how fast a horse is willing to go.”

“Maybe you should’ve been a boy, so you could’ve been a jockey.”

Throwing back her head, Michelle laughed. “There are female jockeys, too, you know. Besides, I’d be as tall as my brothers and definitely wouldn’t have been able to make the weight requirement.”

Patty ran her hand over dark hair with a hint of gray that looked like threads of silver. “You can have the kitchen all day. I’m going to the daycare center because a couple of workers have come down with colds.”

“They probably caught the colds from the kids. When I started teaching, I often suffered from sore throats and colds until my immune system strengthened.”

Patty nodded. “It’s like a rite of passage for new teachers. I went through so many boxes of tissues and lost track of how many times I had to wash my hands when I did my student teaching with kindergartners. Once I taught the upper grades, I rarely had to take a sick day.”

Later, alone in the kitchen, Michelle thought about the teaching position at the local public school that her mother had asked her about applying for. Two years was long enough to be away from what she’d loved about the profession. Her students’ eager young minds were like blank slates just waiting to be filled with knowledge they could recall at will. She was licensed to teach in the state of Montana, so she had only to update her résumé, then contact several former administrators for letters of recommendation to send to the local school board for consideration for the next school year.

Just as Tenacity was experiencing a revival, Michelle Corey also felt reborn—she was in control of her life and her future. And that meant she was ready to get back to dating. It didn’t have to be anything serious. She just wanted to have fun without looking for a commitment.

* * *

“Am I boring you, Lucas?”

Lucas shook his head and smiled at his father. “No.”

“Then why is it that you appear so distracted?” Phillip Brandt asked.

Leaning back in the chair in his parents’ Bronco home, Lucas stared at the figures on the screen of his laptop without really seeing them. “I’ve had a few things on my mind,” he admitted truthfully.

Phillip gave his son a direct stare. “It can’t be your ranch because you told me everything is working out well. And, if it’s not the ranch, then it must be a woman.”

“What makes you think it’s a woman?”

A hint of a smile lifted the corners of Phillip’s mouth. “Because I know my sons much better than they think I do. And I’m willing to bet that it’s the same woman you were dancing with at your sister’s wedding reception.”

“I danced with quite a few women at Tiffany’s wedding, Dad.”

Phillip huffed. “I’m talking about one woman in particular. The bridesmaid in the red gown. I saw you staring at her as if she were a mirage and if you blinked she would disappear.”

“I was looking at her because she was stunning.”