The Rancher's Rescue. Cari Lynn Webb
Ethan let her fall back into her number crunching while he tried not to fall into the surprise of Grace Gardner. He listened to her fingers tapping on the calculator keys and the paper rolling out.
“Staring at her is not helping the ranch out.” Katie stood in the doorway and peered around a stack of folded bedsheets in her arms. “But making beds in the lodge will.”
“I don’t want to make beds.” He wanted to stay right where he was. With Grace.
Katie dumped the stack of linens on Ethan’s lap. “I didn’t want to iron and look how that turned out.”
Ethan ran his hand over the smooth top sheet. “Nice job.”
“They’ll look even better on the beds.” Katie smiled and turned to Grace. “Thanks for the help, Grace. If you need anything, I’ll be in the barn. Ethan will be in the guest lodge.”
“Looks like the team leader has spoken and I have more work to do.” Ethan stood and balanced the sheets so he wouldn’t drop them. “Grace, text me before you leave.”
Grace glanced at him, her gaze distracted, her smile distant. “Sure.”
Katie rushed around Ethan. “Let me get the back door for you.”
“Thanks,” Ethan muttered as he left the study.
“Wouldn’t want you sneaking back into the office for more one-on-one time with Grace,” Katie joked.
“We were working.”
“Grace was working.” Katie swung open the back door, but caught Ethan’s arm before he left. “I don’t know what you were doing, Eth. Pining, maybe?”
“I’ve never pined in my life.” He bumped his shoulder into hers as he stepped outside. “I was half asleep and you ruined my nap.”
“Whatever.” Katie kept pace beside him as he lengthened his stride down the back porch steps. “What’s up with you and Grace? You can tell me. I’m practically your sister.”
“Leave it alone, Katie.” Ethan turned toward the guest lodge and smiled. Hip wasn’t allowed at the lodge and he knew Katie wouldn’t tag along without her dog. “Get back to work or I’ll have to fire you for laziness.”
“You wouldn’t survive a day without me,” she countered.
“An hour.”
“What?”
He faced her and tried to look stern. “I wouldn’t survive an hour out here without you, but don’t let it go to your head.”
“It’s good to have you back, Ethan.” Katie laughed and whistled for Hip to accompany her into the barn.
One king bed and a set of twin beds later, Ethan pounded his fist into a feather pillow. He’d spent the last hour tangled up in sheets and duvets and not in the good kind of way. Who put so many buttons on duvets when a simple zipper would work just fine?
Grace and Katie arrived at the second bedroom of the Big Sky wing and burst out laughing. “We came to see what has been taking you so long,” Grace said.
“Fluffing a pillow.” Ethan smashed the pillow again with his fist.
“That’s a beating.” Grace yanked the pillow away from Ethan and patted the stuffing back into place. Her hands gentle as if she did this every day.
“What does it matter?” Ethan fell face forward across the queen bed. “This is what beds are for. There’s no pretty required.” He could think of a few other things beds were good for, like holding Grace all night.
Fortunately, Grace and Katie chose that moment to pummel his back with pillows, pummeling his wayward thoughts away, and he grunted into the mattress.
Grace put her pillow back against the headboard. “How many more rooms do you have to do?”
“Too many. Who builds a lodge with so many rooms anyway?” Ethan turned his head and grinned at Katie. “Rooms four through seven are haunted and need to be closed indefinitely.”
Katie smacked him with her pillow again. “Not happening.”
“Come on,” Grace said. “We’ll teach you how to do pretty.”
He thought Grace looked pretty with the moonlight streaming in from the window framing her from behind. “I don’t want to learn.”
“This won’t leave a scar. I promise.” She gripped his hand and pulled, trying to tug him off the bed.
Ethan rolled over, but kept his hand inside hers. “Tomorrow I’m doing all manly tasks. Nothing that requires pretty.”
“Fine with me.” Katie tossed her pillow on the bed. “Now get up, so we can get this done and finally call it a night.”
With having called time on the pillow fights, the three of them finished the other guest rooms quickly. As he said good-night to Grace at her car, he thought she looked almost exhausted. Was he asking too much of her to try to make sense of Big E’s accounts?
Ethan stretched out across the queen bed in Cabin Six after a midnight snack, and considered all the repairs that were needed in his cabin alone. The to-do list seemed to double every night. But Grace had offered a reprieve and made the evening less toilsome. Less lonely. And he’d learned to do pretty.
He’d learned more than that too. He now knew Grace’s favorite color: purple, thanks to an argument between Katie and Grace about whether the shower curtain in one of the suites was lavender or lilac.
He’d learned Grace’s favorite flower: sunflower. This came out after Katie and Grace agreed the large guest room in the Western Wing needed some decoration and that several different flowers should be painted as a border along the walls.
And her favorite time of the day: the witching hour, when magic happens. That, she’d let slip, when he’d walked her to her car. She’d pointed out a shooting star, smiled and closed her eyes as if making a wish.
Not that he intended to do anything with his new information about Grace. Or to even repeat the getting-to-know-Grace-better evening.
She worked for the Blackwells. Nothing more.
After all, he’d returned home to help his brother with the ranch, not discover if there was something more between him and Grace.
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