by Camryn Rhys
Kyle took the keys and sifted through them.
She named them as he passed each one. “That’s the door key. The pantry. The ranch truck for supplies. The key to your bedroom in the bunkhouse. The key to the bunkhouse door. Oh, and that’s the safe. Brady keeps a safe in the kitchen where he stores all the staff credit cards you use to stock the pantry. You have to check them out of the safe when you go to town, and return them when you’re done.”
“Sounds like a good program.” He stuffed the key into the lock before Jamie could get hers out. He turned the knob and held the door open for her.
“You don’t have to hold doors for me and shit like that.” She stopped next to him, in the opening and waved him through. “I’m just a coworker. Don’t think of me as a woman at all.”
“I don’t think I can do that.” His voice dropped, darkened, melted.
Tension thickened the air between them, and Jamie held her breath. “Well, you’ll have to start.” She pushed at his shoulder, and he half-walked, half-fell through the door before her. “Or you won’t last long around here.”
But even she couldn’t ignore the charge he exuded. The strange juxtaposition between his seeming ease, and his evident intensity, almost as though he battled them both and wasn’t sure which would win in the end.
Kyle stepped toward her. “I won’t last long?”
“You know the rules, right? Not that I have to tell you, of course, because you’re married.”
His gaze focused in on her, and he leaned on the butcher block. “Rules?”
“Didn’t my brother tell you?”
“Your brother?”
“Brady. Your boss?” She sighed. “Brady made strict rules on these Singles Trips that guests are not allowed to fraternize with our staff. And the staff are not allowed to fraternize with each other.” She took a deep breath, and, as close as they were, the scent of him suddenly swallowed her.
He studied her face, and she froze. The closer their proximity, the more he magnetized her gaze and thoughts. Damn the man. The freaking-married-man.
Kyle inclined his head, and a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead. “Who told you I was married?”
“My brother said all the staff he hired from now on were going to have to be married.”
“Did he now.” He pulled his lips together and the slight movement of his tongue inside his mouth had her staring at those lips, that jaw…every gorgeous inch.
Kyle Harris might be one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen.
Easily.
Dammit.
Nope. Married man. Done and done.
Chapter Two
Jamie tried to watch the ceiling when Kyle bent down in the pantry and the jeans. Girl. Those jeans. Regardless of who he was, a man with a nice, round ass was a thing of beauty, and far too rare.
For lack of a better term, she was a butt woman. The feel of a man’s ass in her hands as he plunged…aaaaaaand that thought was going nowhere quick.
Married man, Jamie. Stop it.
She forced her gaze to the window above the sink, where she saw something shift down in the valley. Their cattle were never far out of sight, so it wasn’t unusual to see movement from all directions somewhere along the horizon.
Right now, anything was a good distraction from the way Kyle’s gray t-shirt crept up his taut back as he reached toward a shelf and revealed even more of that beautiful...
Can you call a man’s ass beautiful?
A gorgeous, well-filled-out, married ass. Married. Okay? Enough.
“So you did all the ordering?” Kyle asked, his face still in the pantry.
“Technically, your predecessor made the first order, and I just copied what she’d done, based on a head count.”
“My predecessor?” He put a knee down on the laminate flooring and turned part way around. “I take it from what you said, something happened.”
Jamie snorted and pulled on her hair to tighten her ponytail. “It’s none of your business.”
“So something did happen.”
“Just look at your pantry, Kyle.”
His smile was slow and luxurious, like he’d been prying to get her to respond to him. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I’m happy to be in the dark.”
She bit her lip and looked away. Jamie didn’t like to be played with. “You’ll have to get this all packed up in the wagon this afternoon. I pulled it around into the garage yesterday—which will usually be your job, but we have to leave today.” She pointed past the pantry to the large double doors at the end of the kitchen. “You can load it all in there, and I’ll bring the team around to get it in an hour or two.”
“You expect me to have menus finished in an hour?”
Jamie put a hand on her hip. “No, I expect you to have the food loaded in an hour. You can do your menus on the road. You’ll have three hours to sit on your butt in the wagon on your way out to the campsite.”
Kyle pushed to his feet and walked to the double doors. When he opened them, he stood absolutely still for a moment then whistled. “We’re really driving some old covered wagon out into the wilderness for a week?” He faced her, and his eyes shadowed. “And you expect me to make meals on a campfire?”
“You haven’t even looked in the wagon. And it’s not old.” She snuck by him and into the garage. The musty, earthy smell enveloped her when she opened the door. “We had it built for this purpose.”
Jamie unlatched the gate and pulled a cord that hung down the right side. A light illuminated two huge silver grills pushed into the wagon bed. “There’s a portable butcher block with a built-in knife rack. You’ll have nothing but the best. Trust me.”
His lips still pursed, Kyle stared into the back of the chuck wagon. “So I have to make menus with someone else’s food order.”
“Cry me a river. I’ll load you up an episode of Chopped and we’ll all play along.” She pulled the cord again and the place went dark. She was suddenly aware of his nearness in the huge space, and stepped around the wagon, toward the kitchen.
A picture of Charity and Paul flashed across her memory. She’d been the one to catch them last week, opening the barn door to her friend climbing off her brother, naked. If Brady hadn’t been behind her and seen them, she might’ve been able to salvage Charity’s job. But that had been the cook’s last day.
And now, Jamie was stuck with a married man with an unbelievable ass who couldn’t keep his eyes off her when they had four solid weeks of tourists lined up to go out on trail. Danger zone.
She reached the well-lit kitchen and sighed. If only she could get rid of Kyle and get Charity back. She’d had so many plans for her and Charity out on the trail together—her first summer as the program director. Singing, matchmaking, laughing, riding horses. They’d planned for it all spring. All the activities. Now, she’d be stuck doing it all by herself.
Jamie looked behind her, where Kyle still stood in the dark and stared into the back of the wagon. She rolled her eyes. The man was so fixated on having to cook with Charity’s food. He’d just have to get over it. They didn’t have time to make a new order.
He followed at last, and Jamie waited just inside the door, hating him, wishing he would turn into Charity. Wishing Brady would reconsider.
When Kyle appeared in the kitchen, his gaze met hers and the heat returned to her face. He flashed that same flirty smile, hooding his gaze and putting that arrogant slant to his head.
She had to fight rolling her eyes again. His interest was so obvious. She’d never have had to deal with this if he was a girl. But he would learn fast. If he tried anything, her brother would be on him so fast, he’d be swallowing dust for weeks.
Serve him right.
Kyle’s eyes brightened, and he stepped toward her. “What’s that smile about?”
“Never you mind.” Jamie turned for the kitchen door. She needed some time to think about this, and she needed to get the team ready to hitch up to the wagon. “You just lo
ad up and get ready to head out on trail. Come up to the barn when you’re done, and we’ll drive the team down.”
She scooted through the door and pulled out her phone. Only Charity would understand.
Mattie Banfield walked opened the side door to the kitchen and heard her daughter’s long, melodic laugh. She looked around, having expected Jamie to be up at the barn by now. Instead, her daughter stood near the outer door, giving the new chef a veiled dare-you-to-do-it look. Mattie knew that look well.
“What’s that smile about?” Kyle asked, his voice low and sultry. He advanced on her, but Jamie swirled away from him, all flirtation.
Mattie was too stunned to listen to the rest of their conversation.
This was her Jamie. The girl who was famous among the ranch hands and all the locals for having no time for men. Jamie, who’d really never quite grown out of the boys have cooties phase. Who would rather sit a horse than wear a dress. Even though there was no Banfield blood in Jamie’s veins, she was more like Mattie than was probably good for her.
Mattie looked down at the tins nestled into the box in her hands. She had to chuckle at magick. If Fate had chosen to bring Kyle here so that Jamie could finally fall in love…Well then.
That wasn’t the purpose of the choosing spell. But sometimes, Fate had a will of its own. If life had taught her nothing else, it’d taught her that. Perhaps it was time to give Fate a little push.
The outside door closed and she looked up to find the new chef on his own. She cleared her throat and stepped toward the empty prep table.
“Oh, Mrs. Banfield.” Kyle raised his dark brows. “I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s okay, honey. And call me Mattie.” She set the box on the table and ran her hands along the tins, one at a time. “I brought these for you to pack. I think Charity was out the last time I checked.”
“What is this?” He picked up one of the tins and turned it over. Mattie’s hand-written scribbles on the side smudged a bit under his fingers.
“They’re our proprietary spice blends,” she said with a big smile. “I worked with a chef awhile ago to develop these spice blends that are the secret sauce of the ranch kitchen, as they say.” She pointed a finger toward the ceiling, where her personal kitchen sat. “After the ride is over, we sell these for the couples to take home. Keep the magick alive.”
Kyle popped the top and sniffed. “Awaken Love blend,” he read off the lid. “What’s that?”
“Oh, they’re a little gimmick we have for the tourists.” She picked up the Cowboy Matchmaker and flipped off the top. “Each one has a different name that’s supposed to invoke memories from the meal, and what they’re used for.” Mattie poured some of the spice blend into Kyle’s hand and sniffed it herself.
“What are the spices?” He gave the Cowboy Matchmaker blend a whiff.
“Taste it,” she said, pushing his hand toward his face. “See if you can tell me what we used.”
Kyle raised one eyebrow and cocked his head to one side, but he took a pinch of the blend and put it on his tongue. Then another pinch. “Hmmm. I taste ginger…and garlic powder…thyme…” He took another pinch. “Salt and pepper, must be.” He smacked his lips. “Interesting with the thyme addition. Not sure I would’ve gone there. But it could work.”
Mattie smiled and put the lid back on the tin. “I had some help.”
Of course, he would think she meant the help of a chef. But she meant magick. What Kyle couldn’t know was each of the spice blends had a little secret ingredient. Just a little push from Fate that’d help the process of whatever needed to happen.
She saved the potent ones for her own use, or Caleb Gallagher’s. The ones she couldn’t trust in the hands of non-magickal people. But the blends in these tins were all harmless. They would awaken the heart, turn the senses on, and make the tourists open to the love that was already a seedling inside. All she was really doing was watering what’d already been planted. It wasn’t like a love potion.
Although she knew what Brady would say to that.
“I typically use my own spice blends.” Kyle took the offered box. “Y’know, just so I can control how things taste, myself.”
“I know, honey.” She patted his shoulder. “And when we have more time, maybe you and I can come up with all new blends. But for now, do you mind using these?” Mattie tried to stuff all the pleading mom she could into her words.
The new chef seemed like the type to be moved by the feminine plight. He certainly didn’t seem the type to respond by direct order, but she could be wrong.
She’d been wrong before.
“I’ll see what I can do, Mrs. Banfield. Thanks.” Kyle walked the box across the room and set it on top of the cases of water that would be going into the wagon, when he loaded it.
“You can call me Mattie, sweetheart.” She flashed him a big smile. “You’re part of the family now.”
A strange look passed over his face and Mattie paused. He pressed his lips together, flicking his gaze to the floor. “I’m not used to that. Sorry.”
“What?” she asked.
“Being part of a family.” He shrugged, rolling his head to one side.
“You don’t have family?” Mattie put her hand on the table, wanting more than anything to reach over and stroke his arm. Comfort him. She could see the torment building behind his eyes.
“I suppose when I was married, before the…” His eyes shot wide with shock. “Sorry. I mean… I’m not… I’m not usually this chatty. I don’t know what’s going on with me.”
“Oh, I do.” Mattie tried to put all her motherly compassion into her voice. Poor guy wouldn’t be able to withstand the magick. “Look, Kyle, I’m a firm believer in everything-happens-for-a-reason. Whatever path brought you here, you’re here now.”
“I need this job, Mrs. Banfield.”
“Mattie,” she corrected, gently, a little pang resounding inside. “There is no Mr. Banfield, so you don’t have to call me that. And don’t worry. You’re going to work out just fine.”
He offered an awkward smile. “I just can’t screw this up.”
“You won’t.” She patted the table. The spell was doing its job. Breaking down the walls inside, making what’s hidden come to light. If there really was something bubbling under the surface between him and her daughter, the Cowboy Matchmaker would bring it up.
It was a sort of version of the choosing spell, only with a tiny tweak to make a person act on latent feelings.
This one could be unpredictable, and she’d seen it do everything from making a man move across the country, to helping him choose the color shirt that would stick out to his date’s preferences, to bringing about spontaneous confessions of love. And it often built up in a person’s system. So, the more Kyle used it, the more he’d know if Jamie was the one for him. And vice versa.
Or, if they weren’t right together, it would help them see that, as well. It might have painful consequences, but it would make the choices easy. Fast.
She could only hope that Jamie would listen to her heart when it spoke.
Mattie had a feeling that her daughter’s emotions had been buried down deep for so long, there was no hope for revealing them, outside of magick.
Chapter Three
“You think he’s hot, admit it.” Charity’s sing-song voice made Jamie cringe and she looked around the empty path to make sure no one could overhear. Nothing but white trees and underbrush and sun.
“I don’t think he’s hot.” How could she hear that? Under all the complaining? Lord. Better bury that a little deeper, girl.
“You do, too.” Charity clucked at her. “I can hear it. Not that it matters.”
Jamie glanced at the house, which wasn’t very far from her. She stopped in the middle of the trail and brought her voice down. “Right. It doesn’t matter at all. He’ll trip himself up eventually. Men like that always out themselves in the end.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean we should get h
im fired.”
Jamie stepped off the smooth path and rounded one of the larger trees, trying for some sort of privacy. “Charity!” Something crawled up the back of her throat, like she might vomit at any moment. “We can’t do that.”
“You’re right.” A conspiratorial edge slid into her voice. “I can’t do anything. But you can.”
Jamie shook her head, not sure what to say to effectively communicate what a dumbass idea this was. There weren’t enough words in the English language.
“I’m not going to get someone fired.”
“Do you want Brady to give me my job back?” She sighed, over-loud. Jamie could just see her, the roll of her blue eyes, the uptilt of her chin. The way she would get when Jamie refused to help her sneak off with Paul—an equally bad idea, as it turned out.
“I want you to get your job back. But I don’t want to get someone fired. He’s going to out himself, this one. Trust me.”
“Jamie, I don’t even have a place to stay tonight.” The quaver in her voice made Jamie’s heart lurch.
“You can’t stay with Paul?”
“Brady will find out and kick Paul off staff.”
Jamie pressed her back into the tree, hard. There was no good option. Brady already said no to her friend stay with Jamie, Charity was afraid of getting caught with Paul—although now that she wasn’t staff, she should be able to do what she wanted—and she’d let her apartment go in April when she got hired at the ranch.
“You have to help me.”
“I’m leaving in two hours, Charity.”
“Please.”
She switched the phone to her other ear, rocking back and forth. Her brother was going to kill her.
