Charm School for Cowboys

by Meg Maxwell

  “Dylan’s working the truck today,” Essie said. Dylan, one of their cooks, was just eighteen years old and a single father of an adorable baby boy named Timmy. “I didn’t want to overtax you on your first day at the ranch.”

  Emma smiled at her aunt and got busy. After she had hundreds of chicken wings ready for the fryer for the first wave of the lunch rush, she moved on to assisting Essie, who was working on sauces. Emma loved making barbecue sauce, and Hurley’s had at least ten variations. Then she moved on to preparing the spicy coleslaw, which Emma had been craving lately. Forget pickles. Emma could eat smothered pulled pork po’boys with a side of the spicy slaw every day. With a cannoli studded with chocolate chips for dessert. And ice-cold lemonade.

  By noon, the restaurant’s dining room had filled up. Since there was a line forming, Emma headed out to the entry with a tray of Essie Hurley’s famed minibiscuits topped with a bit of apple butter. When Emma had first started working at Hurley’s she found they calmed the bit of morning sickness she had. The delicious biscuits also kept hungry customers from getting miffed about the wait time for a table without spoiling their appetites.

  “Um, could I...”

  At the familiar, tentative voice, Emma turned to see Golden standing in front of her, eyeing the minibiscuits. But he bit his lip and looked down at his feet. Behind him was Jake, looking incredibly handsome, as usual.

  “Would you like a biscuit, Golden? Help yourself,” she said, holding the tray a bit closer to him.

  He smiled and took one and popped it in his mouth. “Thanks, Emma.” Suddenly he started coughing and almost choking, his gaze on someone behind Emma. He moved behind the big faux cactus with the giant red sunglasses, which had been a gift from a competitor to repel business but which customers loved. Golden peered out at the person behind Emma again, then darted behind the cactus. Yeesh. Unless he was hiding from the police or someone who wanted to pummel him, she couldn’t imagine what was going on.

  Until she followed his sheepish gaze behind her to Katie Walsh, one of the new waitresses. The twenty-three-year-old redhead had been a real find for Hurley’s. A part-time student, Katie had studied the menu for her interview and was so knowledgeable about the food and always so nice to everyone that she was quickly making a fortune in tips.

  Katie came over with menus and a big smile. “Hi, Jake. Hi there, Golden,” she said, peering around the cactus.

  Jake smiled. Emma smiled. But Golden turned away and almost knocked over the candy dish of mints and little chocolates and tiny packets of hand wipes.

  Katie bit her lip and her face fell. “Table for two?” she asked Jake.

  “No, thanks,” Jake said. “We’re just here for takeout.”

  Katie directed them toward the short line at the take-out counter where Essie sat taking orders. As Golden slouched out from behind the cactus, practically glued to Jake’s back, Katie said, “Going to the dance tonight?”

  Golden turned beet red and didn’t answer.

  “The whole crew will be there,” Jake told Katie.

  Katie glanced at Golden, but he still didn’t turn her way. She looked absolutely crestfallen.

  Whoa boy. Golden was definitely going to need a lot of pointers. One night of tips at dinnertime wasn’t going to cut it.

  “Jake!” someone called from the dining room.

  Emma glanced over and saw Sarah Mack, a tall, auburn-haired woman in her late forties, standing and waving at Jake. At Sarah’s table was her niece, Olivia Mack, Emma’s friend who’d trained her in the food truck, Olivia’s fiancé, Carson Ford, a private investigator, and Carson’s dad, Edmund Ford. Emma had met Sarah and the Fords a few times while working in the food truck with Olivia, but she didn’t know how Jake knew them. He excused himself and walked over. Jake hugged Sarah and there was hand shaking and chitchat.

  “Emma!” Olivia called over with a smile. “I can tell you made this amazing grilled po’boy—I always know your delicious sauce.”

  “And I’ve snagged her as my new cook,” Jake said.

  Just then CJ came into the restaurant, but at the sight of Jake talking to Sarah, CJ froze for a moment, then quickly left. Emma wondered what that was about.

  As CJ left, Jake’s expression completely changed.

  “It’ll take time for him to get used to the idea,” Sarah whispered to Jake.

  Okay, Emma was clearly missing something. Who was Sarah Mack to Jake? And what did CJ have to get used to?

  Emma realized she was fraternizing instead of working and that she’d better get back into the kitchen.

  “See you at home,” Jake said, giving her a smile that almost made her forget where she was.

  See you at home. Her heart had pinged at those words. What the heck?

  It’s just nice to hear, she told herself. When she first found out she was pregnant, the idea of someone special waiting for her, someone to come home to at the end of the day, a father for her baby, a life partner was everything she wanted for herself. But the more her baby’s father had eluded her, the more she’d realized she truly was on her own and that the only person she could count on was herself. Especially now with Joshua gone, Emma needed to be stronger than she’d ever been. She had a baby to raise—and raise well.

  See you at home...

  A hand instinctively touched her belly, and she felt tears sting the backs of her eyes. Lord, woman up, she yelled at herself. She was supposed to be self-sufficient, not getting all misty-eyed about a man and a home and someone waiting her for.

  Danged hormones.

  Unsettled, she slipped into the kitchen.

  * * *

  After her shift at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, Emma never wanted to see raw chicken again. But when she’d arrived back at the ranch, she’d overheard Grizzle telling Golden that fried chicken was his lucky food and that anytime he ate fried chicken, good things happened to him. Like when he won a hundred bucks betting on the underdog at the rodeo after buying the three-piece chicken bucket. Or when he took his now-grown daughter to Chicken World during a big argument about something dumb and they’d made up, him getting his way. So Emma made fried chicken for dinner for the crew, with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans, and Grizzle’s entire face lit up.

  “Oh yeah!” he said when she set down the platter of chicken. “This means something good for the dance tonight.”

  The dance had been talk of her shift at Hurley’s. Everyone was going. Even her seventy-six-year-old aunt with her new beau, who owned the bookstore in town, and her cousins and their families. And the dance was the talk at the dinner table at the Full Circle Ranch.

  “So, Golden, you are going to the dance, right?” Emma said, handing over the big bowl of mashed potatoes. Part of her felt funny pushing at him, but Jake had asked her to give the cowboys some tips on communicating with the opposite sex, and after witnessing Golden hiding behind a cactus earlier, he was her focus. Hank might offend the women he liked, but at least he could speak to them.

  Golden forked a green bean and pushed it around on his plate. “I don’t know. I want to. But...”

  “Of course you’re going,” Hank said, slapping him on the back. “Everyone’s seen the way you look at Katie.”

  “And didn’t she ask you if you were going?” Jake commented after a bite of fried chicken. “That’s usually a sign a woman is interested in seeing you there, right, Emma?”

  Emma nodded. “Sure is. If she asked, she’s hoping she’ll see you there. And since it’s bucks’ choice, she’s very likely hoping you’ll ask her to dance.”

  “Can you dance, kid?” Grizzle asked Golden, one eyebrow raised.

  “Actually, my older sister taught me. Kind of embarrassing.” Red circles appeared on Golden’s cheeks and he stared down at his food. “But I don’t know. I wouldn’t know how to ask or what
to say when we’re dancing.” He shrugged and sat back, and Emma could tell he was really bothered by how his shyness had affected him his whole life.

  “I love that your sister taught you,” Emma said. “You two must be close. Did you know that Katie has an older sister? She’s enlisted right now and Katie misses her a lot. And since you know how to dance, all you have to do is walk right up to Katie and say, ‘Would you like to dance with me?’”

  “What if she says no?” Golden said.

  “Well, then you know you tried,” Emma said. “That’s all we can do is try, right? Trying is everything. If you don’t try, nothing happens.”

  “Unless you’re CJ,” Grizzle said with a roll of his eyes, “and beauties throw themselves at you.”

  “Well, CJ has to try to avoid getting beat up by pissed-off exes,” Hank said. “I’ve seen him try real hard not to get his pretty-boy face smashed in.”

  CJ rolled his own eyes. “Emma, this might be the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. And given that my mom made amazing fried chicken, that’s saying something.”

  Emma smiled at CJ. He might be trying very hard right now to change the subject, but that was a very kind thing to say. “Thanks, CJ. That means a lot.”

  She felt Jake’s eyes on her. But when she glanced up, he was looking at his brother. “Mom did make amazing fried chicken, didn’t she? God, I miss her.”

  “Do you?” CJ said so quietly that Emma wasn’t even sure she’d heard him right. CJ wasn’t looking at Jake; he was pushing around mashed potatoes on his plate.

  From the way Jake’s expression changed, from sort of wistful to conflicted, she knew she had heard CJ right.

  There was dead silence at the table.

  “Golden,” Emma said, adding some green beans to her plate. “Since Katie asked you if you were going to the dance, I don’t think she’ll say no to a dance. I think she’s counting on you asking.”

  Golden sat up a little straighter. “Really? You think?”

  “I’d bet on it,” Emma said.

  “Ditto,” Jake said.

  “We all would,” Hank added, a fork stabbed with green beans midway to his mouth. “I’d bet my new truck. And you know how I love that truck.”

  “Sometimes I think you love that truck more than you love Fern,” Grizzle said and burst into laughter.

  “Well, the truck doesn’t give me guff,’ Hank muttered.

  That got a chuckle from everyone, even CJ, and then talk turned to whether Hank would dare ask Fern to dance, and he said of course he would.

  “Not a word about cow manure,” Jake said, pointing a finger at his foreman.

  Hank rolled his eyes. “I honestly don’t see why. Jeez. It’s what we do.”

  Emma glanced at Jake and shared a smile with him. Hank might have to keep learning the hard way before it sunk in.

  “You’re going, right, Emma?” Hank asked.

  “Oh, my dancing shoes are put away too,” she said, patting her belly.

  “You have to go,” Hank said. “Golden might need help approaching Katie. And God knows Grizzle will need your guidance.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Emma said.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Jake said, his green eyes twinkling devilishly. “Since neither of us plans on dancing, anytime anyone asks you to the dance, you can just say you promised that dance to me, then come find me, and we’ll twirl around the floor.”

  She imagined herself in Jake’s arms, being held close, resting her head against him. Part of her wanted that more than anything. But she knew what a dance could lead to. And she wasn’t going there. Unless she had to.

  She shouldn’t skip the dance—not with this bunch needing a charm school for cowboys in real time. “Well, I do work on a ranch now so I should do my part for the rancher’s association.” She glanced at Jake. “Thanks for the offer to rescue me. I’ll only take you up on it if I absolutely have to.”

  “Ooh, was that a burn?” Hank asked, looking from Emma to Jake.

  “I think it was,” Grizzle said, breaking into laughter.

  Emma’s cheeks had to be bright red. “No! I mean, oh, stop it. I’m just...pregnant.”

  Jake smiled. “Well, just know if you need me, I’m there.”

  That was what she was afraid of. Needing.

  With empty plates and platters and full bellies, the cowboys got up, again picking up their plates until Emma told them to leave them for her. They headed out, but Jake stopped in the doorway of the dining room.

  “Thanks for helping Golden out,” he said. “I think he definitely will ask Katie to dance.”

  “I hope so. It’s clear she likes him. I didn’t want to say so in case I read it wrong, but it sure looked that way to me.”

  He nodded and walked over to the sliding glass door, looking out at the land. Something was definitely on his mind. She almost reached out a hand to his shoulder and asked if everything was okay, but he turned around just then and she stepped back. “I need to go talk to my brother. See you later, Emma. And thanks again.”

  She nodded back. And couldn’t help wondering what was going on between the Morrow brothers.

  * * *

  On the second-floor landing, Jake knocked on CJ’s bedroom door.

  “It’s open,” his brother called.

  Jake went in, a cloud of body spray assailing him from the direction of the bathroom. His brother stood before the rectangular mirror, rubbing gel into his thick, dark hair, still damp from a shower.

  “Look, CJ,” he began, trying to figure out what to say, how to bring up what CJ had said at dinner regarding Jake’s comment about their mother.

  God, I miss her.

  Do you?

  Did CJ really think he’d forgotten their mother, the kind, loving woman who’d raised him, just because he’d found his birth mother and had developed a relationship with her? Apparently so. Or CJ was just rankled by the whole thing.

  That afternoon, when CJ had come into Hurley’s while Jake had been talking to Sarah Mack, his birth mother, he’d seen the look on CJ’s face. And watched him rush back out. CJ had agreed to move to Blue Gulch, which meant he had to be okay with all this on some level. But he’d said he didn’t want to talk about Jake’s biological family. And he clearly didn’t want it in his face.

  Hell, maybe CJ wouldn’t be ready for Jake to seek out his biological twin brother. Dammit, why was this so complicated? The idea of looking for his twin was fraught enough for Jake—the unknown. The Pandora’s box he might he opening. He didn’t know who this man was.

  He’s probably something like you, his birth mother had said last week when they’d been talking about him. Which was one of the reasons he was so comfortable around Sarah Mack. Despite Sarah being on the reserved side, when she did say something, it was always something that made him feel better, untied some knots.

  But CJ’s feelings mattered. They mattered a whole hell of a lot.

  Jake headed over to the wall of windows in the large room and looked out at the front yard, at land that stretched as far as he could see. He knew CJ loved the Full Circle, loved the hundreds of acres of land and the big, majestic farmhouse. Moving away from home had been good for both of them, and he knew his brother had given up some sense of comfort by agreeing to move to Blue Gulch. He’d done that for Jake.

  “I do miss Mom. Mom and Dad. I miss them all the time,” Jake said. He’d been grief-stricken when their wonderful parents had been killed in a car accident. And he’d taken his responsibility to his brother, just seventeen then, very seriously. For a long time it had been just the two of them, the Morrow brothers. Then a notation scrawled on his adoption document had changed everything.

  Yes, Jake understood how his brother felt—about all of it.

  CJ glanced at Jake as he came
out of the bathroom and headed toward his closet. He spent a good few minutes going through his shirts, finally choosing a dark green chambray button-down and then easing a brown leather belt through the loops of his dark jeans.

  “It’s just... I don’t really want to talk about it,” CJ said, turning away.

  “CJ,” Jake began. But he didn’t know what to say, exactly. What he wanted CJ to know was that he’d never stop being his brother. Never stop being there for him. No matter what. A twin wouldn’t ever change things between them. But bringing all that up right now, before a dance, seemed the wrong time and place. CJ seemed a bit broody as it was over whatever was going on with the woman he liked. Stella.

  “Forget it, Jake,” CJ said. “Everything’s fine. The fried chicken reminded me of Mom and I said something. That’s all.”

  But he knew that wasn’t all.

  “Go get ready for the dance,” CJ said. “I’m fine.”

  Meaning: stop looking at me with that older brother expression. We’re done here.

  Jake moved over where CJ stood at his dresser, rummaging through his socks. He put a hand on CJ’s shoulder and nodded, then headed to the door.

  Jake didn’t want to talk about any of this, either. But they had to.

  “By the way, your plan’s gonna backfire on you,” CJ said as Jake was leaving. “Emma will be hounded by dance partners. You’ll be dancing every dance with her.”

  “Fine by me,” Jake said—without thinking.

  His brother’s eyes lit up. “Ah, that’s how it is. You like her.”

  Jake frowned. “I just—” He cleared his throat. “She’s pregnant and on her own and I’m her boss. That’s all.”

  CJ laughed. “Right.” He laughed again and Jake shot him a glare as he continued down the hall.