Page 39 of The Risk

“I’m on the same hours as your sister. So, I am going to shower, and bum a ride with your sister back to the hospital that keeps me captive a good seventy hours each week.”

“Alas, the hospital, it has captured our souls forever. Ours, Guthrie’s, and Aubrey’s.” Genny carried the pan of pancakes to the table. Chad grabbed the eggs.

Then it was almost just her and Gene—and his kid, of course—in the open kitchen. She put Calvin down. He took off after the pancakes fast.

Then Gene was right there, his hands on her waist. The island hid those hands from the rest of the kitchen’s occupants. She hoped.

“Hi. I missed you.”

“I was just a few feet away.” She wanted to kiss him. To touch him. Right there, in front of everyone. It didn’t matter if Gunn and Genny and Chad and Calvin and Giavonna knew. Or if anyone knew. “I’m going to head home after breakfast. Check on my parents.”

“I’m going to get my butt out there and fix whatever needs fixing. Move whatever cattle need moved. That kind of thing. And tonight?—”

His hand cupped her cheek. Totally distracting her from what he was saying. “What?”

“Tonight, if you’ll let me, I want to take you to dinner. We can hit Finley Creek. Just the two of us.”

An actual date. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on one of those. Maybe two years earlier? At least, with a man that wasn’t Gunn, anyway. “I’d like that. But what about Calvin?”

“I can call my mother. Ask her to stay with him. She’ll probably want to be here anyway. I think Hudson is getting outaround three. That will give me time to help Hudson and Ryan get settled in. And Gia is going to be here. She’s already talking about getting the twins to help her move her stuff back in this morning.”

That distracted her for a moment. Something was going on with Giavonna. She wasn’t stupid. Chantal was going to corner her friend the instant she could. Genny was her closest friend now. But she and Giavonna had been best friends since kindergarten. They were all close. And that would never change. “I’ll come back over around lunch and help get everyone settled and see if I can help Gia. I have to take Mom to the library at eleven. She’s reading to the preschoolers today. I can be here after that.”

“I would like that.”

“Is this date going to be a fancy one?” she asked as Chad yelled at Gene to grab the orange juice and the butter from the fridge. “Where are we going?”

“I was thinking more casual. Just you and me and being together.”

“Mamaw’s Place?”

“Mamaw’s and a movie. I was hoping we could neck in the back row of the theater before I bring you home. Or back here… wherever you want to stay.”

She wanted to stay right there with him.

But… maybe she wasn’t ready to say that out loud just yet.

She had a lot to figure out along the way.

37

Gene madeit back to the house after repairing stalls in the far barn where Grady kept most of their horses. His youngest brother was damned good with horses. People sought Grady out to have him train horses for them. But like everything else on a ranch, the barn needed maintenance occasionally, too.

And it gave a man time to think. He needed that today. Charlie had called—the two guys who had taken Chantal had been found in Oklahoma that morning. They were going to be booked up there on burglary charges—and Texas was going to have to sort out what will happen to them after what they had done to Chantal.

He and Grady worked hard until lunch. His brother was the quietest of the Hiller brothers and preferred to just listen.

Gene found he worked best with Grady. Sometimes Gunn got on his nerves. A man couldn’t even feel comfortable letting out a curse word in front of that brother.

“You have something on your mind,” Grady said on their way back to the house from the far barn. “What is it? What happened to Hudson?”

Yeah, that had been part of it. “I have plans for tonight.”

“What kind?”

“I’m taking Chantal to dinner in Finley Creek.”

“What for?”