He needed confirmation.
“Oh,” she said. “No. I’m Violet. Violet Donnelly. I work at the bed-and-breakfast.”
“Oh. All right. I’m kin to Eli, Connor and Kate. I came out to help with their expansion of the operation.”
“Right,” she said. “Eli did mention that he had a cousin coming. And Sadie reiterated, when she gave me the guest list for the week. I guess... I didn’t know what to expect.” The way her eyes flickered over his body... The little lightning bolt of attraction that had gripped him when he’d come in... She felt it, too. He wasn’t the only one.
It was a damn good thing.
Convenient. Very, very convenient. He could work hard on the ranch all day, come back home and... Yeah, sounded like his kind of a good time.
“Well, very kind of you to put out all these goodies. Did you make these?” Let it never be said he didn’t know how to turn on the charm when need be.
For short periods of time, anyway.
She blushed.
The womanblushed.
It was the most appealing damn thing he could ever remember, and it had been a long time since a woman had blushed in his presence. He didn’t like that sort of thing, not typically. He liked a woman who was bold, who knew what she wanted. It just made the most sense for a guy like him.
“Oh, you’re welcome. I mean, I just do it. It’s part of my job. And I also work at a bakery. Well, my stepmother owns a bakery.”
“You work with your evil stepmother?”
Her delicate brows lowered a fraction. “My stepmother is not evil,” she said. “My stepmother is the most wonderful woman in the world.”
He put his hands up. “Sorry. I don’t know a thing about good stepmothers. All I know is a thing or two about absent ones. And mothers, for that matter.”
Something shifted in her face. “I... Yeah. Well. I know a little bit about that. But my stepmother, Alison, she’s wonderful. And she owns a bakery in town. I’ve worked there since I was seventeen.”
“And how long ago was that?” Because there were very important things that needed to be worked out here.
“Are you asking how old I am?”
“Indirectly. Because I’m...” He couldn’t even say that he was a gentleman as a joke. He would choke on it. “Because I know better.”
“It was five years ago.”
“Great,” he said.
She was old enough to drink. Barely. So...that was...pushing it. But he was a man neither known for his good decisions nor his good behavior, sopushing itwas in his wheelhouse.
He picked up one of the cookies from the tray, and took a bite. It melted in his mouth. Damn near the best thing he had ever eaten in his life.
“That’s pretty amazing,” he said.
And he didn’t say that lightly, because while most of his life had been short decent cooking—his dad sucked at it, and the rest of them had never bothered to learn a damn thing—over the past few months his sister-in-law had made it an entirely different experience to be at Four Corners Ranch. She was an incredible cook.
They often had community dinners at Four Corners, and he had to admit that the Sullivan sisters baked some amazing things. Then of course, the Kings were grill masters. So it wasn’t like he was a stranger to good food. But he didn’t have it all the time, either. And he never took it for granted.
“Thank you,” she said, and her blush intensified.
“Violet...”
The door opened again, and two people came in, a woman with short brown hair that had threads of silver woven throughout, and a tall man with a mustache gone white and hair that was still clinging to its original color, whether by design or nature, Wolf couldn’t say.
They were both wearing trench coats, the expressions on their faces nearly identical. It was that phenomenon of when couples had been together for a very long time and began to resemble each other. Even their manner was the same. It was something he’d heard about, not something he’d often observed. But these two definitely had it.