“Easy there, Badger Cat,” her husband said, patting her on the rear. Which earned him a look from both of her brothers. “That’s not good for the baby.”
“What?” Connor and Eli asked.
“You knucklehead,” Kate said, punching her husband in the shoulder. “We weren’t going to tell them yet.”
Then silence settled for a minute as everybody seemed to realize that he was standing there.
“Hi there,” Wolf said. “Wolf.”
“I remember,” Eli said. “Good to see you.”
“Yeah,” Connor said. They made a round of pleasantries, because they were well-trained country folk.
“Have a seat,” Eli said.
“Dinner’s almost on,” Sadie said.
“How was your trip over?” Kate asked.
“Good,” Wolf said. “Uneventful.”
While he wasn’t exactly a people person, there were often changes in staff at Four Corners Ranch, and specifically at Garrett’s Watch. It was just the nature of things. He was good at making easy conversation with people who did the same sorts of things he did. He was here to ranch, and ranching was what he knew.
“I’m interested to hear more about this operation, and what all you think you’re going to be doing with it.”
“Well, we’re interested to hear what you think,” Eli said. “None of us are experts at expansion.”
“I don’t know that I’m an expert on expansion, but I’m an expert on dealing with what’s already expanded.” He started talking about the day-to-day of running Garrett’s Watch, and they cleared their money and cards off the table while he spoke. Not long after, a couple of pies appeared in the center of the table, along with a basket of rolls, followed by steak and green salad. The kind of simple stuff you like. They dished up and he gave his compliments to the chef.
“So things are going well at Four Corners?” Connor asked. “And you find that you’re more than able to sell off all that cattle and turn a profit?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “We stay busy. And I imagine given that you’re specializing in a more local kind of thing, the demand will be good, and you’ll be able to fetch a pretty high price. It’ll all be how you manage the land, and how you strategize, particularly as you add employees. You can do this stuff on your own, but it’s demanding. And I can see that you’ve all got your hands full.”
The feral children had been sat in the living room, which was quite all right by Wolf.
“Well, we haven’t really gotten that far yet,” said Eli. “But yeah. We’ve to balance trying to increase profits with...our lives.”
“Which are busy,” Sadie said. “Very busy.”
“The pies look good,” he said as Sadie began to serve them.
“I can’t take credit,” Sadie said. “Violet brought them from her mother’s bakery.”
Oh, yes. Violet.
“I met Violet,” he said. “I stopped by the house before I came here.”
“She’s a sweet girl,” Sadie said, and he didn’t really like the way she said that.A sweet girl.Because he was trying to ignore how young she was, because he was so damned attracted to her.
“She seems it,” he said.
“And an amazing baker. Honestly, it’s not my strong suit. I got to where I can make a pretty passable dinner. But... That was the one thing that I struggled with at the bed-and-breakfast. I had a couple of things that I was good at. But I wasn’t exactly bringing anything special to the table. Fortunately, Violet does that in spades.”
“That’s an example of hiring people and it working out very well,” Eli said. “We had a couple of different innkeepers, and it’s been worth it. The bed-and-breakfast keeps bringing in money, but this way Sadie isn’t tethered to it.”
“Right.”
They chatted on a little more, and his mind kept on straying back to Violet. And the pie. It was damn good pie. And the woman had made it with her hands. Expert hands, clearly. He would like to have them on his body.