“So why don’t you make it down to church very often?”
“Oh, so we’re going there.” He didn’t seem angry, but the awkwardness between them flared back to life.
“You said we could talk if we didn’t go to church.”
“All right.” He swallowed and twisted his chains toward her. “I’m not a super religious guy. Didn’t really go growing up, and it’s nice to be out at the ranch when everyone else is gone. It’s…peaceful.”
“Confession time?”
“Sure.”
“I feel the same way when my kids are gone.” She allowed herself to giggle. “It’s a little hectic when they’re here and it’s just me trying to make sure no one dies.”
Blake’s eyebrows rose. “Does that happen a lot? The dying?”
Erin tipped her head back and laughed. “Not yet, no.” She grinned at him, and he grinned back, and this time the silence felt…nice.
Erin’s week passed in a blur of wake up, make cookies, serve customers, deal with children, clean up the bakery, take a quick nap, get kids from school, make dinner, deal with fighting in a tiny apartment, get everyone to bed, try to breathe.
By Friday, she was ready to ship them off to Salt Lake, the last week of school or not. The warm weather didn’t help, as all Cole and Davy wanted to do was run around town, causing havoc. Not that they really could, and Erin did end up sending them across the stream, which ran behind the bakery, to the park.
Friday evening, she loaded the children into the car and headed for her aunt’s house on the other side of the park. “Come on,” she told the boys. “I have to work tonight. You’re sleeping here, with Aunt Shirley.”
Davy cheered, but Cole pouted. “Oh, come on,” Erin said, cuffing him on the head, sending his brown hair flopping a little. “Aunt Shirley used to make the most delicious breakfasts when I slept here as a little girl.”
“What’d she make?” Cole asked.
“Ebelskivers,” Erin said. She’d tried making them once when the boys were little, but she’d failed spectacularly, just like she still couldn’t make a pie crust that was acceptable to sell to someone else. Aunt Shirley acted like she didn’t know, but the ruse that Erin could actually take over the pie shop was beginning to wear thin.
Desperation surged up her throat. She needed this arrangement to work out. Not only to help her aunt and uncle, but because she didn’t have any other employable skills. She’d met her husband Jeremy her junior year of college, and they’d gotten married a year later, with Cole coming ten months after that. Erin hadn’t finished college and had never had a job that provided her with her any skills she could use to make money.
Now, if someone needed a diaper changed or the hard water stains scrubbed out of their tub, she could do that. She knocked on Aunt Shirley’s door, her thoughts spinning about starting a cleaning service in town.
“Hello?” she called, entering the house. Not much had changed since she was a little girl and had come to visit her mother’s sister. The carpet had been updated, but the walls were still ecru, with the same pictures hanging on them. Brown brick made up the fireplace, and Uncle Johnny sat in a recliner—the same olive green one he’d had when Erin was a child—an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.
He pulled it off when he saw her, a smile cementing into place. “Hey, who have we got here?” He rose from the chair, a wince of pain crossing his face. He didn’t let it slow him down as he swooped across the room and plucked Mckenzie from Erin’s arms.
“Who is this little princess?” He tickled the girl, and she giggled.
“It’s me, Uncle Johnny,” she said. “McKenzie.”
“Oh, of course it is.” He grinned at her and gestured for the boys to go with him. “I got the tent set up in the backyard. Come see.”
“Tent?” Cole said, his eyes suddenly alive.
Erin followed them, leaning in the doorway as the boys burst into the backyard, whooping about the big blue tent not far from the patio. Warmth filled Erin, and she was glad she had family here.
“Erin, how are you?”
She turned toward her aunt, who had just stepped behind her. “Good, Aunt Shirley. Uncle Johnny set up the tent, huh?”
“Took him almost an hour.” Aunt Shirley shook her head, a quiet laugh escaping her lips. “But he insisted.”
Erin patted her aunt’s arm. “I’ll get their sleeping bags from the car.” She stepped toward the front door. “Oh, and I may have mentioned the ebelskivers to Cole.”
“Well, you better run to the market and get me some buttermilk then,” Aunt Shirley said. “And probably some butter.”
The last thing Erin wanted to do was an errand at the grocery store, because she also needed to make twelve dozen potato rolls that night for a mid-morning pickup the following morning. She retrieved the sleeping bags and pillows and tossed them in the tent. She grabbed Cole long enough to give him a quick squeeze.
Davy threw himself into her arms and said, “This is so awesome, Mom. Thanks,” before running off, his arms outstretched like the wings of an airplane.
“Kenz.” She took the girl from Uncle Johnny and kissed her forehead. “You be good for Aunt Shirley and Uncle Johnny, okay? Promise me and cross your heart.”
The beautiful towheaded girl crisscrossed her heart and smiled before throwing her arms around Erin’s neck. Her heart cracked a little at having to leave them here. In the eight years since she’d become a mother, she hadn’t had to rely on anyone quite so much as she was now. It was a lot harder than she’d thought.
Once, she’d thought women who got to leave their children in someone else’s care while they went to work were lucky. They at least got to have an adult conversation during the day. They could escape the endless and mindless chores of changing diapers and making sandwiches without the crust. But as she walked away, leaving her three babies behind, she realized that those women had just as many difficulties as she did. Maybe more.
She cleared her throat and straightened herself in the driver’s seat. A quick trip to the market, then to the bakery. She could do this. She could do anything for a few hours. She could do anything for a few hours that would benefit her children.
Saturday morning, she loaded rolls into brown paper sacks two dozen at a time. Monica Murphy took two bags, and Erin loaded herself up with a couple as well. She followed Monica to the door, her shoulders aching from all the kneading the previous night.
Doug had been in the kitchen in the back when she’d arrived, but he hadn’t started. He oversaw, instructed, as she mixed, kneaded, formed, and baked dough. Thankfully, he’d proclaimed her work good enough, and they’d gotten out of the bakery by ten o’clock. It still wasn’t early enough for her to get the rest she needed so she could be back by three-thirty to begin that Saturday’s baked goods.
But she’d made it through the rush, and the rolls were headed out, and with only a couple of hours until she could shower and take a nap, Erin renewed her resolve to finish strong.
With Monica satisfied and sure her family party would be a success, Erin returned to the bakery. “Blake,” she said, one hand lifting to her throat.
He turned from the display cases, a smile dancing across his strong jaw. “Mornin’, ma’am.”
She shouldn’t be so charmed by his manners, his cowboy twang, but she was. He made her feel a decade younger than she was. She gave him a co*cked eyebrow. “It’s hardly morning.”
“I’ve been up since five.” He yawned. “So I hear you. Feels like midnight.”
She smiled fully then. “Right. Someone as young as you can go for hours.”
“As young as me?” He leaned against the display case and held her gaze. “How old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-five?” she guessed.
“Close.”
“Higher or lower?”
“Higher.”
No way he was thirty. She aimed right in the middle. “Twenty-seven.”
“Nice. Only two guesses.”
He studied her, and her face heated under the weight of his gaze. “So let me guess your age.”
“You get two guesses.”
“Hmm.” His eyes narrowed as he considered her. “You have an eight-year-old, but you’re also gorgeous, so you probably got married young.”
Gorgeous rang through her mind like someone had struck a gong with the word imprinted on it.
“Thirty?” he asked.
She suddenly didn’t want him to guess again, but she said, “Older,” anyway.
He co*cked his head, and in that dark gray cowboy hat, he became downright dangerous to her health. The bell rang on the door, and he turned at the same time she lifted her eyes to see who had come in.
A man Erin didn’t recognize, probably close to her age. Probably married with a family, just like almost everyone else in this town. “I’ll be right with you,” she said. She looked back at Blake. “Are you going to buy anything?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why else would I be down here?” His eyes twinkled like blue-diamond stars—they definitely said he’d come for another reason. “Let’s see….” He scanned the cases. “We’re planting this weekend, and we have a dozen extra cowhands at the ranch. They all seem to gobble up the sweets. I need five dozen of your square glazed doughnuts.” His eyes came back to hers, hooked, held. “Do you have that many?”
Erin thought she could dive into his eyes and never resurface. “Let me check in the back.” She walked away on wooden legs, her emotions spiraling tight and then releasing. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead and forced a deep drag of air into her lungs. She really needed to stop finding Blake Gibbons so attractive.
Why, though? her mind whispered.
Cole, Davy, and McKenzie, the thought came right back.
She had more than enough doughnuts and she stuck her head around the corner. “I’ve got them. You want them all boxed?”
“Yes, and I want an apple fritter in a bag.”
She nodded and started filling the boxes. She rang him out and loaded up his arms with the five boxes, but he didn’t turn and go.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
“I have the kids.”
“So you’ll be home?”
“Most likely.” She didn’t have a lot of money for entertainment, and Oxbow Park provided more fun than anything else she could think of.
“Do you have a key to the bakery?”
“Yes.” She really had no idea where he was going with all this.
“I might need you to let me in.” He glanced at the man still examining the goods in the cases. “I’m going to start on the repairs in the back.”
“Oh, sure.” Foolishness snaked through Erin. Of course he wouldn’t be making another fifteen-minute drive down the canyon just to see her.
“Great, thanks, ma’am.” Blake’s hand twitched to tip his hat and he almost dumped all five dozen doughnuts on the ground.
He flushed and Erin laughed as he walked out. She admired the gentle strength he emanated before turning to the next customer. “What can I help you with?”
Chapter Five
Every muscle in Blake’s shoulders and back screamed at him to get into a hot shower as soon as possible. Then ice packs and Icy Hot, as much as possible for as long as he could stand it. Oh, how he hated the spring planting.
And it wasn’t even finished yet. Thankfully, he had enough work to do all day tomorrow to keep him from attending church. The extra help Landon had brought in would stick around until the planting was done, but that was okay. Blake could handle a few extra guys for one day.
Two of those guys were staying with him, one in the extra bedroom and one in the loft, so by the time Blake’s turn came for the shower, most of the hot water was gone. He scrubbed quickly and downed some painkillers.
“Megan’s got pizza at the homestead,” he said, donning his cowboy hat. “You guys can head over at six-thirty.”
“You’re not coming?” Gene, a cowboy from the cattle ranch on the south side of Vernal, asked.
“I have some business in town.” Blake headed out the door, his heart tangoing in his chest the whole way to the bakery. He didn’t have Erin’s number, so he couldn’t text her to find out if she was home, if she could let him in. He could call Doug, but he didn’t want to see Doug.
Erin sat on the curb outside the bakery, a little girl by her side. The child licked an ice cream cone while Erin twisted toward her, a smile on her face and words coming from her mouth. She glanced over when Blake parked in front of the shop next door.
She’d stood by the time he got out of the truck, and she had the girl balanced on her hip. Her eyes broadcast her fear, and Blake approached slowly. “Hey, there.” The little girl looked at him, and licked licked licked.
“What flavor is that?”
“Twist,” she said, like that was a flavor.
Blake grinned. “Looks good. You must be McKenzie.”
She snuggled into her mom’s collarbone, the ice cream cone coming dangerously close to Erin’s blue blouse. The color made her hair darker and her eyes more mysterious. Blake liked it, liked everything about her.
“Bakery’s open,” she said. “I was just waiting for my boys to come back from the park.”
“What’s happening after the park?” he asked.
“Dinner,” she said.
He smiled, stepped past her, and went into the bakery. Ideas foamed in his mind, and while he pulled down damp and moldy sheetrock, he plotted ways he could get himself invited to dinner.
As the work progressed, his plans got dashed. No woman wanted a man showing up on her doorstep sweaty, covered in mold and mud. He hauled the ruined walls to the Dumpster on the side of the building and swept everything in the back corner. If he could get the exterior dry enough, it wouldn’t have to be replaced.
He traced the crack that ran through the foundation with his fingertip, and he pulled out his phone to make a note about renting a Bobcat before washing up in the industrial-sized sink. He was about to sneak out and get over to the diner for a plate of chicken fried steak—the Saturday night special—when Erin appeared in the doorway that led upstairs to her apartment.
“Have you eaten yet?”
“I—I have other plans.” She didn’t need to know what they were.
“Oh yeah?” She stepped into the kitchen and leaned her hip against the counter that supported the sink. “And here I thought you’d come to see me.” She gave him a knowing look, and Blake couldn’t deny it. Didn’t even want to.
“I’ve been contracted to work on the bakery.” Doug had signed the papers Thursday night before their fishing trip.
“On Saturday night? After a full day of planting?”
“It’s not going to fix itself, ma’am.” He unclipped his tool belt and laid it over his toolbox.
“So you don’t want to come upstairs for the most spectacular spaghetti dinner Brush Creek has to offer.” Her voice sounded the littlest bit squeaky.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”
“Right. Other plans.” Hurt passed through her dark eyes. Hurt Blake never wanted her to feel.
“I’m a little nervous,” he admitted.
“Of what?”
“Your kids.”
Her face blanked and drained of color. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, come on.” He took a step toward her. “There’s…something going on here. Right?” His throat suddenly felt like sandpaper. Surely he wasn’t the only one who felt the river of electricity flowing between them. “I’m just nervous. I’ve never dated a woman with three kids.”
Her eyebrows shot toward her hairline, and Blake took that as his signal to shut up, and fast. But he heard himself say, “Not that we’re dating. I mean—I don’t even have your phone number, and—” He pressed his eyes closed at the same time he managed to seal his lips.
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. When he opened his eyes, Erin watched him
with those glittery, black-coffee-colored eyes, a satisfied smile riding her mouth. Blake’s mind blanked as he stared at her lips.
“Do you have your phone?” she asked, breaking his trance. He licked his lips, thinking about what it would be like to kiss Erin. His heart raced and she stood a good five paces from him. Still, something soft and floral teased his nose. A scent uniquely Erin.
“Yeah,” he said weakly, pulling it from his back pocket. “Why?”
She closed the distance between them and plucked it from his fingers. She tapped and tapped, her thumbs flying across the screen. With a glint in her expression that ignited flames in his bloodstream, she handed the device back. “Now you have my number.”
He glanced down at the phone. In the few seconds it took for her words and actions to register, she’d returned to the doorway and gone through it.
“Did you say spaghetti?” he asked.
“Sure did.” She didn’t pause or come back.
He lunged for the doorway. “One of my favorites. Am I still invited?”
“If you want,” she said, her voice cool and detached.
Blake took a few extra seconds to think things through, but he didn’t get very far. Erin was climbing the stairs, soon to open her apartment door and disappear inside. And he couldn’t let that happen.
He took the steps two at a time and caught her with her hand curled around the doorknob. “Wait,” he said, panting and every organ in his body doing some sort of bouncy dance. “What are you going to tell them?”
“Tell who?”
“Your kids.” He gestured between the two of them. “I mean, what are we?”
“Friends?” Erin tipped up onto her toes, and for one terrifyingly wonderful moment, Blake thought she’d kiss him. Her eyes seemed glued to his mouth, and the desire was right there for anyone to see. He wondered how long it had been since she’d kissed someone. Wondered if she’d dated other men after her divorce.
“Can we be friends?” she asked.
“For tonight,” Blake said, withdrawing his hand and enjoying the color as it rushed into Erin’s cheeks. She twisted the doorknob and entered the apartment. Blake went with her, because he wanted to be where she was.
