CHAPTER TWO #2
We ate in silence. It should have been awkward, sitting across from a man I barely knew, eating food he’d made for me.
But it wasn’t.
It was... comfortable. Quiet. Like we’d done this a hundred times before.
Which was dangerous thinking. Because comfortable led to complacent. And complacent led to hurt.
Dalton finished his entire sandwich before I’d made it through half of mine. He stood, poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, and leaned against the cabinets, watching me.
The way he looked at me made my skin feel too tight. Like he could see through the professional clothes to all the soft curves I tried to hide. But there was nothing sexual in his gaze. Nothing warm. Just... assessment.
Story of my life. Too much woman for most men to handle.
Or maybe he was just waiting for me to finish so he could get back to work. Stop reading into everything, Amber.
“What? Do I have mustard on my face?” I set the last bite down, taking a napkin and running it across my mouth.
“No.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m making sure you actually eat.”
“I am eating.”
“You stopped.”
“Because I’m full.”
He studied me for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”
He took a sip of his coffee, and I thought maybe he was going to say something else. Ask me how the work was going. Make small talk about the weather.
Before he could, the kitchen door swung open and a man walked in. This had to be his brother. He was younger than Dalton with the same dark hair, same strong jaw, but his features were softer. More approachable. And when he saw me, his entire face lit up.
“Well, hello beautiful.”
I couldn’t help but return his smile. Dalton had called him a womanizer and I saw that instantly. Handsome. Charming. But I didn’t feel that same tingle when I’d felt when I’d first seen Dalton.
“Knock it off, Cade,” Dalton said, voice hard.
Cade ignored him and crossed to the table, offering his hand. “Cade King. The better-looking brother.”
I shook his hand. “Amber Maxwell.”
He grinned. “Rhett didn’t mention he’d hired a gorgeous woman to help us out.”
“Cade.” Dalton’s voice was a warning now. Low and dangerous in a way that made my body clench.
“What? I’m just being friendly.” Cade glanced at my plate. “You going to finish that?”
I looked at the half-sandwich still sitting there and pushed it toward him. “No. I’m full.”
“Make your own damn sandwich,” Dalton snapped.
Cade raised his eyebrows. “Someone’s touchy today.”
Dalton set his coffee mug down on the counter with enough force that I winced. Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
I stared after him, confused.
What the hell was that about? He’d dragged me in here, made me a sandwich and now he was storming out because his brother had been friendly?
Unless...
No. That was ridiculous. Dalton King was not jealous. He’d made it perfectly clear he wasn’t interested in me or any woman. He probably just hated seeing his brother waste time on the hired help.
Besides, men like Dalton didn’t get jealous over women like me. They got possessive over their property, their land, their business. Not overly curvy accountants with not enough willpower to stop noticing the way his jaw clenched when he was angry.
But the way he’d snapped Cade’s name...
The way he’d looked at his brother like he wanted to throw him out of the kitchen...
I pushed the thought away. I was not going to read into the moods of a man who’d warned me away from him in the first five minutes of knowing him. That way lay madness.
Cade laughed and grabbed the half-sandwich from my plate. “Don’t mind him. He’s always like this.”
“Like what?”
“Moody. Territorial. Generally an ass.” He took a bite of the sandwich and sat down in the chair Dalton had vacated. “It’s worse this time of year, though.”
“This time of year?”
He gestured vaguely toward the calendar hanging on the wall. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it was identical to the one in Dalton’s office. February fourteenth circled in red with the big red slash.
“Valentine’s Day,” Cade said. “He hates it.”
“I saw that on his calendar in the office. Do you mind if I ask why?”
Cade’s expression sobered. “His ex left him five years ago on Valentine’s Day. Told him the ranch wasn’t enough. That he wasn’t enough. Moved to Denver and married some rich asshole within six months.”
My chest tightened in sympathy. Those words. God, I knew those words. Knew how they burrowed under your skin and made a home there. Knew how they whispered in the back of your mind every time you looked in the mirror.
Not enough. Too much. Wrong.
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, well. The woman was awful. Honestly, she did him a favor leaving, but Dalton doesn’t see it that way.
” Cade finished the sandwich and leaned back in his chair.
“He’s been alone ever since. He won’t date.
Won’t even look at a woman. Just works himself into the ground and pretends he doesn’t care. ”
I thought about the way Dalton had looked at me in the office. The way he’d leaned over my shoulder. The way his voice had gone rough when he’d told me I’d be surprised about the ranch hands.
“He seems…” I trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“Difficult?” Cade supplied. “Cold? Dead inside?”
“I was going to say guarded.”
Cade’s grin returned. “That’s a nicer way of putting it. But yeah. He is. The woman really did a number on him. And now every February, he turns into even more of a bastard than usual.” He paused. “But he’s a good man, Amber. The best, actually. He’s just…broken.”
The word hung in the air between us.
Broken. I knew broken too. I’d watched my mother break after Dad died, watched her struggle to put herself back together piece by piece. I’d felt my own heart fracture just a little when a relationship didn’t work out.
But Dalton’s kind of broken was different. He’d built walls out of his pieces instead of trying to reassemble them. Turned himself into something hard and cold and untouchable.
And some stupid, self-destructive part of me wanted to scale those walls and find the man underneath all that ice. I wanted to know if those rough hands could be gentle and that cold voice could go warm.
Which was exactly the kind of thinking that would get my heart shattered into pieces too small to put back together. But I couldn’t resist thinking about what would happen if I could make the cold-hearted cowboy burn.