Ainsley

Alone finally, I walked from one side of the guest room to the other, looking out each window. The snow was coming down now, making a pretty picture.

Taking a deep breath, I dialed Daddy’s number.

“Where the hell are you?” he asked.

Unlike Momma, he didn’t feel compelled to start a phone call off with pleasantries.

“I’m in Wyoming.”

“Wyoming.” I heard him take a deep breath. “How was going north a good idea with this storm coming in?”
“It didn’t seem like it was going to be so bad at the time,” I said. “And it was the only flight out of Aspen.”

“That’s hard to believe,” he said.

“And… there weren’t any rooms. Daddy. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Where’s the dog?”
“Sitting at my feet,” I said, reaching over to pat the dog’s head.

“Okay. Where are you staying?”

This was where things got sticky. I was a grown woman of twenty-six. I had my pilot’s license and was quite capable of taking care of myself.

And Daddy knew that. But I knew that he couldn’t help his instinct to look after me.

I could tell him that I was at a stranger’s home and he would worry.

“I’m at a small ranch,” I said. “they have some rooms. And Daddy…” I said. “It’s snowing.”

Him being used to his kids traveling a lot along with my efforts to distract him worked. Normally Daddy was more astute, but he hadn’t been feeling very well lately.

I felt a little bit guilty about telling him the whole truth, but he didn’t need to worry.

We talked a few more minutes before saying good-bye.

It was sunny and ninety-three degrees in Houston.

And here it was somewhere around freezing.

But inside the house, the temperature was perfect.

After showing me to my room, Wyatt had said to come down to dinner when I was ready.

If he expected me to dress up for dinner, he didn’t have his head on straight. All I had was an extra set of very casual clothes in my satchel.

Unlike my sister Brianna, who probably carried a sequined gown in her go-bag, I didn’t have anything like that to wear.

So, deciding to just freshen up and wear what I had on, it was less than an hour when I headed out the door to make my way downstairs.

The house had a simple plan.

It was big and spacious. Not big and cavernous. Again, I was astounded at the similarities between it and my penthouse.

When I got downstairs, I found Wyatt in the kitchen.

He had some music on low and he was singing along to a catchy song.

He was elbow-deep in dough.

Seeing me come to the doorway, he instructed the music to stop, then simply said “hi.”

“Hi,” I said.

I was a sucker for a man who not only could cook, but who did cook.

My Daddy had set the bar pretty high in that department.

I’d eaten more meals cooked by him than by my mother.

Though Daddy was the entrepreneur who’d made millions, Momma was the quintessential career woman.

“I hope you like pizza,” he said.

“Who doesn’t?” I asked.

“Come on in,” he said. “Have a seat. Do you want a glass of wine? Or a beer? Or… something else?”

I went over to the counter and sat on a bar stool so I could watch him.

“I’ll have what you’re having,” I said.

“Good choice,” he said, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “Warm or icy cold?”

“The colder the better,” I said.

“A woman after my own heart,” he said, pulling a beer from the fridge and twisting the top off for me. “Nothing goes better with pizza than beer.”

“Agreed.”

I sipped the beer. It was icy cold just like I liked it. Right at the edge of being frozen.

“Perfect,” I said.

“A woman with good taste,” he said, putting his hands back in the dough.

Something about him carefully kneading a bowl of pliable pizza dough made me wonder if his fingers were good at doing other things.

I sipped from the bottle again.

Not a good path to go down. I was on a dating moratorium. That meant I was keeping away from men.

All men. Even handsome man.

And, I sternly reminded myself, that including casual hookups.

Casual hookups had a tendency to get messy for me. It was probably the kind of men I picked, but my hookups tended to push me toward relationships.

And I didn’t do relationships.

I’d made that decision my senior year when my heart had been broken by a college guy named Richard.

I’d fallen so hard, I was like humpty dumpty and I’d never quite gone back together just right.

He’d taken a piece of me with him.

A piece of my heart.

So I did casual dating.

But not for the last six months… and seven days…

I was shooting for a year. I’d read in one of those magazines Brianna kept lying around that although a year was a long time, it was needed for a thorough man cleansing.

So I’d set that as my goal.

I’d stay away from men for one full year, then I’d start to dip my toe back into the dating pool.

I kept up, though with what was going on in the dating world through my two single sisters and my oldest sister, Madison, had just gotten back with her college sweetheart. They’d moved in together in Denver, so I didn’t see much to learn from her. She was off the market.

I had no intention of leaving the dating world for a year and coming back in cold, not knowing what had changed.

But none of this had anything to do with the handsome man spreading pizza dough onto a round iron pan.

Nothing at all.

“What do you like on yours?” he asked.

“I have green peppers, black olives, pineapple… pepperoni-.”

“Just the veggies for me,” I said. “Not much into meat.”

I sipped my beer, not wanting it to get warm.

“A vegetarian?” he asked.

“Pescatarian,” I said.

He nodded in approval. “My sister is, too. Now my brother, he’ll eat anything that doesn’t crawl off.”

“My brother’s like that, too,” I said.

Now I knew that Wyatt had two siblings.

I don’t know why, but I liked it that he’d told me something about his family. It made me feel closer to him.

As for why I liked feeling closer to him, I would have to figure out later.

Right now, I was just enjoying watching this very attractive man make pizza. I’d never realized how sexy a man could look in the kitchen.

Wyatt

Ainsley was looking a whole lot more relaxed sitting in my kitchen holding a beer than she had since I’d met her.

Granted, that wasn’t long ago, but, still, I found it interesting.

Was I attracted to her because it had been so long since I’d even taken the time to have a date?

It was more than that.

There was something about her that drew me to her. She was what some would call aloof. She didn’t seem to have much to say, but I wanted to know everything about her.

I sprinkled chopped black olives, pineapple, and bell pepper over a crust with tomato sauce and added mozzarella cheese.

According to the news, we were going to be stuck here for a few days.

Normally when something like this happened, I would gladly hunker down and spend the time holed up at my desk working.

But I could see that wasn’t likely to happen.

“How far is it into town?” she asked, swirling the beer she’d barely sipped. She shifted her gaze from watching me to the phone in her hand.

“About twenty minutes one way,” I said, sliding the cast iron pizza pan into the oven and set the timer. “Why do you ask?”

She swept a hand downward. “I don’t want to wear this for a week.”

“Right,” I said and immediately pictured her wearing one of my white button-down shirts. She’d have to roll the sleeves up and it would hang loosely down to her thighs.

All the blood rushed to my cock and I put a hand against the counter to steady myself.

“And,” she said. “I need to get some dog food for Beau.”

At the sound of his name, Beau sat up and barked one time.

We both looked at him, then at each other and laughed.

“You don’t know anything about him?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said, reaching out to pet his head. “But he’s a pretty cool little guy.”

I grabbed my beer and went to sit next to her.

“You don’t have any pets?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“We had a dog when I was a kid,” I said. “But nothing since I moved out.”

“You have something against pets?” she asked.

I glanced over at her and she was looking at me with a little smile at the corner of her lips.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Well,” she said, looking toward the windows. “You live on a ranch.”

“True.” I reached over the counter and grabbed my phone off the charger.

“Do you have any horses at least?” she asked.

I smiled. “I have a horse.”

“Then you’re redeemable, at least.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I said, scrolling through my contacts.

“So… do you have a car?”

I stopped scrolling and looked up at her. “Of course, I have a car.”

She turned and looked at me. “If we go before dark, we can back before the roads get bad.”

“I don’t know…” I said.

“Well, we have to get dog food.”

“You’re right,” I said, standing up. “Hold on.”

I walked toward the living room, my phone pressed to my ear.

If Ainsley wanted to go into town, we were going into town.