Which was stupid, because the thing he and Jane had in common was a mutual desire to stay single. If she changed her mind, that wasn’t his business. He knew where he stood, and that was what mattered.
When Colt got up into the driver’s seat, Jane had already buckled her seat belt.
“I’ve got to drop my truck off at the garage,” Colt said. “It’s not far from the house. One of our guys is going to change the oil this evening. We’ve got a pretty strict schedule for the ranch vehicles. We can walk back to the house from there. It’ll take like ten minutes.”
“Oh, sure,” Jane said. “Do what you have to do.”
Jane looked down at her phone and smiled wistfully. When she felt his gaze on her, she held it up, revealing a photo of her twins eating what looked like mac and cheese.
“Cute,” he said, turning the key.
“I miss them,” she said. “Even when it’s only been a few hours.”
Colt backed the truck out and headed down the drive.
“I can’t tell them apart,” Colt said. “How do you do it?”
“Micha has a freckle on her forehead,” Jane said. “That’s all I’ve got. Physically, at least. Their personalities are very different. Micha’s the leader. She’ll be the first one to start trouble, and she was the first one to walk. Suzie’s quieter. She’s more of a thinker. She said Mama first.”
“I’ll have to look for the freckle,” Colt chuckled. “I saw them when I stopped by to talk to my aunt about hiring the new cook. And they looked pretty happy, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It does, actually.”
The truck bumped over a pothole, and Jane’s hand flew up to the window to stabilize herself.
“Sorry,” he said. “We’ve got to fill that one in. Every time it rains it hollows out again.”
He turned up the narrow road that led to the garage. It was shaded by a few trees, and he drove up to the front where the doors were open. Another truck was already in there, and Colt parked to the side. He looked over at Jane as he turned off the engine, and she pulled a hand through her dark hair, her face looking flushed from the heat of the day. He tossed the keys into the visor.
“We walk from here,” he said. He wasn’t supposed to be noticing how beautiful she was—at least not appreciating it quite this much. He wasn’t like Ross—he knew the line and he respected it.
They both got out of the truck and slammed their doors behind them. It was almost seven, and while sunset was still a couple of hours off, the sunshine was warm and golden and the shadows stretched long. Colt started down the lane toward the road, and Jane fell into step beside him. He slowed his pace a little to make it easier for her to keep up. It felt good to have her company out here—just the two of them in the sunshine-scented air.
“So, Peg says that you’re planning on opening a bed-and-breakfast,” he said.
“That’s the hope,” she said. “If I can find the right house. It would be nice to work from home, not have to drop the girls off at day care every day. I could make these pretty little breakfasts, maybe even do some homemade jars of jam I could sell to my guests...”
“You surprise me.”
“Me?” she said, glancing up at him. “You hardly know me.”
“True, but I guess I had a few assumptions going in,” he admitted. “You’re tougher than I gave you credit for.”
“How do you figure that?” she asked with a low laugh.
“Just the way you were handling Ross,” he replied. “You seemed to have him under control.”
“I did,” she said. “I mean, he was on my last nerve, but I was pretty close to sending him away with his tail between his legs.”
“You shouldn’t have been put in that position to begin with,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Tomorrow morning the new cook will start, so we won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“That’s good. So Peg liked him, then?” she asked.
“She...approved.” Colt frowned. “You know, if I didn’t know Peg better, I’d say that she sized him up for more than a cook position.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Colt said. “They’re of the same generation, so maybe it was just that.”
A rabbit jumped out of the ditch on the side of the road and Jane startled and tripped. Instinctively, Colt shot out his hand and grabbed hers.
Jane’s cool fingers wrapped around his hand in a squeeze, and she let out a breathy laugh as they watched the hare bound off into the long grass. She didn’t seem to notice that her hand was still in his, and he was about to release her, but somehow he didn’t. It felt good. Jane licked her lips and looked up at him. She pulled her hand out of his, and he let go and smiled ruefully.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
“It’s okay...”
They fell silent then as they walked the rest of the way to the house. Colt’s boots thunked against the gravel road, and he inwardly chastised himself. He shouldn’t have grabbed her hand like that. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been—it was his own instinct working against him, and he was getting protective of her, it seemed.
He stole a look in her direction, and her cheeks were slightly pink—from the sun or from embarrassment, he wasn’t sure. Great. He wasn’t much better than Ross right now, was he?
“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she repeated.
Right. Except it didn’t feel okay to him. It felt awkward and strained, and that was the last thing he wanted between them.
“No, I really need you to understand that I’m not making a move on you,” he said. “There will be a lot of Rosses in the world who are going to try to get your attention, but I’m not one of
