My steps falter as I fall behind, but Summer doesn’t notice. She marches up the couple of steps in her flip-flops and cutoff jeans to the front porch, lifts the knocker, and bangs hard.

“Hey, Sum—” I start, reaching out with a hand as though I can stop her when she’s already knocked. Thinking that we should talk this through more thoroughly. Hammer out some details.

Maybe my impulsiveness has gotten me in over my head for once. I almost feel like she’s rushing. Like she can’t wait to wrap this up. And I have questions.

Lots of questions.

But they all evaporate from my mind the minute the front door swings open, and I’m left standing stupidly in the middle of the dirt walkway, gawking at the man from the coffee shop.

The one I left my panties with.

He’s still all man, from head to toe. Dark hair, darker eyes under furrowed brows, broad shoulders, the sexiest scruff surrounding a slightly curled lip . . . and a scowl.

He stares in my direction while his knuckles turn white where he grips the door.

“Cade!” Summer starts in, oblivious to the death glare he’s pinning me with. “This is my best friend, Willa. Your new nanny.”

“No,” is his only reply.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, over my dead body.” Condescension drips from his words.

Her head quirks to the side, and I close the space between us. If he thinks he’s going to talk to my best friend that way, he’s got another thing coming. I’ve had her back since we were teenagers. Summer’s endured enough shitty men in her life, so this one can fuck all the way off.

“Cade, don’t be ridiculous. We’ve been trying to find someone for—”

He cuts her off. “You’re being ridicu—”

I step onto the porch, seeing red. No one else in my family has red hair, and I don’t know if it’s to blame for my fiery side, but I have been known to fly off the handle and hold a hell of a grudge.

I’ve been known to break up bar fights with a bat.

And maybe I’m about to be known for kicking a hot-as-hell rancher in the balls.

I wave a hand right in front of him to shut him up. “Choose your next words carefully. I don’t care if she’s about to be your sister-in-law. No one speaks to her with that tone, period.”

He turns his dark gaze on me now, eyes starting on my face before trailing down my body in the most critical and unnerving way. When his eyes come back up, the look in them is perfectly flat.

Like he’s sized me up and found me entirely lacking.