“I’m just thankful that one year I went to school. We were homeschooled. But I met a teacher that changed my life. She knew things. And she was lovely. And smart and sweet, and I knew that the whole world wasn’t bad. Not the way that my mom thought it was.”

“Well now, that is kind of funny. You had to learn the world wasn’t bad, and I had to learn my family was a whole lot worse than I was led to believe.”

“Yeah.”

“Let me help you with those groceries.”

He went to the table, and started to take out the parcels there. A lot of produce. Meat.

“I could cook for you,” he offered.

“No,” she said. “You weren’t even able to get up on your feet yesterday. I don’t need you cooking for me.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you sit at the table and peel potatoes. I’ll cut the veggies. We’ll have some beef stew.”

“Sounds good.”

And that’s what they did. And it was the strangest damn thing, because Clayton hadn’t shared his life with anybody in more years than he could count. And even when he had, it hadn’t been like this. He had friends in the rodeo, sure.

But there hadn’t been anything domestic about that. He had women. Buckle bunnies that liked spending the night with a cowboy. But they didn’t cook for him. He made them breakfast sometimes. But that was it. They hadn’t shared moments like this.

It was a novelty. Talking to a woman like this. Talking to anybody like this. Kind of a damned gift.

And when he bedded down on the couch that night, things seemed awfully sweet. Better than they had for a long time. When he woke up the next morning, it was to see Tala, standing at the dining table, packing things into a bag.

“I have school today,” she said quietly. “I’ll see you when I get back in the afternoon. There’s leftover stew in the fridge. I don’t have a microwave, but feel free to heat it up on the stove.”

“Yeah.”

And he purposed then and there that he was going to make sure that today, he found a way to take care of her.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE HAD THOUGHT about him all day. While she was helping kids with their math, she had been thinking about Clayton. What he was doing, if he was okay. If he had taken his shirt off. Or used her shower.

Oh dear.

She was feeling overwarm in spite of the chill in the air by the time she left school and got into her car, driving on the dirt roads that connected the various dwellings on the ranch. She drove past the Sullivan sisters’ big farmhouse, the expansive green lawn and the idyllic willow trees.

And she didn’t care because she was still thinking about Clayton.

Her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird by the time she pulled up to her cottage. And then she saw him, and her heart hit her sternum with a bump. She put the car in Park and got out quickly, her immediate fear and anger a total overreaction and she knew it.