Meg Maxwell - Charm School For Cowboys

He entered the kitchen to find Golden stirring pancake batter, Grizzle washing the containers of blueberries and strawberries, and his brother cracking eggs and scrambling them in a big silver mixing bowl. Hank was frying bacon on the big griddle. And Emma, the new cook, was sitting down at the round café table by the window, sipping something from a red mug, his cat Redford at her feet.

What the heck was going on?

“Hey, Boss,” Hank said, using tongs to flip over each piece of bacon.

Emma stood up, her cheeks a bit pink, her long golden-brown ponytail swaying a bit. “I came in at four thirty to find them already cooking breakfast. They wouldn’t let me do a thing.”

“Least we can do,” Grizzle said, offering Emma a smile.

“Least,” Golden added, nodding at her, his blond bangs flopping on his forehead.

“Emma, pass me that platter, please,” CJ said without a hint of his usual flirtation in his voice.

Huh. Not only were his crew acting like actual gentlemen, including his brother, they weren’t saying stupid stuff or trying to impress her and instead insulting her with either flat-out stupidity or sexual innuendos. And after last night’s delicious dinner—even the baked potatoes tasted a thousand times better than usual—they knew they’d be in for a great breakfast this morning, but had given that up to cook themselves. Now they’d have the usual overcooked pancakes and rubbery eggs and hard-as-rocks home fries with too much pepper.

He smiled. He might not have worked very long with his crew, well, except for CJ, but he’d known the minute he’d met the say-the-wrong-thing Hank, the rough-around-the-edges Grizzle, and the can-barely-look-you-in-the eye Golden that they could be trusted, that they’d work hard, that under all the quirks were damned good men. He’d been right.

And he had a feeling he knew why the ragtag bunch was so comfortable around Emma and falling over themselves to be kind to her. Emma was not only pregnant and therefore off-limits—because none of the cowboys thought themselves remotely father material—but she’d been “done wrong” by Tex, by one of them.

“It’s good of you all to help,” Jake said to the guys. “I’ll put myself on toast duty.” He headed to the counter, where the bread boxes were full of bread and English muffins and bagels, and toasted up a couple of each, then grabbed butter and cream cheese from the refrigerator and brought it all out to the dining room. The table was already set. The silverware was in the wrong places and half the forks were upside down, which meant Golden or Grizzle had set the table. He smiled. He knew he had a great crew.

Once they were all seated, eating and drinking coffee and orange juice, Hank asked Emma if she had a name picked out for the baby.

She paused, a forkful of very well-done scrambled eggs in her hand. “Well, if she’s a girl, I’m thinking Violet after my mother. I’m not sure about a boy’s name yet.” She frowned, glancing down at her plate. “I always figured I’d name my firstborn son after my father, but—” She stopped and quickly ate her bite of eggs, then pushed the rest around on her plate with her fork.

“But your father’s in prison now?” Hank asked, slathering cream cheese on a bagel half.

Emma looked confused. “What? No. He’s not in prison. He’s...he’s just...”

“A real jerk?” Grizzle offered.

Emma bit her lip. “Well, he’s just...”

Jake glanced at her. He’s just not living up to being a namesake was what he suspected the issue was.

A phone pinged, saving Emma from answering. CJ pulled his cell out of his pocket and looked at it, then rolled his eyes and put it away.

“Who’s mad at you now?” Hank asked him with a grin. “Yesterday you were hot on Stella. Today, you’re done with her, is that right?”

“Don’t gossip about Stella,” CJ said, his blue eyes flashing. “It’s not right.”

“Whoa, what’s this?” Grizzle said, his face lighting up with a potential taunt. “CJ Morrow defending a young lady’s honor?”

“He must like this one,” Hank said.

“Stella who works at the bookstore?” Golden asked, eyeing CJ, who nodded. “She’s really nice.” He cleared his throat and looked around the table as if to see if anyone was paying attention to him. Jake had a feeling that Golden had grown up being ignored. “The other day I went to the bookstore to buy my dad a birthday present, but I couldn’t figure out what to get him. Stella asked me a bunch of questions about what he liked and suggested a biography of the first FBI director. My dad loved it.”

For Golden to pipe up, particularly to that extent, this Stella had to be nice.

Jake stared at his brother. CJ’s head was down as he pretended great interest in forking up his home fries. Interesting. Maybe his brother did like Stella—for more than the usual three days.

Talk turned to what needed doing that morning—from the usual daily chores to a fence that had to be mended up near the ridge, to moving the bulls out to a new pasture, to taking a trip into town for some supplies at the feed store. The crew had eaten their fill, but instead of getting up and heading out, leaving whoever was on cooking duty to clean up, as was the usual routine, they all started picking up their plates.

Emma stood up. “No, no! You all have done so much for me this morning and I appreciate it. I’m the cook here now and I didn’t even lift a finger this morning. So I will clean up, as I will every meal. I may be pregnant, but I’m capable of not only cooking, but lifting plates.” She smiled at them. “Go ahead. And thank you, guys. All of you. You sure know how to make a lady feel welcome.”

At that last sentence, Jake almost gasped. Grizzle actually took off his hat and held it to his chest. Hank’s chest puffed up. Golden had pink circles on his cheeks. And CJ threw an aw-shucks smile at Emma but a second later was glued to his phone as if waiting for a text that wasn’t coming.

Once the crew headed out, Jake had to force himself not to help clear the table. Emma was capable and he didn’t want to seem overly protective.

He finished his coffee. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you actually have the guys almost acting like gentlemen. They’re pretty rough around the edges—even CJ, who thinks he’s Mr. Smooth. They’re all looking for love, but they kind of repel women. Especially the ones they’re most interested in. There’s a dance tonight they’re all going to—maybe over dinner you could give them some tips on what they’re doing wrong.”

She stacked breakfast dishes along her arm. “I’ll try, but honestly, I’m O for three in the romance department myself. I mean, here I am, pregnant and single. Who am I to give advice to anyone about love?” She smiled, her pretty face lighting up for a moment, but then she paused and her expression changed as though she was thinking about something. She grabbed the butter dish with her free hand and headed toward the kitchen.

He followed with his mug, needing a refill on the strong coffee. “You got Grizzle to take off his hat indoors without even asking him to. That’s how good you are without even working at it.”

“He did, didn’t he?” She smiled again. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He wanted to stay and talk to her. Ask her about her father. Ask her more about where she was from in Oak Creek, if she grew up on a ranch. But as he watched her set the dishes on the counter, the sunrise glowing past her through the sliding glass door to the kitchen, he was socked with such a pang of attraction that he backed away. What the hell was this?

Yes, Emma was pretty. And kind. And...vulnerable. Last night, Jake had found himself tossing and turning with the notion that he was responsible for Emma’s baby. Tex had been riding one of the new mares and a backfiring truck spooked the horse and threw him.