“What’s good here?” she asked.
“You were born and raised in Round Rock and have never been to the Texan?”
She lifted her chin in that defiant way she had. “My daddy didn’t believe in eating out when he could make a perfectly good meal for us at home.”
I could appreciate that. “My daddy used to bring me to the Texan most days before school. He had a game he liked to play to see who would end up paying for coffee. It was always a lot of fun. Things sure could get pretty damned competitive over a tab of a few dollars!”
That drew a smile out of Emma. I even saw some teeth. I counted that as a victory. I was getting into that safe slowly but surely.
“My daddy made breakfast every morning for us at home when we were little,” she said. “Once we grew up, we took turns.”
She was damned near chatty this morning, or at least that was how it felt. When the waitress wandered by, we ordered our food. When it came, Emma looked impressed.
“This is pretty great,” she said. She dug into her eggs while I poured a bowl of white gravy over my plate of biscuits.
“Is it just you and your daddy at home?” I asked in between bites of sopping biscuit.
She shook her head, lifting her eyes to meet mine. She held my gaze longer than usual, her green eyes widening before they darted back down to her breakfast. I still couldn’t read her worth a damn, but I’d felt something just then, a buzz of electricity between us. Or had I imagined it?
“I live at my own place now. But I have a sister who still lives at home. It’s just the three of us.” She glanced up at me again, her lips curling into a shy half smile.
“Three’s not bad,” I said, smiling, too, loving the feeling of her eyes on me and the sight of the sexy little grin on her pretty mouth. “I’m all that’s left of my family. Well, besides Lacey.”
“She said she grew up with you.”
I nodded. “Yep, we took her in like the stray she is.”
Emma’s mouth twitched into what closely resembled a smile. Reading her might not have been getting easier, but I was learning how to make her smile. I’d happily take what I could get.
We drove back to the ranch after breakfast, the silence companionable. I kept half of my attention on the road and the other half on Emma as she watched the countryside whip by through the passenger side window. She jumped out of the truck as soon as we came to a stop in the driveway. I did the same, nearly running into her as she came around the front of the pickup to get past me and to the barn. It was the closest we’d been to each other since she started here. She backed up with a few shuffling steps.
“Thanks for breakfast, Pete,” she said, her eyes dancing all over my face before locking onto mine. She had a deep, steady gaze that knocked the breath out of me.
“Anytime.” I was standing awkwardly in her path, just staring down at her as she stared up at me.
“I’m gonna get on feeding the horses.” She stepped to one side of me, and I turned to watch her walk off. A thought occurred to me as I was enjoying those swaying hips and the tightness of the denim over her round ass.
“Emma!”
She turned back, eyebrows lifted and emerald eyes wide in a questioning expression.
I walked a few paces closer. “This morning was nice. Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?”
The open expression on her face slammed shut, her eyes shadowed with something I couldn’t quite read, but that made them appear much darker than before. The look on her face never stopped being serene, but it was no longer open. She shook her head, her ponytail moving over her back.
“I’d like to keep my personal and professional life separate, Pete,” she said, and sounded honestly sad about it, which heartened me to hear, even if she was turning me down flat.
“Yeah, I understand,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
She nodded once, then went on her way. After a moment of watching those swaying hips, I went my own way, too, kicking my boots through the dusty driveway as I walked up to the house. I sank into my seat on the porch just as Emma was pulling open the alleyway door to the barn.
“Shit,” I said, speaking low to Riley, who was sleeping on his side right next to my chair. “She’s getting to me, Riley. I just can’t help the way I feel about her.”
Riley didn’t budge, his breaths staying short and even.
“I’m going to figure out a way to get her out to dinner with me. She opened up at breakfast. We just need another change of scenery.”
Riley didn’t respond. Or wake up. I’d have to figure this Emma thing out on my own.