The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch)

Again she just looked at him like, what do you want?

Damn, had he really lost his touch that much?

“Why don’t you run along and start your own work, laddie?” Mack tossed one of the shovels his direction and Liam barely managed to catch the heavy-handled tool.

Motherfucker, if he—

“Aren’t you two supposed to be on kitchen duty this morning?” Calla asked, wiping her forehead and propping an elbow on her pitchfork. She looked back and forth between the two of them. “What time is breakfast anyway?” She glanced out the stable door like she was trying to gauge the time by the sun.

Liam cringed. Shite. He’d forgotten about that.

“I did my half,” Mack said with a shit-eating smirk in Liam’s direction. “Waffle batter’s ready and the fruit’s cut up. What about you?”

Liam wanted to smack the smug smile off his face. “Guess I should go start me prep.”

“Don’t worry, pretty boy, we’ll leave you plenty of stalls to muck out.”

No one would miss one more dead ex-con in the world, would they? He wouldn’t even have to do it himself. Just one call to his fixer back in Dublin and—

“Chop chop,” Mackenzie said, clapping his hands right in Liam’s face.

Liam stopped himself just short of lunging for the bastard, and only because Calla was right there. No, he’d show he could be the bigger man.

“Great to officially meet you, beautiful.” Liam winked at Calla and noted, with no small amount of satisfaction, that the pink came back into her cheeks again.

“You, too,” she said, then quickly averted her eyes. Was it his imagination or did she sound a little breathless? He grinned as he headed back toward the house, all his instincts telling him she was checking out his arse as he went.

Oh yeah, he still had it.

6

CALLA

Calla wasn’t sure how it was possible to burn eggs. But as she poked at the eggs that were slightly charcoaled along the bottom, she had to admit that apparently it could indeed be done. The unappetizing evidence was right there on her plate.

“What the hell happened to these eggs?” Xavier asked, his booming voice echoing around the open lodge area. The big man stood by the heating tray on the sideboard containing the ruined eggs. Everyone else was gathered behind him, plates in hand. They’d insisted Calla go first since she was new. She’d been grateful. She was ravenous after the long morning of hard work. Or at least she had been until she’d seen what was in the trays.

“Xavier,” his wife Mel hissed, nodding toward the little boy she had cradled in her arms. “Language.”

“They’re not listening.” Xavier waved to the other side of the room where their two oldest boys played chase. The twin with blond dreadlocks, Reece she thought his name was, would run after the boys and catch one every so often to swing them around until they got dizzy and fell giggling to the floor.

“What the hell!” shouted the younger of the two boys as Reece caught him again.

Mel glared Xavier’s way and he tossed his hands up. “Blame whoever cooked this.” He gestured at the tray. “How am I not supposed to react to seeing that.”

“Sorry, guys,” Liam said, lifting a hand to the back of his neck. “I read on the internet and it said to cook protein slowly.” He frowned down at the tray of eggs. “But I guess I had the heat too high.”

“Just get the boys waffles,” Mel said, hiking the baby on her hip and heading toward her sons. “Hey guys, calm it down. It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning. You’ll have all day to roughhouse. But Mommy hasn’t had her coffee yet.”

“About that…” Liam trailed off when Mel jerked her head in his direction. “Well, the coffee was sort of the reason I forgot about the eggs. I remembered to set the timer on it last night, but I sort of forgot to put the carafe underneath it. So when I got back in the kitchen, the coffee had just spilled everywhere. I was trying to multitask and get it cleaned up while also cooking the eggs. Then I realized we were out of coffee and there wasn’t enough for another pot.”

“You can’t have coffee anyway, babe,” Xavier went over to her and lifted the baby out of her arms. Mel’s back slumped. “Dang it, you’re right.”

“Uh, is there something you forgot to tell us, Mel?” Jeremiah looked at Mel, eyes widening.

Xavier put his arm over Mel’s shoulder, a wide smile plastered across his face.

“We were going to talk to all of you about it this morning,” Mel said, a little flush taking over her cheeks. “But yeah, Xav and me are pregnant again.”

“You two Catholic or something?” Liam asked, looking from the two boys still screeching and horsing around on the other side of the room to the baby in Mel’s arms.