Rich Rancher's Redemption

No, she really didn’t. Not one man Jillian had ever known had been the responsible type. They didn’t want to take charge because they hadn’t wanted to be blamed if things went wrong. Heck, her own father had walked out on his family when Jillian was just five because he hadn’t wanted the responsibility of a family. So she didn’t have any experience with men like Jesse. And maybe, she told herself, that was why he was bothering her so much. She couldn’t pigeonhole him into any of the types she was most familiar with.

And maybe that was a good thing, since being a cocktail waitress in a casino gave her an up close and personal look at the worst kind of men. The takers. The whiners. The braggers. Now thanks to the impostor who’d convinced her he was crazy about her, she had another category. The liars. So far, Jesse Navarro seemed to be in a category all to himself.

“Well,” she finally said, “I take care of myself and Mac and I don’t take orders well.”

“Then this should be interesting,” Lucy murmured, and Jillian was pretty sure her friend was amused by the whole situation.

* * *

The apartment was clean.

That was the best Jesse could say about it the following morning. Hell, when he’d first suggested this place, he’d remembered the apartments being better than this. Bigger. Less…institutional. With Jillian and her daughter at his side, Jesse felt like apologizing for suggesting this apartment in the first place.

“It’s perfect.” Jillian walked farther into the numbingly boring, impersonal space.

“Put your glasses on,” he muttered.

She whipped around to look at him. “I don’t wear glasses. I see it clearly enough and this will be fine. It’s got a lot of windows, so it’s nice and bright.”

“Which just makes me wonder why you’re not seeing what I am when I look at this place. It’s like a prison cell,” he added, letting his gaze slide around the one big room.

At one end, there was a small, but complete kitchen, with a fridge, microwave, stove and dishwasher. The countertop was serviceable black, the cabinets were painted white and the sink was stainless steel. On the opposite side of the room was a double bed and against the front wall was a couch with a chair pulled up alongside and a tiny coffee table in front of it. There was a small bathroom with a tub/shower off the main room and he guessed the other doors were for the closet. Which pretty much described the whole place.

A beige, claustrophobic closet.

“Know a lot about prison cells, do you?” she asked.

He shot her a quick look. “Not personally, but I’ve seen movies. This would make a good set for one of them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she argued. “A little paint, a few rugs and a bright quilt will make it shine.”

“Shine?” he repeated dubiously. He walked toward the kitchen—took him four steps—and turned around at the sound of bedsprings squeaking. Mac was jumping up and down on the mattress, a gleeful look on her little face. Leave it to a kid. Even in a cell, they’d find a way to have fun.

“Mac, baby,” Jillian cooed, “don’t jump on the bed…”

“Might fall apart,” Jesse muttered, scowling as he looked around the room again.

Jillian scooped Mac up in her arms, then turned to face him. “It’s perfectly fine for us.”

“The whole place could fit inside my living room.” He shoved both hands into his jeans pockets.

She flushed at that and said, “Not all of us need that much room.”

“Not all of us want to live in a box, either,” he countered.

“Really?” She tipped her head to one side and stared at him. “This was your idea, remember?”

“Don’t remind me,” he muttered darkly. When he got back to the ranch, he was going to talk to Will about this building. Get someone in here, a designer or something to make these places less…depressing.

His gaze fixed on the woman watching him. Today, she wore yoga pants that looked as though they’d been painted onto her long, long legs and defined a figure he’d only guessed at before. She had a dancer’s body, he thought, slim, but curvy in all the right places. The long-sleeved red shirt she wore over those black pants strained across breasts he’d really like to get his hands on and that tail of wavy blond hair hung over one shoulder as if drawing an arrow he didn’t need to the breasts he was thinking too much about. Her hazel eyes were more green than blue today and he wondered what that said about her mood.

“Jesse!” Mac leaned out from her mother’s grasp and held both arms out to him.