Taming A Texas Charmer (Bad Boy Ranch Book 3) Page 13
Her aunt snorted. “Yep, I certainly proven that, haven’t I?” She sighed. “And since I caused this, I guess I’ll have to be the one to fix it.”
“There’s nothing to fix. I’m fine, Aunt Gertie.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve been running yourself ragged. The boardinghouse has always needed more than one person running things. My sisters helped me until they passed and your mama and daddy came onboard. For the last two years, you’ve been doing it all by yourself. While I think you’re a strong woman, no one is that strong.”
“Then I’ll hire some help.” She finished with the cookies and picked up one to sample. She had definitely left something out. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad.
“You’ll hire someone with what? You took the books away from me because you wanted to do them on your fancy computer, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t do some cipherin’ on my own. From my calculations, we’re barely breaking even.”
It was annoying how accurate her aunt’s calculations were. They were just breaking even, and that was with Reba not taking a salary.
“Give it up, girl,” Aunt Gertie said as if reading her thought. “You need help before you run yourself right into the ground—and this boardinghouse right along with you. You’re so frazzled that you don’t even realize some of the mistakes you’ve been making. And I’m not just talking about leaving baking soda out of those cookies. I’m talking about forgetting to put coffee in the coffeemaker and serving our guests hot water and putting a stack of pillowcases in the bathroom instead of towels.”
“Anyone can forget a few things.”
“A few?” Aunt Gertie looked down and cocked an eyebrow.
Reba followed her gaze to find her t-shirt on backwards. She sighed before she took it off and put it on right. “Fine. I obviously need some help. But there’s no need for you and Mama to worry. I’ll figure something out.”
“I gave you a chance to figure things out. Now it’s my turn.” Aunt Gertie wheeled her walker around and headed for the door, leaving Reba more than a little concerned. Her aunt schemes never turned out well. “And you better check that egg.”
The poached egg!
Reba quickly pulled the egg out of the water. But it was too late. She had another Ping-Pong ball. And she couldn’t serve it to Mr. Picky Sterling—especially after tasting the last one. She moved at lightening speed, but by the time she made another egg and put it on a tray with sliced tomatoes, a half of an avocado, and a cup of black coffee, it was well past ten o’clock. Thankfully, Valentine Sterling’s room was on the first floor.
The garden room was her favorite room in the house. Not only because its French doors led out to the garden, but also because it had once belonged to her Grandpa Dix and Grandma Dovey.
Grandpa Dix had built the plantation-style house over a hundred years earlier as a wedding gift for his fiancée. The fiancée loved the huge house, but ended up hating the small town of Simple and left grandpa at the altar. Not wanting to disappoint the townsfolk who were expecting to enjoy a nice wedding followed by a delicious pig roast, he asked his Cherokee housekeeper to marry him. It turned out to be a love match. Grandma Gray Dove, or Dovey as she ended up being called by Grandpa Dix, wrote in her diary that she’d loved Thomas Dixon from the moment she set eyes on him and was “damned glad that prissy white woman had run back to Chicago.”
Reba wished the prissy man sleeping in her great-great-great-great-grandparents room would run off too. But until he did, she had to continue to appease him.
Balancing the tray in one hand, she lightly tapped on the door. When there was no answer, she knocked a little louder. Only a second later the door was jerked open, and Reba couldn’t help the surprised gasp of air that rushed out of her lungs.
The freshly-shaved, perfectly-groomed, fully-dressed author who usually opened the door in the mornings had been replaced with a scruffy-jawed, mussed-haired, half-naked man in a pair of black boxer briefs that left very little to the imagination.
It had been a very long time since Reba had seen a half naked man. Doing a quick calculation, it had been seven years and four months to be exact. And Billy Bob’s body had been nothing like the body before her. Billy didn’t have a six-pack stomach divided by a thin line of dark tummy hair. Or biceps the size of sweet Texas grapefruit. And he sure as hell hadn’t had a package large enough to stretch out the front seams of his underwear to eye-popping proportions.
“Did I or did I not give you express instructions that I was not to be disturbed until ten o’clock?” he said in a sleep-raspy voice.
By the time her gaze wandered back up all those well-placed muscles to his annoyed tight-jawed face, she’d completely forgotten the question. “What?”
He released a long sigh. “Why are you knocking at my door so early?”
“It’s not early. It’s after ten.”
His eyes that were the deep golden color of her November birthstone squinted with confusion. “After ten?” He disappeared inside the room, and a few seconds later, she heard him grumble a cuss word under his breath.
Since the tray was getting heavy and the door was open, she invited herself in. He was sitting on the mussed bed wearing a pair of tortoise shell glasses staring at his phone as if it had to be wrong. Obviously, writers got so caught up in their writing that they lost all track of time. She set the tray on the table by the French doors, then turned to leave. On the way past the bed, she couldn’t help noticing the open laptop sitting next to Valentine. Since snooping ran in her family, she took a quick peek at “the masterpiece” he’d been working on for the last month.
But she didn’t find a riveting story that held her attention after reading only a few sentences. Instead, she found one word written over and over again with no punctuation or capitals. The same four-letter cuss word that he’d just said.
It took a moment for the truth to dawn. Once it did, a big smile spread across her face as she lifted her gaze to Mr. Sterling. “Well, mercy me. It seems that the great Valentine Sterling has writer’s block.” (Taming a Texas Heartbreaker by Katie Lane)
Also by Katie Lane
Be sure to check out all of Katie Lane’s novels!
www.katielanebooks.com
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Bad Boy Ranch Series:
Taming a Texas Bad Boy
Taming a Texas Rebel
Taming a Texas Charmer
Taming a Texas Heartbreaker (Coming in June 2020)
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Brides of Bliss Texas Series:
Spring Texas Bride
Summer Texas Bride
Autumn Texas Bride
Christmas Texas Bride
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Tender Heart Texas Series:
Falling for Tender Heart
Falling Head Over Boots
Falling for a Texas Hellion
Falling for a Cowboy’s Smile
Falling for a Christmas Cowboy
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Deep in the Heart of Texas Series:
Going Cowboy Crazy
Make Mine a Bad Boy
Catch Me a Cowboy
Trouble in Texas
Flirting with Texas
A Match Made in Texas
The Last Cowboy in Texas
My Big Fat Texas Wedding
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Overnight Billionaires Series:
A Billionaire Between the Sheets
A Billionaire After Dark
Waking up with a Billionaire
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Hunk for the Holidays Series:
Hunk for the Holidays
Ring in the Holidays
Unwrapped
About the Author
Katie Lane is a firm believer that love conquers all and laughter is the best medicine. Which is why you'll find plenty of humor and happily-ever-afters in her contemporary and western contemporary romance novels. A USA Today Bestselling Author, she has written numerous series, including Deep in the Heart of Texas, Hunk for the Holidays, Overnig
ht Billionaires, Tender Heart Texas, The Brides of Bliss Texas, and Bad Boy Ranch. Katie lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and when she's not writing, she enjoys reading, eating chocolate (dark, please), and snuggling with her high school sweetheart and Cairn Terrier, Roo.
For more on her writing life or just to chat,
check out Katie here:
Facebook www.facebook.com/katielaneauthor
Instagram www.instagram.com/katielanebooks.
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And for information on upcoming releases and great giveaways, be sure to sign up for her mailing list at www.katielanebooks.com!