Short-Order Cook...And A Baby On Board
As if meeting his birth mother and discovering he has a twin brother arenât enough to test a man, Jake Morrowâs short one ranch cook. So when pregnant Emma Hurley comes looking for a job and whips up the best steak dinner heâs ever had, Jake hires her on the spot. And when Emmaâs father demands she marry or lose her family farm, Jake stuns Emmaâand himselfâby proposing.
After being left in the lurch, Emma can handle five hungry, romance-challenged cowboys. Well, except for oneâthe handsome rancher and Blue Gulchâs most eligible bachelorâwho gallantly comes to her rescue. Only now Emmaâs gone and fallen for her pretend fiancé. But Jake isnât looking for a forever kind of love...is he?
Jake walked over and reached up a hand to Emmaâs face. He could see this was tearing her in two, breaking her heart.
He took a deep breath. Expelled it. Turned and paced the length of the bedroom. Looked at Emma. Looked out the window. Closed his eyes. Opened them and found her looking at him as though he might need medical attention. Which he might.
He paced some more, then stopped. âMarry me, Emma. Weâre both not looking for a real relationship or a real marriage. Youâll save the farm.â
What the hell? Had he just said that? Had he just proposed to Emma?
Good God, he had. Without thinking. Gun to head, what are you going to do, Morrow? Well, this was the answer.
A marriage proposal.
She stared at him. âJake. You canât be serious. What could you possibly get out of this?â
âThe best cook in Texas?â he said, managing a weak smile.
Had he just said that? What the hell was wrong with him? If anyone needed Emmaâs charm school for cowboys, he did. Good Lord.
* * *
Hurleyâs Homestyle Kitchen: Thereâs nothing more delicious than falling in love...
MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their beagle and their black-and-white cat. When sheâs not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favorite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose womenâs fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.
Chapter One
âI wouldnât date you if you were the last man in Texas, Hank Timber!â
Jake Morrow glanced up in time to see Fern, a neighboring rancher whoâd dropped off the four billy goats heâd purchased for the Full Circle Ranch, scowling at his foreman. Fern stomped to her truck and sped off, dust and gravel flying in her wake.
Hank didnât even bother waving away the dirt and grit that now covered him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his expression forlorn as Jake approached.
âDidnât go so well, huh?â Jake asked his foreman. Hank, twice divorced, had mentioned at breakfast this morning that he thought Fern was âdarn pretty and had a way about herâ and planned to ask her out to dinner at Hurleyâs Homestyle Kitchen, everyoneâs favorite restaurant in Blue Gulch.
Hank sighed. âI thought that rancher to rancher, I could ask her out by joking that we already had something in commonâhow weâd both stink of cow dung while chowing down on supper. Then I sniffed around her and nodded and laughed. Instead of saying yes to a date tonight, she got all mad.â He shrugged, watching Fernâs truck disappear down the Full Circleâs long dirt drive.
Jake refrained from slamming his palm against his forehead. At this rate, Hank would be single forever. Of the four cowboys working for Jake at the Full Circle Ranch, his foreman wasnât even the most clueless when it came to women. No, Jake would say it was a four-way tie. Forty-two-year-old Hank had been in love with Fern since he laid eyes on her a month ago while listening to her presentation on calving season at the local rancherâs association meeting. Twenty-five-year-old Golden, whoâd earned the nickname from the motto about silence, was so shy and quiet he turned away any time the young woman he had a mad crush on, a Hurleyâs waitress, was around. Fifty-two-year-old Grizzle, who hadnât shaved or had a haircut in years, maybe a decade, spoke wistfully of his late wife and how he wished he could find someone as special, but had scared a little girl at the feed store in town with just the sight of him. Then there was Jakeâs own brother CJ, ten years his junior at twenty-two, who took full advantage of his good looks and ranch-honed muscles to play the field. CJ had left a trail of broken hearts and parents, older sisters, and bffs to storm up to Jake in town and let him know just what a âno-good lying playerâ his brother was. Charles John Morrow was a good guy, Jake knew that more than he knew just about anything, but when it came to love and romance, CJ was an absolute hot mess, a train wreck, as his neighborâs teenage daughter would put it. CJ would just say, Well, what was I supposed to do? Propose? She just wasnât the one. The Morrow brothers had been in Blue Gulch all of one month, and at least ten young women hadnât been âthe one.â