Beau was seething. How dare his brother lust after Alyssa. Yes, she was beautiful and yes, she was sexy, but she didn’t need some punk kid panting after her. And he didn’t give a damn that he was being irrational. Cade was only two years younger than he was, and probably five years older than Alyssa, so he wasn’t a punk kid. But it still chapped him to have his younger brother acting like a horn dog. Not that he had any real reason to talk since he was doing pretty much the same thing, but at least he knew he shouldn’t be yearning for her. Cade wasn’t fighting the attraction at all and had joked about it. Which had made Beau see red.

He knew he’d pissed Cade off too, by telling him to quit acting like a horn-dog and leave the woman alone. They’d nearly come to blows in the mud room before Chase had come in and drug his twin away. Beau didn’t know why it had made him so angry; he’d joked with Cade in the past about sexy women, and who got dibs on them. But the idea of treating Alyssa with the same attitude made him a little crazy. And he really did not want to think about why that was. Maybe he should just dunk his head in the horse tank—the cold water might shock some sense into him.

He'd spent the whole afternoon working to stay away from her, only to come unhinged when his brother told her she was hot. He was glad Alyssa had laughed and brushed it off like it was no big deal. He needed to get his mind off the whole episode, before he had to sit at the same table with Alyssa and his brother.

He went into the kitchen to see if there was something that needed doing for dinner. Cooking relaxed him and gave him something else to think about. They had a rotation on who cooked each day—but he was never put on it anymore—at least not during calving season. He’d totally forgotten his turn one day almost two years ago. He’d been working on a difficult delivery and hadn’t remembered to tag one of the other family members to ask them to take his slot. He’d not even remembered after the birth. He’d dragged himself in about an hour after dinner should have been, to find a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread with his name on it and the word Dinner written underneath. It had still taken him a moment to figure it out. Since then, the only time he was in charge of meal preparation was when they were haying or riding fence—and even then, his mom always checked in with him to make sure he was actually in the kitchen.

He found both his parents in the kitchen. His father was cutting up the roast while his mother made gravy.

“Can I help with something?”

His mother smiled at him. “Sure, would you like to make a salad? Everything else is about ready. Just have to finish the gravy and Tony wants to mash the potatoes.”

“My pleasure.” Beau went to the fridge and got all the vegetables he could find and set them on a large cutting board. He washed what needed washing and started in, dumping each new ingredient into the giant bowl. Minutes later he was in the zone, chopping and dicing, peeling and slicing. He barely noticed Tony and Emma come in to mash the potatoes. The salad bowl was filled to the brim with enough food for two families the size of his. Alyssa came up and snatched a cucumber slice out of the bowl.

She laughed. “Think you’ve got enough salad, cowboy? I think that would feed the entire state of Colorado.”

He shrugged and set the knife down—so he didn’t cut his fool thumb off while distracted by Alyssa. “Salad keeps for a day or two. It’ll get eaten, don’t you worry.”

“Of that I have no doubt. You all eat like…” she bumped him with her hip, “…ranch hands.”

Beau groaned. “You’ve been saving that one, haven’t you?”

Alyssa grinned. “Not at all, but my family is sick and tired of hearing it. I have a brand-new audience here in Colorado.”

Beau shook his head slowly. “We’ve brought a monster into our midst. And here the school said you were a great student and would be an asset.”

“Did they now? Well, I am a good student, and I will be helpful—so they didn’t lie. They just didn’t let you in on my sense of humor. Bwah ha ha.” She rubbed her hands together, cackling gleefully.

“Alyssa?”

“What?”

“Get the salad dressing.”

She laughed again, and Beau practically shivered as the sound shimmered through him. The woman was tying him in knots and she’d only been here a few days. He took off like a shot toward the table.

* * *

Alyssa followed Beau to the table. The man was so flippin’ hot. When she’d walked in and saw him chopping up the salad she had practically drooled. The sight of a man in the kitchen, working away, was so appealing to her. She’d had a couple of boyfriends growing up who thought it was the woman’s place to be in the kitchen and they wouldn’t step foot into it. She’d dumped those immature idiots like a hot rock.

Her father was widowed when she was six and he hadn’t whined about cooking; he’d taken on the job as nothing more than what had to be done. Her mom had been sick for a couple of years before she passed, and she’d carefully taught her husband how to make everything from simple meals to Thanksgiving dinner. Later, when her step-mother had come into the picture, her dad didn’t stand aside and assume Ellen would make all the meals. He just kept on cooking right alongside his new wife. So, in reality, Alyssa had never seen anything different.

She was glad the others in the kitchen had been focused on little Tony attempting to mash potatoes. So, they didn’t notice her stop dead in her tracks to watch Beau chopping the veggies. His strong hands and arms had mesmerized her for a minute until a piece of potato nearly smacked her in the forehead.

The flying spud had startled her out of her daze and got her moving again. She was certain the potatoes would be interesting to eat. She remembered her father letting her help cook at a young age and wondered if she’d made as big of a mess as Tony had—most probably. But she figured that’s how children learned and if a person wasn’t willing to clean up a little mess, then they probably shouldn’t be having kids in the first place.

The potatoes were a disaster, very few of them were mashed, most were still in whole chunks.

Grandpa K was the first one to take a big bite of potatoes. “Mmmm, these are delicious taters. I do declare they are some of the best I have ever eaten. Who made these?”

“I did Gampa K,” Tony declared.

Grandpa K looked closely at Tony. “You made these fine spuds, Tony? Really? Are you big enough to make fine mashed potatoes like these?”

“Yes, I did. Nana helped cook ’em but I smashed ’em.”

“You did a mighty fine job, young man. Mighty fine.

The little boy glowed with pride. Everyone took at least two helpings and raved about what a good job Tony had done mashing them, and how delicious they were.

Alyssa fell a little bit in love with the whole family.

She’d gleaned a bit of information that Emma was an unwed mother and that the father had been passing through town the spring of her senior year in high school, never to be seen again. But the family treated her with love, and there was no condemnation or shame about the situation.

Emma was a full-time mother and was getting a degree in accounting in online night school classes. She also did some bookkeeping for a few stores in town on Saturdays when the family all took turns watching Tony. When Tony started school, Emma planned to do more accounting for their small town, eventually hoping to open her own CPA firm to service the various businesses in the area.

Alyssa noticed that sometimes Emma looked a little sad when she watched her son playing. Alyssa wondered about that, but didn’t feel it was her place to ask—and it never lasted long, just a moment or two.

They finished up with dinner and Alyssa helped with the cleanup. She didn’t see where Beau had gone, so she decided to wait to talk to him about the birthing records later. She wanted to study them a little longer anyway before she asked him about what she had found. She excused herself to go back to her room.