Page 55 of Eighteen Bowties and Counting

She laughed as she followed him inside, and then she took over the cookie prep. “You’re sick,” she said. “Go lie down and I’ll bring in the treats.”

He did what she said, and she recognized that they’d perhaps put a bandage over the wounds between them. It might hold for a little while longer, but it might just get ripped off and cause more bleeding too.

But Charlotte didn’t have the words that would stitch everything up neatly and nicely, so she used a knife to cut cubes out of the frozen cookie dough, and when the first batch had baked, she took a plate over to the couch where Beau…had fallen asleep.

He was cowboy perfect when he didn’t carry the weight of the ranch on his face. So handsome, and while those eyes she loved couldn’t be seen, the pure goodness of him made up for it.

Her feelings expanded, and while her first instinct was to pull back, harness the power of them, she forced herself to let them go. They didn’t go far, and she brushed his hair off his forehead with, “Cookies are done, cowboy.”

Beau didn’t stir, which testified of how tired and sick he truly was. So Charlotte leaned down and barely touched her lips to his skin, getting plenty of sizzle and spark from that simple act.

And she knew—on some level, she loved this man, and now she just needed to figure out how to tell him.

Chapter Nineteen

“You’re being really stubborn,” Beau called down to Charlotte, which earned him a glare. He bent his arm and coughed into his elbow. He’d been home from the roundup for a week now, and he’d been fighting a sore throat every morning since.

He’d faithfully done all of his mother’s home remedies. Tea with honey. Extra doses of vitamins, taken with a couple of zinc pills. All of them—and none of them had worked.

Beau had to face facts: He was sick.

Charlotte was working with a horse named Marlin, and both of them looked past quitting time. He’d told her as much, as they were the only two gathered around the ring today. She’d ignored him, her strong personality shining through in that moment.

Since his birthday, she’d definitely re-erected some of the walls she’d come to the ranch with, but Beau didn’t know how to kick them back down. The truth was, he’d reverted back to the flirtatious cowboy he’d been in his twenties and early thirties too.

He wasn’t sure why they’d both taken a step backward, other than it made life in the cabin easier.

When Marlin still wouldn’t go right, Beau whistled down to her. “Charlotte, I’m calling it. He’s exhausted, and so am I.”

“Fine.” She moved toward the horse while he got down from the fence. He opened the gate for her to lead the equine through, and she wouldn’t look at him as she walked by.

“You can’t be mad at me over this,” he said. “Bribe him with some of your strawberry candies or something.”

She swung the horse around to face him. “Candy only works when you’re getting to know a horse.”

“Oh, it does not.” Beau swung the gate closed and faced her too. “It works when you want them to stop biting at their bandages, and when you want them to like you, and when you’re overworking them.”

“Beau.”

“You’re not the only person who’s ever worked with a horse before, you know.” The moment he said it, he regretted it. He started to cough before he could apologize, and he held up one hand while he coughed into the other.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted and sick. I didn’t mean it. I don’t mean to snap at you, I swear.” He took a couple of steps toward her and took the rope from her. He held it as he pulled her into his chest. “There’s something going on between us, and I’m not sure what it is, but I don’t like it.”

Charlotte didn’t say anything, and Beau let her go. “We haven’t been out all week. You disappear into your room at night. Can we…I’m going to make breakfast for dinner tonight. For us. Okay?”

They didn’t have everything he wanted to make, but he could send a text out to his friends and get the extra eggs and sausage he needed. Easy.

Why wasn’t falling in love as easy? Why did it have to be so hard?

Why hadn’t Charlotte said okay yet?

Beau handed her the rope and said, “I actually really like how stubborn you are with the horses.”

She softened, maybe for the first time this week. “Okay.”

“Things have been different, right?”

“They’ve been a little different.”

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