Page 81 of One More Kiss

Peyton’s jaw clenched as she looked up at me, and then with a slight shrug of her shoulders, she looked away. “Your dinner’s in the oven. I’ve changed my mind; it’s been a long day, and I’m heading up to bed to read. I have an appointment in town tomorrow that I need to be up early for.” She waited for a moment, and when I didn’t speak, she turned and walked back to the house.

Silently I turned back to the ATV and resumed my work. I knew I would be able to finish it tonight if I put my mind to it. I also needed to check the cattle and do the rounds before I went inside, but hopefully she would be asleep by then. Because for all the things I wanted to say to her, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind either.

As I finished fixing the four-wheeler, I wondered what she made for supper. The woman couldn’t boil an egg when she left, so the curiosity of what she had left for me to eat niggled persistently in the back of my brain as I cleaned up my work area, leaving the ATV to carry out my nightly rounds.

The house was quiet when I went in, and as I took off my boots, I could see the oven light on. Almost tentatively, I reached into the oven and pulled out the casserole dish, uncovering a cheese and ham pasta bake. There was more than half left, and once I’d washed up, I sat down with the casserole and a cold beer and ate my dinner.

She didn’t need to make me food. Was it a peace offering? Or…was it the simple fact a pasta bake was pretty hard to make for one person and she had no choice but to leave me some?

Scowling at my own negativity towards her, I rinsed the dish before I put it in the dishwasher. Locking up the house took a few minutes, and I stopped myself from going to the extension to check on Donna. Her loss hit me harder at nighttime. She was part of the routine: work in the barn, check the cattle and the other animals, eat a late supper, then check that Donna was settled.

Check, check, check.

Climbing the stairs to my room, I saw the light shining from under Peyton’s door. Hesitating, I told myself it was better to leave her to her solitude and we could start fresh in the morning. A good solid plan. When I had washed the day away and changed into my pj bottoms, I had no intention of crossing the hall to Peyton’s room. None at all.

“Peyton? You awake?” I asked as I pushed the door open slowly.

“Hmm?” She was sitting up in bed with a book on her lap. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy style. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I answered a little too defensively. “I just…I wanted to say thanks for supper.”

“Oh.” Peyton looked away from me. “You’re welcome.”

“You can cook now,” I teased her slightly, and I was gratified to see a small twitch of her lips, almost like she wanted to smile.

“Well, no, not really. It was a pasta bake.” She sounded self-conscious as her cheeks reddened.

“It’s the only thing you can cook?” I guessed shrewdly.

“I still made it, didn’t I?”

I held back a grin at her indignation, but Peyton also seemed to realise she had overreacted, and she huffed out a laugh. “I’m glad you liked it,” she offered with a hesitant smile. “You always work this late?”

“It’s a ranch,” I reminded her as I leaned against the door.

“I know.” Her attention was on the window. She hadn’t closed the drapes, and the morning sun would be her wake-up call from nature. Considering she grew up here, I knew that she was more than aware of that. “Where were you coming back from?”

Her sudden change of subject caught me slightly off guard. “Denver, I had business.”

Peyton merely nodded as she kept her attention fixed on the window, but the wry smile wasn’t lost on me. “You could have saved me a bus journey and…Milly.”

“Consider it a welcome home present.”

Peyton turned to look at me, her eye roll exaggerated. “Next time, skip the present.”

“Next time?” I asked her softly.

We held each other’s stare for a long while before Peyton blinked and looked away. “Well, I have the attorney in the morning, so I best get some sleep.”

Straightening away from the doorframe, I nodded. “I’ll take you into town.”

“Oh, um…thank you.”

“No need to thank me; got to see Rhett Wilson anyway,” I told her as I reached for the door handle. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Heading back to my room, I knew that although it was small talk, it was still some talk, and after five years of silence…I was eager to take it.

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