Holly Jolly Cowboy (The Wyoming Cowboy #7)(14)

“Chili.”

Adam swore. He loved chili.

“And corn bread,” Carson added.

He clenched his jaw and choked down the rest of his sandwich. He could do this. It was just food. It didn’t matter.

But by the time they finished their day, Adam was starving. The small sandwiches weren’t enough to satisfy his appetite after a long day of work. Even now, he still had things to do. There was horse tack that had to be oiled and repaired, and it had been muddy so he needed to make sure the horses’ hooves were clean and not gummed up. There was also one of the cattle that was looking a little sickly, so they’d separated it from the herd and put it at the far end of the barn, and he needed to check on it, too.

He had to eat something first, though.

“Come on, Hannibal,” he told his dog as he stormed toward the main house. “We’re going to demand a real meal from that waitress.”

Hannibal just whined but followed at his feet.

Inside the main house, though, no one was home. The tiny little dog of hers came out to greet them, its entire small body shaking with excitement. It jumped at his legs and so he scooped the dog up and headed for the kitchen. It was empty, the counters clean and bare. The whiteboard was set up on a stand facing the doorway with a note on it.

    Carson,

There’s more chili in the fridge, and more corn bread. Please help yourself! Tomorrow I’ll be making chicken spaghetti and garlic bread for your dinner with a custard tart for dessert. Let me know by end of day today if you want any changes. I’m here to serve you!

xo—Holly

PS—Pumpkin is a little beggar! Don’t feed her if you come in.



No note addressing him. He guessed she didn’t expect him to come back into the house. He’d made it pretty clear he wouldn’t, but it was just another irritating thing she did. Frustrated, Adam went to the fridge, and sure enough, there was a huge batch of chili and the nicest little pieces of corn bread cut into stars of all fucking things.

Why did Carson get special treatment and Adam got sandwiches? Right, because Adam dared to not like onions. With a growl, he pulled the food out of the fridge and tossed it into the microwave. He was going to eat the rest of the damn chili, and if Carson didn’t like it, he could have a damned peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He shoved a piece of corn bread into his mouth and it was so light it practically melted on his tongue.

He hated that woman. He hated her a lot.

Her little dog sat at his feet, her entire little teddy-bear body wagging with enthusiasm as she noticed Adam eating. And he got a terrible, mean idea in his head. So he pulled out another piece of corn bread and offered it to the tiny thing. “You want this, girl? You want corn bread? Here, have two . . .”



* * *



? ? ?

Pumpkin had vomited everywhere when Holly got home from her late shift at the saloon. It wasn’t what she wanted to see after a long day on her feet, and she groaned again when she saw the huge puddles on Sage’s pristine carpets. That was going to have to be scrubbed.

“Oh, baby girl,” Holly crooned to her dog as she picked her up. “You had a bad day, too, didn’t you?”

The dog seemed happy enough now, eager to lick Holly’s face (which she avoided). She took Pumpkin out for her nighttime walk, and when they went back inside, she got to work scrubbing the worst of the mess out of the carpets. When that was done, she dragged herself back into the kitchen, yawning, and looked for a note from Carson about the food. There wasn’t one, so she assumed that her menu for the next day would be good. A quick peek into the fridge told her that all the chili had been eaten, and all but one piece of corn bread was gone.

She snacked on it herself as she boiled spaghetti noodles and thought about the cake she was going to make for the Winter Festival this Friday. She’d work on it in pieces, she decided. She could prep a lot in advance while she was making meals for the ranch hands and just stick it in the fridge to wait until she had time to assemble. She’d asked for Friday night off, switching shifts with the other waitress at the restaurant so she could have the day to work on her Christmas-themed masterpiece.

Chocolate cake, of course. You couldn’t go wrong with chocolate cake. Holly thought about the look. White fondant to make a smooth top, she decided, with a sugar-crystal crust to seem like snow. And she could add fondant snowflakes of red and green for pops of color. The inside of a chocolate cake would be rather boring, though, but she could always bake some cutouts into the shape of holly leaves and pepper them through the batter. When it baked, they’d see holly leaves when they cut it open.

And of course, she’d make it utterly delicious. She’d spread the cake with ganache between the layers so you’d get gooey chocolate decadence in each bite. It wasn’t the most Christmasy of flavors, but you really couldn’t go wrong with chocolate cake, could you?

Excited, she began to make a list of all the ingredients she’d need.





CHAPTER SEVEN





The next morning, Adam headed into the main house. The basket on his porch step had included the labeled sandwiches again, and he was getting a little tired of the joke. The kitchen was tidy again, and a plate of enormous blueberry muffins was next to the whiteboard. He took one and ate it, reading the menu for the next day. Lunch was another soup for Carson, with fresh bread, and dinner would be homemade fried chicken and twice-baked potatoes.