Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) by Allison Leigh Page B

lettuce salad and moaned about gaining weight from the dribble of salad dressing she had.” His fingers were light against her back, but still felt hot through her T-shirt. “Nice to see someone actually enjoy her food.”
    “Well, I wish some of it would stick to my ribs,” she admitted. “I know nobody wants to hear it, but I think it’s just as hard to gain a few pounds when you’re trying as it is to lose them.”
    “You’re fine just the way you are.”
    “I have the figure of a ten-year old boy,” she dismissed, skipping down the wooden stairs to the main floor. “Probably why most guys mistake me for one of them.”
    He suddenly took the step in front of her, his arm barring her progress. “No guy worth his salt mistakes you for one of his own kind,” he said evenly. “Just because you don’t have that overblown look your old college roomie sports doesn’t mean we’re blind. So stop talking that way, would you?”
    She realized her mouth was gaping like a fish out of water.
    But he said no more. Just lowered his arm again and finished descending the stairs, where he pushed open the door and waited for her to pass through ahead of him.
    She heard the door again after he’d joined her on the boarded sidewalk and glanced back.
    The fortune-teller drifted out the door, her gold coins reflecting the sunshine so brilliantly that Aurora squinted against them. Then she turned and headed the opposite direction.
    “Everything okay?”
    Aurora nodded. “She’s a little odd, isn’t she? The fortune-teller?” She waved toward the departing woman. “I’ve met so many people who work here, but I just realized that I don’t even know her name.”
    “She’s a street performer,” Galen dismissed. “I doubt she’s supposed to be giving out her name to the guests. She’s just supposed to keep ’em engaged. Speaking of which,” he swept his arm ahead of him. “Ready to get hitched again?”
    She held out an imaginary skirt and gave a quick curtsy. “If you’d be so kind.”
    * * *
    The next afternoon, Aurora stood in the back door of Galen’s house and tried not to gape. “You weren’t exaggerating about your chores,” she greeted.
    He was shirtless and his bronzed shoulders bore a gleam of sweat. “Aurora?”
    “In the flesh. Your doorbell doesn’t work.”
    “I know.”
    “That’s why I came ’round back.” She pushed the casserole dish containing a fresh-baked batch of cinnamon rolls into his hands. “I’m here to get us back on even footing since I’m in your debt for two meals now. What have you been out doing already?”
    “Digging postholes.”
    “That’d do it.” A more backbreaking job, she couldn’t think of. Not when a person was doing it with a plain old post-hole digger, which she suspected was Galen’s way. “Set those in the oven,” she told him. “You don’t have to turn it on or anything, but they’ll stay a bit warm in there. And—” she mentally rolled up her sleeves as she studied the countertops that she suspected were littered with every single dish, glass and pot he probably owned “—I will get to work on this mess.”
    “I’ve told you more’n once that you don’t owe me anything.”
    “I know.” She stepped past him, focusing harder on the state of his kitchen so she would be less aware of
him
. She’d waited until noon to come over to his place strictly because she’d half hoped she wouldn’t find him home.
    She could have left the rolls and bolted.
    So much for that.
    “But now I’ve seen all this,” she said truthfully, “I’ll never sleep at night again. No wonder you didn’t want Jeanne Marie seeing this. She’d box your ears for sure.” She automatically opened the cupboard beneath his sink, and sure enough, found an industrial-sized bottle of dishwashing soap and a brand new scrubby sponge still in its wrapper. Despite living so close, she’d never been inside his house before. But such habits were pretty universal, she