Page 247 of Cowboy Daddies

Jeb walked in, carrying two pizzas.

“Hey, I didn’t hear the driver arrive,” she said. “I had the tip ready.”

“I tipped him. Eddie always messages me when he’s on his way here.” He placed the pizzas on the table and stared around. “I didn’t realize we were having pizza tonight.”

She winced, feeling guilty. Yep. She was crap at all of this stuff.

“Sorry! I totally failed at cooking roast beef. It was absolute crap. Everything went wrong and I’m so bad at all of this!”

His other eyebrow rose up. “Wyatt?”

“Yep?”

“Can you get plates and napkins please? And some drinks.”

“Sure,” Wyatt replied.

Jeb crooked a finger at her. “Out on the porch with me.”

Wyatt sent her a look of sympathy which she didn’t think she deserved. With a sigh, she followed Jeb out, her feet dragging.

“Now, we’ve got a little problem,” Jeb said, turning to face her.

She nodded sadly. “I know. I’m really sorry, Jeb. That was probably an expensive piece of meat I ruined. Now, instead of roast beef for dinner you’re having to eat pizza and I nearly burned the house down!”

“All right, I’m going to address everything you said, but let’s start with that last part. You nearly burned the house down? Is that why the smoke alarm is missing?”

She’d tidied up the broken smoke alarm so she had no idea how he knew that smoke alarm was gone.

“Um, well, I burned the meat. See, I didn’t have much time to cook it so I turned it up on high. And that seemed to be the wrong thing to do. Because it got all burned on top and was still frozen inside! How was I meant to know that meat would stay frozen even though it’s in a hot oven!”

“Why didn’t you have time to cook dinner?” he asked calmly.

Part of her was expecting him to yell. But he’d promised he wouldn’t. Although he probably should.

She was meant to be in charge. And she was messing everything up. “Well, first we decided to go to the creek and catch tadpoles. We didn’t have much luck with that but we did see a couple of frogs. And then we thought it would be cool to build a fort. But on the ground, not up in a tree, I promise. Safety first.”

“Good girl.”

Oh, she loved being called a good girl. It made her insides go all gooey.

“So you were playing all day?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. Not all day! I did do some washing. Only, I kind of messed that up too and your white sheets are now pink. Sorry.”

Casey waited for him to start yelling. She wasn’t going to like that part but she knew that she deserved it. Her gaze dropped to her feet. She was determined to stand here and take it.

“I needed some new sheets anyway,” he said.

Huh?

Casey glanced up at him. “What?”

“Elise bought those sheets. They were nice but white isn’t really a color I would choose. And they were probably getting old.”

“Oh. I’m not in trouble?”

“I didn’t say that.”