“It’s about an hour to the ranch from here,” he said after he pulled out of the lot. “Do you need to stop for anything? Do you want a drink?”
An entire bottle of wine would be good. But she doubted that arriving blitzed to meet Flynn’s parents would go over well. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”
She could already imagine the greeting she was going to receive. What would his parents think of her?
She knew what they’d think. That she was head chef at Flynn’s restaurant, sleeping with Flynn in order to get ahead. God, why had she agreed to this? In the back of her head she’d known it was a bad idea from the start.
“You look a little pale, Amelia,” Flynn said after about twenty minutes on the road. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
She turned and offered up her best smile. “Oh, I’m fine. Totally fine. Very excited to meet your family.”
That hadn’t sounded at all sincere.
Ten minutes later, Flynn said, “You know, they’re not ogres.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“My parents. They’re really nice people. Warm and welcoming. I think you’re mentally working yourself up over nothing. This isn’t a big deal.”
“Maybe not to you. But I can’t help but think they’re going to assume I have some ulterior motive in dating you.”
Even though he was wearing sunglasses, she saw his brow go up. “What kind of ulterior motive?”
“Like the evil chef screws the hot football player and owner of the restaurant where she works in order to get a leg up in the business.”
Flynn stared at her for a few seconds, then snorted out a laugh.
“It’s not funny.”
“Hell yeah it’s funny. How exactly would sleeping with me help your career?”
She crossed her arms, miffed that he wasn’t taking her seriously. “I . . . don’t know exactly. But I’m sure I could take advantage of you in some way. If nothing else, it would give me better job security at Ninety-Two.”
“Your cooking stands on its own. You don’t need to sleep with me to keep your job. As for helping you in the industry, I know very few chefs and have almost no contacts in the restaurant industry. How much help could I give you?”
When he put it like that, it did sound stupid. “I don’t know. I just don’t want your parents to think I’m using you.”
“Trust me, Amelia, my parents won’t think that. I’m pretty sure they know me well enough to realize that if I’m bringing a woman home for Thanksgiving, it’s because I trust said woman. A woman who has no nefarious intentions where I’m concerned.”
“Ooh, nefarious. I like that word. It makes me sound like a femme fatale.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, babe, but you’re more of a sweet muffin than a femme fatale.”
She frowned at him. “I am not.”
“Being a sweet muffin is a bad thing?”
“Well, no. But I’d like to think I’m at least a little mysterious.”
“Okay, you’re totally mysterious. You probably have a stiletto dagger tucked into your garter.”
Now she laughed. “I don’t think the airline would allow me to carry a stiletto through security. But the garter sounds fun.”
He slid his hand down her thigh. “Yeah, it does. And if it’ll make you wear one, I’ll totally buy you a sexy dagger.”
“Done deal. But let’s wait until we get back home so airport security doesn’t confiscate it.”
“You got it.” He gave her thigh a gentle squeeze, and she suddenly wished they weren’t in the car so she could touch him freely. But she needed his concentration on driving, not on her, so she stared out the window.
As they pulled off the highway and drove into more rural territory, she was so intrigued with everything she saw. Having lived all of her life in urban areas, seeing such wide-open spaces intrigued her. Miles of fenced-in green grass, and the occasional acreages housing horses and cows were amazing.
She turned to him. “You grew up here?”
He nodded. “Mostly. After my dad retired from football they bought the ranch. Before that, we lived in Wisconsin.”
“What was that like?”
He smiled. “Cold winters, but really nice. I had good friends. I learned to ice skate there.”
“And yet you didn’t become a hockey player.”
He laughed. “No. We played a lot of football. And once we moved down here to Texas, football was king.”
“But one of your brothers plays baseball.”
“Yeah, what can I say? We couldn’t beat that love of baseball out of Tucker.”
She stared at him. “You’re joking, right?”
At a stop sign, he turned to her. “Of course I’m joking. Sort of.”
She rolled her eyes. She never knew when he was kidding. Having grown up without siblings put her at a disadvantage regarding how siblings behaved toward one another. For all she knew, they beat up on each other every day. Then again, she’d seen him with his brother Grant, and his sister, Mia. Though there was a lot of teasing, there was also genuine affection between them all.
She was looking forward to observing the family dynamic. And when Flynn reached the gates of the ranch, her eyes widened. The dark iron double Cs affixed above the huge metal gate looked imposing. Flynn rolled down the window, punched in a code and the gates opened.
They drove down a dirt road for quite a ways until Amelia spotted the house, a beautiful two-story home with bright shutters next to all those windows, plus an amazing wraparound porch. Dogs came running as soon as Flynn pulled in front. Like . . . a lot of dogs.
Amelia inhaled and let it out.
Flynn turned to her and smiled. “Ready for this?”
She managed a smile. “Sure.”
She got out at the same time he did. Dogs surrounded them as they came around to the front of the vehicle.
“Dogs, meet Amelia. Amelia, meet the dogs.”
There were at least five of them, but surprisingly they were all well behaved. She kneeled down and loved on all of them until a short whistle sent them all scurrying away. Amelia stood and saw a man who looked an awful lot like an older version of Flynn standing on the porch. He hugged Flynn, then came over to her with a smile on his face.
“Scoundrels love the attention. They’ll let you pet them all day. I’m Easton Cassidy, Flynn’s dad.”