The Rancher's Baby. Maisey Yates

the past, would have been enraged at the assessment that he needed to work through anything emotionally. He was such a stoic guy, always had been.

      But she knew he wouldn’t even pretend there wasn’t lingering damage from the loss of his little girl. Selena had watched him break apart completely at Eleanor’s funeral. They had never talked about it again. She didn’t think they ever would. But then, she supposed they didn’t need to. They had shared the experience. That moment when he couldn’t be strong anymore. When there was no child to be strong for, and when his wife had been off with her family, and there had simply been no reason for him to remain standing upright. Selena had been there for that moment.

      If all the years of friendship hadn’t bonded them, that moment would have done it all on its own.

      Just thinking of it made her chest ache, and she shook off the feeling, going over to the coffee maker to pour herself a cup.

      She wondered if Knox was still sleeping. He was going to be mad if he missed prime caffeination time.

      She wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room just as the door to the guest bedroom opened and Knox walked out, pulling his T-shirt over his head—but not quickly enough. She caught a flash of muscled, tanned skin and...chest hair. Oh, the chest hair. Why was that compelling enough to stop her in her tracks? She didn’t even have a moment to question it. She was too caught up. Too beset by the sight.

      Genuinely. She was completely immobilized by the sight of her best friend’s muscles.

      It wasn’t like she had never seen Knox shirtless before. But it had been a long time. And the last time, he had most definitely been married.

      Not that she had forgotten he was hot when he was married to Cassandra. It was just that...he had been a married man. And that meant something to Selena. Because it meant something to him.

      It had been a barrier, an insurmountable one, even bigger than that whole long-term friendship thing. And now it wasn’t there. It just wasn’t. He was walking out of the guest bedroom looking sleep rumpled and entirely too lickable. And there was just...nothing stopping them from doing what men and women did.

      She’d had a million excuses for not doing that. For a long time. She didn’t want to risk entanglements, didn’t want to compromise her focus. Didn’t want to risk pregnancy. Didn’t have time for a relationship.

      But she was in a place where those things were less of a concern. This house was symbolic of that change in her life. She was making a home. And making a home made her want to fill it. With art, with warmth, with knickknacks that spoke to her. With people.

      She wondered, then. What it would be like to actually live with a man? To have one in her life? In her home? In her bed?

      And just like that she was fantasizing about Knox in her bed. That body she had caught a glimpse of relaxing beneath her emerald green bedspread, his hands clasped behind his head, a satisfied smile on his face...

      She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to get a hold of herself. “Coffee is ready,” she said, grinning broadly, not feeling the grin at all.

      “Good,” he said, his voice rough from sleep.

      It struck her then, just what an intimate thing that was. To hear someone’s voice after they had been sleeping.

      “Right this...way,” she said, awkwardly beating a path into the kitchen, turning away from him quickly enough that she sloshed coffee over the edge of her cup.

      “You have food for breakfast?” he asked, that voice persistently gravelly and interesting, and much less like her familiar friend’s than she would like it to be. She needed some kind of familiarity to latch on to, something to blot out the vision of his muscles. But he wasn’t giving her anything.

      Jerk.

      “No,” she said, keeping her voice cheery. “I have coffee and spite for breakfast.”

      “Well, that’s not going to work for me.”

      “I’m not sure what to tell you,” she said, flinging open one of her cabinets and revealing her collection of cereal and biscotti. “Of course I have food for breakfast.”

      “Bacon? Eggs?”

      “Do I look like a diner to you?” she asked.

      “Not you personally. But I was hoping that your house might have more diner-like qualities.”

      “No,” she said, opening up the fridge and rummaging around. “Well, what do you know? I do have eggs. And bacon. I get a delivery of groceries every week. From a certain grocery store.”

      He smiled, a lopsided grin that did something to her stomach. Something she was going to ignore and call hunger, because they were talking about bacon, and being hungry for bacon was much more palatable than being hungry for your best friend.

      “I’ll cook,” he said.

      “Oh no,” she said, getting the package of bacon out of the fridge and handing it to Knox before bending back down and grabbing the carton of eggs and placing that in his other hand. “You don’t have to cook.”

      “Why do I get the feeling that I really do have to cook?”

      She shrugged. “It depends on whether you want bacon and eggs.”

      “Do you not know how to cook?”

      “I know how to cook,” she said. “But the odds of me actually cooking when I only have half of a cup of coffee in my system are basically none. Usually, I prefer to have sweets for breakfast. Hence, biscotti and breakfast cereals. However, I will sometimes eat bacon and eggs for dinner. Or I will eat bacon and eggs for breakfast if a handsome man fixes them for me.”

      He lifted a brow. “Oh, I see. So you have this in your fridge for when a man spends the night.”

      “Obviously. Since a man did just spend the night.” Her face flushed. She knew exactly what he was imagining. And really, he had no idea.

      That was not why she had the bacon and eggs. She had the bacon and eggs because sometimes she liked an easy dinner. But she didn’t really mind if Knox thought she had more of a love life than she actually did.

      Of course, now they were thinking about that kind of thing at the same time. Which was...weird. And possibly responsible for the strange electric current arcing between them.

      “I’ll cook,” he said, breaking that arc and moving to the stove, getting out pans and bowls, cracking eggs with an efficiency she admired.

      “Do you have an assignment list for me?” he asked, picking up the bowl and whisking the eggs inside.

      Why was that sexy? What was happening? His broad shoulders and chest, those intensely muscled forearms, somehow seeming all the more masculine when he was scrambling eggs, of all things.

      There was something about the very domestic action, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. Maybe it was the contrast between masculinity and domesticity. Or maybe it was just because there had never been a man in her kitchen making breakfast.

      She tried to look blasé, as though men made her breakfast every other weekend. After debauchery. Lots and lots of debauchery. She had a feeling she wasn’t quite managing blasé, so she just took a sip of her coffee and stared at the white star that hung on her back wall, her homage to the Lone Star State. And currently, her salvation.

      “Assignment list,” she said, slamming her hands down on the countertop, breaking her reverie. She owed that star a thank-you for restoring her sanity. She’d just needed a moment of not looking at Knox. “Well, I want new hardware on those cabinets. The people who lived here before me had a few things that weren’t really to my taste. That is one of them. Also, there are some things in an outbuilding the previous inhabitants left, and I want them moved out. Oh, and I want to get rid of the ceiling fan in the living room.”

      “I hope you’re planning on paying me for this,” he