“I had 911 on standby in case you keeled over from a heart attack lifting one of those suckers,” I snapped back. “It was my civic duty. Now, if you’re done harassing me for one morning, I’ve got some pancakes to attend to.”

Jesse glanced at the pancakes, and he looked like he was about to bust up laughing before he caught himself. “I’m done harassing you for one morning. But do you think it’d be all right if I offered a heartfelt apology?”

Say what?

I studied his face to see if it was some kind of trick to get me to continue battling it out with him, but his expression was flat. His eyes clear.

“Proceed,” I said with a wave of my magic spatula.

Jesse sucked in a breath before proceeding. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. I had no right to stick my nose into your business and start making assumptions about your life.” His words flowed with such ease it seemed he’d rehearsed them. “I’ve only known you a couple of days. That’s not long at all. I don’t know you well enough to pretend like I know you and your problems. But I want to know you. I want to know your problems. That is . . . if you want to know me.”

One corner of my mouth pulled up. Luckily, it was on the side he couldn’t see. Jesse could make one hell of an apology. I had to give him that.

But I couldn’t let him off so easily.

“Why do you want to know me better?” I said, checking the outlet to make sure the griddle was still plugged in because those suckers were not bubbling. “So you can tease me more specifically? So you can expose my weakness and take advantage of it?”

Jesse moved a step closer. I felt his upper half against my side. I grabbed the ledge of the counter again. “So when I ask you on a date, I’ll know where to take you to really impress you.” His mouth was so close to my ear I felt the warmth of his breath.

I whipped my head around to meet his eyes. Damn. He was dead serious. His gaze drifted to my mouth right as the kitchen door flew open again.

“Save some of the food for us, Jesse!” a man’s voice ordered good-naturedly as a staggered line of men in hats and boots streamed into the kitchen.

Jesse stepped away from me, but he didn’t look away. Before turning toward the table, he tilted his chin at me. “Check those pancakes. I think they’re smoking.” His dimples set into his cheeks. “What can I say? I have that effect on things.”

I was ready to glare at him when that burnt smell entered my nose. A quick inspection of the griddle revealed that my lovely golden pancakes were, indeed, smoking.

“Shoot,” I said, unsure how I managed to censor myself in the midst of my first attempt at breakfast going up in flames. Or, up in smoke. “They never bubbled!” I fumbled with the spatula and tried to slide it under the center pancakes.

Even through the hustle and bustle of the rest of the ranch hands making their way into the room, I heard Jesse’s amused chuckle from back at the table.

“They don’t bubble once you flip them over, silly,” Lily said, appearing out of nowhere. Grabbing the spatula, she had all of those pancakes off the griddle faster than I could have removed one of them.

“Then how do you know when they’re done?” I asked, grimacing when I saw the damage. One side was golden brown, and the other side was a crispy char black.

Lily dropped a pat of butter onto the griddle, swirled it around, then poured six more pancakes. “You just get a feel for it. Through a lot of trial and error.” Her eyes dropped to the ruined pancakes, and she smiled.

“Story of my life,” I muttered. “The trial and error part. I still haven’t experienced the whole get-a-feel-for-it part yet.”

“Tomorrow’s another day,” she replied, focusing on the pancakes. “Dream big.”

I lifted my brows. Was that what I thought it was? A note of smartass in sweet Lily Walker’s vocab? I didn’t realize that characteristic ran in anyone in the family other than Jesse.

“Why don’t you pour the coffee?” Lily suggested. “Carefully.”

“No guarantees.” I made my way over to the coffee pot and hoped I didn’t spill hot coffee on some poor cowboy’s crotch.

In a minute’s time, the kitchen had filled up with more cowboys than I could count. The couple dozen pegs sticking out of the wall were almost all filled with different kinds and colors of cowboy hats. Apparently wearing your hat to Rose Walker’s table wasn’t tolerated. The guys milling about the room were as varied as their hats. Tall, short. Slim, stocky. Young, old. Light skinned, dark skinned. It was the most varied group of cowboys I’d ever seen.

Well, it was really the first group of cowboys I’d ever seen.

However, one characteristic joined them all together. They all drank coffee. And a lot of it. Before Rose and the girls had finished setting all the breakfast goods on the table, I’d gone through three full pots of coffee. I understood why Rose prepared a few gallons of it in advance.

Jesse introduced me to everyone as I milled my way around, and everyone greeted me with a tip of their head and some sort of greeting followed by ma’am. By the time everyone had full plates, I felt as comfortable as I could around a couple dozen ranch hands, and I knew that was thanks to Jesse and his easy introductions. He was a member of the club, and he saw to it I became one right off the bat.

It was nice to be included. It was nice to feel a part of something.

It was the first time I’d had that in a while.

“More coffee?” I asked, stopping behind Jesse. His cup was still half full.

He twisted in his seat, a smile already on his face. “Please,” he said, handing me his cup. My fingers grazed his when I took the cup, and if I’d ever felt a more intimate touch, I couldn’t recall it. God. One finger graze and my heart thrummed like it was about to take off.

As I poured, Jesse’s eyes shifted to mine and they didn’t look away. Mine didn’t either, or . . . they couldn’t. When Jesse Walker looked at me that way, it was all I could do to look back and stay upright.

“Coffee,” he said suddenly, glancing at his cup.

My eyebrows came together.

“Overflowing.” He smirked at the cup so I really couldn’t peel my eyes away.

A few chuckles sounded around us.

“Pooling on the floor.” When Jesse reached for his napkin, I finally caught up.

Gauging from the size of the puddle, coffee had been spilling over the side of the cup for longer than a second or two.

“Shit,” I said, righting the coffee pot immediately. Setting it on the table, I grabbed a stack of napkins before kneeling beside Jesse. “I mean . . . shoot.”

“Nah,” he said, wiping up the sea of coffee in one long sweep. “You mean shit. This is definitely a mess worthy of a shit, not a shoot.”

I smiled at the floor as I wiped up the last of the coffee. “At least it didn’t end up in your lap.”

“I’m counting my blessings as we speak.” His hair fell over his forehead, moving in ways that made me want to run my fingers through it as he continued to scrub the floor. His hair was really much too nice to stay hidden beneath a cowboy hat all day. “So . . . have you decided?”

“Decided on what?”

“If you’re going to let me take you out some time. You know, a date? Something other than kneeling on a floor and cleaning up coffee?” Jesse’s gaze stayed on the spot where the coffee had been. Almost like he was suddenly shy.

I cleared my throat and looked around. Everyone was too busy eating to pay us any attention. “Well, you didn’t really ask me,” I said. “And you haven’t really given me much time to think about what you didn’t really ask me.”

Jesse scooped up the wet napkins and tossed them into the garbage can at the end of the kitchen without standing. He inhaled a long breath before locking his eyes on mine. “Rowen Sterling,” he said, his voice strong, “can I take you on a date sometime?”