Page 7

GRACE

The kitchen in this ranch house is a beast.

It’s long and wide and worn in the best way.

All scuffed floors, shelves stacked high with mismatched crockery, two refrigerators humming like distant bees, and a stove big enough to host its own county fair.

The air smells like onions softening in butter, garlic, and something herby like thyme maybe, or rosemary.

It reminds me of home, only on a much larger scale.

Corbin’s already at the stove, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a kid perched on his hip while he stirs a pot with the other hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“You always cook like this?” I ask, setting my notebook aside and washing my hands at the sink.

“Only when I want people to eat,” he replies with a crooked grin, his kind eyes settling on the kid, who he gently nudges down with a kiss to her temple. “Otherwise it’s sandwiches and judgment.”

“Who’s this?” I bend to study the little girl with dark brown eyes and a shirt that reads Sweetie Pie. She must be around four, I think. She looks at me sullenly and puts her hand back up to Corbin, whispering, “Daddy.”

At that moment, Levi breezes through, scoops Sweetie Pie up, and shoots me a panty-melting grin as he presses a kiss to her disgruntled cheek. “There you are, Hannah. Come play in the den and let Daddy cook.”

“I don’t want to play,” she barks, wriggling in his ridiculously strong arms, her feet flailing on either side, but he laughs and keeps going, disappearing into the hallway.

“Yeah, but you want to eat,” Levi says breezily.

“She’s yours?” I ask.

“Yeah. Three of them are. Hannah and Caleb are twins, and Matty’s a year older.”

“Wow, Daddy! Three?”

He shrugs. “We wanted more…”

The trailing away at the end of the sentence tells me a whole lot that Corbin doesn’t want to voice. I try to remember Rianna notes. One wife died suddenly of an aneurysm. Was that Corbin’s?

It’s a question I’m steering clear of, wary of hitting a landmine too early.

“So, you’re the one who does most of the cooking?”

“Most of it,” he nods, shifting to pull a tray of cornbread muffins from the oven with practiced ease.

“Dylan sometimes handles breakfast. Conway thinks seasoning is pepper and a prayer. McCartney cooks like an artist. It’s beautiful, but there’s a forty percent chance it’s raw in the middle.

Brody steps in when all other options have been exhausted, and we all brace ourselves. ”

I laugh. “So you’re the reliable one.”

He shrugs like it’s what has to be done.

“Where’d you learn?”

“My grandma. She could feed thirty on a bag of flour and a bone. Said if you knew how to make a good meal, you’d never be without a seat at someone’s table.”

“She sounds smart.”

“She was. Tough, too. Cared for us... well, when everything changed.”

I glance over. “When your parents died?”

He nods but doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t press, avoiding yet another mine. Instead, I let the silence stretch for a moment, filled only by the sound of bubbling broth and my peeler scraping across the carrots Corbin slipped in front of me gratefully.

“So if you weren’t doing this—ranching, raising kids, cooking for seventeen—what would you be doing?”

“Eighteen.” He smiles, reminding me I’m another mouth he needs to feed. He stirs the pot. “Something with food. Maybe a bakery or owning a little diner in town. Something full of people.”

“And service,” I say. “You’d be good at it.”

He glances over, his brown eyes kind but shrewd. “What about you? What do you want out of this story?”

“The truth,” I say, rinsing the carrots and moving to slice. “I want to show people something that isn’t polished to death or filtered through a salacious lens. Something real. You don’t see families like this anymore. Or men like you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Men like me?”

“Ones who don’t run from responsibility. Who cook and care and don’t think either makes them less of a man.”

His face shifts at that, flickering with an appreciation at being seen. I wonder when anyone last gave these men that kind of recognition. Maybe no one ever has.

“There are plenty of men out there like us,” he says.

“We’re doing what needs to be done… what’s put in front of us.

Every day, there are demands right across this ranch that won’t wait.

We can’t take a day off unless we’re sick, and even then, we feel guilty for shirking responsibility.

What one of us doesn’t do falls to the rest to pick up. ”

“So, you work as a team?”

“It’s the only way. No man is an island, especially on a ranch.”

I think about my solitary life, shunting back and forth between my office and my apartment, nights out with friends who are mostly there for the good time rather than the relationship, one-night stands with men who only ever seem to want to know what it feels like to get inside my body and not my heart.

I’ve made myself an island, allowing others to visit, but not for long.

“Would you like to be?” I ask, interested to discover if this lifestyle is a choice, rather than an obligation.

“No way.” He leaves the spoon in the pot, taking the diced carrots and scraping them in with celery, potatoes, onions, and shredded chicken.

The oven timer goes off again, and he ducks to pull three rustic loaves from its depths.

“I grew up with two brothers, Brody and Nash, but the rest of these men are like my brothers, too. We were always in and out of each other’s houses, even before the accident. ”

He rests the loaves on the counter and wipes his hands on a cloth he has resting over one broad shoulder.

“I never have to worry about anything, Grace. Do you know what it’s like to have ten men standing shoulder to shoulder with you, unconditionally?

The worst kind of shit could hit the fan, and no one in this house would duck. ”

What would it feel like to have that kind of support?

I mean, I have my mom, and she’s great, if a little flaky and distracted, but she has a lot going on, and I’m a grown woman who can handle life.

But having a whole squad behind you must give a whole different level of security to everyone in this house.

“So, you see yourself here for the rest of your life?”

“Sure. This ranch has been in our family for three generations. Our kids will be the fourth. They’ll grow up together and have the same support network that we have.”

“You think they’ll want to stay here, too? What about the girls?”

He studies me for a moment, then busies himself seasoning the pot. “I haven’t thought that far ahead, I guess. If they want to stay…”

He appears crestfallen at the idea they might move on .

“What are you looking for in a woman?” I ask, changing the subject to catch him off guard.

He pauses grinding the pepper, his shoulders stiffening. “I had a woman,” he says, his tone low and sad. “I guess I’m not the driving force behind this quest, but I won’t stand in the way of what my family needs.”

“You’re not ready?”

He shrugs, and I lean my hip against the counter to watch him find herbs to flavor the soup like he’s a wizard crafting a potion. “Who’s ever ready?”

“For love?”

“Yeah. I mean, if you go looking for it, it rarely appears. In my experience, it hits you on the head like a stray soccer ball.”

I like that analogy and make a mental note to include it in my article. “But that’s exactly what you’re all doing. Looking for it.”

He shrugs and places a huge lid on the cauldron. “As I said, I’m not the driving force. Conway has a more practical view of this process and how to achieve the desired end goal.”

“Practical?”

“When he wants something, he can usually find it in a catalog. A new type of animal feed, a piece of machinery, a part to replace something broken. But human beings aren’t parts, and what we’re missing isn’t something that has a shape.”

“People are tricky.”

“The other women were perfectly nice, but they felt like square pegs in a triangle hole.”

I smirk at his modification of the phrase. “Not for you?”

“Not for most of us. I think Conway could convince himself that everything was fine… or would become fine over time. He was willing to chisel off the edges in all of us until it worked.”

“But people can’t be shaped?”

“Exactly. People are their own shapes. There are too many shapes in this house already. It’s like trying to work out the centerpiece of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle first. How can we find one person to fit us all?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Exactly.” Corbin surveys the kitchen, rubbing his hands on a cloth hanging from his pocket. “You ever made chocolate brownies before?”

I tap my temple. “Leave it to me. I have an embedded recipe that will bring you to your knees.”

He grins, warmth lighting up his whole face and crinkling his cheeks. “Now there’s something I’m looking forward to experiencing.”

***

An hour later, three trays of gooey chocolate brownies emerge from the oven to cool on racks.

The air is scented with warm cocoa and sugar, and I have sweat trickling down the small of my back.

Even with Corbin acting as a capable and willing sous chef, I’m exhausted, and I was only responsible for delivering dessert.

Levi sticks his head around the door, inhaling with the enthusiasm of a bloodhound. “Please tell me it’s ready.”

“It is.” Corbin finishes slicing the bread as Levi yells that dinner is ready, and suddenly, the kitchen is a bustling hive of activity.