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I shook my head at him, giving up and walking to the bathroom. But my mind was still on his garage. He’d told me after the rodeo he would show me something in there that proved he was different. And now he didn’t want me to see?

This man was a bundle of contradictions, and I hated that it made me even more curious about what mysteries he kept about his life. I got into his bathroom and shut the door behind me, looking around.

The fixtures weren’t extravagant, but they were clean. I even pulled back the blue shower curtain to find the drain clear of hair and the tiles free of mold or mildew. Even the toilet had clearly been regularly scrubbed.

There went that plan.

I used the bathroom and washed my hands. When I opened the door, I could hear the sound of a sheet pan, the beep of oven controls. Rhett’s boots on the floor as he moved about.

I held my hand over my heart. There was something soothing about the sounds, about him cooking for me and caring enough that I had homemade dessert instead of store bought that made my heart melt.

After a second of listening, I walked back into the kitchen to see him wrapping up the end on a tube of cookie dough.

“I thought you were making homemade!” I said.

“I am,” he replied, putting the dough back in his refrigerator.

I raised my eyebrows. “Here I thought you were in here cracking eggs and measuring flour.”

He leaned back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. The way his pectoral muscles moved through the gap in his shirt was distracting. “Why would I make all that mess when these taste just as good?”

“If your mom heard you say that, she’d have you disowned.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “It’ll be our secret.”

I laughed, noticing how easy it was to laugh when I was around him. I was starting to let down my guard. Something that excited and scared me at the same time.

He reached into his cupboard, pulling down mismatched coffee mugs. One had clearly been painted and designed by one of his nieces or nephews, and the other had our high school mascot on the front. “Do you still drink milk? I know it’s trendy to cut dairy nowadays.”

“Nowadays? How old are you?” I teased.

He rolled his eyes at me. “I don’t have any almond, soy, whatever bullshit milk. Seems wrong to me. You can’t milk a nut.”

Maybe he was wearing off on me, because my mind instantly went to the gutter. “You sure about that?”

His lips curled into a salacious smile. “We could test it out, if you want.”

My pulse quickened at the images forming in my mind. “Dairy is fine.”

He reached into the fridge, getting out a gallon of whole milk. Because of course he could stay fit and muscular like that without worrying about the extra calories. His forearms flexed as if showing off while he filled both our mugs, then put the milk back in the fridge.

He passed me a cup and took a drink from his.

“So ’The Stabbin’ Wagon’?” I asked him.

He laughed, spitting out his milk. The stunned look on his face and milk dribbling down his chin had me in stitches.

“Shut up,” he laughed, turning to the sink and getting a rag to wipe his face. “You caught me off guard is all.”

I was still grinning when he turned back to me and resolutely set his milk on the counter.

“How did you know about that?”

“How else,” I replied. “Cooper told Cam and Cam told me.”

He shrugged. “We take the camper to rodeos when they’re too far out of town to drive back home. Saves us a shit ton of money on hotels.”

“And girls are okay with you bringing them back to something called The Stabbin’ Wagon?” I asked.