Hired By The Cowboy. DONNA ALWARD

could do was make sure he had a good hot meal at the end of the day and a clean house to come home to. If he wouldn’t let her do any of the manual labor, she could at least look after things in the house.

      Except she’d never done anything like it in her life. And now the fate of herself and her baby depended on her success.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE top of the fridge held nothing but extra bread and some frozen vegetables. He’s got to have meat around here somewhere, she thought, and searched high and low until she came across a huge Deepfreeze in the basement.

      She took out a package that said “cross rib steak” and remembered going to her grandmother’s house when she had been a small child. Her grandmother had made this dish…Swiss steak…and it had been fork-tender, surrounded by onions and gravy, all layered on mashed potatoes. Surely there was a recipe book somewhere that would tell her how to make it?

      She searched the kitchen for such a book, and came up with a small binder. The cover had a crudely drawn picture of an apple on it and the words Mom’s Recipes in black marker. Inside were pages of handwritten recipes, in no particular order. Maple Chicken was next to Dad’s Chocolate Cake. Bread and Butter Pickles next to Come and Get ‘Em Cookies. She sighed as the microwave dinged out a message that the meat was thawed. This was going to take forever.

      She finally found a recipe that said “Smothered Meat” and thought it sounded about right. Retrieving a roasting pan from a low cupboard, she put in the meat and then added water, onions and bay leaves that she found above the stove in a motley assortment of spices. She turned on the oven and slid the roaster in…step one complete.

      She could do this. She could. Just because she’d never learned to cook, it didn’t mean she couldn’t, she told herself. All you had to do was follow instructions. It couldn’t be that hard.

      Potatoes didn’t take that long, so maybe she’d really live on the edge and attempt something for dessert. Jazzed up with motivation, she grabbed the red binder again and flipped through the pages, looking for one that sounded good. These were his mom’s recipes, probably the ones she made most often. She stopped at a page that looked like it had been handled often. Caramel Pudding. She read the recipe. Easy enough. Flour, egg, butter, milk, leavening, salt…brown sugar, boiling water. How hard could it be?

      An hour later she slid the pan into the oven beside the meat and sighed. The instructions had sounded deceptively simple. However, they didn’t seem to translate into her hands. She looked at the countertops. They were strewn with flour and sticky batter and dirty dishes. The first order of business had to be cleaning up this disaster zone before she went any further.

      She was halfway through the dishes when she remembered the meat needed tending, the sauce thickening.

      The mess doubled. Again.

      The next time she looked at the clock it said four-fifty-five. She was exhausted, and with a whole new appreciation of women who willingly did this every blessed day of their lives. She was certain now that she’d had the easy job—waitressing, instead of being in the kitchen!

      It took her twenty minutes and two Bandaids to peel the potatoes, and she grumbled that she was really going to have to caution Connor on having his knives too sharp.

      She found a glass casserole and emptied a bag of frozen corn into it, put it in the microwave and let her rip just as Connor was coming in the door.

      “Hey,” he called from the front door. “How was your afternoon?”

      I’d rather have been chased by the hounds of hell, she thought grumpily, but pasted on a smile and said, “Fine.”

      He came into the kitchen and sniffed. “Do I smell caramel pudding?”

      She smiled for real, the curve of her lips fading as she saw how weary and defeated he looked. “I found your mom’s old recipes.”

      He came over to the stove, lifted the lid on the potatoes bubbling away. “It’s good to come in and not have to worry about supper. Thank you, Alex.”

      Don’t thank me yet, she thought, none too sure of success. The pudding seemed oddly flat, and she hadn’t checked the steak yet. At least the potatoes seemed to be holding their own.

      “Your afternoon didn’t go well?” she surmised quietly.

      When he sank into a chair and ran his hand through his hair, she knew she’d guessed right.

      “We lost one. The other’s touch and go.”

      “I’m sorry,” she offered, her stomach suddenly churning with nervousness. He was expecting a great home-cooked meal after a rotten afternoon. He couldn’t know she’d never made anything that wasn’t out of a can or ready with one touch of a microwave button. She took the roaster out of the oven, and as the corn finished she drained the potatoes.

      “Don’t be sorry. It happens. But you know, no matter how much you think you get used to it, you never do.”

      She filled his plate with potatoes and a generous scoop of corn, then a large slice of steak from the roaster. The gravy was thinner than she’d expected, and seemed suspiciously lumpy, but she hoped for the best and ladled it over the top of his potatoes.

      She fixed her own plate and sat down across from him. “I hope the other one makes it,” she offered as he picked up his fork. Only to pause with it still stuck between his lips.

      “Is something wrong?”

      Connor looked up at her hopeful eyes and made himself swallow. The corn was still cold in the middle. “No, no,” he reassured her, cutting into the steak. She looked so vulnerable, so eager to please, that he didn’t have the heart to tell her.

      The meat was cooked and tender, but the gravy…something was off. It was too pale and runny. He bravely took a scoop of potatoes and gravy and found a ball of flour rolling on his tongue. He smiled up at her, but he could tell she knew by the crestfallen way her lips turned down and her cheeks fell.

      “It’s horrible. Disgusting. You can’t eat this.”

      “Sure I can. It’s definitely edible.”

      Alex tried a bite with the gravy and made a face. “Eeeew. What did I do wrong?” She took a mouthful of corn and hurriedly spit it into her napkin. “And the corn is still frozen! Oh, I can’t do anything right!” she cried. “You put in a horrible afternoon and then come in to this!”

      “You can do things right,” Connor said gently. He got up from his chair and took her plate. He put it in the microwave and heated it up more. “It’s not your fault that I had a tough day. And you worked hard to try to make me a nice dinner. That was a sweet thing to do, Alex.”

      “Don’t patronize me. I don’t want to be sweet. I want to be helpful!” she burst out in frustration. “I’ve been on my own for five years and I’ve been outdone by a bag of frozen vegetables!”