For Love and Family. Victoria Pade

nodded, looking around the big country kitchen for Johnny. But he wasn’t there. It was only Hunter setting three places at the table and Carla, who had moved to the coffeepot.

      “Can I get you a cup?” the other woman asked Terese, again as if she were right at home.

      “Yes. Thank you,” Terese answered somewhat stiffly, taking in the sight of the pretty brunette with the dark eyes and flawless skin and a bust size Terese couldn’t even come close to measuring up to.

      “How’d you sleep?” Hunter asked her then, apparently feeling no inclination to explain Carla’s presence.

      The first thing that popped into Terese’s mind was that she’d probably gotten a whole lot more sleep than these two had. But all she said was, “Fine. That’s the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in.”

      “Glad to hear it,” Hunter said.

      “Where’s Johnny?” she asked then, hoping she would feel less like a third wheel if her nephew would appear.

      It was Carla who answered her question, though, by hollering for the boy as if it were something she did regularly. Then, handing Terese a mug of steaming coffee, she said, “He’ll be right down. Sugar and cream are over there.”

      This was silly, Terese lectured herself as she took her coffee cup to the kitchen table that Hunter had set and had now left to go to the stove. She hadn’t come here with designs on Hunter Coltrane. She hadn’t come here with any illusions that they would form any kind of relationship that didn’t revolve solely around Johnny. So what if Hunter had a girlfriend or a significant other or whatever Carla was? Why should it make her feel so uncomfortable? So weird? So…

      Jealous? Was she feeling jealous? That couldn’t be….

      The mud room door opened again just then and Terese turned in that direction, wondering why Carla had aimed for the upstairs when she’d called Johnny if the little boy was coming in from outside somewhere.

      But it wasn’t Johnny who joined them a moment later. It was a tall man with coal-black hair and a bushy mustache.

      “Where’s my coffee, woman?” he demanded playfully of Carla, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her up against his side.

      “I’m pouring it right now. Behave yourself,” Carla chastised, nodding toward Terese before she said, “This is Terese. Terese, this is my Willy.”

      “Willy works the ranch with me,” Hunter explained then. “Carla comes over when she has a little time on her hands and helps out with things around the house.”

      Never had Terese felt the kind of relief she did at that moment.

      “It’s nice to meet you, Willy,” she said, her cheeriness genuine this time. And probably out of proportion to the simple introduction of the ranch hand.

      “John Paul Coltrane, get yourself down here now,” Hunter called in a booming voice as he set a platter laden with scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages on the table.

      “He’s doing something with his hair to look nice for Terese,” Carla confided.

      Hunter grimaced. “Not that slicking up the front with soap again?”

      “I think so.”

      “He did that last night, too.”

      “Well, I’m going up to clean the bathroom and I’ll send him down,” Carla said. Then, as she headed out of the kitchen, she added, “If I don’t see you again before I leave, Terese, it was nice meeting you.”

      “You, too,” Terese said with more enthusiasm now that she knew the other woman wasn’t Hunter’s girlfriend.

      “I’m headin’ out again, too. I’ll take this coffee to the barn with me,” Willy added, retracing his steps through the mudroom.

      And suddenly the whirlwind that Terese had walked in on had passed and she was alone with Hunter.

      And much happier than she’d been moments earlier.

      Of course Hunter was oblivious to the turmoil she’d just induced in herself, and he merely motioned toward one of the barrel-backed chairs for her to sit down.

      “We might as well get started before everything’s cold,” he said, not taking the chair across from her until she was seated.

      Terese had been so enmeshed in imagining a romance between Hunter and Carla that she hadn’t taken much of a look at Hunter before. But now she did, surreptitiously making note that ranch-wear was pointy-toed cowboy boots, jeans that fitted him to perfection, and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows, exposing muscular forearms and wrists that seemed sexier than mere forearms and wrists could possibly be.

      “So Willy and Carla are married?” Terese heard herself say without considering—until after the fact—whether she was being nosy.

      But if Hunter thought she was, he didn’t seem to take offense. He just answered her question. “They’ve been married for a long time now. Since we all graduated from high school.” He handed her the platter of food and then added, “I was best man at their wedding and they were best man and matron of honor at mine.”

      “You must be very good friends,” Terese said as she took some of the eggs and a piece of bacon.

      “Willy’s more than a good friend,” Hunter amended, putting some of everything on Johnny’s plate and then serving himself. “Will’s closer to me than my brother. We work together every day. Spend time together when we aren’t workin’. We own a boat together. We fish and hunt and watch every football game together. He’s Johnny’s godfather. I’d give him the shirt off my back if he needed it, and I know he’d do the same for me. And Carla… Well, Carla was my wife’s best friend and she’s Johnny’s godmother. I don’t think Johnny or I could have made it through the last two years without them both.”

      Which left Terese feeling all the more ridiculous for the conclusion she’d jumped to about the woman and her relationship with Hunter.

      What had gotten into her? she asked herself.

      But she decided it was some kind of fluke that would never happen again and that it was best to put it behind her.

      “I’ve never had friends like that,” she admitted then. “I couldn’t even say any of that about Eve.”

      “I don’t think many people are lucky enough to have friends like Will and Carla.”

      Johnny came running into the kitchen then, putting an end to the conversation as he climbed onto the chair between Terese and his father.