Adam (Seven Sons Book 1), Page 5

  They sat themselves at a small corner table that was meant for four. A waitress brought them the menu, smiling. She was an older lady who was chewing gum a mile a minute. “The chicken fried steak is so good today, it’ll make you want to kiss the cook.”

  Adam grinned. “That does it for me, Miss Mae. I want the chicken fried steak.”

  “And for you?” Miss Mae asked.

  “I’ll have the same. And to drink I want ice water, with lots and lots of ice.” Tiffani was a bit nervous, and her ice chomping habit was about to take over.

  Miss Mae nodded. “Will do. Dr. Pepper, Adam?”

  “Is my mama the best cook in all of Texas?” Adam’s Texas drawl took over when he asked the question.

  “Be right back!”

  Adam reached across the table and took her hand. “We’re not here as boss and employee. We’re here as man and woman on a date, so I’m allowed to hold your hand.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “It’s God’s way of telling you to let me have my way when you don’t know what to say.”

  She sighed at him. “You’re going to be a pain in my backside, aren’t you, Adam?”

  “I aim to please.” His blue eyes twinkled at her.

  Miss Mae hurried back with their drinks, putting Adam’s Dr. Pepper on the table and bringing Tiffani two glasses, one completely filled with ice and the other with mostly ice and a bit of water.

  “Thank you.”

  Miss Mae looked at Adam. “This one has manners. You should keep her.”

  “I intend to.” Adam looked at Tiffani with a grin.

  “You can’t just tell people in town that you intend to keep me. Are you crazy?” Tiffani asked as soon as Miss Mae had gone.

  He shrugged. “The words have been used to describe me on numerous occasions.”

  She shook her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I can make you a list of suggestions, if you’d like.”

  “Remember you’re my boss, please.”

  “I already told you, I’m not your boss right now. I’m a man taking a woman he’s very interested in to lunch. I might not even write this lunch off.”

  “That would be silly!”

  He grinned. “I’m so glad I’ve chosen a practical woman to spend the rest of my life with.”

  “You can’t say things like that! Someone will hear you and think we’re…courting.” She was sure the old-fashioned term fit better than dating did when it came to what the two of them were doing together.

  “Trust me, Tiffani. We are courting.”

  Miss Mae set their plates in front of them. “Eat up now. I don’t want to have to call your mama and tell her you didn’t eat.”

  After she’d left, Adam leaned forward. “She’d do it too! I came here once during the school day, but we had a closed campus. She called my mother and told her I was here, and I was in trouble. I had to wash every window on the ranch before I got my car privileges back. It took me a month!”

  “Sounds like you don’t want to cross Miss Mae or Lillian!” Tiffani cut into her steak and took a big bite. “She’s right. This is good enough that I want to kiss the cook. I hope he’s handsome!”

  Adam glared at her. “Tiffani will not be kissing the cook,” he told Miss Mae.

  “Well, my husband is cooking today, and he’s old enough to be her grandfather, so I think it would be perfectly acceptable.”

  Tiffani laughed. “I’ll do my best to restrain myself. Tell him that I’m sending him air kisses.”

  Adam shook his head at her. “Trying to break up a marriage that has been happy for over forty years.”

  Miss Mae just grinned. “Sometimes the old geezer needs to kiss a young lady to remember what’s he got in me.” She wandered away with a smile still on her face.

  “I like this place,” Tiffani said to Adam. “I want to come back often.”

  “It’s a great little town. I went to Bagley High School.”

  “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  “I want to share my entire world with you.”

  “You’re turning into a great big sap. Have you always been this way?”

  “I thought women liked romantic men.” Adam sighed heavily. “It’s like everything I knew about life is totally wrong.”

  “It’s not. I just feel uncomfortable. I appreciate how loving and kind you are, but I don’t know that I can believe the sweetness. Not for me. I’ve only really known you for two days.”

  “I want to get to know you better. Is that acceptable, milady?”

  She grinned, reaching over for his hand and squeezing it, realizing it was the first time she’d voluntarily touched him. “I suppose it will have to be.”

  On their way back to the ranch, he told her that he’d send her a list of contacts. “I don’t think it’s a good time to continue our ranch tour. The boys will be getting home from school in a couple of hours, and I need to send in some reports to the state on some of the boys.”

  “All right. I’d love to have the names and numbers, so I can get everything going. What’s my budget for this fundraiser? Can I do it bigger than it’s been done before?”

  He shrugged. “I think so. We could probably add another fifty percent to your budget. We prefer that most things be donated, of course.”

  “Well, sure, but if I can put a bit of money into it, and we can add in a hay ride or pony rides…charge a little for them.” She frowned. “I’m sorry. My mind is just spinning with ideas. I can’t wait to figure it all out.”

  He parked his truck in the parking lot in front of their offices. “You get straight to work, and so will I. I’ll see you around three-thirty, after the bus drops the boys off.”

  “Do you have your own school bus that brings the boys here?”

  He nodded. “We always have. There are enough boys coming straight here that they assign a bus just to us.”

  “Nice!” She slipped out of the truck and walked toward the building. “I can’t wait for our date on Friday.”

  “Neither can I. I am going to show you a good time in front of thirty boys, my six brothers, and my parents. Should be fun.” He winked at her as they separated and went toward their offices.

  As she walked past, Brittany called out, “Tiffani, I have a message for you from one of the vendors of the fundraiser. He’s not sure he can make it next year, because he’s been offered a big contract.”

  “Which vendor?” Tiffani was sure she could find someone else to do the same job without a problem. She had a year, after all.

  “It’s the guy who runs the taco truck.”

  “The taco truck? That would be like the icemaker being down for the event! No way! I’m going to call in every favor I can to get a taco truck here for it. How would we make it without a taco truck? Imagine!” Tiffani hurried into her office and shut the door.

  Adam looked at her closed door, then at Brittany. “I think she must like tacos.”

  “You’ll have to file that away for future dates.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I have no problem doing that!” He went into his own office and closed the door, pulling out the folders of the boys that needed reports written. He loved his job, but he sure did hate the paperwork.

  Tiffani was on her seventh phone call of the afternoon, trying to arrange for the taco truck for the event when Adam knocked on her door. “Are you ready to go look at kittens?”

  She nodded, finishing her call and standing. “Is Nick here?”

  “Yes, he is. He’s ready to go get his kitten, too.”

  She got up and hurried around the desk. “Well, let’s go get a kitten.”

  Nick looked at her. “I get first pick.”

  “Of course you do. You were promised the first pick. I would have given it to you anyway, though.”

  “Why?”

  Tiffani shrugged. “Have you ever heard the saying that it’s better to give than to receive?”

  “Yeah, but I think it
’s stupid.”

  She laughed. “Well, then you can keep thinking so. I really believe it, though. It feels good to do nice things for people.”

  “Whatever.”

  Adam met Tiffani’s gaze. “That’s his favorite word.”

  “Whatever.” Nick didn’t realize the irony of him saying it then, but Tiffani had to keep from laughing.

  “Do you know which kitten you want?”

  Nick shrugged. “Probably the little calico one.”

  “I like the black and white one.”

  “Well, I still get first pick.”

  “I know you do,” Tiffani said. “I’ll take whichever one you don’t.”

  They reached the barn and Adam opened the door. “Hey, Ephraim! We’re here to steal your kittens away.”

  Ephraim stepped out into the room. He’d been somewhere, but Tiffani couldn’t really see where. “Come and choose which ones you want.” He looked at Tiffani. “Do you know how to take care of a kitten?”

  “I have no idea! I thought I’d google it tonight.” She was sure it couldn’t be terribly difficult. People had kittens all the time.

  “Then you have to listen to my class about kittens while you play with them and decide which one.” Ephraim winked at her, making it clear that the class was really for Nick and not for her.

  While she and Nick sat on the floor with the kittens and let them crawl all over them, Ephraim went into a lecture on kittens. He talked about what to feed them and how to litter box train them.

  “Do you know which one you want, Nick?”

  Nick looked undecided. “Well, I like the calico and the black and white. I want both.”

  Ephraim laughed. “Only one. Each boy can have one pet, and that’s it.”

  Nick frowned. “I’ll take the calico then.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Tiffani scooped up the black and white kitten, cuddling him under her neck. “You’re going home with me. What do you think of that?”

  Nick took the calico and cradled it against him. “Can I take him home now?”

  Adam nodded, clapping the boy on the back. “I’m going to stay with you as you get him acclimated to the house. I’ll go home once Benjamin and Caleb arrive.”

  “Whatever.”

  Adam looked at Tiffani. “Can you find your way back all right?”

  She nodded. “I have the map you made in my pocket. I’ll make it home with no problem.”

  “All right. I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  “I’d like that.” She’d hoped he’d come over again that evening, but she knew it wasn’t wise. Of course, being wise wasn’t nearly as fun as listening to her heart.

  As she walked home, she cradled the kitten against her. She was going to need a litter box and some kitten food. She could get those in town, she was sure. At least she hoped she could.

  She stepped into the house just as Adam caught up with her. “You need kitten food and a litter box. Some cat toys.”

  “I do. I wasn’t sure where to go for them, though. Do they have a pet store in Bagley?”

  He shook his head. “We’ll have to head into Nowhere.”

  “We?”

  “Someone has to hold the kitten while the other one drives.”

  She handed him the keys to the truck. “I’ll hold the kitten.”

  “Sounds good.” He walked to the truck and slipped behind the wheel, holding his hand out for the kitten while she got into the truck. “When you need the kitten to have shots and get fixed, just take him to Ephraim. He’ll handle everything for you right here on the ranch.”

  “Sounds good to me. That makes it really easy.”

  “We’re pretty self-contained about a whole lot of things. It makes things easier with the sheer number of boys who live here on the ranch.” He drove toward Nowhere, knowing the drive like the back of his hand. “Family lore has it that our great-grandparents met in Nowhere. Supposedly he had a vision when he was five that he would marry a seamstress named Penny. So when he found out there was a Penny sewing at the mercantile in Nowhere, he made the drive out there, and he met her. He hired her to make him ten shirts, in a time when men didn’t have ten shirts to their names. He wanted her to be thinking of him.”

  “That’s so sweet!”

  “Supposedly they were engaged three days later and married within the month. Penny and Tom were the ones who adopted all the boys from the orphan home in Bagley.”

  “I think it’s really neat that you know so much about your family history.”

  “It’s because we have the whole seventh son thing going on. We like to tell the stories of the people who came before us. Tom was a seventh son. Penny had no problem giving birth to seven sons, the youngest of which was my grandfather.”

  “I really wish I knew that kind of information about my family.” She shrugged. She’d never known anyone who knew so much. It was nice to be around someone who was so rooted in his family.

  “Maybe you can marry a man who knows that much about his family.”

  “Are you hinting at something, Adam? We just met!”

  “When you meet the one you know you’re supposed to marry, it doesn’t take long.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she cuddled her kitten close and watched as the miles flew past them. Nowhere sounded like a good place to be.

  Chapter Six

  When they reached Nowhere, Tiffani wanted to be the one to run into the Walmart there to grab the kitten things. She handed the kitten to Adam. “Be careful with him! He’s just a baby.”

  The kitten crawled up Adam’s shirt and settled under his chin. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of a kitten.”

  “All right!” She jumped out of the truck and hurried in, choosing a white litter box and some cat litter. She found Kitten Chow and put a big bag into the cart before picking up a toy mouse. She had a feeling her new baby would like the mouse. As she thought it, she realized she hadn’t named him yet.

  What to name a cute little kitten? Oreo? Too common… Ding Dong? Too cutesy… Othello? Too long… Maybe Taz? He whirled around a bit like the Tasmanian Devil when he was awake, which wasn’t very often.

  As she got up to the checkout, the cashier asked, “New kitten?”

  “Yes! He’s black and white and cute as can be. What do you think of the name Taz?”

  “I love it! Good choice. Thank you so much for not naming him Oreo. Everyone I’ve ever known with a black and white cat called him Oreo.”

  “I thought about it, but Taz seems to be much sweeter.” Tiffani handed the checker her credit card.

  After she’d rung her up, the cashier said, “Enjoy your new kitten!”

  “Oh, I will. He’s my first pet!” Tiffani pushed the cart toward the truck, stopping to put her purchases into the back seat. She slipped into the vehicle. “I’m naming him Taz.”

  Adam laughed. “While you were gone, he was jumping around like someone had attached springs to his feet. Not even a minute ago, he curled up under my chin again to fall asleep.”

  She reached over and took the kitten from him. “You really are a little Tasmanian Devil, aren’t you?” She stroked his fur, pleased when he purred. “Thanks for driving me here to get his stuff. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come to my rescue.”

  He pulled back onto the highway to head back to the ranch. “Are you unpacking more tonight?”

  She nodded. “I need to. I want it done by the weekend. I got my coffee pot and my clothes unpacked last night. I was too tired to do anything else.”

  “Well, at least you have your priorities straight. The coffee pot does need to be the first thing.”

  “I agree.” She yawned. “What do you usually do in the evenings?”

  He shrugged. “I watch some television. Play some computer games. Spend time with my parents.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “It is. What do you usually do in the evenings?”

 
; “I go out ballroom dancing.” She kissed the top of the kitten’s little head, loving the feel of his soft fur against her skin.

  “Really?”

  “No, but it sounds more interesting than what I really do, which is watch television, play computer games, and read.”

  He grinned. “Maybe we should try ballroom dancing together.”

  “Do you have any idea how to ballroom dance?” Tiffani asked, studying him for a moment. He had to be the most handsome man she’d ever met. She would never get tired of just looking at him.

  “None whatsoever. I guess we could take classes together.”

  “Are you interested in learning to ballroom dance?”

  “Only if it pleases you. I find I’m willing to do just about anything to make you happy. Does that make me pathetic?”

  She smiled over at him. “Nope. Just sappy.”

  “Why don’t I help you unpack tonight?”

  She nodded slowly. “I don’t have anything to feed you, though.”

  “We could hit fast food on the way to the ranch. There’s a Taco Bueno on the way.”

  “Oh, yes! My favorite! I want two tacos and a beef potato burrito.”

  He grinned over at her. “Did you hear that our taco truck backed out of the event next year?” He knew she’d heard, but he couldn’t help teasing her about it.

  She nodded. “I’ve talked to three different taco truck drivers, trying to get them to come. I don’t know what we’ll do if we can’t get someone.”

  Adam laughed softly. “Maybe you could open your own taco stand.”

  “Don’t think I wouldn’t! We have to have tacos if we want to be happy. Tacos mean many happy people!”

  “We do a big brisket and lots of barbecue.”

  “Barbecue is good, because this is Texas, but we also need tacos!” Tiffani was shocked she needed to explain this to him. He was a native Texan as well!

  “All right. We’ll make sure a taco truck is present.”

  “I believe that’s my job, Adam.”

  “I know it is.” He looked at her for a moment while he waited for the car ahead of him in the drive through to pull forward. “You’re beautiful when you’re talking tacos.”