Catch Me A Cowboy (21 page)

‘But we'll have to take a raincheck, literally.'

Emily grinned.

‘I've had to improvise. And I apologise, but it's going to be low-key. In comparison.'

He'd already taken one contestant up in a hot air balloon over the countryside and another up the mountains for a day of skiing. It seemed wrong that he couldn't spoil Emily like he had planned. But that could wait for another day.

‘Do I still get to spend the day with you?' she asked, her voice softer.

His gaze locked to hers as he nodded. His heart was beating faster.

‘Then you don't need to apologise.'

‘Emily,' he growled, low and deep. He was surprised to hear the need in that rumble of sound. This reaction to her stupefied him—surreal almost. What was it with this woman that almost brought him to his knees?

He took her hand and led her to the kitchen.

Emily's eyes widened and her lips parted on a rushed inhale. ‘Impressive.' She looked at Wil with kittenish eyes. ‘But I bet you hear that all the time, right?'

Wil threw his head back and laughed.

His friend, a local chef, stepped towards them and held his hand out to Emily. ‘Matt Morgan.'

She shook his hand. ‘Emily Wolfe. Lovely to meet you.'

He grinned. ‘You too.'

She cocked her head to the side. ‘Have I seen you on television?'

He nodded.

‘Matt's a good mate of mine from my school days,' said Wil. ‘He was back from the city visiting his family. I thought he could help us cook our lunch.'

Again Emily's eyes widened as she looked from Matt to Wil, to the oven, then shook her head. ‘I can't cook.'

Wil laughed.

‘That's why I'm here,' said Matt.

Emily placed a hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at Wil. ‘Is this a polite way of seeing if your potential lover will be able to make you dinner?'

Wil laughed again and when Emily didn't smile, his lips narrowed into a long line. He arched a brow. ‘Are you serious? Do you think that's what I'm looking for? Someone who can cook me dinner.'

She frowned, then shrugged. ‘Maybe.'

Oh man.
‘Remember when I said that this place exists in the same century you live in?'

She nodded slowly.

‘It applies to this assumption as well. If you can cook, bonus. If you can't, then lucky it's something I enjoy doing and would be happy to cook meals for my
potential lover
.'

Emily lowered her eyes.

‘I can attest that he's a good cook too,' added Matt.

Blush rose in Emily's cheeks. She lifted her eyes to his and whispered, ‘I'm sorry. That was stupidly offensive.' She shook her head.

Now he felt like an arse, but he needed her to know the reality of his life, and the reality of what he expected versus her assumptions. He strode closer and lifted her chin so she was looking into his eyes. He smiled warmly. ‘It's understandable. My father would certainly expect that from my mum. He still does. But I'm a new generation, Em. And I want to make it clear to you that if you can't cook dinner, then so be it. If you want to work long hours on your career, fine by me. If you don't want children—'

‘I want children,' she said quickly. Her eyes flickered to Matt, the cameraman, then back to Wil.

He nodded and grinned. His voice was gentle when he said, ‘Good. So do I. And all I want, Em, is someone who'll love me. Laugh with me. Be my partner in life.' He knew he was getting ahead of himself here. It's not like they even had a relationship. This show made that almost impossible with all the imposing restrictions. But there were the rumblings of
something
between them. And he didn't want misunderstandings and antiquated suppositions getting in the way of those rumblings developing into sky splitting thunder.

Emily stared silently at him before she nodded. Then smiled. She inclined onto her toes, lifted her face to his and kissed his lips. Just once. Quick, but warm. ‘Thanks for clearing that up.'

He smiled and rubbed his hands together. ‘All right, now all the heavy stuff is out of the way, let's get cooking. And because I know how much you like to get your hands dirty, Matt and I thought you could make the pasta.'

Emily's mouth fell open. ‘From scratch?'

Will laughed. ‘Yep.'

Matt grabbed a packet of flour and a carton of eggs and placed them on the bench in front of Emily. ‘I'll walk you through it.'

Emily looked at Wil. ‘When I leave here, I'm going to be fearless. I'll be a pig wrangling, chicken tractor moving, horse riding, pasta making pro.'

Will laughed. ‘And there's plenty more to come.'

They spent the next few hours preparing homemade ravioli, stuffed with goats cheese and basil. Then a tomato based sauce to serve over the top. Next, they worked on a sweet pumpkin pie. All the ingredients were fresh and organic from the farm.

‘So you grow vegetables here as well?' asked Emily as she chopped pumpkin into small pieces.

‘Yep. We are basically self-sufficient.'

‘Supply my restaurant too,' said Matt.

‘It's amazing. You mentioned earlier that your farming practices are different from your father and grandfather. And, forgive me if it's just another assumption because I assumed tradition was valued in the country. So, why did you change?'

She was right. Tradition was important. Some farmers were hard-headed and refused to change, or didn't know any other way; generations of hard men passing along hard-earned knowledge of how to work the land to their sons. ‘We suffered the worst drought in the farm's history seven years ago. A tough, tough time. The soil was dust. The cattles' ribs were sticking out. We were debating if we should—' he shared a quick glance with Matt, ‘—put them down.'

Emily gasped. ‘How terrible.'

‘It was. But it helped me reach a place of understanding that something was really wrong, and it went beyond drought. We were out of touch, with the land and with our methods. It was all about profit, pushing the land to work to our schedule rather than respecting the natural cycle of the seasons. When you disrespect the land, something has to break. And it did. It's taken long years to repair the damage.'

‘And your dad was
fine
with moving in a new direction?'

Wil averted his face and rubbed his cheek with his hand. When he looked at her again, he said, ‘Not immediately.' But there were circumstances that, ultimately, made the entire family wake up. Circumstances he wasn't going to mention on camera.

‘We've ensured there is now ecological balance across the property.'

‘How?' she asked, leaning closer.

‘Replenished the soil for starters. Healthy soil holds so much more moisture than unhealthy soil and is teaming with billions and billions of living organisms, which support the plants and grasses our animals feed off, ensuring what we then eat is full of nutrition. We cut out the use of fertilisers and chemicals so these organisms can survive and we're not ingesting dangerous poisons. We restored resilient native grasses across the entire property …' He stopped. ‘And now I'm being boring.'

Matt chuckled.

Emily took a step towards Wil. ‘Not at all. It's fascinating.'

He grinned. ‘You have to say that.'

She shook her head. ‘No, I don't.' Looking down at the pumpkin, which she was scraping off the chopping board into a frying pan, she said, ‘This pumpkin?'

Matt took the pan from Emily and said, ‘Incredibly delicious.'

Wil nodded in agreement. ‘Highly nutritious. Fully organic. And in season.'

Emily's grin was wide. ‘Thank you for this.'

Wil arched a brow. ‘What for?'

‘For allowing me to experience all this. I never give a second thought to where my food comes from. Ever. Never do I wonder if the soils are plenished. Or if it's rained enough. Or even ask what chemicals have been used.'

Wil grinned. ‘Well, now you will.'

‘Yes. And I think that's a good thing. Using these ingredients and seeing where they've come from and the care taken to grow them, I feel
connected
. Does that sound ridiculous?'

‘Not at all,' Wil said, shaking his head. ‘It's perfect. Because that's what we aim for now, to not just grow, but to actually
be
a part of the cycle.'

Emily stared up at him, her lips gently parted. ‘You are the most surprising package, aren't you, Wil Parker?'

He laughed. ‘I've been called worse.'

Matt chuckled and nodded. ‘Yeah. I've called him worse. Much worse.'

Emily placed her hands on her hips and smiled. ‘Are we going to stand around here all day chatting, or are we actually going to get cooking?'

They finished up, all the dishes ready to go, and said goodbye to Matt. Will stoked the fireplace and turned music on before they dished up to eat lunch in the dining room.

Emily sat beside Wil at the table. It was comfortable to be in this setting with her, in his home, eating a meal together. The cameras, however, made it somewhat awkward by thwarting the type of conversation they would ordinarily have in private. Emily cut into her ravioli and spooned a half into her mouth. She closed her eyes, moaned, and all Wil could do was watch her face, try not to think about sex, nor imagine her face sharing the same expression as he made her come.

‘This is really good. I'm better at cooking than I thought. Matt's a genius if he's helping me make pasta taste this damn good.'

Wil swallowed down the sexual tension teaming through his body and tried his pasta. ‘Oh yeah. Good job, Em.'

She had another mouthful, making little moans of appreciation as she chewed.

Wil felt his shaft getting hard just listening to that. It was strangely erotic. He was glad there was a table top covering his lap.

He'd been disappointed this morning that he wouldn't be able to have the date with Emily he had originally planned, but now he was grateful they were kept indoors, because though the morning had been simple, it was perfect.

‘So you said you were stressed before coming on this show?'

She lowered her gaze to her plate for a long moment and sighed. Smoothing a piece of hair behind her ear, she again looked at him with those honey-brown eyes. ‘I had a panic attack. It was terrifying. I thought I was having a heart attack. It was after meeting with this horrible, horrible man who screamed at me in front of an entire restaurant—'

Will shook his head, his lips twisting into a snarl. ‘What? A man yelled at you? Why?'

‘Because I did my job well, and he was too greedy to recognise it.' She frowned. ‘I've never questioned if I liked my career until that moment. I've dealt with so many egotistical people, but he … he was something else.'

Wil's muscles were rigid. He didn't know this guy, but he wanted to strangle him. ‘I hope you told him what for?' His words were clipped, but it was anger directed at this other man.

‘Oh yeah. I gave it to him. Threw a glass of red wine in his face. I'd wasted ten thousand dollars of my own money on that arsehole. Excuse the language.'

Ten thousand dollars? So she was obviously dealing with big figures. ‘I don't know the guy and I want to break his nose.'

Emily laughed. ‘Thank you.'

‘So you think that's why you had your panic attack?'

She shook her head, nodded, then shrugged. ‘I don't know. I think it was a combination of many things. I thought I was dealing, but I guess I wasn't coping too well.'

‘And you've been okay while out here? With me?'

She grinned and nodded. ‘This place is like medicine.'

The farm had proven to be exactly that for him in the past too, so he understood. But after the drought, when he was still fighting to save this farm, and at the same time Billi was seeking more than her fair share, it was the exact opposite.

He reached under the table and rested his hand on her thigh. She looked at him, her cheeks turning a rosy pink. ‘I'm glad.'

They finished their meal and dished up dessert. But they retreated to the living room to eat it in front of the fire. He poured them both a glass of port to have with their pumpkin pie.

When Emily took a bite of her pie and moaned with pleasure, Wil could barely restrain himself from crawling across the couch and kissing her silly. He watched her, the small blemish of caramel on her lips, and arousal ebbed inside. He moved around in his seat, an effort to conceal the swelling evidence.

‘So you said you've been in love a few times, Em?'

She stopped chewing and nodded.

‘How long since you've been in a relationship?'

Emily swallowed hard, then took a small sip of her port. ‘A couple of years.'

Wil arched his brows. ‘Really? That's a long time.'

She shrugged. ‘Yeah. I guess so. I've dated. Just nothing substantial. What about you? Anything significant since your divorce?'

Nothing longer than six months. And no one, no matter how much he tried to force himself, he could become invested in. ‘Not really.'

‘Dating really sucks.'

He smiled. ‘You thought you'd remedy that by coming on a dating show?'

She laughed. ‘Yes. See how rational I am about finding love?'

Wil grinned and shuffled closer. ‘So that's what you are looking for, Em? Love?'

Emily turned to look out the front windows then back at him. ‘Yes. I meant it when I told you that. I woke up one morning after yet another Oless night, and realised what I was missing was a committed relationship.'

Wil cocked his head. ‘Oless? What's that?'

She placed her plate on the coffee table in front of them and pressed her palms to her cheeks. ‘Oh God. I did not mean to say that.'

His brow furrowed and he smiled. ‘Do you mean … orgasm-less?'

She groaned, hands still trying to hide her blush and nodded, almost imperceptibly.