Trent nodded and looked her over. "I think you may be right," he said. He studied her bright eyes and the beautiful curves of her face and suddenly realized that maybe there was such a thing as life after Lily. Because, whether he liked it or not, he was starting to have feelings for Grace.
8
Grace
It was mid-May and Grace had spent the last two weeks spending most of her free time with Trent. The two would usually practice riding in the mornings, and by the afternoon, they had a table saved at the ranch restaurant. One day, Trent even invited her into the restaurant kitchen to make them something.
It felt so good to cook again in a real kitchen instead of waitressing for locals looking to get a buzz on at Tapps.
After lunch, Grace and Trent would either hang out with Bex or do something at the ranch. She loved being there and walking through the peaceful orchards. She’d asked Trent once if he ever thought about creating more activities for the tourists, to which he told her she sounded like his father.
She suggested that it would bring more tourists to Nueces County.
“What would you do?” Trent asked.
“I guess I’d have to think about it,” she said before quickly snapping her finger. “Wait! I think I know! What does Nueces have that the rest of Texas doesn’t?”
Trent shrugged, and Grace said, “Water. We’re about twenty minutes from Oso Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Take them out, Trent! Take ‘em fishing or swimming or take them out to Padre Island and offer beach days. Or just offer a yacht package. Tourists love feeling like they’re living a different life. How amazing would it be to wake up, wander through rows and rows of fruit trees, ride horses, eat food from the very farm you’re staying at, and then taking a leisurely yacht cruise for the afternoon? You can serve finger foods from the ranch and offer different stops. It’s perfect.”
Trent smirked, but he didn’t seem convinced. “Looks like you’ve got this all planned out,” he said.
“I know you’re going to stubbornly ignore me, but it is perfect. And if you start planning it now, you can get everything rolled out before summer starts.”
Trent laughed but didn’t say much else besides telling her she was good at thinking on her feet.
One week later, he picked her up from Maisie’s and told her they were going on a surprise adventure.
They pulled up to a boat marina and boarded a luxury yacht that had “Grace’s Splendor” freshly marked on the side.
“What’s this?” she asked with excitement as she walked to the edge of the ship.
“This is called a test run,” he said wryly.
Grace spun around to look at him. “You’re doing the cruise?”
“Yep,” he said. “I had a team on it all week, and we pulled a lot of strings to get this up and running so fast, but I think we may be able to launch by July.”
Trent was as happy and energized as Grace had ever seen him as he showed her the rough draft for the cruise.
He repeatedly tried to give her money for the idea, to give her the same cut he would give an advisor, but she turned it down.
“Come work for me, then,” he said. “You can work at the restaurant or cook on the yacht. Come on, Grace. This was your idea; you should benefit from it.”
“Seeing you this happy is reward enough for me,” she said with a smile.
“Ah, come on,” he said. “Come on as a sous-chef if you’re nervous about taking the reins.
“No,” she said, embarrassed. “It’s a really generous offer, but—”
“But what?” he said, taking her hand into his. “You cook great food. I trust you, and I want you.”
It was a generous offer. Grace was good at what she did, and the offer to get into a kitchen again was tempting, but she didn’t feel right about saying yes.
“What would Tapps do without me?” she said with wry flirtation.
“Forget them,” he said. “Come on, be a part of this new adventure with me.”
He laid out details of when she would work for the yacht and how she would be brought into the ranch restaurant in the off-season. He even made some suggestions for her salary, and it was a very competitive wage.
Grace didn’t know why she was turning it down. She was the one who thought up the idea, and Trent was doing the right thing by offering, but it felt weird, somehow.
“You barely know me,” she said with a laugh. “Why would you give me this amazing opportunity?”
“I may not know you inside out, but what I know of you, I like,” he said plainly. “And you’ve worked in restaurants before, so I trust that you’d be able to keep up with the demand.”
“I’ll think about it,” she smiled.
He narrowed his eyes at her teasingly, wanting an answer now, but eventually relented.
By the beginning of June, something shifted between Grace and Trent. She had begun to feel something new for him. She liked him, and it was getting harder to shut out the voice in her head that was begging her to protect her heart. It was too soon, Trent had too much going on in his life, and she had already been hurt once by someone she thought she could trust. She didn’t want to risk it again, but every time she shared a gaze with Trent, her heart would flutter.
Today was Grace’s day off, and Trent asked her if she wanted to skip riding for the day and come over to spend the afternoon in the pool with him and Bex.
It was early afternoon, and they hadn’t yet dipped into the pool.
She was hanging out in the kitchen with Bex and Trent and had brought the little guy a bit of a surprise.
Bex was crazy about pickles and Grace told him that today they would make their own at home. She'd brought over some mini cucumbers that she'd already tossed in a boatload of kosher salt—to make the pickles snappy and crunchy—and chilled them in the fridge for a couple of hours.
As she thoroughly rinsed the pickles, she asked Bex what kind of pickles he wanted them to be. He sat on the countertop up against the backsplash, tapping his little finger on his chin as he thought about it.
"Do you want them to be spicy? Sweet? Dilly? Garlic?" she suggested.
"Yes!" he said excitedly.
Grace laughed. "All of the above, huh?"
"Not spicy," Trent suggested from the kitchen island.
"Because he doesn't like it or because you don't?" she teased and Trent stuck his tongue out at her.
"I would like to invoke my fifth amendment right and refuse to answer that question on the ground that it may incriminate me," he said.
"Dill it is," Grace said, but Bex straightened his back and quickly announced, "Sweet!"
"Sweet it is!" she corrected with a smile. "Do you want them cut long-ways or like little chips?"
"Chips!"
"Awesome," she said, thankful for the answer since that was the way she had already cut them. "That's my favorite, too. Okay, Bex. Do you know what these are?"
"Pickles!" he announced.
"Close," she said. "They're cucumbers. Really teeny tiny ones."
"Baby cucumbers," he said, looking down into the bowl.