Alister and Beverly Applewood. Hope’s parents.
Her father went straight to Hope, pulling her into a hug before he shook Josh’s hand. Definitely not wimpy, nor had it been the one other time Josh had met him. And Alister made good eye contact. Not Beverly, though. Her attention went straight to Hope’s feet.
“My God, don’t they have a nail salon in Wrangler’s Creek?” Beverly asked her daughter.
“They do, but I’ve been too busy running the ranch and opening Pandora’s box,” Hope grumbled, causing her mom to frown even though there was probably little chance that Beverly got the reference. Josh hoped the woman hadn’t, anyway. “How’s the cookie business these days?”
“We’re baking along,” her dad answered, causing Hope to smile over the groan-worthy joke.
No smile from Hope’s mom. Beverly turned her frosty, toenail-disapproving gaze on Josh. “I suppose you’re here because of business obligations.” She didn’t give Josh even a second to respond to that. “It’s the same for us. We just sealed the deal to supply Oscar Pendleton baked goods for all six of his dude ranches. Applewood snickerdoodles will be in every one of his guesthouses and restaurants.”
It was hard to keep a serious face when discussing cookies, especially those with a funny name, but somehow Josh managed it.
“But we’re mixing some pleasure with it, too,” Beverly continued a moment later, “and we were hoping our daughter would do the same.”
Well, the earlier kiss had been plenty pleasurable, but it was best for Josh not to mention that.
“Mark came with us,” Beverly went on. “Mark Wainwright,” she added to Josh. “He’s a real-estate mogul in Austin. Hope, you should spend some time tonight getting to know Mark.” She turned toward her daughter. “And maybe he won’t look at your feet.”
Or her breasts. But that particular wish from Josh might have been motivated by a tad of jealousy. Roger was just a horn-ball ogler, but this Mark was obviously meant to be Beverly’s version of Mr. Right Son-in-Law.
“Actually, I don’t plan to spend time with Mark,” Hope said, “because I’m here with Josh.”
Josh had been on the receiving end of plenty of stink eye, but the one Beverly gave him qualified for the Stink Eye of the Century award. She did a quick follow-up with a huff.
“I know what you’re doing,” Beverly declared. “You’re pretending to be with your ranch hand so that you won’t have to talk to Mark. But that’s nonsense. Mark is perfect for you, and you can’t pass up this opportunity.”
Hope started repeating some of those words under her breath. Pretending. Nonsense. Ranch hand. And Josh cursed because he knew what was coming next. Hope latched on to a handful of his hair, then yanked him down to her.
And she kissed him.
CHAPTER THREE
HOPE HADN’T MEANT to copy Josh’s earlier “I’ll show you” kiss, but it was the first thing that popped into her head. And it worked. It shut her mother up, anyway.
Along with shutting everyone else up.
The area around them went silent again except for the thudding, and she soon realized that was the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. A shut-up kiss certainly packed a punch.
Hope didn’t let the lip-lock go on for too long. A few seconds was enough to make her point, along with making Josh look about as comfortable as a bull calf facing a castration knife. Obviously, he had a different view on a pretend kiss in front of two people versus one in front of dozens.
Those dozens included his own parents.
Hope spotted them in the adjacent family room, and like everybody else, they were staring.
“Uh, I’ll just have a word with my folks,” Josh said when his mom and dad started toward him.
Josh wisely thought it wouldn’t be a good idea for this foursome conversation to turn into a six-some. Or rather a seven-some because the Whitlocks were with Dr. Marie Stapleton, the woman they wanted for their son. Hope could see why, too. Marie was beautiful, and it appeared that she’d had a recent pedi for the occasion. Her toes glimmered with a flirty shade of pink.
“I’ll grab us another drink,” her father insisted. “Remember to keep your voice down,” he added to his wife.
“Really?” her mother said the moment Hope’s father had stepped away. Beverly’s voice was an angry whisper. “Was that fake kiss necessary?” As usual, she didn’t give Hope a chance to answer. “You’re twenty-eight, not twelve, and acting out like this is embarrassing—”
“Who said it was a fake?” Hope countered. “I’ve kissed Josh before.” And she could say it with a straight face since it wasn’t a flat-out lie.
Her mother huffed, though, as if it were a whopper. “I knew it was a mistake to let you stay here and try to run the ranch.”
There were so many things wrong with that comment that Hope needed a couple of gulps of wine before she could return fire without including a fit of temper. “You didn’t let me run the ranch. I used my trust fund to buy it. And I don’t try, I do run it. Me and Josh. No matter what you think of him, the ranch wouldn’t be as successful as it is without him.”
Her mother’s scowl intensified when her gaze drifted toward Josh, the doctor and his parents. Actually, Hope was pretty sure she scowled a bit, too, because Marie was flashing Josh a smile, then a laugh before leaning in and whispering something to him. If the doctor got any closer, she’d tongue his earlobe.
“I don’t like to talk about this,” Beverly went on, “but I married down. Beneath my station in life. And it had a huge effect on my family.”
For someone who didn’t like to talk about it, Beverly certainly talked about it a lot. Beverly’s multimillionaire father owned the company where Hope’s dad had been the CFO. When Beverly and he had fallen in love, it had apparently fueled the gossips for a while and cost Beverly’s father some business deals from old farts who thought less of him because he hadn’t been able to keep the socialite reins on his daughter.
Still, her mom and dad had stayed together despite the gossip and lost revenue, so in Hope’s way of thinking, it had all worked out. Especially since she likely wouldn’t have been conceived if Beverly hadn’t hooked up with the hired help. With a different half of a gene pool, she could have turned out like the doctor who was flirting with Josh.
Sheez Louise, the woman had bumped her boob against Josh’s arm.
“You probably haven’t thought about how this is affecting Josh,” her mom continued.
That snagged Hope’s full attention. At least it did until she realized her mother wasn’t talking about the doctor’s boob swipe because she wasn’t even looking at Josh. Beverly had her “I’m about to dole out advice” look nailed to Hope.
“How many other hands do you have working for you?” Beverly asked.