The Delivery of Decor (Shiloh Ridge Ranch in Three Rivers #7) - Liz Isaacson Page 0,90

her, but he wasn’t going to offer her a shoulder to cry on. Not tonight. He was going to play the perfect gentleman, and see what her next step was. After all, when he’d tried to dictate the steps, she’d broken up with him.

She took the flowers with a “Thank you, Judge. They’re beautiful,” and he bent down to pat the toy poodle and the Bichon Frise. The little dogs kept jumping up, and he finally scooped them both into his arms, where they simultaneously tried to lick his face.

He laughed as he dodged their attempts and realized that June had disappeared from the doorway. The door still stood open, and Judge could only assume that meant he was supposed to enter the house.

So he did, hoping he wasn’t walking into something he shouldn’t.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Juniper Nichols gave her sixteen-year-old her best you-better-watch-it look as she re-entered the living area of the house. She carried the flowers, and she wished with everything inside her that her life were different.

No, you don’t, she told herself, though she would love to be gazing down at these gorgeous flowers while still standing in the foyer of the house. Then she’d look up into Judge Glover’s gorgeous face and smile all flirtatiously. She’d murmur something about how beautiful they were, and he’d tell her how stunningly beautiful she was just before he kissed her.

Wow, her fantasies about the tall, sexy cowboy picking her up for a dinner date had really gotten out of hand.

She banished the thoughts of kissing Judge to the far recesses of her mind and set the vase of flowers on the piano.

“Do you play?” Judge asked from behind her, and she spun to face him. He’d taken off his cowboy hat and set it somewhere, and not a single hair on his head sat out of place. With his perfectly styled beard, his long legs in those blue jeans, the polished cowboy boots, and a dark brown leather jacket where a blue plain collar peeked through at the throat, he was cowboy perfection right there in her house.

“A little,” June said, trying to keep her head on straight as her hormones buzzed. She’d been out with this man before. She’d kissed him before, for crying out loud. He’d kept calling her for her wireless services even after she’d broken things off with him. He’d been nothing but kind and polite when she’d gone up to his ranch for business.

Nervous was an understatement for how she felt in this moment, watching him gaze around her house. She’d never invited him in before, and she told herself she hadn’t tonight either. She’d simply walked away and left the front door open. What had she expected him to do? Meet her in the truck?

“You’ve met Lucy Mae,” she said, sweeping her arm around her unhappy daughter. “Lucy Mae, you remember Judge Glover.”

“How could I forget?” the girl asked, plenty of acid in her tone.

June put in her mama eyes and set them on laser-mode. She was not going to ruin this for June. Not again.

Judge juggled the two ten-pound dogs in his arms and stepped toward Lucy Mae. “Nice to see you again,” he drawled, that Texan accent dang near perfect. “I saw your momma’s post about you graduating early. That’s highly impressive.”

Lucy Mae brightened considerably at that, and June could’ve scripted what her daughter said next. “Thank you, Judge. Will you please tell my mother while you’re out tonight that I’m old enough to do the summer engineering program?” She moved her gaze back to June, and Lucy Mae had plenty of lasers in her expression too.

June supposed she had learned from the best, and she sighed as Judge’s eyes cut back to hers. “You don’t have to hold the dogs,” she said, moving toward him. She took them from him, the silly babies. They’d want him to hold them and carry them around every time he came over if he did it once. “You guys aren’t coming tonight. Stay.”

She deposited them on the couch and turned toward Lucy Mae. She wouldn’t leave without hugging her daughter, but Lucy Mae looked like she’d rather slice out her own tongue. Still, she let June embrace her though she didn’t return it. Hugging a board wasn’t all that fun, so June ended the touch quickly and said, “You know where everything is?”

“Yes, Mom,” Lucy Mae said with a hefty roll of her eyes.

“In case I die,” June said, putting a smile on her face. “You’re