Free Cowboy in the Kitchen by Mae Nunn

arriving two weeks late, would never give the ceiling the illusion of a French drawing room. She took aim at the innocent driver, her last nerve shot.
    “Get your boss on the phone,” she demanded.
    “Um, ma’am, I don’t carry a cell. Can’t afford it.”
    She stomped toward the open door of the flatbed, reached inside and yanked the built-in microphone off its dashboard mount. “Is there someone on the other end of this thing?”
    Anxious eyes looked to Alberto and then back to Gillian. The driver nodded his head in response.
    It took all the composure she could muster not to shoot the messenger. She stretched the chord to its fullest extent and thrust the mic toward the driver. “Get your dispatcher on the line and inform him the lady who owns Moore House is beyond furious!”
    “Moore House?” he questioned.
    She blew out a sigh when a scream was really what she wanted to let loose.
    “Temple Territory, then. Tell them the lady who is remodeling Temple Territory is, to put it in local terms, madder than a wet hen! And as soon as it is humanly possible, Mr. Gates will be at your store with some choice words for the idiot who screwed up my custom order.”
    To Gillian’s horror, her throat began to thicken and her eyes burned from emotion that wouldn’t be held in. She ducked her head, brushed past Alberto and made a beeline for the mansion. Once inside and up the staircase, she closed herself into the sitting room that served as her on-site command center. With no one to see and no reason to fight away the tears, she let them flow.
    * * *
    H UNT RECOGNIZED A golden opportunity when one smacked him upside the head. He’d watched from the Jeep as Gillian and Karl’s foreman hurried out the terrace door. They’d examined the load on the delivery truck and then Gillian had pitched a hissy fit. He could have made things more embarrassing by stepping into the scene before she fled inside, but that pesky niggling kept him frozen to the spot.
    He’d come to this moment with a clear conscience, but it would never be clear again if he didn’t do the right thing now. One day soon he’d succeed in his own right, he was sure of that in his heart. But it wouldn’t be at the expense of a hardworking, hardheaded woman who was determined to give her all, even if she went down in flames in the process.
    “Aw, man,” Hunt muttered as he crossed the parking lot and motioned for the delivery driver to give him a minute.
    “I didn’t hear exactly what Ms. Moore said to you, but I got the impression there’s been a mistake of some sort. I apologize for not stepping in sooner to deal with the problem myself, but if you’ll give a copy of the purchase order to my friend Alberto, I’ll call your store and get this all straightened out.”
    He fished a five from his wallet and thanked the driver for his patience, then patted Alberto on the shoulder.
    “I got this one,” Hunt assured the foreman.
    “Thank you, Mr. Temple.” Alberto smiled his appreciation.
    Hunt passed through the downstairs rooms, admiring the progress being made by the carpenters and painters. Gillian was stressing big time, but things were shaping up. True, there were large-ticket items running behind, and the crews were working around holes in the schedule, but it wasn’t out of the question to imagine the work finished well before Christmas.
    He’d even considered stringing holiday lights on the derrick out front, and positioning a lighted star atop the hundred-foot structure to match the sixty other replica derricks in town. But none of that would happen if he didn’t convince Gillian that she wasn’t a failure and get her to ease up on the throttle.
    “Gilly?” he called as he rapped on the closed door of the room where she’d set up her office. “Gilly, are you in there?”
    The door flew open.
    “I asked you not to call me that around here. I don’t want the men to get the wrong idea.” She left him standing in the hallway.
    Hunt