Free Renegade: A Taggart Brothers Novel by Lisa Bingham

garbage. “She’ll probably need some long-term care once she’s well enough to leave the hospital,” he said, speaking the words with forced lightness as if he were walking through an emotional minefield. “If you’ll let me know what you’d like to do, I’ll be sure to tell—”
    “She can come home,” Bronte interrupted firmly. “She’ll
want
to come home.” Annie would hate going from one clinical setting to another. Like most folk her age, Grandma Annie fiercely fought to remain independent. That meant living in her own house. “If she needs a nurse to visit, that’s fine, but I’d like to take care of the rest.”
    She saw a spark of approval in Jace’s eyes. “I’ll let them know.”
    As if realizing the enormity of what she’d volunteered to do, Bronte cast a keen eye over her surroundings. Although the kitchen was clean, it was cluttered—and she had no doubts the rest of the house would prove to be the same. There was no way Annie would be able to negotiate the stairs. That meant moving her bed to the first floor and ensuring the lower bathroom was adapted to her needs. She would need a ramp for a wheelchair, which meant the front stoop would have to be altered and the banisters repaired . . .
    “You look as if your brain is galloping ahead at breakneck speed,” Jace said with a grin.
    Gripping her hands in front of her, Bronte surveyed the kitchen, making note of all the things that needed to be fixed in this room alone. “There’s so much to do!”
    Jace set the bottles of ketchup and salsa in the fridge, closed the door, and touched her arm. She couldn’t account for the way that simple point of contact caused a warmth to spread through her body, easing away the icy chill that had been there for days.
    “You came at a good time—if the weather holds, we’ll have the corn in by the end of next week, and we’ve had a wet enough spring that the water won’t be sent down the canals until mid-May. Barry, the hired hands, and I can help with the physical stuff. You concentrate on all that female ruffley stuff.”
    Bronte arched a brow. “‘Female ruffley stuff’?”
    His cheeks took on a hint of red. “Oh, wow. That came out sounding pure male chauvinist pig, didn’t it?”
    The fact that he’d recognized his error and so quickly corrected it immediately eased her pique. Phillip wasn’t one to apologize. He said it made a person look weak.
    “What I meant to say,” Jace said, clearly choosing his words more carefully, “is that if you’d like some help with your plans, the boys and I would jump at the chance to do something nice for Annie. She’s been a good friend.”
    Good save.
    Since the offer put control back into her hands, Bronte found it easy to say, “I’d like that. But I’d like to do something to thank you for your help. Is there anything I can tempt you with?”
    The innocent rejoinder hung in the air, rife with a layer of meaning that she hadn’t intended. Clearly, the foot-in-mouth disease was contagious, because this time she’d been the one to speak too quickly.
    Before she could correct herself, Jace grinned and seemed to consider his options. Her heart adopted a sluggish beat in her chest and she felt as flustered as her teenage daughter. His fingers tightened on her arm, and she thought she felt his thumb move in a phantom caress. He opened his mouth, closed it, then finally said, “A man can always be tempted by the promise of . . . bacon.”
    But even as she laughed, she knew full well that he’d given her the G-rated version of the answers that had popped into his head. Unaccountably, she wondered what the adult version would be.
    Somehow, he must have sensed her thoughts because he dropped his hand and scooped a hat from the counter. Rather than the cowboy hat he’d had the night before, this one was a baseball-type cap with a logo for Western Seeds embroidered on the front. She’d thought that the simpler headgear would lessen the effect