The Rancher's Untamed Heart (12 page)
Read The Rancher's Untamed Heart Online
Authors: Nicole Jordan
Clint called me a little after dawn to let me know that he was finishing up the farm chores early, and could pick me up in two hours.
I was out in the parking lot waiting for him, so we did not have a repeat of the passionate hallway kiss for Mr. and Mrs. Francesa to laugh over, but when I climbed into the truck and slid over to greet him, the quick kiss we shared and the feel of his side pressed against mine was enough to remind my body of the desire I felt for him.
I slid back over to my own seat with some regret, and Clint smiled ruefully and leaned over, patting my leg.
"I brought you coffee," he said. "I needed it this morning, I had trouble sleeping. Too many thoughts of you, and what you do to me."
He lifted his own coffee to his lips as I cradled mine in my hands, enjoying the warmth of it against my fingers.
"Just think of how difficult it would have been to sleep with me there," I murmured.
"Oh, I did," he said firmly, putting the coffee back in a cupholder.
"Repeatedly?" I asked, looking at him as innocently as possible.
"You're going to kill me," he said, and reached out to turn the radio on.
"That isn't exactly what I had in mind. I will let you be, though," I said.
"For six months," he replied.
"For six months minus one day," I retorted, "I'm not waiting a minute longer than I have to."
That weekend was sweet and long, and went by in an instant. Clint showed me around the ranch in a different way than I'd seen it. Instead of counting bales of moldy hay and measuring the thickness of support beams in outside sheds, he showed me parts of the ranch he'd changed in the past few years, parts where his father's way, he said, would never be beat, and parts where he wasn't sure what to do.
We went out on ATV's so he could show me a beautiful hidden spring that made this property very valuable when Clint's great-grandfather had claimed it, and he told me stories about how his family had kept the land for generations.
"You want to stay here forever, don't you?" I asked at one point.
"Why would I want to go anywhere else?" he asked, "All I want is this ranch, and a family to pass it along to."
We spent hours talking and laughing, and I followed him while he did some of the chores, before we went into town.
Brandon and Will were heading in to watch a movie, so Clint rode with me in my work vehicle and we all four went on a double date, Clint heading home in Brandon's truck with them, me returning to my solitary apartment.
The other men were funny and kind, and I enjoyed being around all of them. Clint was relaxed with them, throwing his head back and laughing at their jokes. I envied the easy way that they had together, and I wished that I were part of it.
Work on Monday was rough, but nothing that I didn't expect. I loved my job, but for once, I would rather blow it off and go explore Clint's ranch than keep my spreadsheets up to date.
"Someone had a good weekend," Sarah said, when she walked into my office at lunchtime.
"Pretty nice," I admitted.
"What's his name?" she asked, ducking inside and shutting the door behind her.
I laughed, getting out my bottle of water and easing away from my computer, ready to have lunch
with her.
"Who said that there's a man?" I asked.
"Well, did you finally turn lesbian so we could run off and adopt a lot of adorable children together?" she asked.
I almost snorted my drink through my nose.
"Wait, when did you turn lesbian?" I asked. "You love men. You love Neil."
"I would make an exception to adopt adorable babies with you, obviously," she said.
"Obviously," I replied, rolling my eyes. "The fact that you're already pregnant with an adorable
baby is a total non-issue, right?"
Sarah waved her hand impatiently. "Total. Besides, it could be ugly. We don’t know that yet."
"Seriously, I'm not going to tell you who, but yes, I have met someone," I said.
She rolled her eyes right back.
"You and your discretion, you are no fun," she said.
"Yes, me and my professional workplace behavior," I said, "The government hates that."
"Want to go out?" she asked.
"I already have my purse," I said, shutting my monitor off and standing up.
Sarah held the door open for me. "Let me tell you about what the government likes."
We walked to a local coffee shop, her telling me about how the woman working at the D.M.V. had sworn at her the weekend before.
"I'm telling you," she said, as we walked through the door, "I missed my calling. I want to be able to cuss at clients and not do my job. Maybe someday, if I'm very, very good, I'll die and come back to life as a D.M.V. employee."
I was still laughing as I ordered my coffee and soup.
"Drinking your lunch, I see," she said, as we claimed a table. "Good call, day drinking is the one major perk all government employees share."
"I don't drink on the job, you know that," I said.
"Yes, yes," she said, rolling her eyes, "You are discreet and professional. You know I know that, honey. If I wanted to go to lunch with someone who actually drank on the job, I'd make Herman take me out. I have to buy my own lunch when I go with you."
"You don't really think that Herman drinks on the job, do you?" I asked.
She shrugged.
"I bet the old coot has a bottle of Jack or Jim in his desk, but I don't think he drinks it except for show, with his buddies. He's too smart to get drunk," she said.
"I wouldn't know," I reminded her.
"Yeah, we had a lot of turnover for a while," she said. "He has vowed never again to learn anyone's name unless they make it a full three years. Don't take it personally, he's just an ass."
"He'll have to learn my name pretty soon," I said.
"He sure will, sweetheart," she said, and rolled her eyes again. "Pretty sure that he thinks we're all interchangeable peons, anyways," she said.
I picked up my coffee and took a quick sip. "Not you, right? He loves you. He knows your name, at least."
"He might know my name, but he doesn't remember that I don't do fieldwork right now," Sarah said. She gestured down at her belly, which seemed larger and rounder every week.
"I am not hauling my pregnant ass around in cow muck for six hours," she said.
"Two hours of cow muck is your limit right now?" I asked.
"I wish. You should see the bathroom at our house. Pretty sure my Neil doesn't know what a toilet brush is, and that's another thing I'm not doing right now," she said. I wondered if Clint cleaned his own toilet, and tried to remember the actual subject that we were discussing.
"Herman forgot you're on light duty?" I asked.
"Forgot, doesn't care, not clear," she said. "He tried to send me out on the Cannon ranch inspection last week, but I turfed it to you."
"Oh," I said, trying to seem casual. "Thanks for the extra work, can always use that."
Before she could see how not-actually-casual I was, I tried to deflect her to a category no pregnant woman I'd ever met could resist.
"So, ready to have that baby?" I asked.
"Oh. My. God," she said, punctuating each word with a stamp of her foot. "I feel like I have been pregnant forever. I will never stop being pregnant. All I am is a walking, talking, fetus warmer. My job is to put enough nutrients in my body to keep my baby from sucking too much of my youth out."
"You have a good start there," I said, gesturing at her enormous salad.
The rest of our lunch passed pretty casually, talking about Sarah's pregnancy and husband, and the duties we'd have for the rest of the week.
On the walk back, slow for Sarah's pregnant self, she laughed suddenly.
"At least you're getting laid," she said. "That should improve your mood."
I shifted my feet. "Actually," I began.
"Please don't tell me that he is too Mormon to actually have sex with you," she groaned. "Not again."
"No, but he's old-fashioned," I said.
"Old-fashioned?" she asked. "Old-fashioned? Come on, girl, you have got to pick the ones that will put out someday."
My laughter echoed on the quiet street, and I kept my next words down. "I'm pretty sure he'll put out just fine, Sarah, he just wants to wait a few months."
"How many?" she demanded.
"Well, six," I admitted.
"Hah," she retorted. "I give you five weeks, and if you don't buy me a cookie tomorrow, I'll start an office-wide betting pool."
"Well, my honor is definitely worth the price of a cookie," I deadpanned. "What kind do you desire, O pregnant mistress of the office?"
"Peanut butter, and sarcasm means you owe me two," she said, happily.
Back at my office, I sat down and stretched before I got back to work, letting my purse trail from my fingers and swing in thin air behind my desk.
Feeling better for food and conversation, I relaxed and put my purse back underneath my desk. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the desk by my keyboard in case Clint sent me a text message.
That was pretty rare, but there was no reason not to hope.
Before I got started on my real work, I started to make sure that my desk was organized. I skimmed through my physical inbox and outbox - why can’t government offices actually go paperless like they were supposed to ten years ago? - to make sure that everything was correctly filed.
Everything seemed in order.
Something Sarah had said was bugging me, though.
Why would Herman send the Cannon Ranch inspection to her? Not only was she on maternity leave, I had been taking more and more of the ranch inspections for almost a year.
We’d even specifically told him that, and asked him to send us tasks accordingly. Sarah’s time outside of work was busy with her young family, she enjoyed quiet desk tasks in the air conditioning, and I always prefer to get out and about into the fresh air.
“Herman really doesn’t pay attention to us peons,” I thought to myself, and laughed a little.
When I’d set my desk in order, I turned to my e-mail.
