The Rancher's Untamed Heart (14 page)

The next morning, I woke up in Clint’s comfortable guest room. I rolled out of bed and stood at the back window in my pajamas, pulling aside the cheerful white curtain and eying the landscape for a moment before returning to my overnight bag and getting dressed.

I’d forgotten to pack hair ties, so when I emerged from the bedroom, I was in jeans and a patterned t-shirt, with my hair down and falling around my shoulders. I’d kicked off my sandals under the table as we sat up talking, and hadn’t retrieved them before heading to bed.

Clint was entirely forgiven for his lapse. The companionable evening we’d shared over good steak and cups of strong coffee was better than going out to some fancy restaurant and being interrupted by a stranger every few minutes.

We’d talked for three hours and were both yawning by the time we stumbled into bed.

As I walked into the kitchen, I saw that the dishes from last night had been cleared away.

On end of the table where we had been sitting was a vase full of fresh wildflowers, a plate of food and a glass, and a note.

Crossing to them, I picked up the note first.

“Naomi -

Finishing up farm chores. Back by eight. Had breakfast.

Make yourself at home.

- Clint”

I put it down and sat in the end seat. He’d set the table with a pretty turquoise cloth napkin and the plate he’d left for me had a bagel, cream cheese, jam, and honey, along with some diced strawberries and cantaloupe. There was a glass of orange juice, still cool.

It was a beautiful spread.

Looking for a clock, I saw my purse hanging on a hook by the door, next to his winter jacket, and stood back up to go grab my phone.

Apparently, it was 7:46.

I tried not to wonder if he’d be back in the house by eight. He’d clearly not forgotten about me, he’d taken the time to set up breakfast for me before he had started his chores after a late night.

I virtuously did not keep an eye on my phone as I ate, but I couldn't resist peeking at the time when I heard footsteps on the porch outside.

7:55.

I knocked into my orange juice glass as I turned the screen back off before he walked inside.

"Good, you found the food," Clint said, stepping through the door.

"Not a problem," I said. "It was hard to miss, with the flowers and all. Thank you. They're really lovely."

Clint smiled at me and planted a kiss on my hair ad he walked past me into the main part of the kitchen. Looking at something around a cabinet, above his head, he nodded once and came back to perch on the chair next to me.

"You like bagels?" he asked.

"Love them," I said. "Is there a clock back there?" I asked, nodding to the part of the kitchen he'd just headed to.

"Ever since I was a kid," he said. "I knew I was pushing it to make it back when I said I would, wanted to be sure I hadn't broken my word again."

"I do understand," I said. "I don't love it, but I understand. The work never ends and there are some things that just can't wait."

He nodded.

"I can't promise you that I'll never stand you up again. My father missed my high school graduation because a storm knocked down a section of fence and half a herd got out," he said.

I nodded. That sort of problem had to be dealt with immediately.

"I'm upset about last night," he continued, "Because that wasn't time-sensitive ranch work. If I'd missed picking you up because of sick animals or a major problem with the hands, well, that's the job. I missed picking you up because I got distracted by the worst part of the work, though, and something that I don't have to account for for six months."

I nodded again. Clint seemed to have been thinking about what to say, this was the most I'd heard from him at once.

"I will take care, in the future, not to do that to you again. If I miss a date, it will be for a truly urgent reason," he finished.

"Thank you," I said. "I was frustrated, I felt like you didn't care. The flowers and breakfast went a long way to fixing that."

He looked relieved.

"I wanted you to know that I hadn't forgotten you again this morning," he said.

"It worked," I said. "How did the chores go?"

He shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary, which is how I like it. I spoke to the boys, and they won't expect me back until well after lunchtime. I've rearranged a few things, fixing the fence in a pasture we're not using can wait until Monday."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

His nod was firm. "It's not a steak dinner, but we can still have a good date," he said. "How about we ride into town and have brunch, or look around somewhere and then have lunch?"

"I do know a place with amazing eggs," I said.

"Brunch it is," he said, standing up. "Good. I'm hungry."

"I'm guessing you're always hungry," I grumbled.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Comes with the territory."

There were definitely things about being with a ranching man that I couldn’t fight. Lousy schedules and constant snacking were two of the big ones.

The next two months were some of the best of my life. I spent five days a week working hard at a job that I loved, and every weekend wrapped up in Clint's life at the ranch.

On days we didn't see each other, Clint and I started to call each other and talk into the night.

Both of us were worn out, but it didn't seem to matter.

I was shocked and delighted by how strong my feelings were for Clint. Looking at him made me feel safe and whole, and spending so many nights in a row away from the ranch had me restless by Wednesday afternoon.

I’d said that it would be no more difficult keeping our word not to have sex with one another at night than when we spent long days on the couch together. Of course, that meant that I couldn’t I struggled to sleep knowing that he was in his bed only a few rooms away.

I wondered if he slept naked.

He still made the heat gather in my belly, made my nipples grow hard and my hands tremble with desire.

We still exchanged long, slow kisses that would get me teased by the Francesas, although we were mostly more careful to be private with our more intense displays of affection than we had been in the hallway of my apartment building.

Every Friday, when I drove out to the ranch, I got out of my little car and ran into Clint's arms, as the hands hooted and the sheep jostled each other, restless for food.

"Does it bother you?" I asked, after the first time Brandon had led the rest of the men in a chorus of caterwauls.

He laughed, leading me into the house by the hand. We took seats at the kitchen table, and Clint pulled a plate of pastries over, each of us taking one.

“Why do you always have these things?” I complained. “I’ll put on ten pounds a week.”

He laughed and pushed the plate out of my reach.

"I can't let it," he said, "They'll get worse if they sense weakness. These sweets are for the fellas," he added. “I buy them by the ton at Costco, pretty cheap way to get them to work on time.”

I rolled my eyes.

He ducked his head. "Besides, when Brandon and Will were still circling each other, I was the one leading the caterwauls," he admitted.

My laugh startled a bird on the windowsill. I was glad to hear about him being silly, he spent so much of his time serious. I understood why, he’d had a lot of responsibility, earlier than he expected it, but I loved his humor and wanted him to be comfortable expressing it around me.

"How did they meet, anyways?" I asked. "Will seems like a nice guy, but not quite like the rest of your ranchhands."

Clint nodded. "They met at a rodeo, like I said. Brandon was risking his ass, Will came up afterwards to congratulate him on his win. They ended up going out to dinner, and doing the Lord knows what else."

He looked pious for a minute, as if he hadn't been ready to tear my clothes off the first time we met, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Anyways," he went on, "Will lost his job when the newspaper shut down, and Brandon asked me to give him a try. I owe Brandon, so I said I would. Man saved me twenty thousand dollars his first month on the job."

I whistled. "That's quite the penny," I said, tearing my Danish into smaller pieces. "How'd he manage that?"

Clint nodded, all business.

"He caught Glenn Yates trying to short-change me, when the other hands would have signed the paper and moved on," he said. "I was trying to be neighborly, he offered to buy some old equipment I had rusting in the barn, and I didn't see any reason why not to. Will took a closer look, though, when Yates was loading up his truck, and saw a few pieces that weren't for sale that had - Yates assured me - accidentally ended up getting loaded with them."

I popped a bite of Danish into my mouth. "You couldn't have gotten them back, I guess?" I asked.

"Once they were on his property, I would have had a devil of a time getting it back, with or without the law," he said.

"Scoundrel," I declared. I’d told Clint about my horrible visit to the Yates ranch before we met – but I hadn’t told him where it took place. It didn’t seem professional of me to name names.

"I pay the rest of my hands to be strong," he said. "I pay Will to be smart."

"What about Brandon?" I asked.

He snorted. "I pay Brandon to be strong, and to be smart, and to deal with the rest of the hands. I pay him so much I wonder if he'll buy his own damn ranch in a year or two and leave me high and dry."

"What would you do without him?" I asked.

Clint shuddered, wiping Danish off of his mouth with a big calico napkin.

"I'd have to stop being so grumpy or I'd lose the rest of the men," he said. "I'd have to actually talk to people every day."

"Oh, poor you," I said. "Do you think Brandon wants his own place?"

"I don't know," Clint said. "I've asked him a few times, he says he's happy here for now. I know he loves it here like I do, but he loves Will, too, and I don't see Will working as a ranch hand forever. It’s hard to find a job in town when you live all the way out here."

I nodded, sympathetically. That sounded like a tough fix for him to be in.

"What do you think Will would rather do?" I asked.

"He doesn't seem to mind being on a ranch," he said, "I think that he'd rather be managing things than patching fences and dealing with sheep, though."

I nodded again. "Could he do more of the paperwork? You don't seem to mind patching fences."

Clint looked suspicious.

"I don't know," he said. "Will's a good guy, but my father always did all his own paperwork, and said that it wasn't something a man ought to let get out of his hands."

I wanted to remind Clint that he wasn't his father, but I knew better than to question the wisdom of a ranch man's dead father.

"Well, you could think about it," I said.

He nodded, absently.