The Rancher's Untamed Heart (6 page)

"This can't be right," I thought. "Nobody has four thousand head of sheep down a dinky little road like this any more." The big operations I'd been to all had impressive signage and usually some show-off landscaping, spots of green against the red-brown of the dirt that got into everything.

I checked my GPS for a third time.

I was driving around potholes that wouldn't be out of place in Mumbai, between two rows of teetering barbed wire. The house I was going to was out of sight, but that was no big surprise in hill country. Entire ranches could be hidden over the next rise.

I slammed on the brake out of sheer surprise - an entire ranch was, in fact, hidden over the next rise. The barbed wire fence met the corner of a real livestock fence, one I'd trust a stud bull to stay on one side of and a coyote the other. I could see a collection of long, low buildings off in the distance, and a white mass of sheep were indeed streaming into a dark opening at one end of the nearest building.

The road, however, stayed ill-kept, and after another four miles of creeping and weaving, I reached the buildings. The last few sheep were heading inside the barn, under the supervision of a lanky man in blue jeans, tan boots, and a red plaid shirt. I couldn't help but notice that the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and I could see dark chest hair curling out of the gap.

He glared at me from under a dusty cowboy hat. There were a few other men off in the distance, with other sheep, but this man was alone, and, more importantly, as the closest to the main gate, he was my only polite choice.

"What're you doing here?" he said. His voice was low and deep, each word bitten off as though he thought I'd send him a bill for it.

"Good afternoon! I'm here to do a routine inspection of this herd. May I have your name for my records?" I asked, leaning one elbow out of my truck and calling out the window. I flashed my clipboard to look nice and official.

"Who wants the inspection?" he asked. He continued to glare as he set aside his work.

"The USDA. I have a badge and everything, and if you don't believe me, you're welcome to call the home office. Also, you know, the seal's on the truck."

This part, I was used to. It seemed that every farmer in every field, large and small, was like Yates and this jerk and couldn't believe that the USDA wanted to send a little blonde woman to check on their herds instead of the - male - vet who called ahead and then politely got stuck in traffic so they had a full two hours notice. No one wanted me on their farms.

"Show me your badge and tell me your name and I'll make the call."

"Sure, where can I park?" I asked.

"You can't," he said.

The last sheep had gotten into the barn by then, the herd was milling around and baa-ing in confusion, obviously waiting for a dinner that wasn't coming. The stranger slammed the door to the barn shut and swung himself over the fence. His legs looked like they stretched from here to kingdom come, and I watched the jeans stretch over his strong thighs and surprisingly round ass before remembering my professionalism and fighting the urge to look him up and down the whole time he walked my way.

"Is there anyone else I can talk to?" I called.

When he got about ten feet from the car, he looked at the seal on the white door of the truck and snorted.

"Nope," he said.

I smiled brightly and gave him my business card. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and took the card between his thumb and forefinger, grasping it by the edge. Without a word, he turned away from me and pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping at the screen before putting it to his ear. Turned away, with his low voice and the background noise of confined sheep, I couldn't hear what he said, and after about three minutes I gave up and checked my e-mail on my own phone. Nothing I had to respond to right then.

The mysterious conversation seemed to satisfy the grumpy man, and he pointed at a shady spot near the house, still without looking at me.

"You can park there," he said over his shoulder as he turned and walked back to the barn.

“Great, I’m Naomi Scott, nice to meet you,” I said.

“Clint Cannon,” he grunted, before picking up his pace and quickly moving out of earshot.

"Oh, good! Just the man I wanted to meet," I muttered. Clint Cannon was listed as the owner of this operation. I was hoping that this surly man would be someone else, someone without the authority to show me around, so I could try to find someone a little friendlier. Oh, well. It couldn't be all bad to get to look at him for the next few hours.

After parking, I grabbed my clipboard and pen, slipped my phone into my pocket, and jumped out of the truck to follow him. I'd learned that no one on a farm took me seriously if I wore a purse, so I made sure that everything I needed could fit into the pockets of my jeans.

It’s hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman on a ranch, I try to at least dress sensibly, in sturdy jeans and a white button-up shirt. I can’t be respected on a ranch in heels or in the office in boots, so I compromise with modest flats that no one loves, but no one scorns.

This man didn't bother to point anything out to me, unlike many farmers and hands, and I still didn't know anything about him but his name, but he allowed me to follow him around the farm. After my visit to the Yates place, I didn’t feel like bothering to insist on going around in the order I usually do. My form on the clipboard is pretty much just a checklist, but it's a ten-page checklist. Fortunately, his own work took him to most of the areas I needed to take a look at.

“Anywhere else?” he asked after a few hours.

“Yeah, I need to take a look at your water source,” I said. “Eyes on. New requirement.”

He sighed. “Look, that’s all the way across the ranch, and we’d have to take horses out. It’d take the rest of the day, and I wanted to take a look at the western fences.”

I winced and looked down at my jeans and shoes. I’d ridden in flats before, but I didn’t like it.

“All right,” I said. “How long a ride out there is it?”

“’Bout an hour, maybe a little more,” he said. “We check the pipes every week or so, I can take you to my office and show you the maintenance logs.”

I sighed. “All right,” I said. “Let’s look at the logs, and I’ll come back tomorrow morning to look at the source.”

The man eyed me and looked as though he had just bitten a lemon, but was trying to keep a poker face – sort of disgruntled, but polite about it.

“I appreciate it,” he said.

We spent the next part of the afternoon looking at the logs. Even though my eyes were almost glazed over with boredom, I thought I saw him glancing at me in a friendlier way a few times, and when he opened the door for me as I left, I could have sworn that I saw his eyes drift down to my chest, and a hint of a blush spread across his tanned face.

I looked up and met his sparkling eyes. I couldn’t resist smiling at him.

My ride away from the Cannon ranch was a lot more cheerful than my ride away from the Yates place.

The next day, I started with the long drive out to the ranch. Clint was waiting for me, sipping a cup of coffee and leaning on a hitching post beside another man, having a conversation. Two horses were tethered and tacked up beside them.

I left my car where I’d parked it yesterday, and walked over.

“You know how to ride?” Clint asked, without a hello.

I nodded.

“I’m no barrel racer, but I can stay on a horse’s back okay,” I said. I was dressed for it, with an older pair of jeans and some worn-in boots. I carried my own helmet, too.

He nodded.

“This is Lightning. She’s an old dude ranch pony, pretty easy,” he said.

She was, too. By the time we were a mile out from the ranch, I was wondering if snails outran Lightning.

“Her name is your little joke, isn’t it?” I asked him, out of the silence.

He chuckled, and then looked surprised at himself.

“Sure is,” he said. “Pretty sure she’d lose a race against a turtle.”

“You don’t have anything faster?” I asked.

“Never seen you ride,” he said. “Couldn’t risk you getting thrown off and suing me to high heaven. Lightning’ll get you there.”

The rest of my conversational attempts were met with grunts or nods. I gave up after another mile.

The inspection was pretty straightforward. Everything looked well-maintained and orderly.

I didn't try to talk to him for the entire trip back. He clearly wanted me to remain silent, and I saw no point in antagonizing him - and, okay, I'll admit it, with my long hours, I didn't spend a lot of time with any handsome men, and I wanted this one to think well of me.

Finally, after going through the last barn, checking on sheep and occasionally exchanging a word with one of the other men on the place, he turned to look at me. "Are you done with that?" he asked, jerking his head at the clipboard.

"Just about," I said. "At this point, I only need to check where you store your hay, I can come back and finish the rest of the paperwork another day."

He nodded his head, once, and his hair fell into his eyes before he brushed it away.

"Come on," he said, and turned away again to lead me towards yet another large metal building. He actually spoke to me! It wasn't exactly a declaration of undying love, but it was more than he'd volunteered the entire time I'd been on the farm.

Inside, the building was dark and low, with haybales stacked above my head in long, maze-like rows. I always felt like I was in a corn maze when I inspected haybales.

"What do you need to do here?" he asked.

"I need to walk through and check for mold or rot on the hay. It won't kill your inspection if I find one or two problematic bales, as long as there is no evidence you intended to feed them to the sheep."

He snorted again. That seemed to be his preferred method of communication, at least with me.

As we walked through the rows of bales of hay lit by a collection of dusty florescent bulbs, everything seemed to be in order. This part of the inspection was pretty perfunctory, there was no way for one lone official to check every bite of hay that would be fed to sheep on a farm or ranch of any size.

I tried to keep my mind on the job, but, occasionally, when one of us would turn to peer at a bale, my shoulder would brush Clint's, or his hand would ghost across my elbow or back as he pointed something out to me. Every time we touched, even through layers of our clothing, I'd shiver.

Turning a corner, a snake, startled by our appearance, slithered from one bale across the passage to disappear underneath another stack. At the same moment, I leaped away from it and crashed into Clint, my heart beating quickly. I may, in fact, have squealed a little.

Clint gripped my arms in his powerful hands and held me still, my back pressed against his chest.

"Calm down," he said. "Easy. It's just here for the mice. You can't have hay without mice."

I could feel my arms trembling in his grasp, although I didn't know whether that was from fear or the feeling of his calloused fingers against my skin. He kept one arm gripped firmly, but stroked the other as though I were a nervous horse, which, I suppose, wasn't too unreasonable.

I laughed a little bit, shakily.

"You know, every time I see a snake when I'm on a visit, I tell myself that the next time, I won't make a fool of myself, and then, the next time happens," I said, "and I end up in a strange man's arms with my clipboard on the floor."

Oh, have mercy. I could actually feel him chuckle. I didn't know what turned me on more, feeling the vibration of his amusement against my back, or knowing that I had made him laugh. I had to get away from him immediately, or 'making a fool of myself' would be just the beginning. Could I get fired for sexually harassing a rancher?

I twisted away from his stroking hand before I actually caught fire from his touch and tried to pull away from his other hand, but apparently keeping me where I was was no more difficult than lifting a hay bale or restraining a sheep, both of which I'd seen him do with ease.

"Please let me go. I'm really fine," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! Really, quite fine. Just a snake. Never been better."

He let me go, but he looked me in the eyes for the first time, and he smiled at me. His eyes were so blue, surprising with his dark hair. He smiled almost in slow motion, a lopsided grin that finally stayed put as he looked me over, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops and relaxing for the first time since I'd met him. He didn't look angry or wary, he seemed to simply savor his amusement at my unprofessional behavior.

"Never?" he asked. "Never, ever?"

Ten minutes ago, I wouldn't have believed he could tease anyone. If I'd known that a shriek and a stumble were all it took to get him to actually talk, I would have developed a sudden-onset fear of sheep three hours back. It would have been difficult, as there's not much that's less terrifying than a bored ewe, but I suppose I could have been intimidated by the sheer number.

Damn. I was already babbling inside, already aching for him to touch me again. I bent down to get my clipboard, and when I stood back up, I might have been crazy, but I'm pretty sure I saw him check out my ass. His eyes jerked towards the ceiling when I could see his face, at least, and if that wasn't the reaction of a man caught taking a peek, I don't know what is.

It's a pretty good ass. I might check it out too, if it weren't mine. There are better posteriors out there - I was three feet away from a man with a sterling example - but mine is high and firm and pleasantly round.

Damn, I've really got to keep it together. This is so unprofessional, but I'm somehow finding it difficult to care with his eyes on me.

I turned quickly and march away, using my pen to point at haybales absentmindedly. When I reached the exit, I wheeled around and came close to running into him again, I didn't realize he was so close. Once I'd turned, I could smell him, the spicy scent of his sweat and aftershave mixing together.

"Right!" I said, "Okay! I think we can be done here for today. Everything looks really good. Really tidy. I don't think you're hiding anything. Not that you would, of course. Why would you hide anything?"

Get it together, I told myself. You're babbling like an idiot. I paused to get my thoughts together.

"This routine inspection is stupid. If I'd wanted to hide anything, the hands would have had plenty of time to go take care of it while I led you around the barns. It's an insult to me and a waste of government time and money," he said, crossing his arms and staring at me.

I sighed. Nothing like being told you shouldn't have a job to cut through a haze of arousal.

"Well, I need to come back in a day or two to do a more formal inspection, like you're used to. This time it will take more than two hours, but you'll have more notice."

I hesitated. His arms were still folded across his chest. His shirt was straining a little, and I couldn't help but wonder what his muscles were like underneath it. From how tight he'd held me, and how firm his chest felt against my back, I had the impression that they were glorious.

"Do you have any questions?" I finally asked.

"No. Don't come tomorrow, we'll be too busy," the tall man replied.

"Friday it is! I'll put you down for noon so that I have the entire afternoon to spend on your place. Will that be okay?" I asked.

"I suppose it will have to," he said, twisting his full mouth and shrugging his shoulders. Again, I watched the cloth pull and ripple over his lean muscles.

Suddenly, I'd had it. I'd had it with his snide looks and sullen attitude, ignoring me and being so cold. The flash of humor and goodwill he'd shown me after the snake had actually made it worse, as I knew there was a friendly man in there somewhere. I couldn't help but take it personally.

"Look, I'm just doing my job," I said. "I don't know what you want from me, but you can complain to the governor or my boss all you want, and I'm still just as responsible for inspecting this damn farm of yours!"

He stiffened, all six feet and four inches of his lean frame going taut. "This farm of mine-" he started to say, anger making his voice even deeper and tighter. "Listen to me, you jumped-up little lady, this farm of mine is everything to me."

"Everything? No family, no wife, no girlfriend? No wonder you're so awful, I'll bet you haven't gotten laid in years!" I yelled.

For the briefest of moments, I froze. I couldn't believe I'd said something like that to a client. This was the end of my job, and I couldn't pay rent without it. I couldn't take losing my job, too, this week.

These thoughts flit across my brain so quickly that it appeared that I saw Clint's strong arm shoot out in slow motion, to grab my shoulder.

He shook me, once, like a terrier, and I felt my hair whip around into my mouth. Now, I was angry. He had no right to lay hands on me, no matter what I said and no matter how handsome he was.

The touch of his skin, though, was like lava against me. It had been so long since I'd felt a man's touch, Clint's hand burned against me, I could feel it through my shirt. I took my free hand and reached up to shove his hand off my shoulder.

It was all we could both take.

When my hand touched his, when our skin touched, we were both lost. I could feel the heat surge in my belly and a shiver up my spine.

I splayed my hand out over his to savor the warmth of our skin, and looked up through my lashes into his eyes. We were already standing so close, but I was afraid to close the distance between us - what if my read of the situation was totally wrong? What if he didn't want me like I thought he did?