A Ranch to Keep

He came back to the porch and sat down beside her, looking at her with genuine concern. “How’s the ankle? Are you able to walk?” His hand came up and brushed back the hair that had come loose from her bun and fallen across her face. He gently tucked it behind her ear, and she froze, caught in the fire of his gaze. She’d swear heat was rippling down her neck from the spot he’d just touched, warming her.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She could only stare into those blue depths and wait. A breeze gently lifted the sandy blond hair that tumbled down his forehead. Jack’s jaw was strong, firm, a little square and definitely stubborn. He leaned closer to her. His fingers wove further into her hair, his strong hand pulling her gently toward him. Samantha felt her mouth part just a little to accommodate her quickening breath. Her lips felt unbearably tender, as if anticipating his touch. The wanting she saw in his eyes intensified and wrapped around her. She leaned slightly in and froze as the shrill tones of her cell phone sang out Beethoven from somewhere underneath her, jolting her back to reality.

Jack stopped and unfurled his hand from her hair, tilting his head inquiringly in the direction of her rear end. “Expecting any important calls?”

If she spent any more time with this man she would burn up, either from desire or nerves, she wasn’t sure which. “Well, at least my phone survived the fall. Excuse me for a moment.” She grabbed the cell phone she’d wedged in her back pocket this morning and answered it. “Samantha Rylant.” She kept her voice casual, as if she hadn’t been about to kiss a man who was essentially a complete stranger. Unfortunately the voice on the other end of the phone was Mark’s.

“Mark, how are you?” she asked. There was a strange, squeaky note to her voice.

She looked over at Jack and instinctively got up and walked to the far end of the porch, as if the distance might erase whatever had almost happened just now.

Rather than apologizing for not returning her calls, Mark was complaining. He needed her at work. He was busy and wanted help. Finally, Samantha could stand it no longer and interrupted him.

“Mark, I know you need me, and I’ve been working remotely as much as possible. But you’ve got to understand. My grandmother died, and then she left me a ranch! I had to come see it for myself.”

She glanced at Jack, who was writing something on the notepad she kept in her car. He set it on the porch, gave her a quick wave and walked to the trail that connected the front yard of the old house with his property. She watched him go as he started up the hill—her annoyance with Mark inexplicably growing with every step Jack took.

Samantha turned away and tried to focus only on Mark. He wanted her to come home and work and she wanted him to be a more supportive boyfriend. It was very clear that they were not going to see eye to eye today.

“Mark, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll be there on Monday and I’ll see you then.” She tried to ignore Mark’s sullen reply as she disengaged herself from the conversation and ended the call. Why was he being so pushy? Didn’t he, of all people, understand why she needed some time off right now? He was her boyfriend. He should want her to do what she needed to do. He should want her to feel better.

Speaking of feeling things, what had just happened on the porch with her neighbor? She’d practically kissed him, and probably would have if Mark hadn’t called. The thought knocked the wind out of her and she sat back down on the steps, putting the ice back on her sore ankle. She leaned over, pressing her head to her knees with a groan of self-disgust.

Mark might have been a little flaky lately, and not the most supportive today, but he was a sweet guy overall and a good boyfriend. He deserved her respect and her loyalty. Not this.

She took a deep, calming breath and raised her head, idly looking out over the front yard, the pasture and down the driveway toward the valley below. She’d just gotten sucked in, that’s all. Sucked into blue eyes and a macho manner that was different than what she was used to. Simple as that.

Except it wasn’t really so simple. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to forget the way his hand had felt on her arm, and the gentle way he’d tangled his fingers in her hair. All his movements had exuded strength, yet were controlled to create the softest touch. Just thinking about it made her blood feel hot and uncomfortable in her veins.

Pushing herself up on her feet, she caught sight of her notepad, leaning against the wall of the house. The printing was elegant but strong, with bold black lines and capital letters. Not what she’d expect from a horse rancher, or horse farmer, or whatever you called a man who lived out in the middle of nowhere on a ranch with a bunch of horses. She scanned the page, hearing the humor in the tone of the note.

Frisco,

It seems that the city has caught up with the city girl. I didn’t want to intrude. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon to pull down the rest of the boards. Stay off the ladder until then!

Jack Baron

So on top of being unbelievably sexy, he was nice. Great. That didn’t make it any easier to ignore what she’d just felt with him. Samantha looked out over the driveway to the shrubs and weeds of her front pasture and sighed. She hated to admit it, but she really didn’t want to get up on that ladder again. Jack was right. She was a city girl, and being a city girl meant she wasn’t stupid enough to fall off the same ladder twice. She’d finish the rest of the ground floor windows herself and then she’d accept his neighborly help for the high ones. And she’d admire his handiwork from afar because obviously it was hazardous for her to get too close to him.

You’re here to clean up, she reminded herself, not to make a mess. And what she’d just felt for Jack was very, very messy.

What she needed were goals to keep her mind off the cowboy next door. Clean up. Get this place organized. Those were her goals, and the sooner she got to work on them, the sooner she could head back to her real life in San Francisco. Her real job. Her real boyfriend. Her real home, conveniently and ideally located far, far away from Jack Baron.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE PROBLEM WITH sticking to her goals on the ranch was the ranch itself. It was Sunday morning and Samantha had so much to do before driving home. But the freedom of the surrounding pastures, the grandeur of the sheer peaks pushing up behind them, the bright light and warmth of the fall sunshine, all pulled her away from her tasks.

Almost every window she cleaned provided a view that begged to be admired, and the time lost slowed down her progress considerably. Eventually it was just too hard to stay indoors at all and Samantha abandoned her bucket and mop in the upstairs hallway and headed out the back door.

She’d forgotten the beauty. She’d forgotten the way the air seemed to clean her lungs of all the city grit and lift the stress right off her shoulders. She’d forgotten how it felt to come around the corner of a narrow mountain path and catch sight of a lizard sunning on a granite boulder. And the way her mouth lifted into a smile before she’d even realized the lizard was there, in that fleeting moment between when she saw it and when it skittered away.

She followed the sound of the creek. The mountains were veined with streams that tumbled down the steep slopes and spattered over boulders, making their way down to the Owens River in the valley that ran along the foot of the range. Some were famous trout streams that brought fishermen to the area all summer long. And others, like this one, were just little no-name creeks, not much visited and more beautiful because of it.

When she’d stayed on the ranch during summers, she’d taken this path almost every day. Grandma Ruth would put a battered basket in her hand, heavy with a book, a water bottle and a snack. Those snacks were always delicious. Chocolate chip cookies, apple pie, homemade bread and butter; her grandmother had spoiled her only grandchild during those special summer months.

Samantha tried to remember the last time she’d spent a summer here. It had been just after her freshman year in college, and she’d stayed only a few weeks. Then she’d returned to campus to intern for a professor, pushing herself to reach the solid, stable life she’d so craved. And every summer after that she’d worked and interned and her visits to the ranch had dwindled down to the occasional weekend, and then to nothing.

But her sacrifice paid off. Right after college she’d been hired at the advertising firm, and by carefully saving she’d bought her apartment a few years later. After the many countries and cities and schools of her nomadic childhood, it had been such a relief to finally have a home of her own.

The splash of the creek was getting louder, and around the next corner she came to the small waterfall she’d loved as a girl. Looking at it now, with a grown woman’s eyes, it barely qualified as a waterfall, just a spot where the creek took a leap down a few large rocks and formed a small clear pool at the bottom. But when she was young it had been a wonderland where fairies hid and boats made from leaves and sticks crashed down torrents of water on grand adventures. The air felt cooler here, making it a tiny oasis where a few summer wildflowers still bloomed, peeking between the rocks alongside the creek, vying for the precious water.

Her bruised ankle was starting to throb again. It probably didn’t help that Samantha hadn’t been able to face her ugly work boots this morning. Without them she’d had only the two pairs of shoes she’d packed for Ruth’s funeral to choose from. Since her stiletto boots were still recovering from the cowpie incident, she’d gone with her slightly lower, classic pumps, which clearly weren’t meant for hiking in the mountains. Luckily she’d had lots of practice walking on the steep sidewalks of San Francisco.

The flat rock she’d loved to picnic on as a child was still there, so she picked her way toward it, kicked off her shoes and sat down, easing her feet into the water. It was ice cold and made her gasp, but she welcomed the numbness that sucked away the heat of the morning and eased her ankle.

She shook her head as she remembered her mortifying tumble off the ladder in front of Jack Baron. She’d met the man less than forty-eight hours ago and had managed to fill that time with more embarrassing moments than she’d had in years.

To make matters worse, all the ridiculous things she’d done had made him smile, and that smile, and the way his eyes lit with humor, were haunting her. Between the memories of that smile and all her embarrassments, it was hard to think of much else. Samantha wasn’t used to being distracted and it was an uncomfortable, itchy sort of feeling. Hopefully this walk would help clear her head.

So far, it wasn’t working.

Reminding herself that she’d come out here to enjoy the scenery, not think about her neighbor, she turned her mind to the landscape around her. Across the creek, a few pine trees clung to the rocky edges of the waterway, and beyond them was pasture. Or, it used to be pasture. Her grandfather had used this area for fall grazing if she remembered correctly. Now the grass was knee-high and making its way up between all kinds of shrubs and the occasional pine seedling. The mountains were taking back the fields. While it was definitely sad, there was also a feral beauty to it that she admired.

Samantha closed her eyes, listening to the water tumble, letting it numb her sore ankle, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d just sat like this, doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying.

Maybe that was the problem between her and Mark right now. With the new clients they’d been pursuing, their relationship had become nothing but work. When she got back to San Francisco tomorrow she would suggest a vacation. Somewhere warm, tropical, romantic and just the two of them. They’d never taken a long trip before and it was time. In fact, maybe this explained all her thoughts about Jack Baron. She hadn’t had fun with Mark in a long time, it was no wonder she kept thinking about the cowboy next door.

It was getting close to noon and growing hotter. She looked up at the sky, hoping to see some clouds, some glimmer of a thunderstorm to roll through and cool the afternoon off, but the blazing blue above her held no sign of rain. Sweat ran down her neck and mixed with the dirt of cleaning and the dust of the walk up here, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Samantha rolled her jeans up as high as they could go and put her legs into the water up to her knees. It felt amazing, so she yanked off her T-shirt and set it aside. Standing on the gravel floor of the small pool, she cupped her hand to pour the icy water down her back and onto her neck. She splashed a little more on her chest, relishing the way the sweat disappeared and left her skin cool and clean. Inspiration struck and she sloshed carefully through the pool to the tiny waterfall.

If there’d been room to put her entire head under, she probably would’ve. She settled for scooping handfuls of water over her hair and rubbing it into her scalp. It was better than ice cream, better than a mojito, better than anything she normally craved on a hot day. It was like being a kid again and even her heart felt cooler, less anguished from Ruth’s death. The unexpected feeling made her laugh out loud.

“That good, huh?” His voice came from the bank behind her.

Samantha froze. This wasn’t possible.

She took her hand out of the waterfall and used it to try to smooth down her hair before she turned around, though it wasn’t much use. Her hair had gone rogue and there was no going back until she could tame it with a shower and about a half gallon of hair conditioner.

“You have the worst timing, Jack Baron,” she finally said, looking reluctantly over her shoulder at him. He was dressed for work in his jeans, boots and hat. His only nod to the heat was the old Rolling Stones T-shirt he’d put on, instead of his usual faded plaid. He was holding a rope and Samantha looked back to see a horse behind him, looking at her with its ears forward, curiosity evident in its keen glance. Even his horses knew how to make her feel ridiculous. “Hand me my top, please?” she asked.

Jack tied the horse’s rope to a sturdy branch of one of the pine trees and picked his way easily over the rocks to the other side of the creek where her shirt was. She noticed he carried an old leather bag over his shoulder. Samantha just stood there. Maybe if she didn’t look at him, he couldn’t see her.

“Here you go.” He tossed the shirt her way and she glanced back to catch it, catching sight of the grin on his face at the same time.

She pulled the top over her head and turned toward the flat rock, hoping fervently she’d be able to walk gracefully across the treacherous rocks and pebbles lurking underwater. “What are you doing here?” she asked him, trying to sound casual, as if he hadn’t just found her half dressed, splashing in a creek. She sat down on the sun-warmed granite and tried to rearrange her hair again, though she doubted there was much hope for it.

“I lost Gideon.” He motioned to the horse. “Figured he’d come down this way. He has before.”