Rodeo Family

Shake it off, Nadine.

Zach still hadn’t moved, but his intensity snagged her attention. What went on in the man’s mind when he gazed about with such deep, earnest interest?

She reached the bottom stair. He stepped down and loomed over her. She was tall. He was taller. He smelled nice, like soap.

“Zach.”

“Nadine.”

She held out one hand to shake. He took it in his, calluses rubbing roughly against her palm, but released it when two kids, a pair of identical twins, came running out of the house.

She guessed them to be about seven years old, but what did she know? She didn’t have a lot of exposure to children. They each carried a single rubber boot. Two different boots.

“I wanted to get just plain black,” one boy shouted, “but Aiden wouldn’t.”

“The lady is pretty,” the other boy said. Oh, sweet. “She might want flowers.”

Zach grasped Nadine by the arms and spun her around.

“Oh!” Whoa.

“Sit,” he said, “and we’ll get you into those boots.”

She sat on a step. He grasped her leg, not quite what she expected.

For a moment, he looked sheepish, as though he’d made a mistake. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be bossy. Can I take off your shoes?”

“Okay,” she said. At her nod, he wrapped long fingers around one of her bare ankles to take off her shoe. Soda pop bubbles fizzed in her bloodstream. The twin who had called her pretty handed him a yellow boot with turquoise flowers on it. When Zach squatted on his haunches in front of Nadine, his face hovered close enough for her to detect flecks of yellow in his hazel eyes.

One of the boys, the flower boot one, distracted her by staring at her pink toenails. He grinned and said, “Nice color.”

Nadine didn’t know how to react. The only children she’d spent any time with were her friends’ kids—the kids they insisted on having as they married and started families.

Zach gripped Nadine’s other ankle in his warm hand and pulled off her second shoe. The soda pop bubbles went electric.

Double whoa. Heat suffused her.

“Can I sit here?” The first boy cuddled close to her on the step. The second boy copied him on her other side. Like a pair of bookends, they nestled against her.

These males overwhelmed her, even the young ones. “Sure you can sit,” she said. “It’s your house. But—”

Zach finished sliding the black boot onto her other foot and stood up. He stepped away with a satisfied smile on his face. Worn jeans hung low on his narrow hips. Biceps filled out his white T-shirt.

“There,” he said. “Now you’re ready for walking on the ranch. Can’t walk it in high heels.”

Nadine stared at the mismatched boots on her feet, the flowered one spotless. Straw and muck clung to the dark one. Oh, God, she hoped it was only muck. The rubber boots mocked all the care she’d taken with her choice of dress and the meticulous application of her makeup this morning.

She might no longer work in New York, but she maintained standards.

Glancing up at Zach, she said, “I brought a pair of boots. They’re in the car.”

He stared at her. “Really? I—” A blush crept up his neck, darkening the tanned skin and spreading into his cheeks. “You did?” Wonder of wonders, the guy looked awkward and not at all his usual assured self. She’d never seen him less than together before.

It kind of charmed her.

She bit back a smile. “Yes. You said we’d be walking so I came prepared.”

“Oh...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

Was he as shy as he looked? Shy wasn’t a word Nadine had ever applied to Zach Brandt. Intense, quiet, self-contained, certain of his place in the world, yes. But shy? No.

Also, masculine. Let’s not forget that, Nadine.

“Do you want to change into your own boots?” he asked.

“Perhaps after we do the first part of the interview,” she said.

“The first part?”

“Yes. I hoped to see your studio. Maybe take a look at your current work.” She wanted to ease into that other story. Lee’s story. The real one, he’d said. The longer she could put off Lee’s agenda, the better.

Her stomach threatened to send up her breakfast. Wouldn’t that be the epitome of embarrassing?

If she could concentrate on Zach’s paintings first, maybe it would become possible to segue into questions about his family’s past. Her problem lay in how to ask those uncomfortable questions.

“No,” Zach said and he didn’t look happy.

“No?” Immersed in her own troubling thoughts, she’d lost track of the conversation.

“This interview is not about my paintings alone. There are no paintings without the land.”

“Yes, we’ll cover everything. But your painting is a big part of who you are.”

“This ranch—” he flung an arm toward the fields “—is a big part of who I am. That’s what the readers will relate to. The land, not paintings.”

Nadine could have argued that point, but too much of her energy today had been taken up by the conversation she’d had with her boss just before driving here. She should ignore it and try to forget, just do her job as she should, but that one misbegotten discussion had rocked her world in the worst possible way.

Pushing up her metaphorical sleeves, she opened her mouth to get this show on the road, but Zach pointed behind her.

“You know my dad, Rick Brandt.”

She turned around on the step to peer up. Nadine smiled. She liked Rick and the perpetual twinkle in his eyes. Where Zach was reserved, his father was gregarious and friendly. Where Zach was long and muscular, Rick was short and spare.

“These are my boys, Ryan and Aiden.” Zach gestured toward the twins, pointing to each one as he said his name. No way would Nadine be able to tell them apart.

They were vaguely familiar to her. She’d probably seen them around town, of course, but hadn’t paid them much attention. Kids weren’t on her radar, probably because there weren’t stories attached to them. She could talk to anyone on any subject, but foreign little creatures called children stumped her. She liked kids, in theory. She just didn’t know what to say to them, or how to entertain them.

Judging by expressions as watchful as their father’s, she didn’t think the twins would go in for fist bumps, or that lamest of lame adult gestures—high fives.