Home On The Ranch

“So how much to haul this away and how long will it take?” he asked.

Her gaze landed on several mason jars full of buttons behind him but she forced herself to focus on Austin, even if he did make her heart beat faster than normal.

“How much are you keeping?” she asked.

“None of it.” He glanced around as the space between his dark eyebrows scrunched, as if he were perplexed why she would ask that question.

He wasn’t the only one with questions. Had he already retrieved any mementos or heirlooms he wanted to keep? Or did he truly not want anything? She had never encountered a haul this large, and she worried about how she would manage to get it all out in a timely fashion and still meet her other obligations. But she’d have to because she was standing in the midst of a treasure trove of possible income.

Considering the situation, she reined in her giddiness. “I’ll haul it away for free, but it’ll take me several days since I’m a one-woman operation.”

Austin’s confusion deepened as he shifted his attention back to her. Damn, that man’s eyes were enough to turn a woman’s insides to puddles of undiluted desire.

“How can you make a living hauling trash for free?”

“It’s not trash.” She gestured to their surroundings. “I can make a lot of really wonderful home decor items from all this. Upcycling and repurposing are very popular right now, and a good way to keep items that still have use from ending up in landfills.”

He shook his head. “If you say so. I just want it gone as quickly as possible.”

She couldn’t imagine throwing away a legacy as he seemed determined to do. She’d moved around so often as a kid that her belongings had necessarily been kept to a minimum. The only things she had left of her father were a quilt she’d made from his shirts and a small album of photos. Her mom, in grief at his loss, had given everything else away, as if doing so would ease her pain.

Was that what Austin was doing?

“Would you like me to start today?”

“If you can. But you might want to see the rest of it before you start.”

“The rest?”

He motioned for her to follow him outside. This time, not only did she have to avert her eyes from his shoulders but also how nice his long legs looked in his jeans. Honestly, why couldn’t it have been a frumpy niece who’d called her out here?

Austin headed toward the barn, not slowing his stride to accommodate her shorter legs. This dude was in a hurry, and she wondered if he would give her enough time to go through his grandparents’ belongings. Would she have to haul it all away and sift through it later? As she walked, she tried calculating the number of trips that would take, how many hours of work.

When Austin opened the barn door, her preliminary calculations got blasted to smithereens.

He must have seen the surprised look on her face. “I told you it was a lot.”

“You weren’t kidding.”

“And there’s more in the two small outbuildings out back.”

Holy macaroni. She strode into the barn, glancing from side to side. Though it wasn’t as packed as the house, there was indeed a lot of extra stuff lining the alleyway down the middle of the barn and occupying the stalls that didn’t hold the one chestnut-colored horse in residence.

“So people really buy stuff made from junk?”

The way he said “junk” rubbed her the wrong way, as if what she put her heart and soul into was foolish and the people who bought it even more so. But she held her tongue. She wasn’t going to let momentary annoyance prevent her from scoring enough raw materials to keep her hands and imagination busy for months. And with plans in the works for a new arts and crafts trail to lead tourists to the shops of local artisans, this stockpile would help her have plenty of offerings for new customers.

“Yes, and I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me here.”

Austin crossed his arms across his chest, causing her to gulp. Good grief, she hoped that hadn’t been audible. But really, she couldn’t be blamed if it had been. Or for the fact she wondered what it would feel like to be wrapped in those well-defined arms. It wasn’t her fault that the mere sight of him made her hormones jump up and start dancing the jitterbug.

“This is too much for one person to clear out,” he said. “I should call in some more help.”

“No, I can do it.” It was going to be exhausting, but she hated the idea of a sanitation crew hauling everything off to the dump.

Austin let out a long exhale. “You have until I finish up some repairs and get the ranch listed. If it’s not all gone by then, I’m calling in someone who can get everything out of here in a day.”

She hastily agreed to his terms, even though she had no idea how she was going to manage such an undertaking on her own. Especially when she couldn’t afford to hire any help.

“I’ll get started now.”

He gave her what felt like a long look with those gorgeous eyes then nodded once before walking past her out of the barn.

Unable to help herself, she turned and watched him stride away. Fearing he would sense her gaze, she spun back toward the interior of the barn. She’d set herself a near impossible task. She certainly didn’t have time to ogle Austin Bryant, however pleasurable that might be.

Chapter Two (#ulink_dd886a28-565e-562e-bf53-b61951ffff3b)

Austin battled the frustration eating at him from the inside as he walked back toward the house. For some reason that escaped him, he’d just agreed to let a woman who barely came up to the midway point on his chest have the time to haul all his grandparents’ belongings away by herself. When she’d said that the piles of stuff could be useful, he’d been jerked back to his childhood, to when his grandmother had explained they couldn’t throw anything out because they might need it someday.

Most of the time he couldn’t remember what her voice sounded like, but he could hear her say that clear as day in his memory.

Even as a little boy, he’d known that there was no use for a black-and-white television that no longer worked or dozens of plastic butter containers that had been washed after the butter was eaten then stashed in the kitchen cabinets. What Ella Garcia saw in a lifetime of hoarding, he had no idea. And he didn’t care as long as she got it out of his sight.

He fought against the urge to haul everything outside and set it on fire. But his rational brain managed to beat down that visceral need. While he might want it all gone now, realistically what did a few more days matter? It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough work around the place to keep him busy while Ella toted away everything.

He stopped at the corner of the house and took a couple of deep breaths, ashamed that he let being here upset him so much. He needed to focus on things other than the past—things like fixing the sagging gutters on the house, checking the fencing around the ranch to see if it needed repairs, doing research to figure out what asking price he should shoot for when he talked to a real estate agent.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. Ella Garcia hurried up the front steps of his grandparents’ house. Now that he had a plan for clearing out the house and surrounding buildings, it was as if a layer of distraction that had been blinding him to her physical appearance had been peeled away.

Damn if he didn’t feel his blood rush a little bit faster in his veins as he watched her fit legs carry her up the steps and toward the front door. As if they had a mind of their own, his eyes made a quick perusal up her legs and over her backside, all the way up to where she’d pulled her dark, curly hair into a pseudo ponytail on the back of her head. And his very male eyes liked what they saw, sending a message south to react accordingly.

Austin cursed under his breath. He already had about a dozen helpings too much on his plate. The last thing he needed was to be attracted to Ella. In a few days, his time in Blue Falls would be up and he’d be back in Dallas, where he wouldn’t feel as if the world was caving in on him.

Needing to fill his mind with anything other than Ella Garcia’s curves, he retraced his steps to the barn. While he didn’t want to walk inside, he needed a ladder if he was going to start work on the gutters. At least the barn wasn’t as bad as the house, he told himself as he stepped into the dim interior.

Luck was finally on his side when he spotted a ladder hanging on the wall about halfway down the alleyway. He started in that direction but paused when he reached Duke, his grandfather’s sorrel stock horse.

“Hey, fella,” he said as he scratched between Duke’s ears. He smiled when he thought about how the horse had gotten his name, after John Wayne.

Austin’s grandfather must have seen each of Wayne’s movies at least a hundred times. The old VCR tapes were likely buried under fifty pounds of other stuff inside the house. Despite the happy memory of watching those movies with his grandfather, he didn’t want the tapes. But he did sometimes find himself flipping channels at home or on a business trip and stopping to watch The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

His heart squeezed at the fact that he’d never again be able to talk to his grandfather, the man who’d been so much more than a grandparent to him. Dale Bryant had been the only father he’d ever known.

As if Duke could read Austin’s thoughts, he lifted his head and bumped it against Austin’s hand.

“You miss him, too, don’t you?”

Duke let out a sad-sounding snort as if to give an affirmative answer.