Home On The Ranch

Austin rubbed his hand along Duke’s neck. “We’ll go out for a ride tomorrow, boy.” He let his hand drop away and made his way down the narrow path between wooden crates and old ranch equipment to reach the ladder.

But when he reached it, the crumbling wooden rungs made it obvious that he wasn’t going to be using it to clean and fix the gutters. “Damn it.”

“Something wrong?”

He spun toward the entrance to see Ella’s petite form backlit by the strong sunlight outside.

“Useless ladder.” He pointed toward where it hung on an old metal hook.

“I have one you can borrow. No need to get another if you’re not keeping the place.”

His instinct was to decline. Though when he stopped to think about it, that didn’t make sense. What did make sense was not buying a ladder that he’d be using for only a few days, one that he couldn’t transport in his car anyway.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“No problem.” She held up something. “I found this and a bunch of other toys. I thought maybe they were yours when you were a kid and, well, you might want to keep them?”

It took him a moment to figure out that she was holding the engine to the wooden train set he’d had as a young boy. He hadn’t even seen that in probably twenty years. For a split second, he thought maybe... He shook his head. “No. Like I said, there’s nothing here I want. If you find things you can’t use, I’m happy to pay you to haul them away. Or leave them and I’ll have a trash crew come in and get the rest.”

She glanced at the toy in her hand, and he’d swear he saw a flicker of sadness in her expression. Maybe she was just one of those people who got attached to things. He wasn’t. Things had to be useful, a means to an end. There was no other reason to have them.

And yet there was some strange part of him that wanted to keep the train engine simply because she evidently wanted him to for some reason. Crazy.

“Okay,” Ella finally said. “I’ll bring the ladder with me tomorrow unless you need it sooner. I could take a small load of stuff home then come back with it.”

“No, that’s not necessary. There are plenty of other things I can do without it.” And he’d rather she make a fast dent in the piles before they decided to multiply when he had his back turned.

She gave a quick nod then headed out of the barn.

He sighed and realized the only thing that was going to give him any sort of relief from his frustration was a ride out across the ranch. He knew that from years of experience.

Well, that’s not all that could give you relief.

Jeez, the woman had been on his property only half an hour at most and he was already having sexual thoughts about her.

You’re only human. A man.

Yeah, but he wasn’t an animal. And Ella Garcia was definitely not the type of woman for him. Her excitement over getting to possess piles of junk, as if she’d won the kid lottery on Christmas morning, told him that much.

Needing a lot of fresh air and wide-open sky, preferably far away from the temptation of the woman currently carrying a big box out to her truck, he moved toward the tack room. Once he retrieved his grandfather’s saddle, he walked over to Duke’s stall. “Change of plans, boy.”

Maybe somewhere out on his grandparents’ acreage he’d find a sense of calm and his common sense.

* * *

ELLA SHOVED A box of vintage lace doilies into the back of her truck, already imagining the beautiful lampshades she could make from them. As she raised her hand to wipe sweat from her forehead for what had to be the thousandth time since she’d arrived at the Bryant ranch, the muscles in her arms screamed at her. She was sweaty, dirty, aching and needed a Coke approximately the size of the Blue Falls water tower, but she was going to cram as much stuff into her truck as possible. The quicker she emptied the house, the better. She didn’t want to risk Austin changing his mind, thinking it was taking her too long. It would be a crime for all these items to end up at the dump.

She just wished she could clone herself a couple of times to make the work go faster. So would having Austin’s help, but then that’s what he’d “hired” her for, right? Plus, he’d disappeared on his grandfather’s horse a few hours ago. The moment she’d seen him astride the horse, riding off across the pasture, she’d nearly tripped over her feet again. That certainly was a dangerous and annoying effect for a guy to have on a girl. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to face-plant in the driveway and not be able to tell him why. She’d have to claim supreme klutziness or something.

If she’d thought he looked like a movie star cowboy earlier, him astride a horse with the wide, blue sky as a backdrop had only increased that impression tenfold. If he’d been wearing a cowboy hat and boots, it was possible she would have just drooled herself into dehydration.

Despite the lack of traditional cowboy attire, there had been something so totally right about the sight of him astride that horse, like he belonged here in this place.

Why she thought that, she had no idea. After all, she didn’t have a lot of experience with deep connections to a place. Growing up in a military family came with a certain rootlessness. Only since moving to Blue Falls had she started to feel a real connection to a slice of the world. According to the friends she’d made here, it was one of those small towns where people enjoyed growing up and many liked to stay.

Except, evidently, Austin Bryant. When he’d shown her around the place and asked about how long it would take her to empty all the buildings, he’d been fighting a barely contained fidgetiness. It was as if he thought the place was going to cause him to break out in a rash if he stayed too long. And though Dale Bryant had been a nice guy, it seemed his grandson couldn’t be rid of anything that reminded him of his grandparents fast enough.

With another swipe at the sweat beading on her forehead, she headed back into the house.

By the time she was wedging the last possible thing—an old sewing box filled with lots of notions—into her truck, she was so tired and hot that if there were a flowing creek nearby she’d just lie down in it, clothes and all.

As if the universe were offering her the next best thing, she spotted a water spigot between the house and the barn. Like a desert traveler heading toward a mirage, she crossed to the spigot and turned it on. She stuck her entire head underneath the flow of water, and it felt so good that she had to resist the urge to stay underneath it until she ran the water source dry.

She did extend the top half of her body under the flow, soaking her T-shirt and bra. Good thing she was heading straight home because she no doubt looked like she’d been dragged behind a boat across Blue Falls Lake. When she got her truck unloaded, she was going to take the longest shower in the history of showers.

Though she didn’t want to, she turned off the spigot and wiped the water from her face as she stood. She opened her eyes to find a man standing a few feet away. An involuntary scream left her mouth before recognition hit. This time, she wasn’t able to prevent the tangled-feet phenomenon from dumping her flat on her butt in the mud she’d just created.

* * *

WHEN AUSTIN HAD headed out to ride the fence line earlier, he’d left behind a woman carrying away his grandparents’ things. As he stared down at Ella now, she looked more like she’d fallen in a stock tank filled with water.

He extended his hand to help her up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

She made a dismissive gesture with a muddy hand. “Totally my fault.” Instead of taking his hand, she shoved herself to her feet.

He couldn’t help how his gaze shifted to her wet T-shirt, which was plastered to her perfectly rounded breasts. He barely managed to lift his eyes toward her face in time to prevent her from noticing his blatant staring.

Ella lifted her hands, palms out. “Didn’t want to get you muddy.” She nodded toward the spigot. “Sorry I used so much water, but I felt like a turkey roasting at Thanksgiving.”

“Don’t give yourself heatstroke.” He certainly didn’t need her passing out in the driveway, burying herself under mounds of clothing or magazines that hadn’t seen the light of day since the ’90s or before.

She waved away his concern. “Nothing a shower, a load of laundry and the biggest Coke I can find won’t cure.”

Don’t think of her in the shower. Don’t think of her in the shower.

He forced himself to look at her truck instead of her. “I can’t believe you got so much stuff in one load.” Not that it would likely look like much had been removed from the mountains the house contained.

“I’m a master at packing lots into a small space.”

His skin itched at the very idea. Were the boxes and bags and miscellaneous items simply relocating to take up residence for years more in some other space too small to adequately contain them?

Not his problem.

“I’ll be back in the morning, and I’ll bring you that ladder,” she said.

He glanced back at Ella to see her already moving toward the driver’s side of her truck.

“Okay.” Did his voice sound as dry as his throat felt?