Tempting the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 1)

“Cattle aren’t all that different from kids.”

January’s gaze drifted to the postcard tree. Some of the photographs had charred edges. Her mother had written her that she had run out of the building that night with two things—her father’s naval box and every single one of January’s postcards. Until now, she had forgotten her mother had risked her life for the breadcrumbs of contact she sent. The least January could do now was make an effort.

“Until the money comes in.” January laid down the law in the firmest tone she could muster, though she was at a serious negotiating disadvantage with the cash in some far-off fund. “Not a day longer.”

Breakfast passed with enough carbs to power through the Great Wall marathon and enough town gossip to remind January why she’d fled, though if she had learned anything in her travels, the people defined the place. Liberians were generous of spirit and humor. Brits were guarded but genuine. Pacific Islanders, grateful and spiritually elevated. Close Callers? Content.

Content suffocated. Content was pinning butterflies through the thorax until their wings stopped beating and life slipped away. Content was the last thing January Rose wanted from life.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

* * *

Nat wasn’t above utilizing modern trappings to work the ranch—drones, tagging animals with GPS and tracking herds in real time, genetic panels and artificial insemination for complete control over stock quality. Hell, he’d even fantasized about learning to fly a helicopter so he could be one of those bird-cowboys. But there was something grounding about climbing into a saddle, setting out to corral thousand-pound animals with wits and instinct and a few good men, Australian shepherds nipping at the heels.

And Nat could use a bit of grounding.

At the south end, he had left Austin with the assurance he’d get his money, on time, paid in full, then beat a hasty retreat. Everything after that snagged in a barbed-wire fantasy that involved January Rose sprinting toward him, their embrace a spinning hug like that erection pill commercial that came on during rodeo broadcasts. By the time he had climbed back on his ATV, sans all his equipment, and reached the main house, she was wearing a lacy baby-doll dress and cowboy boots, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers, and saying I do.

Nat went straight to his kitchen sink and doused his face with cold water.

God in heaven, he was fucked.

He unpinned the Community Bank and Trust calendar from the wall and stared at the horse-faced-maidens-milking wallpaper that his grandmother had put up in the 1950s. Much to his grandmother’s dismay, ranch hands over the years had taken to naming each one with a unique moniker, usually in permanent ink: Moxie Crimefighter, who packed heat in the form of two well-drawn pistols in hip holsters; Boomqueefa, who expelled a suspicious cloud of dust in her wake; Abstinence, dressed in a nun’s habit; and Tiara Rose, the maiden January had coined her “compliant twin,” complete with homecoming scepter and a chain tethering her ankle to an X in the ground marked Close Call.

The day January doodled on the wallpaper had been the day he’d read the writing on the wall. Literally. They’d spent an entire summer tangled in the bed of his grandfather’s vintage 1939 Ford truck, scratchy wool blanket from Mexico against their heated skin, sometimes dancing the horizontal two-step, nearly always making plans—her, to explore the world, him to explore her wilds every day for the rest of his life. Nat knew she would leave, but he fell for her anyway. He just needed a visual reminder that one more time of being a moron and the fall would likely kill him.

He poured a fresh cup of tar coffee and headed out to the barn with a resolve to avoid the bahiagrass pasture, Mona’s stomping ground. Willie already had the saddle blanket on Poe, nine hundred pounds of black horse flesh better than any modern trapping. Instinctual, orderly, symbiotic. Horse and ranch foreman. Being around the grizzled old hand, a touchpoint to Nat’s grandfather, the most respected patriarch to the Meier clan, felt comfortable. Nat’s pulse stabilized for the first time since a plastic prawn coughed up trouble in a gypsy poncho.

Nat generated some noise on his way to the stalls so as not to startle Willie.

“Morning, Nat.”

Willie didn’t bother to turn in greeting. His dark hands skimmed the gelding’s hind-quarters as if memorizing the contours afresh; his eyes remained on a fixed point somewhere in his mind. A toothy smile lit his expression. Guy was the happiest person Nat knew. Nat asked him once how much vision he had left. More than you had been his response.

Nat hadn’t doubted that for a minute.

“Looking entirely too chipper this morning, Willie.”

“Got a replacement for Jared.”

“On such short notice?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Willie’s cheeks were like plums—all raised and rounded the way he got when he was dealt a good hand with the special deck—braille for Willie, nude women splayed on farm equipment for the rest of the crew. Guy had a terrible poker face.

“What?” Nat dragged out the word, all suspicion and good humor.

January rounded the far stall.

2

Nat’s good humor died.

January wore jeans and boots and one of his extra work hats he kept on a peg in his stable office. Infinitely flawless.

“Jesus, Willie.”

“Don’t get mad at him,” said January. “Mona’s idea.”