Tempting the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 1)

True north, January had said in the darkened pasture, in that distant voice that had crept in more and more in the days before she left. Those moments reminded him of one of those old-fashioned, slow songs of longing his grandfather listened to after he lost his wife of fifty-two years, the ones with a ton of wiggle room between the notes to lose your shit completely.

Nat wasn’t anyone’s true north—not now that the ranch was hanging on by its fingernails and certainly not for January Rose. That weathervane snapped long ago. As far as he was concerned, aligning himself to the prevailing winds of the Meier legacy was all he needed.

Fidelity wasn’t a scorecard, but leaving certainly was. And right now, the score was January-1, Nat-0.

Nat’s favorite time in the barn was before bedtime. The chaos of the day was gone, replaced by a subtle burr of contentment from the animals. Most chores were complete, which took the edge off his stomach, which seemed to exist in a perpetual state of stress—especially near auction time. His grandfather had taught him that late night was about the little details: throwing hay as a bedtime snack so your animals look to you for leadership and loyalty; topping off water to ensure hydration in the Texas heat, though by October, the nights felt less like a goat’s butt in a pepper patch—Clem’s words; and, most importantly, reflecting on the day from a place of gratefulness. Wes was alive; Chance wasn’t in trouble—for once; their mother emailed daily photos of herself smiling in front of tourist places in Paris; and Nat had done everything in his power to save the ranch for one more day.

And for Nat, late night was the time for the only selfish thing he allowed himself—finding time to write.

Not fancy pools or sparkling ball gowns or the emotional messes people got themselves into when they’d as soon bang a hole in a tree as make good choices. He clicked the send button in his email program—his daily column to the Close Caller senior editor (not surprisingly in small-town America, also his Kindergarten teacher)—and pulled up the draft of his novel.

He busied himself with clearing some space on the desk, in his head. The cursor winked back at him at even, one-second intervals like a resting heartbeat. Poe stirred in his stall—always a restless sleeper. A yawn slipped loose. He hadn’t checked market reports yet. Jesus, he had a window of about thirty minutes before he fell into a sitting coma then had to be awake in four hours.

Focus, Nat.

He was close enough to typing “The End” that he could taste no small victory, but the climax scene when the main character returned home lacked perspective and a compelling narrative drive. Five unpublished novels into the series, Nat still couldn’t put his finger on what was missing in his writing. His skills were decent enough—feedback from the column readers and the fact that other towns in the South saw fit to run his words in their hometown papers attested to that. Then there was the A.I. Briggs award for best unpublished manuscript that he snagged one month before he left college. He wanted nothing more than to fuse the dying Western genre to the las

t frontiers of ocean trenches and artificial intelligence, to capture the amazing spirit of his grandfather on the page, to remind people that reading was a soul-nurturing pastime, to prove that writing wasn’t a waste of time, as his father believed.

Can’t support a family on dreams, son.

When Wes returned from Middle East deployment, when Chance finally grew some responsibility, when their mother finally found the self she claimed the ranch and their father had denied her all those years…then Nat could breathe enough to carve out a path to publication. For now, he stole moments of freedom like bubble gum from the corner gas station, telling no one, denying how late nights in his stable office went down. Ranch hands had a ten-to-one bet that porn had something to do with his closed door at midnight. Most nights, Nat was simply hearing the poetic storytelling of his grandfather’s World War II letters home in his mind and trying to capture a sliver of that frontier, cowboy magic.

He scrolled back and reread the paragraph in which the love interest walked onto the page. God almighty, but she had been January all along. As close as he was to the material, he hadn’t seen it until now. Truth be told, she was the love interest in the other four books, too—different hairstyles, different locales, but always that same ignition switch in his chest. And, as in real life, the love interest left.

Nat snapped his laptop closed. He glanced around his office with new eyes, with old eyes. And when his tired mind had mentally written the scene of January Rose coming to his door at midnight, straddling him in his chair and losing the ten-to-one bet for half his staff, he snapped on the old transistor radio and listened to the market report until carcass values slaughtered every urge to tear a streak to the hump trailer, drive her to a place where only the stars stood witness, and show her what he had really been holding onto for the past ten years.

Hope.

3

Go right in,” Mona had said.

“She’ll need a little prodding to wake up,” Mona had said. Though some particularly hot memories of that fact were probably not what Mona had in mind.

Nat stood inside Mona’s trailer, hat in hand, as unable to decide where to look as a priest in a whorehouse. On a white sheet spread across the bench seat, January lay asleep on her belly, shirt ridden halfway up her tanned back, her ripe and round and cheeky ass decorated with cherry-emblazoned panties. Her legs were sprawled, no doubt from the dawn’s humidity, leaving him with morning glory that had nothing to do with Mona’s vines out front.

Nat held his hat over his fly, wiped his sweaty hand on his jeans, and reached for her shoulder.

“J?”

His slight jiggle of her lithe body had no effect. Except on him.

Nat glanced around for a way to wake her that didn’t involve his skin and her skin in direct contact. He spotted a pail of cans to be recycled by the door and nudged it over with his boot toe.

The aluminum cacophony had January scrambling off the couch like he’d caught the cushions on fire, which made his conundrum all the more uncomfortable. Her off-the-shoulder shirt dipped wide and low enough that he glimpsed clear to her navel with the most perfect orbs as scenery along the way.

“Nat…what the hell?” Her words came out in breathy gusts. She put a palm over her heart, effectively concealing his view. In typical January fashion, she sported a morning sleepy-scowl in total contradiction to a familiar flush of cheeks and untamed hair.

He did a crisp about-face that would have made Wes proud.

“I’m sorry. Mona said to come wake you.”

“With beer cans?”

He had no answer, so he moved on. “Willie has some work up at the house for you. Some calves that need grooming—washing, oiling up their coat, hair clipped.”

“You wake every girl up with sweet talk like this?” She had on her best stink face—he heard it in her voice.