Tempting the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 1)

Again, he had no answer, so he moved on. Nat could count the women he’d been with on one hand. One hand where most fingers had been taken off by a rogue saw blade.

“Be up at the house as soon as you can.” Nat headed toward the trailer door.

“Wait. I’ll get dressed. You can give me a ride.”

Perfect. Just what Nat needed in a tiny trailer with no privacy—to watch the love of his life wrestle herself into a bra and jeans. In his quest to remain a gentleman, he searched the place for a diversion, saw nothing but the inside of the hump trailer, and headed for the morning sun.

“Stay, Nat. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Her request had him at a stop. Dead stop.

Behind him, the zipping of bags and rustle of clothes weakened his knees. He closed in on the world map to give his eyes somewhere to go beside her creamy surplus of skin.

Nat remembered the Christmas morning January’s father gave her the map. She talked of little else, mostly because her old man wove a spectacular tale about treasure hunting in Mozambique on a scuba expedition. That spring, on their way back from a guy’s camping weekend, Nat witnessed her father unable to go with him into floodwaters to save a stranded motorist. Lying son-of-a-bitch had a ball-shriveling fear of water. Nat came close to telling January. Twice. But her eyes? Goddamned but they lit up when she poked pins in the map and talked about her future. About her father.

His eyes locked in on a lush, green, three-word place in Vietnam he couldn’t pronounce. He’d have bet his entire herd that January could fill up an hour with nonstop facts and stories from the far-off place. All he could fill an hour with was a list of attributes that made for good breeding stock. January may have been six feet away, but in terms of worldliness, it may as well have been galaxies between them. Nat felt like a dumb hick, the realization as heavy on his shoulders as a raincoat in a sauna.

“So, where are you headed next?” He didn’t want to know, really. Unless it was down to the community bulletin board at Dairy Mart to find a permanent place to stay in Close Call.

“Nepal. Hopefully.”

“What’s in Nepal?” The destination lay on his tongue like sushi.

“Prayer flags…Annapurna mountain peaks…rickshaws in Thamel…The Garden of Dreams in Kathmandu.”

She went on about something that sounded like dull bat—rice and lentils and a handful of other things a cattle rancher from Texas would never eat. Hadn’t even been there yet, and already her tone carried reverence. Mostly, he sank into the energy and life of her voice—fuel to burn memories during the chilly nights to come.

He had nothing to say in response to those things. Didn’t even understand them. But the sound of crisp denim making its way over her bare legs left him scrambling for a connection, leverage, something that made him feel less like a two thousand-pound bull in quicksand.

“Cowboy church out past the Reynold’s place put up a prayer garden. Well, mostly a handful of geraniums and a bench made out of a Ford tailgate.”

The space behind him quieted.

“Probably nothing like Kathmandu, but I suppose someone could dream there if the mosquitoes didn’t eat them alive.” Nat laughed, more of a shudder that sounded like someone had tapped their size-twelve boot sole up against his voice box. This time, when he retreated, he was hell-bent on making it to the cab of his truck before he died of inadequacy right there on Mona’s green shag carpet.

“You want a ride up to the house, you got one minute,” he called over his shoulder. “Already behind on chores.”

He climbed behind the wheel. The breeze through the open window cooled his heated neck. January joined him like a five-alarm drill: one boot on, one in her hand; an apple from Mona’s fruit bowl wedged in her bite; the fly on her Levi’s half-fastened and buttons on a yellow shirt askew. She handed him the bitten apple as she climbed up in his cab and set a hairbrush on his dashboard. Golden curls cascaded from the nylon bristles and past his hazard button—so comfortable, so familiar, he nearly lost all intent to hightail it back to the house and off-load her on Willie so she would stay out of Nat’s way all day.

> Transmission in gear, he orchestrated a three-point turn in record time. January bounced on the seat beside him like eight seconds in an Amarillo arena. She reached for the Jesus bar above the window.

“Jesus, Nat.”

Thus re-enforcing the handle’s nickname.

“Beauty shop to a bunch of bovines, huh?”

Her dull-edged excitement piqued him even more. Meier land wasn’t the Annapurna mountain range, but the vistas looking south during bluebonnet time damn near took a man’s breath away. She didn’t get the draw of this place; she never would.

Best January Rose clear out to her rickshaws and dull bats before the urge to sit on that Ford tailgate, smell the geraniums, and unearth old dreams came on too strong to fight.

* * *

Dietrich’s had been a Saturday night custom in Close Call since the Rose family breezed through town fourteen years ago and Mona had picked up enough odd repair jobs to stick around. Back then, ice chips rode glass bottles of soda, not alcohol—at least not when adults were around. A honky-tonk in small-town Texas wasn’t exactly an anomaly. One that welcomed entire families with a live country band and a dance floor constructed under the stars?

Nowhere else on earth.

The night was mild, the crowd thick and friendly. January sat beside Mona atop a picnic table under the trees. Oak branches that normally functioned as primo shade from the day’s heat provided structure to simple yellow bulbs strung across the dance floor at night. The singer’s imperfect but genuine baritone notes landed deep in her chest.