Tempting the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 1)

This time, the bruise spread to her whole body. “I deserve that. Worse, really. But at least honesty gives people something real.”

She slipped out of her boots and socks and reclined on the rock, fingers linked behind her head. Stars blinked. Crickets spoke. Her sundress inched up her thighs. The night was welcome there.

“Take, for instance, a column in the paper I read over breakfast. Mom said it was all the buzz—runs in all the small-town papers. It was different from any other advice column I’d ever read. This columnist—Agnes? She dug deep. No one or two liners of you-should-do-this talk. Sounded young but with an old soul. She was honest and real—a little conservative in her advice—but it all came from a place of genuine concern for complete strangers. Made you want to tell her everything, you know?”

Nat shifted but settled in the same spot, same position.

“She had a way with words, like poetry and life all twisted together—hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Then she said, ‘never look down on anyone unless you’re helping them up,’ which is weird because someone else I know says that all the time.”

“That so?” His voice held disinterest, distance, like he aimed to let the conversation die right there.

“You’re Agnes, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

A squeal of delight slipped free of January’s lips. She knew it.

“Agnes is more your mother than me.”

“I don’t know. She can drop advice six ways to Sunday, and it doesn’t sound like that.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re on the receiving end.”

“Maybe. So how did you become a granny ghostwriter?”

“As a favor to Clayton Stokes when he took over the paper from his father. He needed someone. I needed extra money for my double major. Told him I’d help him for a while. When other papers picked up the column, he asked me to stay on.”

Their voices matched in softness, in the place of confidences and secrets.

“What was your double major?”

“English. I never finished that degree, either.”

“You were always an amazing writer. That story you wrote in high school about the group of friends who got on the wrong train and learned they were in a parallel universe when the train was held up by outlaws? God, I loved that story.”

Perhaps it had been his ultimatum: the next chapter if—and only if—she was in his arms. Preferably naked.

“Why can’t you be as honest with me as you are in your column?” she asked.

For a long stretch, she believed he wouldn’t answer, that truthfulness would remain the great unanswered question of their relationship, then and now. Mona always said, “still waters run deep.” Except where his writing uncovered hidden truths, Nat Meier was the Marianas Trench.

“Because hurting you the way you hurt me would be easy.”

Her nose stung. Constellations swam. She had walked right into that trench. Asked for it. In the spirit of honesty, she pulled him into the depths alongside her.

“I’m sorry, Nat, for the way I left. It was a shit-coward thing to do, leaving you waiting in that field, headlights on, radio playing low. I tried, for thirty minutes, I tried to walk out into the clearing, but I knew if I climbed up on that blanket in the truck bed beside you, I’d never have the courage to leave.”

“Not even a note, J. Not one fucking word for years. Jesus, I thought you were dead.”

A rogue tear slipped loose, lashes to temple. January swiped it away before more followed.

“Mona should have…”

“You should have.”

“I know. I’m sorry for not writing. I’m sorry for the way I left, but I’m not sorry I left. At eighteen, all I wanted was the freedom my father had, to not be a burden to anyone.”

“And now?”