Tempting the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 1)

Dear God.

“I have a problem, and I need your help...”

No problem here. Not a one.

“I’ve been so many places that I don’t know where I belong anymore. Every place I go feels foreign. Even places that shouldn’t.”

She glanced from the sky to him. Water cradled her cheekbone, from the tip of her eye to the tip of her mouth.

“What should I do if the home inside my head isn’t enough anymore?”

She had asked one of those questions he couldn’t answer—not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he didn’t dare speak in the direction of hope.

“Signed…Shrimp Mama, Adrift.”

He smiled. Moments like this one had made him fall in love with her in the first place—her quirky humor, her candor with a hint of innocence, her perpetually broken give-a-damn, all wrapped up in a package so easy on the eyes that the world tiptoed away, unseen, when she was near.

“Dear Shrimp Mama, Adrift,” he said.

January laughed again. Water beads danced on the toned lines of her belly and pooled in her navel.

“All roads lead home, eventually.”

“Who is that, Thoreau?”

“No, Mona. And probably a Christmas card somewhere.”

January stopped floating. Her lips sobered. She dipped her chin low and skimmed closer, closer, closer.

“Nice, but not as helpful as I hoped,” she said.

“What kind of help did you have in mind?”

“This.”

She gripped the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss as if she were going under and he was her life preserver. His body sparked like a flint against steel. Ten years of longing came from his throat on an audible sigh. Lips, tongues, inhales comingled in a union both familiar and new. She tasted the way he remembered, the way he had recalled every night for a goddamned decade, and it brought tears to his eyes.

Every night. For a goddamned decade.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t watch her leave again and taste her every night for another goddamned decade.

Nat pulled back. Forehead to forehead, he gasped for air and struggled to find his bearings. The cove settled from its dizzying spiral.

She searched his eyes.

He offered nothing but his hand to help her to shore.

They dressed in silence, January back into her dress with a few deft strokes, Nat behind a rock to slip into his jeans, commando-style. He asked her if she needed a ride home. She politely refused.

Back at Dietrich’s, Mona held an entire conversation with Nat in the span of one look.

All the way home in his truck, Nat editorialized his decision. His life was nothing but commitment and permanence. January’s life was cities with unpronounceable names and skinny dipping and Nepal. She believed in a thousand tomorrows, and he believed in one: the ranch. Opening his life, his heart, once more to her brand of chaos would be akin to begging the heavens for a hurricane to end a drought then expecting anything but destruction.

Foolhardy.

Bootless.

Lethal.