Redeeming the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 2)

“If you ain’t into that, we don’t give a dammmn.”

Livie stared at the page and tried not to take the bait, quite possibly her most formidable task since arriving in Close Call.

“It’s required down here,” he said. “You have to sing that line.”

She wondered if Daniel ever sat in this truck beside Wes, ever sang that song. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m in redneck Hell.”

He gave an appreciative laugh that proved too tempting not to look up. In the evening’s shadows, her mind had zeroed in on his human form, and he had fascinated. But now, in the morning light, only a few minutes past a photographer’s prime dawn window to capture light and shadow and essence, what she could see of him—his powerful forearms beneath the dusty denim sleeve; the sleepy, sexy blink of his eyelids; his impossibly long and dark lashes to match a striking spray of brows and morning growth on his jaw—all of him was breathtaking. Had she a camera with black and white film, she would have insisted he allow her to take his picture.

“I can’t keep calling you Amsterdam in my head. Daniel mentioned you, but I can’t remember your name.”

“You call me Amsterdam in your head?”

He blinked slowly and suppressed a grin as if they were keeping track of gotchas and she had pulled ahead in the tally. His draped wrist was the only thing in command of the steering wheel. She found that confidence fascinating. And mildly alarming.

“Olive. Most people call me Livie.”

Right. Wes remembered now. Daniel had called her Livie.

“I like Olive.”

A declaration of intent more than anything. Few had ever called her by her given name.

The breeze lifted her sketch page over and over. She tired of pinning it. For the first time since she had met him, talking seemed easier than art.

“When I was born, my mom’s favorite painting was a Matisse. Promenade Among the Olive Trees. Matisse painted it in Collioure, in the south of France, the same place she met my father and fell in love.”

“A nice story.”

He was being polite. Placating. But that wasn’t where inspiration lived. Long ago, Livie learned the best way to see people was to shift their fulcrum, tip the scales between who they presented to the world and who they were when no one watched. Nothing did that quite like a confession.

“On the surface, I suppose. But the painting is a bit like an experiment gone wrong. Childish, unnatural colors, little resemblance to what Matisse had done before. Not unlike my parents’ marriage. I spent most of their time together trying to keep the peace between them.”

As with all things art-related, she caught herself sprinting ahead, mind and speech.

“That’s a lot to put onto one name.”

“Happiness is a fleeting state, anyway. By nature, it cannot last.”

His expression twisted as if her philosophy had been a sour drop to the tongue. “How do you figure?”

“It’s like contrast in a painting. Light exists because the darkness permits it. Light is always the absence of something.” A kilometer or so of distance slipped past them before she attempted to nudge his fulcrum again. “Take you, your truck, for instance. I see no evidence that you’re military. Ten years of your life, yet it’s curiously absent. All but the length of your hair, which suggests a recent deployment.”

Wes took command of the wheel with both hands as if the sleepy stretch of highway had suddenly become treacherous.

“So, which is being a Marine? The dark or the light?” she asked.

“That topic is off limits.”

“Fair enough. What about the woman you were with last night?”

“Jealous?”

Livie stared out her window, an abrupt shift in boldness. Inside the warmth of her clothes, her nipples awakened, triggering hot blooms at her cheeks. This time, the gotcha was all his.

“You really do lead with your emotions,” he said.

“That a problem?”