The Rancher's Untamed Heart

"Have a great day," I said, and turned on my heel.

I waited until I was out of sight of the ranch to pull over and pound the steering wheel with my fists. I hated being treated like that, like some stupid piece of meat, like a silly girl. Having to back down and leave the ranch after all that made my blood boil.

It took a few more deep breaths before I calmed down enough to be professional. I picked up my phone and checked my schedule to see where I needed to go next.

"This can't be right," I thought. "Nobody has four thousand head of sheep down a dinky little road like this any more." The big operations I'd been to all had impressive signage and usually some show-off landscaping, spots of green against the red-brown of the dirt that got into everything.

I checked my GPS for a third time.

I was driving around potholes that wouldn't be out of place in Mumbai, between two rows of teetering barbed wire. The house I was going to was out of sight, but that was no big surprise in hill country. Entire ranches could be hidden over the next rise.

I slammed on the brake out of sheer surprise - an entire ranch was, in fact, hidden over the next rise. The barbed wire fence met the corner of a real livestock fence, one I'd trust a stud bull to stay on one side of and a coyote the other. I could see a collection of long, low buildings off in the distance, and a white mass of sheep were indeed streaming into a dark opening at one end of the nearest building.

The road, however, stayed ill-kept, and after another four miles of creeping and weaving, I reached the buildings. The last few sheep were heading inside the barn, under the supervision of a lanky man in blue jeans, tan boots, and a red plaid shirt. I couldn't help but notice that the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and I could see dark chest hair curling out of the gap.

He glared at me from under a dusty cowboy hat. There were a few other men off in the distance, with other sheep, but this man was alone, and, more importantly, as the closest to the main gate, he was my only polite choice.

"What're you doing here?" he said. His voice was low and deep, each word bitten off as though he thought I'd send him a bill for it.

"Good afternoon! I'm here to do a routine inspection of this herd. May I have your name for my records?" I asked, leaning one elbow out of my truck and calling out the window. I flashed my clipboard to look nice and official.

"Who wants the inspection?" he asked. He continued to glare as he set aside his work.

"The USDA. I have a badge and everything, and if you don't believe me, you're welcome to call the home office. Also, you know, the seal's on the truck."

This part, I was used to. It seemed that every farmer in every field, large and small, was like Yates and this jerk and couldn't believe that the USDA wanted to send a little blonde woman to check on their herds instead of the - male - vet who called ahead and then politely got stuck in traffic so they had a full two hours notice. No one wanted me on their farms.

"Show me your badge and tell me your name and I'll make the call."

"Sure, where can I park?" I asked.

"You can't," he said.

The last sheep had gotten into the barn by then, the herd was milling around and baa-ing in confusion, obviously waiting for a dinner that wasn't coming. The stranger slammed the door to the barn shut and swung himself over the fence. His legs looked like they stretched from here to kingdom come, and I watched the jeans stretch over his strong thighs and surprisingly round ass before remembering my professionalism and fighting the urge to look him up and down the whole time he walked my way.

"Is there anyone else I can talk to?" I called.

When he got about ten feet from the car, he looked at the seal on the white door of the truck and snorted.

"Nope," he said.

I smiled brightly and gave him my business card. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and took the card between his thumb and forefinger, grasping it by the edge. Without a word, he turned away from me and pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping at the screen before putting it to his ear. Turned away, with his low voice and the background noise of confined sheep, I couldn't hear what he said, and after about three minutes I gave up and checked my e-mail on my own phone. Nothing I had to respond to right then.

The mysterious conversation seemed to satisfy the grumpy man, and he pointed at a shady spot near the house, still without looking at me.

"You can park there," he said over his shoulder as he turned and walked back to the barn.

“Great, I’m Naomi Scott, nice to meet you,” I said.

“Clint Cannon,” he grunted, before picking up his pace and quickly moving out of earshot.

"Oh, good! Just the man I wanted to meet," I muttered. Clint Cannon was listed as the owner of this operation. I was hoping that this surly man would be someone else, someone without the authority to show me around, so I could try to find someone a little friendlier. Oh, well. It couldn't be all bad to get to look at him for the next few hours.

After parking, I grabbed my clipboard and pen, slipped my phone into my pocket, and jumped out of the truck to follow him. I'd learned that no one on a farm took me seriously if I wore a purse, so I made sure that everything I needed could fit into the pockets of my jeans.

It’s hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman on a ranch, I try to at least dress sensibly, in sturdy jeans and a white button-up shirt. I can’t be respected on a ranch in heels or in the office in boots, so I compromise with modest flats that no one loves, but no one scorns.

This man didn't bother to point anything out to me, unlike many farmers and hands, and I still didn't know anything about him but his name, but he allowed me to follow him around the farm. After my visit to the Yates place, I didn’t feel like bothering to insist on going around in the order I usually do. My form on the clipboard is pretty much just a checklist, but it's a ten-page checklist. Fortunately, his own work took him to most of the areas I needed to take a look at.