I spent the next five minutes picturing all of the gruesome things that could happen to a man on a ranch or in a truck on the highway.
I was starting to get really concerned, so I called him again and left a voicemail.
"Hey, Clint, it's almost six-thirty and I haven't seen you. Hope everything's okay. Please give me a call."
My voice sounded too-perky, but I didn't bother re-recording.
At 6:45, I decided to go out to the damn ranch myself.
I stuck a note to my front door in an envelope with Clint's name on it, saying where I'd gone, and headed out to my little car with my overnight bag and my purse. I didn't drive the car much, but I liked it.
I did have a few moments of doubt, did we not know each other well enough for me to be hunting him down like this? Was I violating his privacy?
Damn it, he'd told me he'd be there to pick me up, and he wasn't there. I had never gotten the impression before that he was at all flighty or unreliable, and I didn't want to think that he was.
I guess, if he had just forgotten, I'd know that he didn't like me that much, and I wasn't missing anything. I'd write him off, roll my eyes about it to Sarah, and try to forget him.
The drive was long enough to shift me from worried to just plain mad.
This man had gotten my hopes up and then left me to stew for an hour. I understood that things come up, but damn, give me a call.
>
I was hungry, I had eaten a light lunch in anticipation of the steak, and I was grumpy, and I was disappointed.
Clint Cannon was handsome and, in his own surly way, charming, but this wasn’t how I liked to be treated.
When I got to the ranch, there were lights on in the cabin that Brandon and Will shared, and there were a few cars parked. I recognized Clint’s truck by the dark house, illuminated briefly in the beams of my headlights.
There were only a few outside lights, this was a ranch that truly got dark at night.
I didn’t want to beat Brandon’s door down demanding to know where Clint was like some sort of crazy woman, and I saw that the light in the window of Clint’s office in the end of one of the barns was on, so I headed there. I parked my car by the truck and walked over, to give myself time in the fresh air to cool down.
When I got close to the window, I heard Clint’s voice, and it sounded angry. I wondered if there was someone in there with him, so I hesitated, and walked quietly up to the window to listen for a minute.
If someone else was in there, they were getting really chewed out. His voice was going on and on, in a low rumbling growl of anger.
Even though I was still worried about how he’d take me showing up like this, I was a little turned on by the heat in his voice.
I had to tell myself firmly that this was not at all the time.
The window had white red-and-white checked curtains on it, I couldn’t see through to the man inside. I crossed in front of it and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Clint barked.
I opened the door and stepped inside. It was easy to see that Clint was alone. It was a small room, not filthy like some farm offices I’d seen, but not exactly spic-and-span.
Even though I wiped my feet on the doormat, I might have added to the dust and oats on the floor.
Clint’s eyes widened when he saw me, and he sat up in his chair.
“Naomi?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
"What are you doing here?" I retorted. "We should be eating dessert right now, or on our way back here after a lovely dinner, or on a walk."
Clint looked highly concerned. He looked down at the paperwork, and then blinked in a slightly dazed way. "I had a few minutes to kill before I picked you up, and I sat down to check a number in these reports. I was going to leave at five."
He looked at the gingham curtains.