The Rancher's Untamed Heart

I shut my eyes and leaned into him, enjoying the feeling of our bodies against each other.

He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead on mine, looking down into my eyes.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, smiling at me again. “It’s nice to see you. If Brandon burns the bacon, I am going to kick his ass.”

“Get in line,” Will said.

I flicked my eyes sideways to look at the other two men in the room. Will was smirking into his coffee cup and Brandon was standing in front of the stove, not looking at the rest of us, spatula in one hand, flipping the bird in our general directions.

I leaned up and kissed Clint on the cheek. “Good morning, handsome,” I said, quietly.

That was a better reception, for sure, than a silent back.

Clint walked back over to the stove and elbowed Brandon out of the way, taking the spatula back and flipping the bacon.

Brandon walked over to the table and pulled out the chair next to Will, dropping into it in a graceless heap. He fell face-forward on the table, leaning on Will’s arm.

His man smiled and let him lean, running his fingers through Brandon’s hair with his other hand.

Well, weren’t we just a pack of lovebirds this morning?

Clint brought us all big plates of bacon and eggs. Breakfast passed companionably, Clint and Brandon and Will talking about the state of the ranch and what needed to get done the coming week. I listened, and ate, and occasionally asked questions or chimed in.

I was happy there, just sitting at the table with Clint and his friends. I found myself wishing that every morning could start that way.

My empty apartment seemed even colder than usual that night. It was missing the warmth and light of Clint’s big open house with Brandon and Will right nearby.

I dropped my weekend bag on my kitchen table and flipped through the mail that I’d gotten on Saturday.

Nothing interesting. Only bills and coupons.

None of the coupons were even for anything that I buy, so I tossed the whole brightly-colored pile of slick paper into the trash, saving only the power bill.

I would have to pay it, but it felt like an imposition. A waste of time. I didn’t even spend enough waking hours in my apartment right now to bother keeping milk around.

My apartment felt small and cramped, and the road noises from outside were setting my teeth on edge.

When I realized what was wrong, as I was going through my fridge for a snack, I laughed out loud. I was getting used to being at the ranch, that is where I felt at home now.

I went through my nightly routine without Clint a room away, and got into bed without a last embrace.

I fell asleep wishing that I never had to spend a night away from the ranch again.

That Monday morning moved about as slowly as molasses in winter.

I was stuck at my desk, wishing I could be outside, wishing that I could be at the ranch, wishing that I could be anywhere but there.

Sarah stopped by and said hello, teased me about how distracted I was, and left pretty quickly. For all she joked about taking work lightly, she got more done than anyone else around the place.

When she left, I was alone with my thoughts and my paperwork.

Looking at my inspection schedule for the week, I sighed. All enormous corporate operations, enough hands around the place to have everything dusted and scrubbed while I was driving down the lane. Nothing out of place, even if I knew they were getting around some of the laws.

Those inspections were tedious and typical, but they were the main meat of my job. Inspecting smaller, family-run places like Clint's didn't happen often at all for a junior person like me. They were considered cakewalks and usually Sarah or Herman took them.

Just after I began my working lunch of granola and yogurt, Herman stuck his head through the open door to my office.

"Oh, uh, Naomi?" he asked. I noticed that he glanced quickly at the marker on my door.