The Rancher's Untamed Heart

"That'd be fine," he said. "Long as we don't have to leave this ranch, the woman I marry can do what she pleases."

That was another thing. I enjoyed travel, and even enjoyed moving. Travel was difficult for ranch owners, who couldn't ever stop hearing what was going on on their ranch and making the important decisions, and keeping up with the paperwork and logistics and other problems. If I married Clint, would I feel trapped on that ranch?

"Including travel? Vacations?" I asked.

"I don't know about that," he said. "Seems that my folks and I always went a few places, and the ranch never fell apart."

"Are we talking about getting married?" I demanded.

"It sounded like you were," he said.

"Well, it sounded like you were a few days ago," I said.

Neither of us sounded particularly accusatory, but it was definitely weird to be talking about marriage with a guy I'd just met.

Of course, it didn’t feel like I had just met Clint. I loved him, and I felt like I knew him so well, and he knew me.

"I think we need to talk in person," Clint said. "Can we have dinner tomorrow?"

"Where?" I asked.

"I don't know if you can come out to the ranch, but there's a place that's about halfway between. A little diner. It isn't much, but on a weekday..." his voice trailed off. Getting off the ranch would be difficult for him, I knew he would be making an effort.

“Okay,” I said. “Yes. Text me the address, and I’ll come out.”

We agreed on a time, Clint grumbled about having to text message me because I wouldn’t just write things down like a normal person, and we got off the phone.

Before we got off, though, I paused, and said “I love you, Clint.”

“I love you too, sweetheart,” he said.

I passed a restless night, wondering what Clint and I would say to each other. I woke up from dreams in which he told me we were through, and from dreams where he proposed to me in a greasy diner.

Sometimes, when I woke up, I wasn’t sure which made me more uncomfortable.

I dragged myself through my shower and to my car on my way to work, and got into the building fifteen minutes early.

Walking past the secretary’s desk, I paused to say hello to the woman on duty.

“Hello, Rhonda,” I said, trying to muster a cheerful smile. “Are you ready for the end of the week?”

“Boy, aren’t I!” she said, running a hand carefully through her greying blonde hair. “My boy is playing in the game on Friday night, and nothing we can say will get him to stop talking about it. I just want this season to be over.”

I laughed.

“I thought sports parents were supposed to be totally invested,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t tell him I’m sick of it,” she said, “Really, though, when you talk about the same little details of the same game non-stop, you’re going to get bored of it.”

“That’s fair,” I said, and waved to her as I headed on down the hall to my office.

When I shut the door, I looked at my stack of paperwork from the previous day and sighed. I slung my purse over the desk chair, sat down, and got to work sorting what I needed to do urgently and what I could put off a little longer while I put the fires out.

There was a piece of paper near the bottom of the stack that I knew I hadn’t seen before. How had it gotten there? Had someone just shoved it in?

It was one more form about the ranch by Clint’s. One more form about the place that made him so uncomfortable and possessive.

It was one more thing for me to deal with today, and I just plain wasn’t up to it.