by Liz Isaacson
“Sure you did,” Jeremiah did, his heart starting to pound and not from the brisk walk in from the stables. “You’re working for free on their ranch for the next fifteen days.” He grinned at his brother. “How are things going over there?”
“Good,” Wyatt said. “With a lot of hands, the work goes fast. The Dumpsters are full, and the yard is too. Half of it is stuff we’ll reload into the house, and the other half is trash.”
“So more Dumpsters.”
“We could probably use two more,” Wyatt agreed. “And fill them tomorrow and then go back to just two.”
“Okay,” Jeremiah said. “The folder with the company info is on Liam’s desk. Will you go call them while I deal with Whitney?” He made “dealing with her” sound difficult, and Wyatt chuckled again.
“Sure thing.” Wyatt detoured up the steps to the back deck while Jeremiah continued around the corner of the house to the front porch.
Whitney was not sitting there, as Wyatt had said she would be. Instead, Jeremiah found her down the front driveway, crouched down with her camera up at her eye as she took pictures of the stars on the open front gate.
Jeremiah moved under the huge oak tree in the front yard to watch her. He leaned against the giant tree trunk and swallowed. Her dark hair fell in absolutely straight lines over her shoulders, and the last time he’d seen her, that had been curled. He could practically smell her perfume from his position fifty yards away, and he had a love-hate relationship with the way his heart was pulsing in the back of his throat.
No doubt about it, this woman had gotten right under his skin.
She straightened as if she’d heard his thoughts and turned back toward him. A smile filled her face, those red, red lips making desire swim through Jeremiah.
He lifted his hand in a wave to her but made no effort to step away from the tree trunk. She came toward him, and he just watched her take one slow step after another.
Chapter Nineteen
Whitney Wilde couldn’t look away from the smirking cowboy leaning against the oak tree like the ancient trunk needed him to hold it up. She needed him to hold her up, what with the way her legs were shaking with every step she took.
He was so dark, and so dreamy, and so delicious—and he didn’t even know it. At least he acted like he didn’t know it. Whitney could still feel his fingers in hers from the New Year’s Eve parade, and her pulse practically jumped through her skin. She’d flirted with him shamelessly—right in front of Dalton too—and he’d rewarded her with an agreement to take her to dinner after this shoot and the hand-holding.
And wow. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since.
“Howdy, cowboy,” she said when she was only a few paces away. She paused, because she wasn’t sure they were to the point where she could just continue right into his personal space. She wanted to. Oh, she wanted to.
But Jeremiah had all of his walls up, and just because they’d had a few conversations where he hadn’t hung up on her didn’t mean they were to the point where she could sweep a kiss across his cheek.
“Hey,” he said. “You started without me.”
“You made it clear I’d get one hour here,” she said. “And you were late.”
He smiled and ducked his head, toeing the ground with those heavy-soled work boots. She liked them as much as the cowboy boots she’d seen him wear before. “Did you decide where you wanted to go to dinner?” he asked.
“I think you’re a beef man,” she said. “And there’s a new place in the north part of town, where all those posh houses are.”
“A new place?”
“I’ve been,” she said. “All grass-raised beef. They have fancy stuff like steak tartar and regular stuff like a ribeye.”
Jeremiah grinned at her, the left side of his smile lifting a little higher than the right. Adorable. Whitney would never tell him that, as such a word would probably offend the rough, tough cowboy.
“You think I’d order a ribeye?” he asked.
Feeling flirty and brave, Whitney stepped right up to him and tiptoed her fingers up the front of his shirt, where all the buttons were. “Yep.” She popped the P. “You’re not fussy enough for a filet mignon, and you’d have to be in the right mood for a T-bone.” She cocked her head and shrugged one shoulder in a move she hoped said fun, flirty, maybe you can kiss me after dinner. “So it’s a ribeye.”
“Maybe I’m in the right mood,” he said.
Whitney backed up, her intentions for their dinner very clear. “Maybe,” she said. “And we do still have an hour of shooting to get through. You might be ready to commit murder by then.”
“Oh, boy,” he said with a laugh. “Shooting a few landscapes is that bad?”
“No,” she said. “I think it’s great fun. But you…you might not think so.” She turned and took a few steps away. “Now, come on. You said you’d show me a few things you wanted me to see. You wanted my ‘artistic eye’ if I remember right.”
“I did say that,” Jeremiah said, finally pushing off the tree trunk. “Let’s start out at the barn.”
Whitney had a feeling she’d start and then go wherever he said, and she fell into step beside him. “So,” she said. “Where were you living before you came to Seven Sons?” They hadn’t had much of a chance to really talk and get to know one another at the parade. And before that, he either didn’t answer her calls or told her no before he’d said hello.
“Austin,” he said. “You? Let me guess: you’ve lived here forever?”
“Something like that,” she said, hardly able to take in the beauty of the ranch. The landscape would be something spectacular in the spring, after the rains came and made everything grow again.
“Your family has a farm, right?” he asked.
Surely he knew that already, but Whitney said, “Yep,” anyway.
“Do you work there?” he asked. “Or just do the photography?”
Whitney thought of her other half. Lake Winters. What would Jeremiah do with the knowledge that she liked posing newborns with pumpkins, turnips, and cornucopias?
Only during Thanksgiving, she told herself. The baby photography she was doing now usually included more rustic winter vegetables, with plenty of greens, beets, and gourds. In fact, she’d just switched out the photo at the front of Wilde & Organic and counted her business cards. Three had been taken in December, but she hadn’t booked any new baby shoots.
Since she wasn’t married or in the young, married couple scene, she didn’t know how else to find customers. She had the display board at the store and word of mouth.
“Whitney?” Jeremiah said, and she blinked her way out of Lake’s mind and focused on the handsome man at her side.
“Sorry,” she said. “I do the photography full-time, but I stock the produce section at the store in the morning. No farm work.”
Jeremiah nodded and pointed up ahead. “There’s the barn.”
Sure enough, a huge, beautiful barn stood in front of them. It looked like it might fall down at any moment, but also appeared to be made of the finest wood Texas had to offer. “Wow,” she said, drinking in the American flag. “Patriotic.”
“We’ve got Texas on the other side,” he said. “But this view, if you stand over here.” He started to his left, crossing through the corner of the backyard, which seemed trimmed and perfect, despite it being January. “The view of the land beyond is all Seven Sons Ranch.”
“And over there?” She indicated the land to the west.
“That’s the Shining Star,” he said. “See that fence there? That’s where Callie’s ranch starts.”
She heard something fond in Jeremiah’s voice when he spoke of Callie. “Callie?”
“Callie Foster?” he asked, looking toward her ranch. “I mean, she married my brother yesterday. I guess she’s Callie Walker now.”
Whitney couldn’t actually tell how Jeremiah felt about that, so she said nothing. The best thing about being a photographer was the fact that she cou
ld hide behind the lens during moments where she needed a bit more time to gather her thoughts.
“The barn is beautiful,” she said, adjusting her focus to get the barn in the foreground and the background. Click, click, click. “Let’s see that Texas flag.” She flashed him a smile, glad to find Jeremiah watching her.
Around the other side of the barn, the huge Texas flag filled her vision, and she couldn’t help laughing. “Well, you Walkers are Texas cowboys to the bone,” she said, still giggling between the words.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
As Whitney had always pictured herself with a through-and-through Texas cowboy, her comment was definitely a compliment. She positioned her camera, not finding a shot here. “I don’t like the close-up,” she said. “You’re right; the view beyond isn’t the same from this side.” She twisted to look behind her. “Could we go farther out, and get the barn in the background?”
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever you think will work.” He led her down perfectly manicured paths, past a pen of goats. Whitney stopped to take some close-up shots of the animals, pure joy moving through her.
“I love goats,” she said. “We have some of those on the farm.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” she said. “My brother works with the animals on our farm, and we do some local sourcing of goat and lamb.”
“I love your store,” he said.
“It’s my parents’ store,” she said. “But I love it too. You’re a real chef, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
But Whitney did. She knew Jeremiah cooked for his brothers here at the ranch, if only because she’d overheard her sister and her mother talking about how much he shopped at the store. Usually the person who shopped did the cooking.
“We often have vegetables we can’t sell,” she said. “I could bring them to you.”
“What kind of vegetables?”
“Everything,” she said. “My brother Johnny is the chef in the Wilde family. He’ll take things that are a bit soft or look a bit neglected and turn them into something great.” She looked at Jeremiah out of the corner of her eye. “I bet you could do the same.”
“What kind of something great?” he asked, not denying his skills in the kitchen this time.
“He made a vegetable ratatouille last week that was amazing.”
“Ratatouille,” Jeremiah said. “Wow. I’m a bit more…rustic in my cooking style.”
“So, what?” Whitney asked. “Stews? Chicken and vegetable bakes?”
“Both of those, yeah.”
“You’ll have to make dinner for me sometime,” she said, adding a smile to her statement.
Jeremiah didn’t confirm or deny making dinner for her. Whitney looked up and paused, the shot before her filling her view. “Hold for a moment.” She lifted her camera and took a few shots to test the light looking into the west. The sun was on its way down, spreading its rays wide across the sky in front of her. And with the path, the fields, the fences, it felt like the only way a ranch should look.
Jeremiah stopped walking, and Whitney crouched down, getting the pretty dirt path in complete focus close up, with the horizon line beyond. She switched her focus so the path was blurry close up, with the near sunset in sharp focus.
“Okay.” She straightened and continued for a few more paces before turning back. “Oh, wow.”
The light cascading over the land now, the barn in the distance, was absolutely the vision she’d hoped to find at this ranch. She took a dozen pictures and looked at Jeremiah. “Where else?”
He indicated she should go down the path to her immediate left. “I think the best view of the ranch is just past the cattle yard.” He looked over at her. “It’s a bit of a walk.”
“I wore my cowgirl boots,” she said, lifting one up as if he hadn’t seen them yet. But she had a feeling Jeremiah Walker didn’t miss a single thing.
He smiled at her, their steps in tandem. His hand brushed hers, and the next thing she knew, he’d taken her hand in his. “Okay?” he asked, not looking at her.
“Okay,” she managed to push through a very narrow throat. Holding hands with this man was much more than okay. Sparks raced up and down her arm, making her feel like she’d never been touched by a man before. And maybe she hadn’t, now that Jeremiah had touched her. No matter what, his touch had sparked something inside her she’d thought long dead.
“Besides photography, what do you like to do?” he asked.
“I’m an outdoor person,” she said. “I spend a lot of time in front of my computer editing, so when I don’t have to do that, I like to get out and enjoy Texas.”
“Hiking? Biking? Sitting by a lake?”
“All of the above,” she said. “What about you?”
“Oh, the ranch and the kitchen consume me,” he said, no shame in his voice. “Though I suppose I let them.”
Wow, honesty. Whitney sure did like that. She caught sight of a horse, and she slipped her hand away from Jeremiah’s to hold her camera to get a shot.
“That’s actually Liam’s horse,” Jeremiah said. “Pretzel. Let’s move him over to the other pasture, and maybe you could get him in the view I’m thinking of.”
Before she could respond, he nickered as if he spoke Horse, and Pretzel came plodding over to him, his head halfway down as if to let Jeremiah know he’d go wherever the cowboy wanted him to. Whitney couldn’t blame him.
Jeremiah reached over the top of the fence and stroked the horse. “Come on,” he said, patting the side of Pretzel’s neck. “Down to the gate.”
“Are you the horse whisperer?” she asked. “He’s just going to come?”
Jeremiah gave her a look she could only classify as flirty as he reached into his pocket. “He’ll come.” He pulled a piece of hard candy from his pocket, started walking, and sure enough, Pretzel turned and walked along the fence as well.
“Ah, I see,” she said. “I used to do that with my nieces and nephews.”
“Is that why Dalton would only sit by you at the parade?”
Whitney took a deep breath. “Ah, Dalton.” She didn’t want to say anything bad about her nephew. “He’s going through a hard time right now.”
“We all do,” Jeremiah said. “From time to time.”
Honest and wise. And he knew how to charm a horse into doing whatever he wanted. Whitney was starting to wonder if the man had any faults at all.
They reached the gate, and Jeremiah unlatched it, pulling a rope from around the post there. He looped it around Pretzel’s neck and allowed the horse to leave the pasture. “It’s just a little bit farther.”
Walking again, the horse clopping along behind Jeremiah, he didn’t take her hand again. She didn’t know what else to say to him, and he wasn’t asking another question either. She didn’t wholly hate the silence, but it didn’t comfort her either.
“There,” he said after several minutes. He indicated the fields to their right. “This is the cattle yard. Our large horse pasture is here, and I think with the trees in the distance, and the sun, and the animals….” Jeremiah exhaled, and it was clear he loved this spot.
“Horses or dogs?” she asked.
“What?”
“Which do you like better?”
“Is that not obvious? Horses.” He kicked a grin in her direction and moved over to the gate. “Go on now,” he said to Pretzel, pulling another candy from his pocket. He removed the rope and hung it on the post there, and Whitney started clicking before the cowboy could step out of the shot.
“Stay, stay, stay,” she said when he turned at the sound of the clicking.
“Whitney,” he said. “I don’t want to be in the picture.”
“But it’s perfect,” she said, not giving in on this. “Turn back around and look out into the pasture again.” She didn’t actually care what he looked at.
He sighed like she was insufferable, but he did what she said. He ducked his head, and Whitne
y’s pulse went wild. That was the perfect shot—at least for her.
“All right,” she said. “Come on out of the frame.”
Jeremiah gave her a look that could’ve been categorized as a glare, and she just shook her head at him. “You invited me out here.”
“I’m starting to regret it.”
And there was his flaw—that mouth. He was so blunt, which Whitney usually liked. She’d rather know than have to guess how a person was feeling. Guessing had never really worked out for her.
She chose not to respond as she started shooting the view he loved so much. She could see what he liked about it, from the distance from the homestead to the serenity of the horses dotting the horizon.
Pretzel wandered away once he realized Jeremiah wasn’t going to give him any more candy, and Whitney moved up and down the fence, getting different shots. Her phone rang, and her heart skipped the way she imagined Pretzel’s did when he heard that crinkly candy wrapper.
It was her Lake Winters ringtone, and she didn’t want to ignore the call. But she didn’t want to answer it in front of Jeremiah. She decided the lesser of two bad options was to let the call go to voicemail. She’d have some time in the car as she drove to town for dinner to check it and return a phone call.
Satisfied she had something Jeremiah would like for his brother, she turned back to him. “I think we’re done here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t want to get a shot of the silos? The windmill?”
“I don’t think that’s the shot you want to put on your brother’s wall,” she said. “But if you’re asking if I want to come out here and shoot my next wedding, the answer is yes, absolutely.”
Jeremiah grinned as he shook his head.
“Just think about it, would you?” she asked, not caring that a bit of a whine had entered her tone. “You could charge people a ton of money, and they’d pay it.”