by Jean Oram
Little by little, Levi was losing his own independence, Ryan figured. He was giving up pieces of his old, happy life as a quiet cowboy to be with his girlfriend who had a successful modeling career in New York. As nice as Laura was, there was no way things could end well for Levi.
“December first is a few weeks away. You’ve already had plenty of time to think.” Levi’s posture stiffened, as though he’d been challenged to a fight.
Myles was suddenly there between them. “How about January first?” he said, arms out as though he expected his brothers to lunge at each other.
Waiting until January would give Ryan about two months to see if some stuff he was working on would pan out or not.
Neither he nor Levi disputed Myles’s suggestion, and they silently accepted the new date with a nod.
Ryan headed to the kitchen door, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll send you the bill for renting a stable.” He grinned when he heard Levi’s pained sigh of acceptance.
Carly Clarke had a stable out back of her house. Maybe she’d rent him some space without shooting him. Or having her mysterious, yet-to-be-seen husband do it for her.
“Tell Brant that Carly needs a watchdog,” he added as he left the room. Their brother was a gifted matchmaker between dogs and humans, and could find her a protector. Because when he listened to his gut, Ryan would bet his next paycheck the woman was living on the Lucky Horse Ranch alone.
“I’m borrowing the forklift,” he called from the hallway, where he lifted the Texas-shaped key ring off a hook. “I’ll meet you at Brant’s in an hour or two.”
“Borrowing it for what?” Levi asked.
“He’s going next door to get himself shot,” Myles stated, loudly enough for him to hear. “He needs a getaway vehicle he can bleed out in where Mom won’t freak out about him ruining the upholstery.”
Ryan shook his head with another smile and headed outside, determined to figure out who exactly this beautiful Carly Clarke was and why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Carly hadn’t slept well. And not just because she’d done damage to her own property when her cute neighbor, Ryan Wylder, had gotten her exactly where she promised she’d never be around a man again: flappable.
It’d been a long time since anyone had dared drink her in the way he had, and she’d reacted, shooting out her much-needed yard light in order to plunge them into darkness as he returned her goats.
Standing on the dusty ground beside the light pole, she put her hands on her hips and stared up. Beneath her feet were shards of glass. Thankfully, none had landed inside the nearby goat pen. What a careless, dangerous thing she’d done.
And all because a man had been looking at her silhouette. A handsome, challenging man who seemed to see right into her soul in a way that made her feel vulnerable and exposed.
She had a lot to hide, but when it came right down to it, he didn’t matter, and neither did his opinion of her.
Really, though, it wasn’t just the yard light that had her frustrated, nor was it Ryan’s gawking. It was being alone on the ranch. Yes, shooting out the light had been stupid. But so was not throwing a robe over her nightgown before heading out into the yard with her shotgun at one in the morning to see what the ruckus was about.
She needed to think first, then think again. Then act way, way later. Like a week later. Not stomp out into the night all alone on a remote ranch, even if armed. Her US Army Reserves training was one thing, but blindly walking into what could have been an ambush was another.
The gall of him, though. He’d been standing in her yard like he owned it. Just as he did with every patch of ground he tread upon. She’d noticed him around town, as well as at the library fundraiser two weeks ago. It was hard not to, with those bright blue eyes that took in everything, those broad shoulders of his and his confident, commanding presence.
But she was not interested. No, thank you.
She was here on this ranch to learn self-reliance, and she didn’t need another man waltzing in and then back out again, leaving her hanging off a cliff with alligators snapping at her feet.
She let out a frustrated sigh and focused on the light again. How was she going to replace the fixture? She’d blown it to pieces, and all that was left was a piece of metal hanging from a few wires.
Electrical work was beyond her skill set. So was dealing with heights. Which meant she’d have to hire someone. And that would cost her a fortune, all because she’d been hotheaded.
Think first, Carly. Always think first.
And why had she immediately become so hotheaded?
Because Ryan Wylder and his intense gaze had stirred up parts of her that would undoubtedly lead to bad decisions and long, dark nights. She’d faced too many of those already in her thirty years.
She patted her ebony curls. “Cool it, hothead.”
She didn’t have the cash to spend on wild decisions while trying to get her organic farm started. Right now she had nothing but a week of poor decisions behind her, and they seemed to increase by the day. It was time to stop the cycle. And that meant she would be wise to avoid her new terrible-decision trigger, Ryan Wylder.
A small gust of wind tugged at her open jacket, and she tightened the plaid fabric around herself. It was already mid-November, which meant Texas was ready to serve up just about every kind of weather. The days seemed to start cold, grow hot, end cold. Different from Montana, where they tended to start cold, stay cold and end even colder.
In the distance Carly heard the rumbling of machinery, the Sweet Meadows Ranch next door already becoming familiar to her with its predictable morning sounds. The two ranch houses were uncharacteristically close for this part of Texas. She was just a five-minute walk from the Wylders’ place, though their ranchland stretched way back into the hills.
When she heard an unfamiliar engine rev, sounding as though it hadn’t been run recently, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on over there, and if anyone knew how to replace a light fixture on the cheap.
As long as it wasn’t Ryan.
Making sure her escape-artist goats were still in their pen, she headed back to the house, leaving her yard light problem for later. As she dreamed of her next cup of coffee, she noticed a faded orange, dusty machine rounding a curve in her long driveway. It disappeared for a moment behind a grove of massive, century-old oaks, before reappearing, the rumbling sound louder. It looked like a 1950s-era truck that had been converted into a forklift.
She hustled to the front yard as the vehicle came closer, and soon recognized the man driving it. Ryan Wylder.
Great. Just great.
It was as if he knew she’d vowed to avoid him, hoping to prevent a wave of bad decisions that would surely follow any interaction with him. And here he was to test her.
She was getting tired of admitting to her family back in Montana that she’d been suckered into trusting the wrong man again, because of another smooth and charming smile. She didn’t need to do it a third time.
As she reached the edge of the drive, the forklift came to a stop beside her, the wheels locking and sliding on the loose gravel.
“Get your light fixed?” Ryan asked, adjusting his black cowboy hat. Most times she’d seen him he was wearing a ball cap, and dressed as though he was about to coach his football team. But he looked right at home in the hat, along with the black-and-red checked shirt under a black vest. Dark colors suited him, matching his hair, bringing out the intensity of his blue eyes.
Handsome. That’s what he was.
And in Carly’s world, handsome spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
“Here you are again.” She held up her empty palms. “And me without my shotgun.”
To her delight, the man’s lips quirked into a slight smile. “I can wait here if you need to retrieve it.”
Oh, but she loved a man who didn’t take her too seriously. And that light Texas drawl? Mmm. It sounded good with that deep, gravelly voice of his.
What was she thinking? Ye
s, he was eye candy, but he’d already been established as trouble.
“My goats are accounted for this morning. Why are you here?” Her words came out abruptly, but she didn’t regret them or the distance they might bring.
“I thought you could use a lift.”
She raised her eyebrows and gave the bastardized truck an unimpressed look. There was only one seat and she most certainly didn’t need to ride anywhere with Mr. Trouble.
“To fix your yard light.”
“Oh!” Her surprise and delight slipped out before she could tamp it down. “That was…” She closed her mouth and instead studied the platform made of pallets and plywood resting on the machine’s forks.
“It’s mighty neighborly, I know,” Ryan said, with a wry smirk that made him look even more devilishly charming. “My parents ingrained it into me, and honestly? Sometimes it’s a genuine pain in the butt.”
“I see.”
“You don’t happen to have a replacement bulb for the light, do you?”
“I don’t think so.” She winced, realizing she needed more than just a bulb. Maybe she could find a cheap solar light she could nail to the pole and call it done. She’d seen a few gnome ones in the hardware store in town. Maybe she could strap up a whole herd of them. However, as amusing as that would look, she didn’t think they’d cast enough light to be helpful.
“You’re in luck,” Ryan said.
“I am?” She hated her growing intrigue, how easily she was drawn into his spell. She didn’t want to be. She wanted to keep her status as a self-reliant, independent woman who didn’t need a man to save her. Or, help her, in Ryan’s case.
“I grabbed a bulb while I was in town.” He gestured to a box near his feet.
Carly glanced at her wrist, bare of a watch, then up at the sun. Whatever the time, she was confident it was still too early for any of Sweetheart Creek’s stores to be open.
“I have a key for the hardware store,” he explained. “I put it on my tab.”
“I thought you were a teacher.”
“I am. But I used to do inventory at the store while in high school. They never asked for the key back.”
And obviously he’d never offered to return it, either.
“You bought a new lightbulb?” she asked.
“I picked up a fixture and some wire, too. It looked like you did a thorough job of obliterating that light.”
He was too helpful. What was his angle? A man like him had angles. Always. And not just those handsome, sharp ones making his jaw look extra sexy.
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” she asked.
“I can leave it for you and Mr. Clarke to fix, if you prefer.”
Hearing someone refer to her late husband brought her back down to earth as that familiar slice of pain jabbed through her heart. She barely even noticed the assessing look Ryan was giving her.
“If you’re good with heights,” she said, “your help would be appreciated.”
“Are you a steady hand with a forklift?”
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we? How high does this thing go?” She patted the cold metal fender, and it made an odd banging sound as though it was hanging on to the machine by one last bolt.
“Hopefully high enough. Do you know how to drive stick?”
She scoffed. Of course she could drive a standard transmission. She’d grown up on various farms in Montana, where her father had worked as a hired hand. As soon as she and her brother were old enough they were given jobs as well, and their dad had insisted she learn to do all the things Jerome did.
“How much did the fixture cost?”
He shrugged.
How much were yard lights? Carly wondered. A hundred dollars? Less? More?
“I can’t accept it unless I know how much it’ll set me back.”
“Why don’t we do a trade?”
And there it was. His angle. She waited for his setup. The one that would surely lead to her second bad decision where Ryan was concerned.
“You have something I need,” he said, his voice dropping lower, “and I have something you need.”
Carly glared at him. Maybe she should have gotten her shotgun, after all. He was just another cowboy thinking she was an easy and willing mark.
“Do you still have that stable and corral out back?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said slowly, her suspicion easing despite her desire to cling to it for safety. The ranch wasn’t named the Lucky Horse for nothing. It had originally been a small hobby farm focused on horses, but when the owners retired, the farm had fallen into disuse and the corrals sported thigh-high weeds. When her family had heard the farm was how she was using the inheritance from her recently departed grandmother, they had at first been silent.
Then they’d started asking the inevitable questions about whose idea it was to spend her money, and who she was partnering with. It seemed her relatives were wising up to her pattern of making poor decisions.
But this time it was all her.
She wanted to own something. Something that was hers. Something nobody could take away, unlike the farms where she’d grown up, putting her labor into someone else’s dreams. Surely her family understood what she was looking for here? And what better place to make a fresh start than on a ranch with the word lucky in its name?
“Thinking of renting them out?” Ryan asked, his voice deep and mesmerizing.
“I don’t know what condition they’re in,” she lied. The truth was, she didn’t want to fix them up or deal with a demanding and expectant renter, which Ryan would surely be.
She needed that light fixed, though. Not just for her safety when performing chores before dawn or after sunset, but for security, too.
However, the idea of being indebted to Ryan Wylder was like a giant warning alarm going off, blinking and blaring.
But if she didn’t accept his neighborly help, she would have to pay someone an exorbitant amount to fix damage she’d caused.
She could accept Ryan’s help without causing a wake of problems, couldn’t she?
But if she did, then she’d have to rent a stable to him, which would likely ensure that the handsome man would be around a lot more than she could handle.
It looked like either route she chose, she’d be making one more bad decision this week.
2
Ryan clung to the forklift’s pallet platform as Carly hoisted him toward the broken light. All she had to do was keep the forks level while he replaced the fixture.
The power to the pole was turned off, but Ryan didn’t feel as though a jolt of electricity would cause him to meet his maker today. It was Carly.
Before turning the machine over to her, he had nestled the lift close to the pole, shown her how to use the levers to hoist him up into the sky, then had climbed onto the platform. So far her caution with the hydraulics was sending him upward in fits and starts. It was giving him a worse case of whiplash than when his brothers had let him tag along while teaching the ranch hand’s daughter, April MacFarlane, how to drive a stick shift in a bumpy old cow pasture.
“Almost there,” Ryan called down to Carly as she performed another bone-jarring stop. He stayed seated, one hand on his toolbox and the other on the box of supplies beside him. He should have increased his odds of survival by asking Myles to come over and help with this task. However, his brother would have undoubtedly run interference, when all Ryan wanted to do was sort out who Carly was and what she was doing here—alone. Because he was certain she was alone.
She hadn’t warmed to his stable rental proposal, and hadn’t given him a yes or a no before she’d agreed to let him fix her light. But he didn’t peg her as someone who accepted something for nothing, so sensed that if he was patient, he’d leave with a verbal rental agreement.
The forklift lurched again.
“Nearly there,” he yelled, stretching his arm out to gauge whether he was close enough to the old fixture. This time the move upward was smoother, but fast. Too fast. “
Stop! This is good.”
“Is there an emergency brake?” Carly called as he stood up. He could see her looking around at her feet, seeking an extra pedal. She seemed strangely small from his vantage point and he crouched again in case the machine began rolling backward in her distraction to secure it.
“Just keep your feet on the brake and the clutch.”
She reached to turn off the engine, the metal Texas key chain flashing in the sun.
“No! Leave the engine on so the hydraulics keep pumping or I’ll sink down.”
“Okay.”
Ryan slowly stood, one hand braced on the light pole as he glanced down. He had to be nearly eighteen feet off the ground. Taking a deep breath, he got out his screwdriver and deftly removed what was left of the broken light fixture, tossing it to the earth below.
Carly let out a squeak as it crashed beside her. Her foot slipped off the clutch, the forklift lurching and butting against the pole as its old truck engine stalled. Ryan tipped forward, his cowboy boots skidding on the precarious platform. His shoulder slammed into the pole as he reached out to hug it, just as the forklift rolled back and his feet swung off into empty air. He wrapped his legs around the pole like a firefighter, keeping his feet high for when the lift inevitably lurched his way again.
“Come back, come back,” he called.
He could hear Carly talking to herself in a panicky voice, then the engine started and revved. The forklift’s platform crashed against the pole, making everything shake.
Ryan closed his eyes and exhaled.
Was she worth this kind of risk?
“Sorry! This thing has a hair-trigger clutch,” she called.
When the platform remained against the pole, Ryan cautiously lowered his feet to it once again. “Please don’t kill me,” he muttered, loudly enough for her to hear.
“How is it you end up with your life in my hands every time I see you?” she called back, humor lifting her voice, making it sound cheery and melodious. He could have sworn he heard a hint of Jamaican rhythm in her words, highlighting her sheer joy at his predicament.