by Belle Knight
She backed away from both sheep, her back to the open paddock gate and whistled again.
This time there was an answering bleat.
King sprung up onto his hooves, flecks of dirt and grass spotting one side that would easily fall off in a few hours. Both King and Gandalf swiveled their full attention onto that bleat, which was exactly what Ashley had been hoping for.
Rams were dangerous and never to be trusted, but ewes—bottle raised, named, petted, and trained by whistle to come to her for their treats—ewes were different. Plus, if there was anything that could distract a ram from a fight, it would be an ewe.
Tension sizzled in the lines of King’s body and as soon as he locked onto the sound of the ewe, he galloped straight into the paddock and for the back fence. Ashley wasn’t stupid, she loved her ewes, so she had separate paddocks and tall, double-fencing to keep her ewes safe from King until Ashley was ready for them to breed.
Keeping up her shield and stick, Ashley didn’t dare look away from Gandalf and King until they were fully in the paddock, but she was pretty sure Marcie was the one who had answered her whistle-call. Marcie was always the most eager for a treat though the other two girls would likely be on her heels soon.
Working quickly, Ashley tossed aside her battle gear, dragged the gate into place, and locked everything up. She checked it all twice before she allowed herself to really breath again.
That had been a little too damn close.
Whooping noises made Ashley turn. The bus full of tourists—men and women in jeans, flannels, dresses, and nice shoes—stood almost in a line at the little hillside ridge above the paddock.
They were cheering—her.
The group broke into applause and Janice whooped again.
Ashley rolled her eyes but couldn’t help break into a smile. It must have been quite a funny show from up there. Metal garbage lid, broken broom stick, striped blue rain boots, two rams, and woman who should know better.
She hiked up the hill and strode forward, trying to somehow channel sheep girl, warrior, and cheesemonger all in one. She knew the importance of making a good first impression and she thought maybe that’s what had just happened.
“There she is, ladies and gents,” Janice called out from the back of the crowd. “The sheep-wrangling, cheese-mongering legend of Storm Weather Dairy Farm. Now with that exciting introduction, the tour can truly begin. And just so you know, we’ll be tasting cheese today made from Ashley’s very own hands and lambs. So head this way and let’s get this cheese party started!”
Ashley flushed under all the attention and stared down at her rain boots now almost completely covered in muck. But then she told herself this was exactly the kind of attention she needed, so she forced herself to stand tall and look back out on the crowd.
About half were following Janice’s directions and milled toward the dairy shop door. A few headed for the restroom. Several men in jeans and flannel shirts stood looking out across the ranch’s little valley. Her asking prickled. Something about them didn’t sit quite right with her. They wore aviator sunglasses and big frowns, neither of which matched their clothes or the festive air of the other bus riders. They stared down at King and Gandalf, who were both sniffing and testing the fencing.
Ashley was glad to see things looked calm down there and that the fences were holding strong. She dismissed her odd feelings about the men and headed for the hose spigot to give her boots a quick rinse off, but stopped when she felt this electric energy zing down her spine.
She turned and caught the bluest eyes she had ever seen staring down at her.
He was tall, head and shoulders taller than her. He wore a dark collared jacket over a light-colored shirt that framed a muscular body, a strong chin, and strong eyebrows. Laughter and conversation faded away to nothing until the only sound was a bit of breeze that ruffled his dark, close-cropped curly hair. He stared at her like he was devouring her.
Ashley took a deep breath, settling her heart, squaring up her shoulders, and meeting his gaze like she wasn’t drowning in it right then.
“What?” Was all she could think to say.
She cringed. He was a guest, a tourist. For all she knew, he was the banker she needed to impress today. But his gaze unsettled her.
She liked the way he was looking at her and suddenly had this urge, this incredible, shocking urge to step real close to him. She most definitely could not allow that.
No, there was no room for that sort of thing in her life right now. So she used her words to put distance between them.
“Is there something on my face? Why are you staring like that?”
“I could ask you the same.” His voice was low and deep and almost silky. It sent another zing down her spine.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, you’re staring at me too.”
She felt confused, how did this turn into a staring contest? It was some sort of weird attraction-challenge.
But. It. Didn’t. Matter.
There was no time for this. Except, she couldn’t be the first to break the stare. It was like with King. Somehow, she knew she would lose if she looked away first.
“That was some fine dancing down there.”
“What?” Ashley said again.
“With the ram.”
“What’s your name?” The staring became almost unbearable, intoxicating, it was like the whole world was vanishing around them and both of them were pretending it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Darius,” he said, after what felt like an eternity.
“I’m Ashley.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?” Ashley said, suspicion now flaring in her mind, but that didn’t tear her gaze away, oh no, she was swimming in that blue and imagining all sorts of things they could do to each other under the cover of water.
“Your friend announced it, remember?”
Right.
Two of the aviator sunglass-wearing men strode between Ashley and Darious, breaking their sizzling connection.
Ashley took satisfaction in their tie. Just as well.
“Where’d you get that ram?” The taller one asked.
Ashley released an inward sigh of relief and reoriented her thoughts. Her body was still buzzing from the adrenaline rush of surviving King and Gandalf. That was all. She was susceptible right now to attractive men. Impressionable.
She stepped back from all three of the men. At least she hadn’t looked away first. She still felt how Darius’ eyes had seemed to see all of her, like she was standing in front of him naked.
“Head on inside now,” Ashley said. “Tour’s going to start and I’ll answer all your questions in there.”
“The ram,” the taller one said.
Ashley frowned and noticed Darius did his own frowning. She didn’t owe anyone information about anything, not that it mattered where she had gotten King. It was all legal.
“Just a livestock swap,” she said finally, not sure why it made her uncomfortable to talk about it.
Ashley waited, legs planted on the ground like she was getting ready for another ram to rush her, but both men headed inside. Her body relaxed an inch, until she realized Darius was the last one outside with her.
Not willing to fall into another staring trap, she avoided his gaze and headed for the hose bib.
“Need help?” Darius said.
Ashley laughed as she unwound the hose.
“Why is that funny?” Darius said, a curious note in his voice.
“My boots are covered in sheep shit. You may want to step back before I ruin your nice clothes.”
“I’m not afraid of getting dirty.”
Something deep in her belly flipped. Shit. She glanced up and caught him staring at the curves of her body and felt that zing again. There were many ways to interpret his words and she was pretty sure he meant all of them.
She shook her head. Well, she’d take care of that right quick. Most people though
they could handle farm life right until the moment they came up close and personal with farm shit.
She turned on the hose and began spraying off her boots, not even trying to keep the spray from hitting him. He would step back eventually, they all did.
Darius stepped closer, surprising her. He pointed to the back of one boot. “Missed a clump right there.”
“Thanks,” Ashley said, unsettled now.
The way her body reacted to him made him dangerous. The banker was still inside somewhere. She had her first cheese tour and tasting to give. She couldn’t allow herself to get distracted.
Shifting her weight to allow the hose to reach the right section of boot, she felt it when it happened—a little slip of traction on the wet ground. It sent her legs splaying out and the hose spraying wildly.
Darius stepped in close, despite the shit and the hose spray, to steady her by her shoulders. His hands felt warm and delicious. His clothes barely did a good job of covering up a great deal of chest muscle.
She shifted away, scared of how him touching her would make her feel, while angling the hose away—and goddamn slipped again. But barely moved at all this time because he was right there, holding her up against his length, so close, his hands at her waist now because goddamn it she had fallen into him. He was hot and hard against her back and her body jumped into a response as if it had a mind of its own. Warmth pooled low in her belly and she felt an ache.
The hose sprayed a mist that created a rainbow in the sunlight. Something frenzied and wild rose up inside of her. She felt the hard muscles of his stomach, his hands, and a large knot in his pants that pulsed once against the flesh of her butt cheeks.
Instead of stepping away like she knew she should, she nestled in, arching her back to press that hot, bulging knot of his deeper into her flesh through her clothes.
He groaned, almost silent, and it raised the pitch of her feverish wildness even higher. His mouth was right next to her ear, his hot breath tickling her neck and she thought she was going to melt like butter right there into the ground.
The heat and emptiness started in her low belly and spread out, demanding to get filled up.
“Sheep-wrangler, cheese-mongering woman.” Darius dragged in a deep breath, slow and seductive, like he knew exactly what affect he was having on her. “I think its time to get you inside. We need to taste some of that delicious cheese I keep hearing about.”
Ashley silently cursed herself for pretty much throwing her body at him. Scratch that—actually, literally, throwing her body at him.
She finished up with the hose, quick now, taking deep breaths to cool herself down, and ducking her head in embarrassment. How stupid was she? She had no idea who this man really was and her dreams were riding on her doing a good job today. She couldn’t afford to blow it because some guy drove in on a bus.
Hot guy, a very hot guy, who drove in on a bus and didn’t mind getting dirty either.
Nothing like the town men she’d met in the past.
Nothing like them at all.
When she finished curling the hose up and knocking excess water off her boots, she stole a quick glance in Darius’ direction. He stood there, back to her, looking down at King and Gandalf, because, she suspected, he was trying to get control over that hot bulge in his pants.
Something about that thought was very satisfying.
She didn’t like how upside down he’d made her feel with all of two seconds worth of touching.
She hoped he at least had the decency to feel upside down too.
Chapter 3
Darius cursed himself and every stupid decision he had ever made, up to and including offering to help Ashley the cheese-monger, sheep-wrangler to help clean her boots off.
Help clean her boots off? What the fuck?
He was here to do a job. One simple job. And she would hate him for it if she ever found out.
He kept his back turned to her now to better compose himself. He could not, would not, look at her right then. It wasn’t safe. So he stared down at the paddock containing those two rams and wondered again at the scene that had played out below.
Trash can lid and broomstick? Who was this woman?
Some kind of wonder—he felt that truth deep in his body.
And it was his job to ruin some of that wonder.
He sensed more than heard when Ashley finished shaking off her boots and went into the dairy shop. There was a coldness that swept over him at her absence. He needed to get in there and get a better sense of her and this place—and then get gone. But first he had to make sure the bulge in his pants was completely gone.
He repositioned his jeans, wincing at the tightness, and remembered the way her shoulders had felt slim and strong under his hands. She had slipped in the mud and fallen right into him and he had felt the warmth of her waist and the way his hands had cupped her curves, her hard stomach, the way she had fallen into him, nestling herself onto his—
This was not helping.
He hoped he hadn’t scared her off, though he suspected she wasn’t that easy to scare. He hadn’t meant for things to get out of control like that.
He stared hard across the little valley, forcing himself not to think about her, forcing himself to get back to the job at hand and the way this job was going to ruin the spark of something he wanted very much to explore further. He had to take all his attraction to her and stuff it down, lock it up, and throw away the key.
He was using the tour today to get a sense of the area. He expected the job to be straightforward—take out the ram, provide the Italians with proof, get the blackmail information on his father destroyed.
The problem was, he hadn’t expected Ashley. Her presence shook him in a way he hadn’t expected—and didn’t like.
Scratch that. He liked it all too much.
The job hadn’t been that big a deal when he’d signed on for it. He was a convenient mercenary for hire because he wasn’t afraid of trouble, thanks to his Army days. He was convenient because the people who hired him had information that would bankrupt his father’s Vermont dairy farm.
Darius didn’t quite care about that part. He’d told his father years ago that he was only inviting trouble by smuggling in straws of illegal breeding semen—acting like European laws didn’t matter. Europe, especially Italy, was serious about that sort of thing. Sometimes deadly serious.
When his father had gotten caught this last time, it was not by the authorities, but by someone much worse, a smuggler who didn’t like competition. It was his father and mother’s lives—or else Darius was to go out on the hunt for the semen.
It was laughable, farcical, even. Murder for the sake of some ram semen? But the gun one of the Italians had pointed at his mother’s head was no joke.
So he was here because it had taken too long to track down the last straw of semen. Someone had used it to inseminate several ewes, not even knowing what they had.
All offspring had been destroyed except for this last one. King.
King could not be allowed to breed, not when Darius’ mother was at risk.
The ram Ashley had managed to buy had come from a straw of semen that should have never, ever been allowed to cross into the United States. There were a dozen such straws that had been smuggled across the border and he’d been tracking them all down over the past year.
King was the last traceable progeny from that smuggled straw. This line of sheep had been bred for generations back in Italy to produce twice as much milk for longer than the standard six months per year. It would be a catastrophe for the European Sheep Cheese market if the US got on any sort of level playing field.
With Darius’ head now back in the game and his erection settled enough to make him presentable, he headed inside. The shop was small, with barely enough room for half a dozen people, and it smelled like stinky cheese. Strong, woody, barnyard, ripe.
Cheeses were laid out artfully in wheels and wraps underneath a glass display case, but all the tourists were
in the back room.
He followed them, the smell only intensifying, and noticed the decorative details in the shop. Little rosemary satchels, laminated and framed magazine articles about the dairy farm, dried flowers hung on the walls, woven baskets hung from hooks as if ready for someone to go collect some eggs.
It smelled like home and made him ache in a way he hadn’t felt for a long time.
“I call it The Wonder.” It was Ashley’s voice, floating out from the middle of a group of tourists.
It startled him, having her use the word he’d internally used to describe her.
It took him a long second to realize it was the name she had given her cheese.
As he approached, he noticed the white walls, the sloped floor, the dairy pasteurizer, plastic cheese molds, a working table. Everything an artisan cheesemonger needed to make good cheese.
Ashley stood in those blue striped boots like she owned the floor, and she did. There was something about the way she smiled and talked that drew attention to her like a bee to a flower. He couldn’t help but notice his own attraction for her, but also the way those two men were hovering. A fierce stab of jealousy pierced him, but he controlled himself because what was the point? He wouldn’t be around long enough to start or finish anything.
That was the problem, as his father always told it, and any of his ex girlfriends would agree.
He never stuck around.
But he knew why that was—he had never felt like any place was really home, not after the falling out with his father.
“You see, people here in the United States are used to goat and cow milk cheese,” Ashley said. “Which is all fine and beautiful. But if you really want your cheese to sing to you, it’s got to be 100% sheep’s milk. Did you know sheep’s milk naturally contains double the fat and protein that cow and goat milk contain?”
There were murmurs of surprise from the group.
“The Wonder really is something like you’ve never tasted before—nutty, savory, rich, and buttery. Come around now and grab a piece.”