by Caroline Lee
Ellie was still chuckling, with her hands clasped in front of her mouth, and occasionally letting out little squeals or sighs of excitement as Indy balanced the egg on her nose for a particularly long time. “How in the world did you discover this talent of hers? I mean…” She pulled her attention away from the dog long enough to raise a perfectly sculpted blonde brow at Will. “A giant egg?”
“Have you met Jaclyn yet?” Will grinned when Ellie looked confused at the change of subject.
“The sweet little old lady who lives near the RV Park?”
“Yep. Did you see her collection of garden gnomes and whatnot?” At Ellie’s nod, Will’s grin spread. “Well, on holidays she goes all-out with the decorations out there. A few years back, Wes stole one of her big Easter eggs from the garden, and stuck it on my porch, thinking she’d be angry at me. But by the time I figured it out and went to return it, Indy had already claimed it.” He chuckled at the memory. “When Jaclyn saw how much that dog enjoyed her new toy, she said that Indy could have as many giant plastic Easter eggs as she wanted, and the rest is history.”
Ellie chuckled again. “Well, that’s amazing. Like, really amazing. If I hadn’t left my bag inside, I’d record it and post online, because this could make anyone happy.” Her attention back on the dog, she gasped. “Did you see that? She must’ve balanced that for a good five seconds!”
But Will wasn’t watching Indy. Instead, he was staring at Ellie’s profile, thinking about how her joy had made her even more beautiful. She was almost glowing, and that band seemed to tighten around his chest again. When had his throat last been this dry? “Drink?” He managed to croak out, before he swallowed and tried again. “Can I get you something to drink?”
After they went inside, he opened the fridge and offered her a bottle of root beer. She raised her brows as she took it. “How did you know that’s my favorite brand?”
Will wasn’t about to tell her the truth; he’d asked Kelsi. He couldn’t admit that he’d asked his sister about Ellie’s preferences because Kelsi had gotten a really strange, thoughtful look on her face when she’d stared at him, and he’d had to poke her shoulder until she told him Ellie’s favorite soda brand. Obviously his little sister was busy wondering, and he didn’t want to give either her or Ellie any more reason for speculation.
So he just shrugged and said, “Lucky guess?”
Her “Hmmm” told him that she wasn’t convinced, but she twisted off the bottle cap and took a big swig anyhow. The way her blue eyes twinkled made him smile too, so he pulled out another root beer and toasted her.
“Before dinner, do you think you could show me the programs you’ve set up?” After all, that was the excuse he’d used to get her over here, wasn’t it?
“Sure.” Ellie looked around. The table was already set for dinner, but she scooped up her bag with the laptop. “The dining room, maybe?”
“How about the office? I really never use it. Wade would probably be ecstatic to think of me sitting in an office and looking at…” He waved the bottle. “Whatever it is managers look at on computers.”
She snorted a giggle, and inclined her head. “Lead on then, boss.” But as she followed him, she continued. “Sounds like your family doesn’t think you make a very good—”
He was almost disappointed to not hear what she was going to say, but her surprised gasp when he opened the door to his now-unused office distracted him, and he tried to pinpoint the reason. The room was clean, with a nice oak desk Dad had gifted him on his twentieth birthday, back when the whole family had hoped he’d be able to “settle down” and do a real job on the ranch. There were two nice windows that overlooked the backyard—Indy was still back there going nuts with her egg—and that let in a nice amount of the evening light. But what about the room had made her gasp like that?
Will didn’t have to wonder long, though. Ellie brushed past him to place her root beer on the desk, and squat down in those sexy heels. Oh. She was looking at his paintings.
“Will Weston, are these yours?” At his embarrassed nod, she tugged one small canvas forward, and pulled out another, reverently lifting it as she stood. “I didn’t know you were an artist! These are lovely. Like, really, really good.” Her fingers skimmed over the oil paint, and his throat got tight again.
Hiding his discomfort, he shrugged and took a swig of root beer. “Not really, but thanks. I used to paint more when I was younger. But I could never really capture it, you know?”
“No, I don’t.” Ellie pressed the canvas against her chest, and looked down at the others, two dozen or so stacked against the wall. They were all of the same scene, his favorite bend in the Roiling Rapids River. He loved the way the water turned all white and frothy as it ran into the rocks there, and could sit and watch it for hours. It was almost as if the water became clouds, and every single second was a different reason to fall in love with it. He glanced down at the cold bottle in his hands.
Being there, watching the river, was the only time he could ever remember being at peace while standing still.
“Will?” Ellie’s voice was quiet, and he glanced up to meet her too-knowing gaze. “These are perfect.”
He snorted. “They don’t look anything like the river.”
“They don’t have to.” Her fingers traced the rapids he’d picked out in paint, but didn’t drop his gaze. “You’ve captured the spirit—the passion—of the river. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She finally looked away, glancing down at the canvas she held and swallowing. “Your love of the water really shines through. I can feel it.”
Love of the river. Will had never met another person who understood him so quickly, so perfectly, and he knew that he was in trouble. She was leaving in less than three weeks, going back to L.A., and he could feel himself falling hard for her anyhow. She understood him, in ways that even Jace or his brothers couldn’t. And she’d seen what he saw in the river, within moments of opening up to her.
Yeah, he was in trouble alright.
“Why don’t you set up your computer and show me what I need to know?” Will’s voice sounded gruff when he changed the subject, but she’d seen the unnamed emotion simmering in the ice-blue depths of his eyes, and didn’t blame him. He wasn’t talented in the conventional way other painters were, but there was something about his style that had really captured the wild and turbulent essence of his river. She doubted that his talent would extend beyond painting the rapids, though, because it was based in his love of the water and its unpredictability, not on any actual understanding of artistic techniques.
Still, she sent him a gentle smile to let him know that she understood, and traced the frothing white-caps of the rapids once more. The white of the water was tinted with just the faintest of blues, and to Ellie it matched his eyes perfectly. She sighed, knowing that she’d just fallen in love with a painting of a river.
But not a man. No, he was her employer.
He pulled a second chair over to the desk, and Ellie powered her laptop on and walked him through the programs she’d set up for handling the scheduling for the lifeguards. He seemed to struggle to understand even the most basic of the systems, but she kept her patience and went over everything a second—and in one case, a third—time. Once he was able to go over the program by himself, she showed him how it could be useful for the rafting tours, with a few tweaks.
While she took a break to sip her almost-empty root beer—how had he known her favorite brand?—she watched him close his eyes and rub the little spot between them. He looked…tired in a way he hadn’t looked a half-hour ago. Stressed. Unsure of himself, and she didn’t like it. She wanted to take away his stress and his worry, and she told herself that was a completely natural way for an employee to feel; that’s what she’d been hired to do, after all.
“See?” She pointed to a part of the spreadsheet. “Once we have another three people on the white-water staff, I think that’ll clear up this problem. You and Zack and Soap—Wait. Why do you call him So
ap?”
Will’s chuckle sounded forced, and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. When he began to rub his temples, Ellie had to clench her empty hand into a fist to stop herself from reaching out and offering to do it for him. “He’s a great guy, but Zack’s been his roommate since high school, and is always complaining about how bad he smells. So one day before they started working here, Zack started weighing his—Soap’s, I mean—shampoo bottles. Like, on a kitchen scale.” He snorted once, and then sat up with a sigh, as if forcing himself back into the conversation. “Turns out that the shampoo weighed the same at the end of the week as it did at the beginning.”
“He wasn’t using it?”
“Apparently not. So the nickname ‘Soap’ stuck. Now everyone uses it.”
Ellie couldn’t help herself; she began to giggle at the outrageous story, and was relieved to see Will’s face slide into his easy, wry grin. His tension seemed to ease, and soon he was chuckling with her.
She was suddenly struck with the thought that it was very, very easy to laugh with Will Weston, and that could be a problem. So she turned back to the laptop, and pointed again. “Anyhow, you and Zack and Soap can stay on the rafting runs. It would make sense to start training one of the new hires too, if he or she doesn’t already have experience. That way you wouldn’t always have to be on the river, and could—” She glanced at his horrified expression, and hid her smile. “I mean, in case you were sick or something. Not that you’d ever willingly leave the water, I know.”
When he growled something under his breath and sank back against his chair with a sigh, she didn’t dare react to his obvious upset. Instead she continued. “But it does make sense to have a back-up guide just in case. With these new hands, the three of you could focus on the tours, and you’d have someone dedicated to the boathouse and the rentals, and someone else driving the bus back and forth, and helping put in the rafts before each tour, rather than in the morning.”
She knew her plan was logical, and smart. And she knew that he knew it too. So why was he rubbing that spot between his eyes again, looking dejected? “…Will?”
He started. “Yeah? I mean, yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. I think that’s a great plan.” He blinked rapidly and rolled his neck. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, but she knew something was.
“Are you okay?” Four years in the hotel industry meant that she didn’t beat around the bush when it came to getting answers.
That’s when he met her eyes, and she knew that she’d been right. She saw frustration and…and shame in that gorgeous ice-blue gaze. “Yeah, I’m fine.” But then he sighed, and she longed to touch him, to pat his arm, if nothing else. “It’s just that this sort of thing gives me a headache.”
“I understand. Staring at a computer screen—especially tiny spreadsheets!—can give anyone a headache. I often—”
“No, I mean, even just thinking about all this gives me a headache. Scheduling. Hiring new people. What to do with them, and how we’re going to use them. I’m just not…” He sighed again, and pushed himself away from the desk, standing up. “I’m different from the rest of the Weston clan, I guess.”
“Oh.” There wasn’t much else she could say. Her older brother had been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Disorder at a young age, and she wondered if that’s what Will was trying to tell her. Elvis hadn’t been able to focus on anything involving schoolwork or mathematics, and now that he was grown he was happier away from any of that stuff. Maybe Will just wasn’t cut out to be the manager his family obviously expected him to be.
“Well, then. We can go over this more later.” She forced a smile, but he was staring out the window with his hands on his hips, probably looking at Indy playing. Thank goodness she didn’t need to be coherent any longer, because from this angle, she got a really good view of his backside, and had to fumble for her root beer. She’d been surprised as all get-out when he’d opened the door earlier looking exactly like her dream cowboy. Down to the boots—who knew they made lavender cowboy boots?—and the button-up shirt and the big belt buckle and the jeans that seemed to hug him in all the right places.
Staring at his butt right now, Ellie found herself being jealous of a pair of pants, and wasn’t that just ridiculous?
“This isn’t what the ranch is really about, you know?”
“What isn’t?” She tried to pretend like she hadn’t been ogling his read end, and began to save and close her programs.
“Spreadsheets. Computers. Personnel management, or whatever.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s about the land, you know? The mountains and the grazing pastures and the forests and the wide-open spaces.”
“And the river.”
“Yeah.” He paused, his hands now resting on the sill. “And the river. And you’re not going to understand the ranch, and what the ranch needs, sitting behind a computer.”
She had to take a swig of root beer to clear her throat. “What do you suggest?”
“Come out with me. On the river.” When he swung around to face her, she felt like a butterfly pinned under his intense blue eyes. “So you can really understand it.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded. How could she ignore an impassioned plea like that? “When?” she managed to croak out.
“Friday.” He didn’t even have to think about it. “We’ve only got one half-day trip booked that day. Unless someone else calls, I can have Joey cover the boathouse, and you and me and Indy can go out for the whole day.” His eyes lit up, and her heart began to pound at the thought of spending an entire day with him in his element. “Please?”
Well, she couldn’t deny his eager expression. “Sure. That sounds…really fun.” She wasn’t lying; it had looked like fun, when she’d seen the proud and exhausted faces of the guests who’d paddled up to the boathouse yesterday. “I can’t wait.”
“Awesome.” His wry grin was back. Only now, she wondered if the wry grin was directed at himself, and if he found himself lacking. “Are you hungry?”
“Hmmm? Oh, yes.” Yes, she was hungry, but she was beginning to suspect it wasn’t for dinner.
“Well, I’m not the best cook, but I’ve got a good-looking salad and some steaks marinating. If you’ll keep me and Indy company on the back porch while I grill ‘em, I figure we could be ready to eat in a half hour or so.”
She shut the laptop, smiling. “Steak and salad sounds amazing right now.”
He held the door open for her. “What do you like on your steak? Salt, steak sauce? Horseradish?” His nose wrinkled at the last word.
“Actually,” she laughed, “Blue cheese and horseradish are my favorite.”
“Together?” He sounded horrified, and she giggled harder.
“No, no. But I’ll take either of those. And salt, of course!”
“I’d be disappointed otherwise.”
They were both chuckling when he gathered up the grilling implements, and she grabbed two more root beers. The laughter continued throughout the grilling, as Indy entertained them, and Will pointed out his hammock posts—“Out from under the trees, so I can see the stars”. And then, dinner was a casual affair, the two of them swapping stories about their childhoods and adventures. The steaks were delicious.
By the time he walked her back to the Ranch House, the backs of their hands brushing tantalizing against one another when they stepped too close, Ellie knew she’d never enjoyed an evening as much as she’d enjoyed tonight. And, as she stood on the front porch of his family’s ancestral home-turned-Inn, she found herself holding her breath. Would he lean in for a kiss? Should she encourage him?
Ellie tucked one of her big hair-curler-assisted curls behind her ear, and tried to tamp down the butterflies in her stomach. She shouldn’t hope for a kiss—he was her employer!—but she couldn’t help flicking her tongue against her lips, just in case.
But he just leaned in for a hug, and she hugged him back awkwardly, trying not to notice how good he smelled or how hard h
is chest was. And failing. When he pulled away, his smile friendly but not sensual, she tried to get her breathing under control. Three more weeks, girl. Then it’s back to L.A. and the life you love.
But as she stood at the porch railing and waved goodbye to him, she found herself wondering if a life in Los Angeles was really what she wanted. Because she was already looking forward to Friday.
An entire day, rafting down a beautiful river with a gorgeous man at her side? She could hardly wait.
CHAPTER FIVE
She was wearing that sundress again—that little red one with the white hearts picked out in the swirly pattern that reminded Will of one of this father’s handkerchiefs—over some kind of halter-top bathing suit. Holy moly, he could look at her all day, the way she sashayed around in that dress—and Will had never, ever met a person who “sashayed”—throwing sticks for Indy and laughing when the dog refused to give them back.
He’d gotten that kicked-in-the-chest feeling when she’d arrived at the boathouse that morning, but luckily he didn’t make too much of a fool out of himself. Zack had helped him load the smallest raft and the provisions into his truck, and Joey already knew his duties for the day. All that was left was for Will to stutter and stammer his way through greeting her, and getting Indy to sit still between them for the ride up-river.
As he’d explained, they were going farther than their typical put-in landing, so that they could spend an extra two hours on the water. She spent the time scratching behind Indy’s ears and oohing over the views. Will slowed around each bend, just so that she could get a good eyeful. Because honestly, the way she sucked in delighted little gasps at each new sight of the river was enough to make his skin tingle.
She might be a L.A. girl, but he loved that she could love the river as much as he did. Now, to make sure that she had fun on the water too.
So, as hard as it was to drag his eyes away from the lovely woman playing with his dog on the banks of his home, he forced himself to prepare for the trip. The raft was small enough that he could handle it himself, since the truck was parked so close to the put-in spot. While Ellie and Indy played, he loaded it with the cooler, the waters, and the other supplies.