by Liz Isaacson
She didn’t need to repeat what had happened in the city.
Keep it a secret.
Words that Scarlett had said to her that morning, regarding the cow cuddling Cache had been doing in the pasture right across the lane from her cabin. Apparently, he’d been working with his cows for a long time, and she hadn’t known.
But now, her brain was suggesting she keep her relationship with Cache a secret. She scoffed out loud. There was no relationship with Cache.
“Yet,” she muttered under her breath. And maybe if she could get him to ask her to dinner again, she could suggest they go, sure. But that no one else could know.
Satisfied with that solution, Karla was finally able to get some work done.
“Girl, you have lost weight,” Vic said when Karla walked into the restaurant where they’d agreed to meet for lunch.
She scoffed. “I have not.” She hugged her friend. “If anything, I’ve gained ten pounds feeding everyone on the ranch.”
“You were always a genius with feeding large groups.” Vic nodded to the hostess, and she grabbed two menus and took them back to a table. “I miss that about you around the office.”
Karla put a smile on her face and nodded. “I don’t miss much about the city,” she said. “I can handle coming for a meeting, but I don’t want to live or work here.” And not only because she might run into Jackson.
“How’d the meeting go?” Vic asked, getting situated on the bench across from Karla. “You’re working with that animal sanctuary, right?”
“Right,” Karla said. “It went great. I love the people there. They have a real passion for saving abandoned or injured animals.”
Vic smiled and nodded, and Karla needed to change the subject. She loved her friend, but Vic didn’t understand how Karla could leave the city and be happy. Sometimes Karla couldn’t believe it either.
“So there’s a new band I’m into,” Karla said, and Vic’s face lit up. She enjoyed lunch with her friend, but she didn’t ask any questions about Karla’s life. Didn’t ask if she was seeing anyone new, or had made any friends, or if she liked the cabin she’d been living in for almost a year.
As she hugged her BFF good-bye, Karla couldn’t help but think that the relationship had turned…hollow. Just like everything else in her life.
She kept the radio off as she drove back to Last Chance Ranch, hoping some inspiration would strike her. Or maybe lightning. At this point, Karla would take almost anything.
As she drove up the dirt road to the ranch, she noticed someone had put a pair of bunny ears on the robot that stood sentinel at the entrance. She smiled at them, a little ray of hope in her otherwise dreary existence.
She wasn’t sure why they were there, as Easter had come and gone last month. But it didn’t matter. Karla drove down the road to the back of her cabin, parked, and got out, the bunny ears reminding her that even the simplest of things mattered.
She mattered.
To who, she wasn’t sure, but she could start with Scarlett and Hudson. They depended on her to get promotional activities ready for the ranch. Maintain the website. Feed the people on the ranch.
They needed her.
Even if God had abandoned her. Even if Jackson had left in the middle of the night. Even if she’d walked into her job one morning and walked out an hour later, all her stuff in a pathetic, brown box.
Her phone chimed, and she pulled it out of her purse to check it.
Hey, Karla, Cache had texted. Do you have a sec? I need to talk to you about something.
A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
Cache needed her, too.
Chapter 3
Cache glared at Scarlett, but he’d sent the text. “She had a meeting in the city,” he said, hating himself a little for even knowing Karla’s schedule. “She won’t be back yet.”
“I just saw her pull up,” Hudson said without looking up from him phone.
“Why are you being weird about this?” Scarlett asked, pure curiosity on her face. “You’ve worked here for years, and you’re never anything but cheerful and fun.”
“Okay,” Cache said with more dryness in his voice than a desert. He was not always cheerful and fun. Take right now, for instance.
“Seriously,” Scarlett said, moving into the kitchen and starting to load the dishwasher with their breakfast dishes.
Cache sighed even as his phone went off. “She said sure. Should I have her come here?”
“No,” Scarlett said. “Meet her at her place. She has an office.” She finished with the dishes and faced him again. “What’s up with you and her?”
“Nothing,” Cache said, and that was the absolute truth.
“That’s the problem, dear,” Hudson said, still tapping on his phone. “I have to go. My dad wants me to do help him with something at the stables tonight. I’m okay to go?”
“Yes, go,” Scarlett said, and Hudson kissed her quick and walked out the front door, leaving her with Cache. And a load of questions in her eyes. “Is he right?”
“No,” Cache said. “Yes. I don’t know.” He glanced away, the darkness he’d been feeling lately starting to crowd into his soul. He heaved a big breath, because Scarlett was still staring at him. “I asked her out. She said no.”
Scarlett’s eyebrows shot toward the sky. “She did?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
Now that Cache thought about it, she hadn’t really answered at all. “She sort of just laid there, all cuddled up to the cow. She never really said.”
“Maybe you caught her off-guard.”
“You mean the way you did to me when you told her about the cow cuddling and didn’t mention it to me?” He glared at his boss, not really angry, but wishing he’d been able to reveal his cow cuddling methods in a different way.
“Yeah,” Scarlett said, shrugging. “Like that. Look, just go talk to her about it. I want this program up and running this summer. I feel like we’re wasting money with it.”
She hadn’t been out to the pasture once, so she wouldn’t even know. But Cache didn’t say that. He just pulled out his phone and texted Karla that he could come to her place and her earliest convenience.
I’m free now, she said. Come on over.
He’d always been attracted to her positivity. Her quick smile. The joy she radiated as she stood behind the table and served hundreds of people without ever running out of food. How she said he could come over right then, after she’d been to meetings and driven through city traffic.
How anyone lived in LA was beyond him. He could barely stomach the people in Pasadena, and Last Chance Ranch itself had a hundred people who came to work there each day. He looked at Scarlett again, marveling at how she’d grown this place in just a few years. He’d come on pretty early in the process, before the volunteer house was done, before the administration buildings, before the full-time veterinary clinic.
He was happy for all the help, as the workload he and the other cowboys had shouldered in the beginning was back-breaking. He liked the sense of family and camaraderie he had with the other men in the Community, but there were a lot of faces he didn’t know on the ranch these days.
And more to come, if Scarlett got her way and cow cuddling opened up this summer. And Scarlett would get her way.
“Fine,” Cache said, though he wasn’t really angry with her. “I’m headed over there now.”
“Good,” Scarlett said. “Keep me updated.”
Cache had just opened the back door when she added, “And Cache, maybe ask her out again? Give her time to answer.”
“Sure.” He’d given her plenty of time to answer last time, and she’d just stared at him. He wasn’t going to further humiliate himself for no reason. The woman knew he was interested. She could ask him this time.
He crossed the lawn and knocked on the door, hearing Karla call out, “Come on in,” a moment later.
He went on in, getting a blast of cinnamon and sugar
with only one step inside her house. Her cabin was the same layout as Gramps’s, but hers was much cleaner, with freshly painted walls and actual countertops that weren’t covered with stuff.
She wasn’t there, and Cache wasn’t going to go traipsing down the hall. Karla appeared a few seconds later, adjusting the hem on her T-shirt as if she’d just changed. Cache’s mouth went dry at the sight of her wearing a tight, tight, tight pair of jeans and that sky blue T-shirt with the California flag on it.
“Hey,” she said with a smile. “I put some snickerdoodles in the oven a few minutes ago. Can’t have a meeting without cookies.”
“Actually,” he said. “You can. I’ve been in plenty of meetings without cookies.”
Karla laughed, and Cache wished it didn’t make his heartbeat ricochet around inside his chest.
“How did you know this would be a meeting?” he asked next, moving cautiously into the kitchen area with her. She had a long bar that ran from the living room toward the kitchen sink, and he kept that between them.
“I suspected,” she said. “Plus, I need cookies after my day today.” She threw him a weary look, and Cache knew he shouldn’t have asked her to meet right then. But Scarlett wouldn’t leave the issue alone.
“We can do this another day,” he said.
“It’s about the cow cuddling, right?” She donned a pair of oven mitts and bent over to check the cookies.
Cache didn’t mean to stare, but she had curves in all the right places, and he couldn’t look away. Her very presence revved him up, and he didn’t want to be calmed down.
“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat, but it was still so dry. “The cow cuddling.”
“I’m going to need you to explain it to me,” she said. “I’m supposed to start on a website, and we’ll need to talk about length of sessions, price, how many people, time of day, all of it.”
All stuff Cache hadn’t thought about at all. “I’ve been really focused on training the cows to lie down and stay there while people touch them,” he said. “It’s not natural for them.”
“Why would someone want to do this?” Karla asked, using a spatula to move the cookies from the tray to a cooling rack. She didn’t put any more cookies in to bake and moved the rack to the island where Cache stood. “Eat.”
He took a cookie, the flakiness of it making his mouth water. Or maybe that was all the sugar and cinnamon filling his nose. Or the gorgeous woman in front of him. She was definitely the reason for his fantasies springing to life.
“Apparently, people need a city escape,” he said. “Get back to their roots. Experience nature without having to camp or drive too far.”
“Last Chance Ranch is perfect for that,” she said. “We’re five minutes up the road.”
“And a lot of people already know about us from the goat yoga,” he added.
“So this will go on the front page of the ranch’s website,” she said. “And we need to build a site of its own.” She glanced at him. “Right?”
“I would think so,” he said. “Or just a page on the ranch’s site.” He honestly had no idea.
“Goat yoga has its own,” she said. “I’ll ask Scarlett about it, but we want people to be able to find us when they search. If it’s too buried….” She shook her head and picked up a pen. Scrawling notes on a tall pad of paper, she took a bite of her cookie.
Cache watched her chew, a few grains of sugar stuck to her lips. He wanted to kiss it off, and instant heat flooded his body.
She turned you down, bro, he told himself. Do not ask her out again.
He picked up a cookie and ate half of it in one bite, just so he wouldn’t have to talk should she ask him something.
She finished writing and looked up at him. Their eyes met, and Cache only continued to breathe and blink because they were involuntary functions. Karla straightened, something firing in her blue eyes he’d seen a time or two before. They’d flirted a few times since she’d come to the ranch, and she’d worn this playfulness several times over the months.
No wonder Cache thought she was interested in him. She looked interested in him.
She flinched and focused back on her notepad. “How much would you charge for this?”
He swallowed the cookie and wiped his mouth. “A lot. I think the article I read was charging people three hundred dollars for a couple of hours. It was a couple’s session too.”
“So one-fifty for two hours, per person.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds right.”
“How many people do you need to run the program?”
“Uh.” Cache didn’t know what she meant. “I guess just me?”
“You’re going to do all of the sessions?”
“Scarlett wants this up and going this summer,” he said. “The cows only respond to me. I don’t have time to train someone.” He didn’t even want to train someone. He felt extremely protective of his cattle, as they were all he had left from the family dairy farm in Nevada. He’d watched Carson Chatworth get over the loss of his ranch in Montana, but he’d found himself a wife pretty soon after that, and Cache felt certain Adele had helped a lot in that transition.
Cache still felt like he was transitioning.
Exhaustion pulled through him, and he still had band practice that night.
“I’ll talk to Scarlett,” Karla said, and that only added fuel to the simmering anger in Carson’s gut.
“No,” he said, drawing Karla’s attention. Her eyes widened, and she straightened again. “I get to decide who works with my cows. Not Scarlett. We’ll have to do the sessions when I’m available.”
“And when would that be?” Karla asked coolly.
Cache clenched his teeth. “I don’t know. I’ll look at my schedule and let you know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Sorry, Karla, I have to go.” No one had texted him, but she didn’t need to know that. “I have band practice tonight.”
Not a lie. He could stay for a lot longer, and maybe if they cuddled on the couch, her giggling as he told her what had happened with the llamas that afternoon, he would stay.
But the tension in her cabin was enough to make his teeth ache, and he couldn’t stand to be there for another moment.
“Thanks for the cookies.” He started for the front door, hoping the air outside wouldn’t be so full of Karla.
“Cache,” she called after him.
He turned with his hand on the doorknob. “Yeah?”
She opened her mouth to say something, but she just stood there. Cache really wasn’t in the mood for this, and he twisted the knob.
“It was good to see you,” she finally said, and he gave her the best smile he could. It was tight and sat wrong on his face, but he ducked outside a moment later and she couldn’t see him.
It was good to see you. Her words echoed in his ears, giving him false hope. He didn’t care. False hope was better than none at all.
Chapter 4
Karla bustled down the road to Gramps’s, where the two pans of pizza casserole should be coming out of the oven any minute. Adele would take the casseroles out at her place, and then Karla just had to make it back to hers. Cover everything with tin foil. Put in six more trays.
Lunch would be ready on time, and she smiled to herself.
Yes, she spent a crazy amount of time making lunch for hundreds of people. But not everyone came, especially the volunteers, who were the bulk of the people who came to Last Chance Ranch every day.
Karla honestly hadn’t planned to make lunch today. She had several action items that needed to be started from her meeting yesterday, and this whole cow cuddling thing to wrap her mind around.
But she wanted to see Cache again. Plain and simple, he was the reason she’d gotten up at six-thirty and started boiling water for penne. She couldn’t admit that to anyone, and making lunch for the cowboys was something she did regularly. No one would think it out of the ordinary, and she’d get to see Cache.
“
Hey, Gramps,” she said as she went inside his cabin. She didn’t knock anymore, and the old man smiled at her.
“Karla, the oven hasn’t gone off yet.”
“It will,” she said, stepping around a couple of trash bags. She’d take those out after lunch too. “You’re coming for lunch, right?”
“Oh, Hudson will come get me, I’m sure,” Gramps said. Hound lifted his head from Gramps’s feet, probably at the sound of his master’s name.
Karla opened the oven and checked the casseroles. Nice and cheesy and bubbly. She pulled one out and replaced it with a cold one. Repeating the action, she had two more dishes in and two out. After removing the oven mitts, she covered the finished casseroles in tin foil and wiped her hair out of her eyes with a big sigh. “Thanks for letting me use your oven, Gramps.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, and Karla grinned at him.
“Okay, lunch in an hour or so.” She started for the back door again, unsurprised when Hudson’s dog came with her. “I’m going to take him, okay?”
“He needs to get out,” Gramps said, standing. Karla hurried back to help him, as he often needed just a few seconds to stabilize on his feet. “I’m going to come sit in the shade.”
“All right,” she said, employing her patience. It would take three times as long to get back to her place with Gramps and get him set up in the shade of her cabin until lunchtime. It’s fine, she told herself. She didn’t need to rush all over the place, even if she’d chosen a hard dish to feed eighty people.
The real rush would come when she had to make the garlic bread. But she knew a trick—butter the long French loaves first. Cut second. Broil third. She’d used to do the broiling second, and then she was dealing with hot, sizzling garlic butter as she tried to cut the loaf into pieces.
But not today. Today, she’d have that hot, buttery bread on the table when the cowboys showed up.
“How’s the family?” Gramps asked, taking the back steps one by one.
“Good,” Karla said. “Lisa just got engaged, so I’ll be headed back east for her wedding.”