This Place Called Home: Includes Bonus Story! (Forget-Me-Not Ranch)

by Sara Richardson

  That wasn’t too promising. “I wonder if I should just buy one. Is there an electronics—”

  “Hey.” Nash rode over from the other side of the house on the horse Agatha had introduced her to last night. Fancy Pants, if she remembered correctly.

  Not that she was looking at the horse. It was the man who held her attention. Was it just her or did Nash look different sitting in that saddle? More relaxed. Comfortable. His posture wasn’t so rigid and his eyes weren’t so evasive.

  “Look how happy Fancy Pants is,” Agatha cooed. She walked over and petted the horse’s muzzle. “I don’t have nearly enough time to ride her. Oh, she does love getting out.”

  “She’s looking a tad heavier.” Nash dismounted the horse, holding the reins. “So I figured while I’m here I’d better get her out for some exercise.” He glanced at Mack and she quickly hid her bag of underwear behind her back.

  “Where’ve you ladies been?” He might not have meant to come across as suspicious, but his gaze always seemed to question her.

  “Mack needed some new skivvies,” Agatha offered before Mack could tell him they’d simply gone to town.

  Her face had to be as red as Fancy Pants’ halter. “I had to pick up a few essentials,” she corrected.

  Wait, was he trying to hide a smile?

  “Since I’ll be staying for a few days.” The subtle reminder she’d be staying seemed to even out his expression again.

  “Mack fell in love with our little town, didn’t you?” Agatha looked very pleased with herself, as though she’d had something to do with that.

  “It’s a friendly, beautiful place.” Since Nash now knew about her underwear situation, she couldn’t help but tease him back. “By the way, Dorthea wants you to stop by when you have a minute. She made your favorite cookies.”

  The corners of his lips perked.

  Wait a minute…that was almost a real smile.

  “I’ll make sure to stop by Dorthea’s before I leave. I have to give this girl some more exercise first though.” He patted the horse.

  “Mack can help you with that.” Agatha nudged her toward Fancy Pants. “Wouldn’t you love a ride? It’s the perfect way to see more of the ranch.”

  And more of Nash. “That’s okay.” Mack kept her distance from both the man and the horse. “I really wouldn’t know how to help. I’ve only ridden a horse once.”

  “Once?” the woman demanded. “You’ve only ridden one time in your whole life?”

  “I never really had the chance, growing up in the city.” And when they weren’t home, her mother gravitated toward vacations in Paris and Rome. Places where the shopping was good.

  “Well that won’t do,” Agatha declared. “That won’t do at all! You simply have to take a ride in the mountains. There’s nothing else like it. Nash can take you.”

  “No, no, no. That’s okay.” That man wouldn’t want to spend the afternoon with her. She’d already annoyed him enough. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  And only a couple of days to accomplish it, although she had a feeling that wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to figure out a way to buy more time from Nash.

  She’d already informed her father she’d be taking a month-long leave of absence from work, and, while he hadn’t been exactly thrilled, he’d also told her to take the time she needed so she could be his number one executive when she did come back. “I should get started on everything. I have a ton of emails to write. Phone calls to make…”

  Agatha’s eyes filled with the same stubborn innocence as they had that morning when she’d convinced Mack to stay for breakfast.

  Here we go.

  “If you really want to get to know the ranch so you can do all those marketing things we were talking about, you’ll have to spend some time getting to know the animals. Nash would love to teach you. Wouldn’t you?” She elbowed the poor man in the ribs.

  Mack didn’t miss his slight hesitation. “Sure,” he finally said. “I can give you a riding lesson. Fancy Pants is a great horse to learn on. She’s pretty gentle.”

  She was about to refuse again, but her father had taught her never to waste an opportunity. This was an opportunity.

  Nash didn’t like her. But if she could make him like her, maybe he’d hear her out when it came to his aunt and the ranch. Maybe he’d even get on board with the whole nonprofit idea. “Okay. Sure. I guess it could be fun.”

  “Wonderful!” Agatha snatched Mack’s bag of underwear out of her hand and all but pushed Mack into her nephew’s arms. “You two take your time. I’ll go into the house and make us all a nice big lunch.”

  She turned and fled as though she was afraid one of them would change their minds.

  Nash looked like he wanted to. A slight furrow had sunk into his forehead again.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Mack said, peeking at the horse’s long nose. Truth be told, she was a little scared of the horse. It was huge. So powerful. And she had no idea what she was doing. “You can go for a ride and I can go for a walk. I won’t tell your aunt.” That would get both of them off the hook.

  Nash studied her for a few seconds. “Are you afraid to ride?”

  “I’m not afraid.” More like a teeny tiny bit nervous. “Like I said, I haven’t been around horses much.” And that one looked like it could throw her across the meadow.

  “Fancy Pants is actually pretty easygoing.” The cowboy sauntered a few steps closer, leading the horse along with him.

  “I’m sure she’s very nice.” But that didn’t mean Mack had to sit on her. “I can watch you ride. Maybe take some pictures…” As soon as she said it, she remembered she didn’t have her phone. She would have to remedy that as soon as possible.

  As soon as she went back to Agatha’s house, she’d call her assistant and tell her to ship everything up here tomorrow. She couldn’t wait. There had to be a courier service that could make a mountain delivery.

  “So let me get this straight.” Nash eyed her with amusement. “You want to help my aunt create a nonprofit here, but you don’t want anything to do with the animals?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” She gave Jasper’s head a good scrub. The dog always seemed to park himself near her. “I really like the animals.” It was just that some of them were easier to bond with than others.

  But Nash wasn’t going to let this go, and her whole reason for agreeing to stay out here in the first place was to try and establish a rapport with him, so it looked like she’d be riding a horse. “I guess I’d be up for learning. If you really don’t mind teaching me.”

  “Of course not.” He eyed her but she couldn’t figure out what he was searching for. “Why would I mind?”

  He really had to ask? Good thing she’d never had any problem being honest. “It’s pretty clear you don’t want me to be here.”

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  Then why did he seem to focus all of his attention on the horse instead of looking at her?

  “I want my aunt to be settled and secure, that’s all.” His gaze seemed to pause on his aunt’s house. “She’s always taken care of me, and now I have to take care of her.”

  The response pinged her heart with sympathy for his predicament. “I can understand that.” He had a genuine love for his aunt, that was obvious. “But don’t you think it’s possible for her to be safe and secure at the ranch?”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  “Maybe not yet.” By the time she was done with him, he wouldn’t have any doubts.

  Talk about the perfect distraction.

  Nash led Fancy Pants by the halter, keeping an eye on the woman who’d pushed her way into his aunt’s life.

  Mack sat on the horse’s back, her head bobbing while both of her hands kept a death grip on the saddle horn.

  As long as he kept her out here, she couldn’t be inside talking on the phone and sending emails and making plans and proposals that would never come to fruition.

  The more time she spe
nt out here, the less time she’d spend getting Aunt Agatha’s hopes up for this whole nonprofit nonsense.

  If he could distract Mack long enough, she’d likely get bored and take off for some other endeavor. Kind of like she’d done at her wedding.

  And that would be more than fine with him.

  Without her around, maybe he’d actually have a shot at convincing his aunt to at least go look at some properties in town. That was why he’d come home in the first place, and now Mackenzie Benson was seriously messing with his plans.

  “Hey, why don’t we go up the trail a ways?” He tossed a glance back over his shoulder. Hell, he’d keep her out here all day if that’s what it took.

  “I don’t think so.” Mack wore a pained expression. “I know you’re holding onto the horse and everything but I feel like I’m going to fall off.”

  Every muscle in her body seemed to have tensed. Even her shoulders were bunched around her neck. “We can be done now. You don’t have to waste any more time out here with me. I’m sure you have more important things to do with your time.”

  Oh, he had more important things to do all right. But he couldn’t do any of those things until his aunt got onboard. So this outing would not be a waste if he accomplished his mission to keep Mack distracted.

  Nash tugged the horse to a stop. “I have an idea.” He reached out a hand to help her down, catching her as she slid off the horse. A subtle coconut scent washed over him, stirring up a subtle craving to pull her closer, so he quickly set her down and went about removing the saddle from Fancy Pants’s back.

  “What’re you doing?” Mack’s voice was still breathless with fear.

  “Taking off the saddle. That way we can ride bareback.”

  “We?” Her boots scuffed the dirt as she backed away from him. “Bareback? That doesn’t sound safe.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall off.” Nash set the saddle aside and readjusted the blanket that had been underneath so they would each have some cushion.

  “There’s a spot up the trail where you can see the whole ranch.” He sized her up. “The view might give you more ideas for all your publicity plans.” Or it might make her realize she didn’t belong here. He’d be more than willing to give her a little nudge back to her high heels and business suits and the luxury penthouse that probably went with her wardrobe.

  “Here I’ll give you a boost.” He cupped his hands together and nodded her over.

  After an obvious hesitation, Mack stepped her boot into his hands and he hoisted her up so she could climb onto the horse’s back. Before she could change her mind, Nash jumped, pulled, and maneuvered his way up to sit behind her.

  Too close.

  He inched some space between them so that alluring scent wouldn’t mess with his head.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” The woman sat as stiff one of the solid posts holding up the pasture fence. “What if the horse takes off running? There’s no way I can hold on.”

  “Fancy Pants won’t run. Not with me sitting on her back.” He reached past her to grab the reins, giving the horse a pat along the way.

  “And like I said, I’m not gonna let you fall off.” The last thing he needed was for her wealthy family to slap him with a lawsuit. Talk about mucking up his plans.

  That in mind, he inched his body closer to hers, supporting her back with his chest. A gnawing hunger rattled him from the inside.

  It’d been too long since he’d been close to a woman, that was all. His life didn’t exactly have room for dating, or even hooking up, and that was by design. Not with the long hours he worked.

  Damn, he couldn’t even remember the last woman he’d kissed. Maybe that’s why his senses were on heightened alert. That had to be the reason he noticed the softness of Mack’s hair, the graceful curve of her neck in front of him, and the way she leaned slightly back into his chest with a sexy sigh.

  Go. Nash jostled the reins and gave Fancy Pants a gentle nudge with his heels. They had to get moving. Then he could focus on steering the horse up the trail instead of focusing on how long he’d been deprived of a woman’s company.

  The horse clomped along the rocky ground in a slow but steady pace. Horses had good sense—especially this horse, and Nash guessed Fancy Pants could feel Mack’s fear.

  A cool breeze started up as they crossed the meadow, heading toward the dirt trail he and his dad had built the year after his mom left.

  It had given them both something to do—hard physical work, as if they could sweat out their grief. Didn’t take much to see that the work hadn’t done the trick for either one of them.

  Fancy Pants moved a little faster when the trail came into view at the edge of the aspen grove. She’d always been a trail horse at heart.

  “I can’t believe you want to sell this place.” Mack turned her head so her ear grazed his chest and she could look up at him.

  The fading sunlight seemed to catch in her eyes, filling them with hypnotic energy.

  He looked straight ahead. Focus on the trail. This was his distraction mission, not hers. It’d be real easy to let those eyes—and the closeness of her body—derail his objective.

  “Sometimes you have to be practical.” He continued peering over her head. Not that she would understand practicality.

  Judging from her social status, she rarely had to tap into logic. Her financial future had likely been secured for her before she’d even been born.

  “My job is only going to get more demanding and I don’t want to have to worry about my aunt.” He was supposed to take care of her the way she’d taken care of him. It was his turn to look out for her, to make the hard decisions, to make sure she had what she needed, and not necessarily what she wanted.

  “Maybe the most practical thing you can do is to follow your heart,” Mack suggested quietly. It was a good thing she’d turned her gaze back in front of them so she didn’t see him roll his eyes.

  He was pretty sure heart and practical didn’t belong in the same sentence. His mom had followed her heart, and it had taken her away from his dad, from him. “I prefer to build my life on logic. Rationality. Stability.” All things he’d had to learn early in life, unlike Mack.

  Shadows crept over them as they moved deeper into the aspen grove. The sun illuminated patches of green and gold dangling leaves. He sat taller, his arms coming around Mack’s waist as he turned the horse to follow the winding path.

  Not the ideal posture, but it couldn’t be helped for this more technical part of the route.

  “I thought I wanted to build my life on logic too,” Mack said faintly, like she was afraid to disturb the peace. “I’ve always been a rational person.”

  “Really?” The surprise couldn’t be helped. The first night he’d met the woman, she’d been wearing his underwear, hair sticking straight up, and she’d fallen right off the bed. Then the next morning she’d walked out in that grungy wedding dress for breakfast, and, well…he hadn’t exactly pegged her as the rational type.

  “My dad trained me to use my head,” she said. “He trained me to do a benefits analysis, cost analysis, pros-and-cons analysis. Whatever the decision was, it could always be made with the right analysis.”

  Huh. Mack’s father didn’t sound half bad.

  “So that’s what I did,” Mack went on. “For my career. For my relationships.” She straightened and turned her head to look at him again.

  The shimmer of tears in her eyes nearly knocked him off the horse. What was she getting all emotional for?

  “But when I walked into that church to get married—even though it all made sense on paper, even though we were a great match and Evan was a nice guy and came from a wonderful family—my heart just buckled. And I knew it wasn’t right.”

  Her eyes narrowed, searching his. “Has that ever happened to you?”

  “No,” he said honestly. He didn’t trust his own heart any more than he trusted anyone else’s. And what did it mean that her heart had buckled? “Maybe it was
just nerves. Adrenaline.” The same things that had his pulse racing right now…

  “You sound like my mother.” Mack turned her face forward again so he couldn’t gauge her expression.

  “All I’m saying is the heart deals with physiological responses due to the release of hormones.” Not the kind of hormones he’d noticed when Mack had been pressed again him, either. Those seemed to affect a different region of his body. “I should know. I’ve spent the better part of the last ten years studying biology.”

  Mack sighed and shook her head, clearly not impressed. “It wasn’t only physiological. It was intuition. I can’t explain it. I just knew I had to get out of there before—” A sharp gasp cut her off. “Oh, wow! Look at that. Can we stop?”

  Glancing around, Nash tugged Fancy Pants to a halt. “Look at what?”

  “That tree! Those trees!” She pointed to their left. “Look, they’re all twisted together.”

  “Yeah, so?” He studied the two large aspen trees that seemed to hold her fascination. The scarred white trunks had grown together, twisting around each other and spiraling up toward the sky.

  “It’s beautiful.” She turned her face to his again. “You don’t think so?”

  Damn those eyes. He had to avoid them at all costs. “It’s not that. I just…” Would’ve never noticed. “They’re trees.” He gave a shrug. There were hundreds of thousands of others just like them scattered around these mountains.

  “No, they’re more than that.” Mack swung her leg over and dismounted the horse, nearly falling before Nash grabbed her arm to help lower her to the ground.

  Unfazed, she walked to the aspens, reaching out her arm to run her hand along their trunks as reverently as if they were ancient artifacts. “They’re a symbol.”

  “Of what?” Nash dismounted too. No matter how hard he looked, he simply saw two trees tangled together.

  “Of love. Of strength.” She tried to shake the trunks, which of course didn’t budge. “Look at how strong they are together. Compared to all these other trees, they could withstand so much. I mean, what a unique picture of unity.”

  “Unity?” Now he was the one shaking his head. “It’s not that rare for aspen trees to grow together. They all share a root system and—”