by Claire Adams
Either way, it was going to be something different, which was what I was looking for. Anything that helped me write this novel was good.
“Shit,” I muttered, eyes going back and forth from the glowing face of the GPS to the road. It was recalculating, which meant I’d made a wrong turn somewhere down the line. I was going down a barren country road, no other cars or people in sight. Just the mountains and acres of empty, rolling grassland. It was really beautiful, but freaky too. What would happen if my car broke down out here?
I rolled my eyes at my own ridiculousness. I had a cell phone, didn’t I? And I’d left the airport less than an hour ago. It might have felt like I was days away from civilization, but I could probably walk to the nearest town if I had to. I really needed to stop overreacting.
I had to hook a quick U-turn to get back on course. Somehow I’d missed my turn. These country roads were confusing, and there didn’t seem to be signs anywhere. Thank God for my GPS, though it seemed to be having the same trouble I was with all this empty space.
When I left the airport, my estimated travel time was 50 minutes, but by the time I finally managed to find the Ogden Ranch tucked into its own little corner of nowhere, it had been double that.
I pulled off the paved road and onto a long dirt road, driving under a metal sign announcing the name of the ranch in uppercase letters. It was just like in the movies, I was pleased to see, and the cage in my stomach opened wide, letting out all the butterflies. I checked everything out on the slow drive down the long driveway that appeared to go on for a mile. There was so much open land. It was a shock to the senses for a New Yorker like me. My apartment didn’t even have a balcony. If I wanted to spend time outside, I went to sit in Central Park. But you couldn’t get away from the outdoors here. How did anyone live here without feeling isolated? I wondered how long it would take an ambulance to get here after you called 911. If you screamed, would anyone hear you? The thought gave me a chill.
The main house came into view, along with a barn and another smaller storage building, all of it extremely rustic but well-kept. The entire property was tidy, from the wooden fence running along the perimeter, to the buildings, to the grass itself. I could see horses roaming in a pasture in the distance and, beyond that, a herd of cattle. Cattle! I’d never even seen a cow up close before. Did they milk them here? There didn’t appear to be a lot of them, so I hoped that meant they didn’t do any slaughtering. My eyes fell on the horses again, one of them prancing across the field it was in. I might even get to learn how to ride one of those! This was going to be such an amazing experience. It had really been a stroke of good fortune running across that advertisement online. According to Eric, this was a working ranch, not some cushy place for city folk like me to cool their heels for a couple thousand dollars, playing rancher by day while they sipped martinis and had fancy hors d'oeuvres at night. This place was the real deal.
As I got closer, I could see what looked like two cowboys having a conversation on the porch, beers in hand. I squinted through my glasses to see them better, wanting to take in every detail and save it for the novel I’d hopefully be writing in a few short weeks. They turned their attention to me, watching as I drove up the long driveway and parked behind a dark gray pickup that was already sitting there. Both of the men were tall and lean in their jeans and striped shirts, with the long sleeves rolled up to show off their tanned, muscled arms. Was this really what the men looked like in Wyoming? Because, if so, I was going to end up liking it out here quite a bit more than I’d expected. I couldn’t help but notice that only one of the men was smiling—the one with the golden blond hair, which I could only see because he wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat. The other man was squinting at my car, a bewildered expression on his face that made me question whether I was at the correct place. But that was ridiculous. I’d literally driven right under the name of it. Ogden Ranch.
I got out of my rented four-door sedan—that was another thing I was going to need to get used to during my visit; I only used the subway in New York City—and started up to the house as the men were coming down. I put a huge smile on my face as I got closer, and the three of us met in the middle, the blond man grinning up a storm while the other man kept his face screwed up tightly in what appeared to be complete confusion.
They were both fine as hell. I made sure to look them all the way over as I approached. The beaming one looked like the perfect boy next door—blond hair he wore clipped short around his ears and the back of his neck, but long on top, gleaming dark eyes that looked good enough to fall into, a broad chest that matched the muscled length of his legs, and a smile that could knock you back a step, surrounded by a few days’ worth of blondish stubble that glowed golden in the strong sunlight. The second, less friendly-looking man was no less handsome. He might have even been more so, with a rugged look to him that stole my breath away. His eyes were narrowed by the confusion coloring his face, but I could see enough of them to know they were a deep forest green, perfectly offset by the tanned, slightly freckled skin that surrounded them. He had dark eyebrows that matched the 5 o’clock shadow partially obscuring his strong jawline, but I couldn’t see his hair at all under his cowboy hat. He looked like he’d stepped right out of one of the old western movies that my father used to watch. I couldn’t help comparing him to a young, muscly Clint Eastwood, only with green eyes instead of blue.
The minute I opened my mouth, it was impossible to get the words to stop flowing. These men were just too damned gorgeous to look at. If I didn’t keep speaking, I was going to collapse into a puddle of nerves at their feet, which I excitedly noticed were clad in dusty cowboy boots. These guys were the real deal!
“This place is even better than I expected!” I cried, and the frowning cowboy’s face convulsed. My voice was too damned loud, but it got that way when I was nervous or excited. “I’m so glad I found it. Thank you both for your hospitality. It’s so isolated out here, not like the city at all. I shouldn’t have any trouble knuckling down and getting some research done.” I swept my hand around me, indicating all the empty space and mountains, the wide open sky above our heads that seemed somehow rawer than it ever did in the city. I couldn’t wait to see the stars tonight without all the lights getting in the way. “I can see this ranch is no joke. I might even be able to get the entire first draft of my novel written between now and October!”
The blond man still hadn’t stopped smiling, even as the other man’s face hardened, so it seemed carved from stone.
“I’ll be happy to acknowledge you both in the book, of course,” I said, tittering weakly, anything to keep the silence at bay. I was about to launch into another campaign to convince them of the love at first sight situation going on between me and this ranch, when the grinning man stepped forward, offering his large, calloused hand for me to shake.
“Hi, Hailey,” he said, a bit of a twang to his voice, though not very pronounced. My name on his lips made my heart flutter. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m Eric Matthews.”
My eyes widened as a real smile sprang to my lips, and my insides loosened, not unknotting all the way, but close. I’d been emailing back and forth with this man for days. It was always a relief to put a face to the electronic correspondence. So much of my life consisted of phone calls with disembodied voices and emails that I sent out into the ether of cyberspace. I preferred this—face-to-face contact—but my life just moved too quickly to have that all the time.
“It’s so great to meet you, Eric,” I said, pumping his hand up and down much harder than was probably necessary before letting it go. “I’m Hailey Young.”
“I guessed as much,” he replied, a teasing sparkle in his big, dark eyes that made my stomach do that fluttery thing again. “Girls don’t usually turn up on the property out of nowhere.”
I laughed more than the joke warranted, but he seemed pleased by my attention. I looked past him at the other man, who cleared his throat and stepped forward to offer his hand, though he
didn’t seem very happy about it. His hand was enormous as well, wrapping around my much smaller one, his palm even more calloused than Eric’s had been. From what I could see of his chiseled limbs, it was obvious he spent hours every day working on this farm while the sun turned his skin golden. There weren’t many corn-fed boys like him wandering around the city. I planned to enjoy myself while I was out here in the middle of nowhere, especially now that I saw the kind of eye candy I was going to be dealing with.
“I’m Cash Ogden,” he said in a low, gruff voice that perfectly suited him.
“Pleased to meet you, Cash.” I flashed him a sunny grin that he didn’t return.
He cut his eyes away, glancing over at Eric and looking furious. Eric, to his credit, never lost his smile. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but the tension was palpable. I was busy drinking up every detail of this sprawling ranch and its surroundings, the story building itself in my head now that I had the setting. All I had to do was walk around this place to get inspiration. I wanted to ask how quickly I could learn to ride a horse, but now didn’t seem like a great time for that. Cash looked ready to end Eric’s life, though the latter man’s buoyant mood seemed unaffected.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re doing here, Ms. Young,” Cash said, glare lingering on Eric for a moment longer before he turned his blazing green eyes on me.
“I reserved the extra bedroom,” I stammered, but the hard expression on Cash’s face didn’t change. If anything, he only seemed more annoyed, his posture going rigid while I watched. My wide eyes jumped from him to Eric. “For the next several months…?”
Finally, Cash shook his head, but I was already talking before he could get the chance to send me packing.
“I can pay for three months upfront,” I blurted. And when that didn’t appear to impress him, I added, “In cash.” My cheeks colored because I hadn’t meant it as a joke on his name, but that was how it sounded. Even Eric chuckled like I’d done it on purpose. “I told Eric I could pay three months at a time when we were emailing, but he said that would be up to you to decide.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Cash said, but not to me. His hot eyes were burning into Eric, who wasn’t even paying him any attention. “That was mighty nice of him.”
“Is there a problem?” I asked, deciding to just come right out with it. “If I’m not welcome here, I—”
Eric cut in. “Of course you’re welcome here; right Cash?”
Cash clearly felt the opposite, but he only said, “Can I speak to you for a minute in the house, Eric?”
“Sure thing,” he said, just as easy as you please. “Excuse us a moment, Hailey.” He gave me a winning grin before following Cash up onto the porch.
I watched their backs disappear into the house and the door slam behind them, my face pressed into a deep frown. This place might be perfect, but the owner sure as hell wasn’t, no matter how easy on the eyes he was. He was one of those hard western types, which probably meant he was a sexist who thought women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen with a screaming child stuck to each leg. I knew the type, and I wasn’t going to let it torpedo this trip. Eric seemed nice, so maybe I could just deal mostly with him. I could even find a way to make this work for the book by including an unfriendly misogynist as a character to challenge the female lead.
I breathed in a lungful of the fresh Wyoming air. Yes, I was definitely going to make this work.
Chapter Five
Cash
Same Day
As soon as the door slammed behind us, I rounded on Eric, my fists clenched. I hadn’t taken a swing at him since we were in school—even then it was mostly just us messing around—but I was highly considering laying him right on his ass, anything to wipe the smirk off his face.
“You wanna tell me what the hell is going on?” I demanded.
He grinned wider, which pissed me off more than I already was. “You see that blonde hair and those blue eyes?” He made an appreciative noise as he shook his head. “I didn’t know what she’d look like, but, goddamn, I never expected this.”
“Who the hell is that woman?” I asked. Eric tended to go off on tangents that could last entire conversations if you didn’t keep leading him right back to the point. It sounded an awful lot like the woman outside—Hailey Young, she’d said, her eyes shining like I should’ve recognized the name—thought she was staying here. No one stayed in my house, not even Eric, who was a damned slob. If he stayed late to help around the ranch, he might crash on the couch, but those times were few and far between, mostly because I had my way of doing things and didn’t want to compromise. This was my house, my ranch, and that was that.
“Your boarder,” Eric replied like it was so obvious any damned fool should know. “She seemed sweet as sugar when we were going back and forth via email. I had no idea she was going to be a knockout. That’s one hell of a bonus.” He whistled low through his teeth, and I wanted to draw back and punch him right in the middle of his face. Instead, I kept my clenched fists by my sides.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” I said, shaking my head. I thought I did understand, but I couldn’t see how Eric would do such a thing without at least asking me first. This was my place, not his. He had no right to go renting out rooms. There was still a chance this was some kind of mistake. There were other ranches in the area.
“Remember when we talked about God delivering a woman to your doorstep?” Eric asked, lifting a sandy blond eyebrow.
“Yeah, I do, but it doesn’t quite sound like God had much to do with this. It sounds like this shit was all your doing.”
“Alright, listen,” Eric said, sighing and dropping the grin, which made me want to hurt him a lot less. “I put an ad online about renting a room in your house.”
The storm broke over my face, my features twisting with anger so suddenly, I wanted to put one of my fists through the wall. Eric hurried to continue his explanation, knowing full well that when I got furious like this, it took a minute for me to regain access to the words I wanted to say.
“I know you have the extra space. This place is built for a good-sized family, but it’s just you. I also know you took a big hit when all those animals fell ill. You need the money, and she’s willing to pay the rate I advertised. That’s a good chunk of change, and all for letting some sweet little lady cozy up in your place.”
I bit back most of the fury to speak, my words coming out in a deadly whisper. “I can’t believe you went behind my back to rent out a room in my own goddamned house without asking me first. Who the hell does something like that?”
Eric went on, a small smile curling the ends of his mouth like he hadn’t heard a word I’d just said. He was the one person my anger just couldn’t reach most of the time. I could sling the vilest threats, and he’d just keep on rolling, not bothered in the least.
“You haven’t come right out and said you need the money, but it’s obvious you do. You let go of your farmhands and work 16 hours a day to keep this place going all by yourself. It’s not healthy, Cash. I help you out as much as I can, but I have my own job in town. You’ve always been too damned proud to ask for help, and I’m tired of watching you struggle. I did this to help you.” He stared me in the face, the look in his dark eyes defiant.
It was only late afternoon, but I was too damned tired for this. I’d gotten up at 3:30 that morning to start working for a few hours before Eric showed up around 10. I’d done the same thing for the last several weeks, busting my ass because I couldn’t afford to hire help. If things didn’t start turning around, I was going to have to sell off a chunk of land, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. My grandfather left me this ranch, and I didn’t intend to lose even a tenth of an acre.
“I didn’t just bring out any old person,” Eric said, continuing in a softer tone after I didn’t jump to argue with what he’d just said. “I screened every applicant, even paid for a company to run credit checks to make sure Hailey was good for the mone
y and then to run a background check to make sure I wasn’t inviting some criminal out here to stay at your place. I didn’t really mean for this to involve a gorgeous woman, but when I got Hailey’s email, I knew she’d be perfect.”
“I don’t even know this woman!” I whispered, not wanting to raise my voice. She could be standing on the porch, trying to overhear everything we were saying.
“She’s an author from New York City,” Eric said, and my face twisted at the mention of where she was from, but he just kept going. “And she’s got a book to write about cowboys living on a farm out West. But she doesn’t know anything about how a ranch is run or what real cowboys do. That’s why she’s out here, to do research.” He grinned, but I still felt stunned and pissed off at the intrusion. “Cowboys don’t get much realer than you, Cash.”
I shook my head, rubbing the back of my neck, where it ached from the day’s chores. “It’s not like you expect me to show this woman around for the day, which would be bad enough, especially considering you never asked me. She mentioned prepaying for three goddamned months!”
“Think of that money!” Eric replied.
“This isn’t even about the damned money. You keep trying to get me to go out on dates, mentioning girls from town and what they’re doing. Now you’ve gone so far as to invite some strange woman from thousands of miles away to live on my ranch for months at a time. It’s too much, Eric, and I’m tired of it. I like my life the way it is—simple. I don’t need the complications playing landlord will bring.”
“I don’t see how this is a problem. She has $3,000 cash to give you upfront for three months.”