by Liz Isaacson
After all, what did he have to offer a woman like her? No college degree. No home. No ranch. Not even a horse or a dog.
“About halfway between the city and Boerne,” he said, his mind flowing back to the wonderful childhood he’d had—at least up until he was confronted with the ugly truth about his father. “It was a great ranch. Shane, my oldest brother, had been working it as an adult for a few years. All us boys worked from the time we learned how to walk.”
He kept his eyes scanning, but it was easy to fall back into the memories of family game nights, the way his mother quoted the Bible to him every time he got in trouble at school, and how his father could tame any horse into the best animal in the world.
Now he sat behind a desk, with a new wife at home, with an occasional text to the three sons he’d abandoned. Dylan wondered if his dad ever thought about the Royal Ranch he’d left a half a million dollars in debt. Did he miss the homestead, with it’s new hardwood floors he’d spent a month teaching Dylan how to install, sand, and finish?
Did he miss the time he spent outside, under this gorgeous Texas sky, with his horses following him around like puppies?
Did he ever think he’d made a mistake?
If he thought any of those things, Dylan didn’t know about them. He’d been eighteen when life as he knew it had crashed and burned, and he said, “My dad made a lot of bad decisions. Terrible mistakes. Our family broke up. My mom lives in a condo in San Antonio now, and works as a secretary in a doctor’s office. Shane kept the three of us together, and we worked at a neighboring ranch while everything was sorted out with the bankruptcy, the divorce, and the sale of everything we had to pay my dad’s debts.”
Hazel sucked in a breath but otherwise said nothing. Dylan gathered his courage close, reminding himself that these weren’t his mistakes. His terrible decisions.
“We lost everything we’d spent our lives working for,” he said. “We landed at Grape Seed Ranch about four years ago. Four and a half, something like that. Shane’s co-foreman now, and if he ever gets up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend, he’ll move out of our cabin and into her tiny house.”
He drew in a breath, suddenly glad to be talking about this.
“Not everyone can have a big house,” Hazel said.
Dylan chuckled, finally reaching for her hand and squeezing her fingers as their palms met. “No, she really lives in a tiny house. One of those that you can hook up to a truck and tow it behind you. She’s got it parked on a patch of land over by the Rhodes’ peach orchards.”
“Oh…interesting.”
“It is interesting,” he said. “She’s a minimalist. Produces very little trash. That kind of thing.” He liked Robin a lot. She’d always been kind to him, and she had a great sense of humor. Not only that, but she was absolutely perfect for Shane, who’d changed drastically in the year since he and Robin had started dating.
“So.” Dylan exhaled. “I have no ranch of my own. They’re expensive, as I’m sure you can imagine. I live on-site, because room and board is included in my pay. We lost our horses, our land, our dad.” His emotions choked him, and he hated that they’d snuck up on him like that. Most of the time, he didn’t miss his father. Only if he allowed himself to remember who’d taught him how to check a horse’s teeth, or who’d sat by him all night in the barn when he had the flu. His mother had always quarantined the boys outside when they got really sick, and his father had always been the one to nurse them back to health.
“But you have a great ranch family now,” Hazel said gently. “A job you like. And I’ll help you find a German shepherd when we get back to town.”
Dylan paused, drawing Hazel in front of him. “So—” He cleared the emotion and insecurity from his voice. “So you think you’ll still be interested once we get back to town?”
She blinked at him, the moon highlighting the shape of her face and the disbelief in her expression. “Dylan, of course I will.”
His heart started tromping around in his chest, thumping and thundering like he’d never experienced before.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, tilting her head as she studied him.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Slowly, he put his free hand on her waist and drew her closer. “Maybe I’m a little nervous.” His pulse was screaming Very nervous. I’m very nervous! He lifted her hand and placed her palm against his heartbeat. “See?”
She gazed at her fingers on his chest, wonder running through her eyes when she met his again.
“Are you scared of me, cowboy?” She spoke in a sexy whisper that made Dylan’s fingers tighten along her waist.
“Terrified,” he whispered, ducking his head. If she’d just stretch up a half a foot, he could kiss her.
She inched that way, sliding her hand from his chest to his throat and along his jaw. Sparks popped along his skin there, and he breathed in the warm peach scent of her hair.
When their lips were only a knuckle apart, their breath mingling, a growl filled the air.
Dylan whipped the rifle around his shoulder at the same time he stepped in front of Hazel. “They’re back,” he said, not bothering to keep his voice down.
“Switch me,” Hazel said. “You’re better with the darts than I am.”
In a flurry of motion and movement, she loaded the dart gun with five sedatives this time and took the rifle in exchange for the dart gun.
“Don’t point it at me,” Dylan said as she started swinging it around. “Out there. Keep it out there. Even just firing it will scare them off. You don’t have to hit one.”
“You do,” she said. “The big one.”
Dylan’s hands shook the tiniest bit and he took a moment to steady himself. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Let us get this over with quick, he prayed. A clean hit.
He not only wanted it to go well for Hazel, he really wanted to get back to what they’d been about to do before the night got too late.
The coyotes didn’t seem to be afraid of him at all. He strode toward them, the dart gun in front of him, lining up the sight on the animal’s chest. The leader bared his teeth, that growl warning Dylan to stop. He did, took a breath, held it, and released the dart. The coyote yelped, sending the other four scattering, and bounded twice before falling down.
“Got it,” he said, handing her the dart gun and taking back the rifle. “We’ll need to be fast once we go over the fence. There are four more out there that aren’t sedated.” He scanned the darkness for them, but couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them.
“I’ll get the tracker ready before we go over.” Hazel stepped past him, and he wondered if her heart was crashing around inside her chest the way his was. Not only from the thought of going over the fence and leaning over a hundred-pound coyote with four still on the loose, but from the thought of kissing him.
She worked with quick and able fingers and nodded at him. He went over first, landing on the other side of the fence and waiting, listening, the rifle held at the ready. “All right,” he whispered, and she joined him a moment later.
He liked a woman who could climb eight-foot fences without help. And a woman who marched toward a fallen coyote, bent over, shaved a patch of fur on the shoulder, and implanted a tracker. The whole process took three minutes, during which Dylan didn’t let his guard down for a second.
Back on the other side of the fence, he finally allowed himself to breathe. “Wow.”
Hazel giggled, the sound made more of nerves than anything else. “Yeah. Wow.” She tucked her equipment back in the zipper pouch she wore around her waist and tossed her dark curls over her shoulder. “Should we head back?”
A kiss under the moonlight wasn’t going to happen, not unless Dylan wanted to grab her and plant one on her right there.
He did, and he didn’t. “Yeah, let’s head back.” At least he got to hold her hand for the short walk back to the cabin, but it was a consolation prize to what he really wanted.
Chapter Ten
Hazel bust
led around the small kitchen, making coffee. Dylan had retreated to his favorite couch. He’d fallen quieter and quieter the closer they got to the cabin. Now he sat silently looking at something on his phone.
Sure, they didn’t have WiFi or access to the Internet or email, but he could be reading or playing a game.
Her throat felt like someone had taken her tongue out and tied it in a knot before putting it back in. He’d shared his deeply personal story, and she’d tried to soothe him with “you have your ranch family now,” and “I’ll help you find a dog.”
But he obviously still carried a lot of baggage and emotion over the loss of his ranch and family, as he should. He hadn’t said how long ago it was, but it had to be years and years. He’d been at Grape Seed for almost five years, and had worked somewhere else before that.
She’d seen him put cream and sugar in his coffee that morning, so she fixed him a cup and took it to him on the couch. “Here you are.” She sighed as she sat next to him.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting the mug and taking a sip. “Ready to go back tomorrow?”
Hazel swallowed her own creamy, sweet coffee and groaned. “No. Are you?”
“Birthday party tomorrow,” he said. “And yeah, it gets a little lonely out here.”
“Even with me here?”
He reached over and curled his hand around hers. “No, you’ve made it bearable.”
She half snorted, half laughed. “Oh, I’ll put that on my resume. Makes camping bearable.”
Dylan chuckled too, and Hazel knew he’d either fall asleep on the couch or head to bed if she didn’t start talking.
“So I went to beauty school as soon as I graduated from high school.” She removed her hand from his and leaned forward to set her coffee mug on the floor before tucking her feet under her body. She was already keyed up and didn’t need the extra stimulant.
“I had a salon in my home in Alabama, but….” She exhaled, really pushing the extra air out of her lungs. “Since I wasn’t part of the family business, things were a bit strained. They’d call me when they needed help. Didn’t understand when I couldn’t just run over with a missing hose or call a client. That kind of stuff.” She braided her fingers together and then released them.
“It was like they didn’t get that I wanted a different life. My own life. All of my relationships are better now that I don’t live there.”
“When did you move to Texas?”
“About fifteen years ago.”
“So the same time my life fell apart.”
Hazel twisted toward him and removed his hat from his head. “You’ve put it back together nicely.”
He ran both hands through his hair and nodded a couple of times. “Go on.”
“So I came here and I had a salon in my home. There’s a utility room off the back entrance.” Hazel’s hands started to shake, as she suspected they would. At least her coffee was safe on the floor.
“I met a man,” she said, instantly sobering, and wishing her lungs and voice didn’t tremble quite so much. “We fell madly in love, and got engaged. Everything was perfect. The wedding was only three months away.”
Dylan calmed her hands by covering them with his. “Deep breath,” he coached, and Hazel pulled in air through her nose, praying for help to get through this story.
I like this man, Lord, she thought. Please help me get through this.
“I had just finished with a client one day when he showed up at my house.” Hazel felt removed from her body, like her past self was reliving the situation while this future self talked about it.
“He said he couldn’t go through with the wedding.” Her emotion prevented her from continuing, and she couldn’t believe Peter still had this power over her, six years later. That alone angered her to the point of tears. She sniffed and wiped her face, nestling her hand back in his with a quick smile that wasn’t an indication of her happiness.
“It’s silly, I know.”
“It’s obviously not,” he said, watching her with those blue, blue, blue eyes. “He was obviously very important to you, and he’s obviously still capable of making you cry.” He lifted his hand to her face and ran it lovingly down her cheek.
She leaned into his touch as he whispered, “I don’t like him. I don’t like that he can make someone as witty, charming, and beautiful as you cry.”
“I’m not really crying over him,” Hazel said. “I promise, I’m not. I’m angry that I’ve let him have this affect on me for so long.”
“How long?”
“It’s been six years now. I only used the salon as much as necessary to put myself through college. I’ve been working for Texas Parks and Wildlife for three years now.”
“What’s his name?”
“Peter.”
Dylan’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and he said, “I need a haircut. Would you do it?”
Hazel gave a short laugh and nodded. “Yeah, sure.” She leaned into his chest, and he lifted one arm and put it around her shoulders. His other hand kept both of hers occupied as he ran his fingertips up and down her fingers, palms, and wrists.
“There’s more,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ve been dumped before. This is more than that.”
Hazel swallowed and forced herself to say, “When I asked him why he couldn’t marry me after eighteen months of dating and a year of our engagement, he said he couldn’t be with a stylist. That someone like him—he was a banker—was expected to marry higher than someone who ‘just cuts hair’.”
Dylan nodded as another angry tear leaked down Hazel’s face. “So you became someone else.”
“I tried.”
“You said you loved your job.”
“I do, yes.”
“Did you try to get Peter back after you graduated college?”
Hazel wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. “He wasn’t interested. Had been dating someone else for a couple of years. I don’t think they ever got married.” As soon as Hazel said it, a flash of light illuminated her mind. “He’ll never get married, will he?”
“He doesn’t seem like the type to settle down, no.” Dylan played with the ends of her hair which fell over her shoulder. “I mean, I don’t know the guy. But if I found a woman I was madly in love with, I wouldn’t be engaged for over a year. You know?”
Hazel knew now. With the candles flickering and the warmth of Dylan’s body next to hers, Hazel finally calmed completely.
“And I can help you get your salon up and running again, if that’s what you want.”
She exhaled, sinking deeper into him. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Fair enough. I want a German shepherd. I think my life will drastically improve with a German shepherd.”
Hazel grinned, glad he’d taken this moment and made it light again. “We’ll get you one,” she promised.
When his chest lifted and rose in an even rhythm, she slipped from beneath his arm and perched on the edge of the couch, twisting to watch him sleep. He was a gentle giant of a cowboy, even without his hat, which still lay discarded on the couch where she’d set it after removing it.
She stretched across him and trailed her fingers along his forehead, whispering, “I’ve never told anyone about Peter.”
He didn’t twitch or otherwise respond, and Hazel added, “Thank you for listening, and not judging me.”
She rose from the couch, sending a prayer of gratitude to God too that she’d been able to tell the story at all. She didn’t feel tired, but she did feel dusty, so she decided to get in the shower before bed. The hot water helped center her even further, and she wrapped herself tightly in a towel, peeking out the door to make sure Dylan was still asleep before she tiptoed around the doorjambs and into her bedroom.
He wasn’t on the couch. She couldn’t see him anywhere in the main room, so she flung the door open and hurried from bathroom to bedroom and shut the door behind her. Dressed in her pajamas and with slightly damp hair, she went to get one of the last chocola
te chip cookies. She and Dylan had rationed them throughout the week, keeping them in the refrigerator to keep them as fresh as possible.
They each had one left, and she’d planned to eat hers in the morning for breakfast.
Two steps outside of her bedroom, she caught sight of Dylan’s broad shoulders as he sat at the bar. “What are y’all doin’ up?” she asked as she padded toward him in bare feet. “I thought you went to bed.”
He turned toward her, half a cookie remaining in his hand. She tipped her head back and laughed, completely eradicating the confessions and awkwardness that had settled in the cabin since her story.
“I was just coming to get my cookie.” She stopped next to him, nudging him with her hip. “Did you eat mine too?”
“’Course not,” he said around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie. He swallowed. “It’s in the fridge.” His eyes felt like two-ton weights as they followed her around the peninsula and into the kitchen. “You showered?”
“Was feeling a little dusty. A little on-edge.” She ignored the leftover coffee in the pot and reached for the fridge. “The hot water helped both of those.” With her cookie in hand, she joined him at the bar.
“We’re sleeping in tomorrow, right?” he asked.
“Do you actually know how to sleep in?”
“Sure.”
“Then, yes.” She yawned before taking her first bite of cookie. “Let’s sleep in tomorrow. What time do they expect you back?”
“No one expects me back,” he said. “I show up when I want. What about you?”
“I won’t go back to the office until Monday.” She grinned at him, the chocolate making her feel even more like herself. “Thanks for listening to me tonight,” she said. “I’ve never told anyone about Peter before.”
“I know.” He glanced away. “I heard you.”
Her stomach dropped to her feet and rebounded again, a little higher than before. “Oh, I see how it is. Feigning sleep so you could eavesdrop on me.”
“I had no idea you talked to yourself so much.” He chuckled. “I’m just a light sleeper. My mom used to lecture me about it. Play the piano a half an hour after I went to bed, trying to teach me to sleep through noise and touch. She failed, obviously.” He flashed her a grin, and Hazel’s worry about what he’d heard vanished.