“Oh, my God,” she said as she quickly sat up making the water slosh over the side of the tub and land on Ginny making her yelp and run out of the room.
“What’s wrong?”
She turned to look at Trent. That gorgeous face, those dark, dark eyes, and that black hair made her close her eyes and take a deep breath.
“Nothing,” she said when she opened her eyes and looked away from him.
“Sounded like something. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I…just thought about missing more work,” she stammered. God will strike you down for lying!
“I’m sure it’s fine. Connie is your aunt after all.” He pulled her back against him.
“I only help out at the diner. I work for Jake. I train barrel racers for him.”
“You never told me that,” Trent murmured.
“I never thought about it. It’s not a problem is it?”
“No, of course not. Why would it?”
“Because…I don’t know. Yes, why would it?”
“I take it Connie is your mother’s sister. They look alike except for the different hair color.”
“Yes, they’re close too, just like I am to my sisters and our cousin.”
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Two. Deidra is the oldest at thirty, then Darissa, who we call, Rissa, at twenty-eight, and our cousin, Sloane, who is like a sister to us, is thirty-three.”
“Are they as beautiful as you?” He kissed her neck.
“We’re very similar in looks since we have the same coloring. I miss them, and I really wish they’d move here. Deidra is an illustrator for children’s books, and Rissa is a barrel racer like I am, but Nolan wants her to quit again. He’s an ass.”
“Again? Why would he want her to quit at all?”
“Because he’s so damn jealous. He thinks she flirts with all the cowboys at the rodeos. I think their relationship is on a downhill spiral. Rissa has about had it with him. I don’t think she loves him anymore and sometimes she sounds so sad when I talk with her on the phone. It makes me wonder if there’s more going on that she’s not telling us. She actually broke it off with him about three months ago, but he talked her into going back to him. None of us like him. Deidra just broke it off with Harry because she found out he was married. She actually followed him to his house and introduced herself to his wife.”
Trent chuckled. “Sounds like the Gates women are a force to be reckoned with.”
“We are, but we’ve had shitty relationships with men. My parents are moving here. I am so excited. I want to be with my family again. Now, if I could just talk my sisters and cousin into moving here, it would be great.”
She placed her face against his neck. What was she going to do about him? She was right on the edge of falling for him. There was no way, no way that she’d admit she had already fallen. He was leaving, and once he did, she’d never see him again. She bit her lip to hold sobs back. Damn it! He sure wouldn’t appreciate it if he knew how she felt. They’d gone into this with their eyes open, and he had told her he wasn’t staying in Clifton. He had a job in Billings, and he’d be returning soon. When, though? Would he just leave and not tell her? She cleared her throat and sat up to look at him.
“You’ll tell me when you’re leaving, right? I mean, you won’t just disappear? I deserve at least that, don’t I?”
“I have no plan of just disappearing. I’d want to say goodbye.”
Lanie put her face back under his chin so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes when he’d said the word goodbye. Lord, it was going to kill her. What an idiot she was. First, she falls for Brett who falls in love with her best friend, then she falls for Trent who won’t stick around and the odds of him asking her to go with him were slim to none. The only thing she could do was be with him as much as she could because the thought of not being with him made her heart hurt. God! When he left, she was going to curl into a ball and stay that way.
****
Trent didn’t know what was going through that beautiful head of hers, but she seemed upset about something. He’d never understand women though. He never tried and never will. Delaney seemed fine when she arrived home, but now she seemed lost in thought. Why had she asked if he’d tell her when he was leaving? He wasn’t the type of man just to go without saying something to her. He told Jake he’d let him know when he was leaving but, in all honesty, he wasn’t really sure about that. It was best just to go, as far as the Stones were concerned. They didn’t care about him. Especially Wyatt. Wyatt probably couldn’t wait for him to go. Hell, Wyatt would, in all probability, escort him out of town. He’d looked down his nose at Trent. People like that weren’t worth talking to in his opinion. Just because someone had money didn’t mean they had to look down on those who didn’t. Trent had had money, a lot of it. He’d had close to a quarter of a million in savings, but his mother had been sick for five years, and without health insurance, the bills were a staggering amount. It took almost every penny he had to pay them and then the funeral because she had no life insurance. She couldn’t afford the payments once she got ill. She’d tell him again, and again not to worry about the medical bills, but he couldn’t do that. He wanted it all taken care of, and he’d be the one to do it.
“Tell me about your job,” Delaney said.
“I did.”
“Not a lot. How did you end up working there?”
“When I was sixteen, I was in trouble a lot. Goofing off in school, running with the wrong crowd, you name it. My mother worked in the County Clerk’s office helping people with getting tags for their cars, and Jolene Birch was in there one day. For some reason, they hit it off, and became great friends. Mom told Jolene about the path I was on, and she suggested Mom send me to the ranch to work in the summer. I hated it. Hated everything about it. Especially Cyrus, Jolene’s husband, and owner of the ranch, but he was fair. I know that now even if I didn’t then. When I finished my first summer there, I swore I’d never go back, but the next summer, I did and the more I worked there, the more I knew it was what I wanted in life. When I turned eighteen, Cy hired me full-time. I’ve been there ever since. I was made foreman when I turned twenty-four after one of the previous ones retired. The ranch is so large that it needs more than one foreman. I told you there are four of us, a hundred herdsmen, a hundred and twenty ranch hands, and two managers besides Cy.”
“What’s the difference in manager and foreman, and herdsmen and ranch hands?”
“A foreman excels at one thing, and that’s getting things done. He supervises all the work.” He shrugged. “I don’t make the orders, but when I give ’em, that’s the end of it. Workers need leadership and direction. A good foreman can provide that. The foreman works right alongside his ranch team and will readily do whatever work that needs doing. A ranch manager knows the needs of the land in their care. A manager plans the jobs with the owner then carries those out. He has the experience behind him. A ranch hand is the least skilled in overall management. They typically have duties, like checking herds, fence building, some equipment operation, hand irrigation, mucking out stalls, and landscaping. Now, a herdsman has a specific skill that is only acquired with years of learning and doing. Purebred stock operations benefit most from a dedicated herdsman. They know how to move the herds, how to work together, and read off each other to get the herds moving.”
“You like your boss, don’t you?”
Trent grinned. “I do. Cyrus Birch is larger than life. He’s a great man, inside and out.”
“I can tell you think a lot of him.”
“I do. When I needed the time off to come here, Cy told me to take however long I needed. He’s great, and he’s like a father to me.”
“Do you ever want to get married? Have kids?”
“I used to think so, especially if I had my own ranch, but the Birch ranch is very isolated. It sits miles outside of the Billings city limits. All the men working there live on the property. Cyrus will hire married men but
they’re rarely home, and it causes a lot of problems. A good many end up divorced because the men are gone so much. I’m gone for weeks at a time when we move the cattle or bison. I’ve been there. I was engaged and took her to the ranch. She hated it and eventually me. The ranch is over seven hundred square miles, and it takes a long time to move cattle. I’m rarely home. I see a lot of couples end up splitting, or their wives would give them ultimatums. It didn’t matter how well Cyrus paid, it was either their families or the job. Even some of the single men never stay long.”
“I didn’t know you were ever engaged.”
“Yeah, but she just hated it there. It’s a large ranch. One of the biggest in Montana and we’re constantly busy. It’s not for everyone. It can take ten to twelve hours to drive seven hundred miles in a car, and that’s without stopping, so think how long it takes to move cattle, and we camp out several nights. It’s hard on a relationship if you’re apart all the time. She had gotten a job at a bank in Billings, but it was an hour drive, one way. She’d get home after work, to find me gone, and the loneliness got to her. It’s tough on people.”
“Wouldn’t it be the same if you had your own ranch?”
“No, because I’d have men working for me. Cyrus doesn’t do much except work around the barns some days, but he’s usually in his office which is inside his home, and I wouldn’t have that much land either, so I’d probably only be gone on overnight trips when the cattle are moved or not even go at all. Jolene and Cyrus are the best. They’ve been married longer than I’ve been alive. They have two daughters. One lives in Butte, and the other one lives in Helena. They visit at Christmas with their families. They each have two kids who Cyrus spoils constantly.”
“I suppose any wife would find it hard to live with her husband being gone a lot.”
“Yeah, it’s not always absence makes the heart grow fonder. As long as I’m there, I won’t get married. I won’t do that to a woman. When married men are hired, the women seem happy at first, but I can see how it drags them down. The kids too. It’s not a good place to have a family, really. A man should be able to spend time with his family. Especially his children,” he said, and kissed her neck.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
“Sounds good, darlin’.” Trent stood, and offered his hand to her. He smiled when she took it then rose from the water, and he watched it slide down her body.
Damn, she had one hell of a figure, and he loved going over every inch of it. He’d leave here soon so he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could. He knew she’d never be interested in living on the ranch with him. The solitude can even get to the men who lived it every day. For a woman, it had to be worse. They had only a few close friends. Something he’d never understood. It was as if they had their own little circle of friends they trusted. Women were complex creatures, and no man would ever understand what went through their beautiful minds. His mother had taught him to love and respect women. Never be cruel to them or ever hurt them physically or talk disrespectfully to them, and he never had. He thought back to when he’d been just seventeen, and one of the ranch hands had beat his wife. Trent wanted to tear him limb from limb, but Cyrus had taken care of it. He fired the man and bought a home for the woman and her son. He’d told the man if he ever hurt her again, he’d deal with him in his own way. It was then that Trent really began to respect Cyrus.
“Where are you?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about the ranch.”
“You’re going back soon, aren’t you?”
Trent reached for a towel and used it to dry her off then he rubbed it over himself. He pulled her to him and hugged her then kissed her forehead.
“I have to go back soon, yes. Cyrus needs me.”
****
Lanie blinked back tears as she looked away from him. What about her? She needed him too. She needed to be with him as much as she could before he left her. Because now she knew that he’d never ask her to go with him because he couldn’t and even if he could, she knew he thought it would just tear them apart. She understood that, and as much as she hated to admit it, she’d hate it if he was gone all the time. Call her silly, but she wanted to spend time with the man she was in love with. Why had he come into her life just to leave? She had to be brave when the time came, and she knew it would be sooner than she hoped. It seemed so unfair. She meets a man who rocks her world, one she could see spending the rest of her life with, but he didn’t feel the same and even if he did, he’d never ask her to go with him and she really wasn’t sure she’d go if he did ask her. Damn it! She wrapped the towel around her then turned from him, entered the bedroom, and sat on the bed. Ginny jumped up beside her and pushed her nose against Lanie’s hands. Lanie absentmindedly rubbed her ears as she watched Trent stroll into the bedroom with a towel around his waist. The man left her breathless, and she needed him more than she needed air. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away then stared up at him, but another one fell. Trent sat on the bed beside her and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear then wiped the tear away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s not your fault. I knew going into this that you weren’t going to stay here, and you know I can’t go back with you.”
Trent blew out a breath. “I know, but I can’t stay here in Clifton. I can’t start over as a ranch hand. I’m not getting any younger, and that work is hard. Don’t get me wrong, I do work too, but not like I used to when I was younger. I’m away too much now. It takes just about all of us to move the herds, especially if we’re moving both bison and cattle. Only the ranch hands stay behind to take care of the barns, check the fence, and things like that.”
“I know.”
He put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her. Lanie put her head on his shoulder. She blinked back more tears and sniffed. Pushing away from him, she stood, dropped the towel, and then pulled her robe on.
“Where are you going?” Trent asked her as he stood then pulled his boxer briefs and jeans on.
“To make some hot chocolate. Would you like some?” She walked toward the door then stopped to look back at him.
“Sure…Delaney?”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course. I don’t know if I told you, but I need to go see my parents tomorrow. I hope the snow clears.” She turned and walked to the kitchen then she leaned against the doorjamb and covered her face with her hands. She flinched when Trent put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. He enfolded her in his arms and held her tight. She wrapped her arms around his waist and tried her best to hold the tears back.
“I think it’s best if I go back to the cabin—”
“No!” Lanie pulled back from him and looked up at him through tears on her lashes. “I want you to stay. It’s probably too dangerous out anyway. Stay. Please.”
She stared up into those dark eyes and her heart cracked with the knowledge that he was going to leave her and there was nothing either one of them could do about it. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to be together, it was because they couldn’t. The ranch sounded like it sat in the middle of nowhere and she may think she could put up with that, but in her heart, she knew she couldn’t. She loved being around people and to only see Trent occasionally would eventually tear them apart and she couldn’t ask him to stay here. She understood about starting over on another ranch. He was a ranch foreman, and he’d climbed his way to the top from the time he was eighteen. There was no way she could ask him to start over. Not even for her.
“Delaney, I don’t know what to say. I can’t stay here.”
“I know, baby. It’ll be fine.” She wrapped her arms tight around him.
“I can’t give you anything but solitude. I’m working before the sun comes up and way past when it sets. It’s no life for a woman. I can’t be there for you all the time. It would be so different if I had my own place. I’d come home to you every night.
” He kissed her forehead.
“I know. I suppose on a ranch that size you’d be too busy for me.”
“It isn’t what I’d want for you. Look, Delaney, Diana thought she could put up with it too. Like I said, I’m gone for weeks at a time. She got tired of being alone, and I don’t blame her. The ranch is like its own little town, but there’s nothing for you to do there and it wouldn’t be fair to you. You couldn’t have a job even close to the ranch. There’d be nowhere for you to even train barrel racers. It’s a hard life and harder for a woman because she’s alone more often than not. It’s just how it is.”
A tear rolled down her face as she choked on a sob, but it ripped from her throat anyway. Trent pulled her tight against him and rubbed her back. They were damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
****
Jake was raking the hay around in the stall when a shadow fell across him. He looked up to see Wyatt.
“What’s up?” Jake set the rake against the wall and pulled his leather gloves off.
“Did you call Dirk?”
“I did. He’s on vacation until next week. He went home to California for Thanksgiving. I left a message for him to call me when he returns.” Jake looked at his brother. “Are you all right?”
Wyatt removed his hat, raked his fingers through his hair, blew out a breath, and then resettled the hat.
“I don’t know, Jake. This is just so much to take in. I’ve been thinking about it constantly, but Olivia convinced me to at least give Trent the benefit of the doubt. It’s not his fault that our father cheated on our mother.”
Jake saw him swallow hard. He knew this was hard on Wyatt. Hell, it was hard on all of them, but Wyatt had been their mother’s favorite. He inwardly grinned. He knew that parents said they didn’t have favorites, but when Wyatt came along, their mother coddled him all the time because she had a miscarriage before getting pregnant with him. He could do no wrong in her eyes. Since he was the baby, he got away with quite a lot, but it never bothered Jake or Gabe. Wyatt took it almost as hard as their father did when she died. He’d been twenty-six and a grown man, but he fell apart. Jake leaned against the wall beside the stall, folded his arms, and stared at his brother.
Trent Men of Clifton, Montana Book 9 Page 10