Restless Rancher

by Jennifer Ryan

  “Two. One for me to help and one for whoever’s actually doing the cooking.”

  She chuckled under her breath and smiled. This time a real one that brightened her eyes.

  “You should smile more. It makes your beautiful face kind of sparkle.”

  Her head dipped and she turned toward the house. “How many orange juicers do you want to keep?”

  “None. Juice comes in a carton.”

  He thought he caught the whisper of another laugh on the breeze as she turned behind the back of the house.

  He dove into the piles of stuff he’d tossed on the donate tarp. At first glance in the house, he hadn’t thought he needed any of it, but now, thanks to Sonya making him see what the house could be, he took a second look.

  Instead of looking at the place as his grandfather’s house, he needed to see its potential and what it would be as his place. Green glass tiles on the backsplash, a new kitchen island, and all. So he picked up the brand-new boxes of Christmas ornaments and put them on the keep tarp. He picked out the cream bath towels that still had the tags on them. A little dusty and dirty, but they’d wash up nicely. The black wrought-iron lamps would look good in the living room. He pulled the dirty shades off them and tossed them in the trash. He’d have Sonya add new shades to her growing list of items they needed to buy on their next trip into town. He saved a carved wood horse and an hourglass with deep blue sand to use as decorations in the living room. It felt good to look at the items and think of how he could use them in his house.

  He lost track of time sorting the two piles and making sure everything he kept would have a place and purpose in the house. He’d have to buy some new furniture, but the mix of new with old would make for a good place to come home to after a long day working the ranch. Some of it he’d keep for sentimental reasons. Other items for pure practicality. But by the time he finished, he had a sense of what worked for him and it wasn’t the overpriced underused stuff he’d lived with under his father’s roof.

  The apartment over the garage had been his getaway and as far as he’d managed to move out. He’d told himself it was because he’d worked for his father and needed to be on the vast property most of the time. While he didn’t miss his father, he did miss the 800-thread-count sheets on the massive king-size bed he used to sleep in. But when his father kicked him out, it had been with his clothes and not much else.

  He stared back at the house and hoped the bedrooms weren’t as bad off as the front of the house had been. If he could salvage some of the bedroom furniture and the bed frames, in a few days, he could buy a new mattress and he might actually get a good night’s sleep.

  Sonya had probably already thought of ordering a mattress. He’d never met anyone so efficient and thoughtful. She’d arrived and hit the ground running. From what he’d gathered, she and Roxy had spent a lot of time planning what needed to be done. Sonya had set that plan in motion. And despite his objections, things were moving forward whether he liked it or not.

  He had to admit, he couldn’t wait to see the house restored.

  “Hey, man, where’s the hottie?”

  In a flash his blood boiled with anger. He turned to Chris. Josh and Mark, the other two workers from yesterday, looked very interested in their work boots. Chris didn’t catch the warning when Austin took two menacing steps toward him, barely able to contain his temper.

  Austin took another step and crowded Chris so he had to look up, catch Austin’s narrowed eyes, and step back before Austin grabbed him by the shirt and shook some sense into him. “Sonya, your boss, is around back. I expect you’ll get your head out of your ass and remember to address her by her name with a hell of a lot more respect than you showed thirty seconds ago.”

  Chris held his hands up and took another step back. “Hey, man, I didn’t know you two were a thing.”

  Austin didn’t correct him. Chris should respect Sonya whether they were “a thing” or not, but if these guys thought they were together, they’d steer clear of her.

  “Grab the empty trash cans we left by the Dumpsters last night and let’s get started.”

  The men headed over to grab as many plastic garbage cans as they could carry. Austin turned back to the house and spotted Sonya standing on the wide porch watching him. He didn’t know if she’d heard the exchange, but something in the way she stared at him made everything inside him still and take notice. She didn’t shy away from looking right at him. He stared right back. With a nod that didn’t tell him a damn thing about what was going on inside her head, she walked down the steps and approached him.

  “Do you have a sledgehammer?”

  He cocked up one eyebrow. “Why?”

  “Demolition.” The glint in her eyes told him how much she wanted to destroy something just for the fun of it.

  “Garage probably.” He waved his hand out toward the two-car garage that stood twenty feet on the other side of the house. She walked beside him, quiet as usual. He grabbed the handle on the pull-up door but hesitated. “I haven’t been in here in a long time. Step back just in case whatever he’s got crammed in here comes down in an avalanche and buries you.”

  Sonya took a few steps back. Austin pulled up the door and stepped back all at the same time, prepared to fend off anything that fell forward.

  Sonya busted up laughing at his angry growl.

  “All this time you’ve been camped out on the porch and the garage is empty.”

  Everything stood as he remembered it as a child. The workbenches, toolboxes, tools hanging on the walls, every damn thing in its place and perfectly in order.

  “Fuck me.”

  Sonya swallowed another round of giggles and stared up at him with all innocence and anticipation in her bright eyes.

  Austin shook his head. “I don’t get it. The house is crammed with shit. The barn and stables are ready to fall down around me. But the garage is in perfect order.”

  Sonya touched his arm. The heat from her touch shot up his arm and spread through his whole system. The last woman to touch him left him repulsed in the end. Sonya ignited a wildfire. Though he knew she wanted to comfort him, he had other ideas about how she could go about doing that for the next couple of hours. Days, tops.

  Sonya squeezed his arm and let him go. “I’d have thought it was crammed to the rafters, too.”

  Austin missed her touch. “Maybe, but ten seconds later you would have checked to be sure. I was so pissed at my dad for kicking me out and spent every dime I’d saved to hold on to this dump, I just assumed and threw up my hands in defeat.”

  “It’s okay, Austin. We can use this space to hold the boxes and bags you’ve got on the porch from your move here and some of the bigger items we need to clean up before we put them back in the house. I can restore the dining table and chairs, paint that cute little bureau, and probably recover the ottoman with those gorgeous swirled spindle legs.”

  He didn’t think, just pulled her into his arms and hugged her with his cheek pressed to the top of her head. “You never criticize. You just come up with a plan and do what needs to be done.”

  For a second, she pressed her hands to his back, then stepped out of his arms, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. “To do that, I need a sledgehammer.”

  He’d enjoyed the moment they’d shared and he meant what he said, but he let it go because she didn’t want to make things personal between them. Like when he’d asked about her childhood being a lot like Roxy’s, she’d shut him down.

  Sonya didn’t let many people close. But for a second there, he’d felt her let out a breath and draw closer to him. It was a start.

  Of what, he didn’t really know because they still had one hell of a job ahead of them. And he was still broke as shit. And Roxy and Noah might kill him for dating her. As if that was even a possibility.

  He walked over to the stand that held the shovels, rakes, and other assorted tools. He pulled out the sledgehammer and handed it to her just to see what happened.

  The seco
nd she took the weight, her arms fell and she nearly dropped the heavy tool.

  She glared at him. “You did that on purpose.”

  “I love that you think you can swing that thing again and again to get the kitchen cabinets down, but you need the right tool for the job.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Me, swinging this thing.” He tried not to smile, he really did, at her open hostility that he thought her, a woman, incapable of doing the job. She could do damn near anything. It really wasn’t her gender but the simple fact that she didn’t have the strength to swing the heavy head more than half a dozen times before she dropped it or hurt herself.

  He’d never let that happen. When it came to a job that required brute strength, she’d have to let him handle it. “Don’t get mad. I’ve got something for you, demolition junkie.” He went to one of the toolboxes and pulled out a heavy-duty hammer that despite its weight he thought she could handle and not get hurt.

  She tested the tool in her hand and the control she’d have swinging it with the shorter handle.

  “Ready?”

  The smile she beamed up at him said she was looking forward to it.

  Before they headed back to the house, he grabbed a couple pairs of leather gloves and safety glasses from the workbench and handed her a pair of each.

  “This is a well-appointed workshop.”

  “Grandpa always said to put the tools back in their place, that way you know where they are when you need them.” The absurdity of it boggled his mind.

  “I guess he meant it.”

  Austin rolled his eyes. “Except he didn’t keep anything in its place in the house.”

  “Let it go, Austin.”

  “I’m trying, but it’s damn hard to look at those two huge bins filled with garbage and the damage to the house and furniture and not feel it all the way to my soul.”

  “They’re just things. Not as important as the memories you hold of how much your grandfather loved you. That’s worth more than any broken plate, scratched table, or smelly house. It’s more than some people ever have to hold on to.”

  “It makes me sad when you say things like that, because I know you’re talking about yourself.”

  She scrunched up her face into an incredulous look. He hoped because she wanted to cover the fact that on some level he got to her, because in a very short time she’d grown on him. Her steady presence and thoughtful insights made him feel closer to her. He especially appreciated her easy way of letting him do and say what he needed to before she reminded him to move on.

  And then ordered him to get back to work.

  He was getting used to that, too.

  Sonya tried to play off his comment. “Don’t cry for me, sweetheart. My life’s not that bad.”

  “Anymore.” He added the qualifier she didn’t say out loud but he heard all the same, because she didn’t like talking about her past despite the little hints she dropped.

  The snarky sweetheart was meant to make him back off and let him know she didn’t like it when he so casually called her that yesterday.

  But he didn’t want her to dismiss what her life used to be. She’d gotten an up-close and gross look at his. All he wanted to do was get to know her the way she so easily seemed to know him just by paying attention. He wanted her to know he had his own insights into her life because he listened not only to what she said, but what she didn’t.

  She held up the hammer. “Let’s go pound some shit. We’ll both feel better.” She walked away like she always did when things got too personal.

  He followed her to the house and into the kitchen. She handed him a mask and put one on herself. He checked out the sink she’d already disconnected from the water source.

  “I say we start with the countertop.”

  Austin went with her suggestion, held the sledgehammer with his hands spread wide on the handle, swung down, then up into the corner of the Formica countertop, dislodging it with one shot on one end. Adrenaline burst through his system with the satisfaction that one swing made him feel. Four more satisfying thwacks and the entire counter came loose and lay haphazard on the cabinets that were already falling to pieces in some areas with the vibration from each swing.

  At his side, Sonya opened the top cupboard doors, swung the hammer, and knocked them from their hinges. She stacked the latest one with the others she’d already taken down by the door.

  She set her hammer on the floor and took one side of the countertop. He took the other. They held it upright and walked out the back door and tossed the heavy piece in the Dumpster. Without a word, they headed back into the kitchen and spent the next thirty minutes bashing the cabinets to smaller pieces and dragging them out to the trash. Austin got one of the guys cleaning out the hallway to help him dump the old stove. By the time they entered the kitchen again, Sonya had most of the walls down to the studs, old wires and pipes exposed.

  “We’re not taking the whole house down to the studs, are we?”

  Sonya pulled her mask off and coughed from the dust floating in the air. “No. But I anticipated there’d be some water damage from leaks of years past.” She pointed to the discolored floor where the sink used to be and the oddly repaired white-and-black pipes that connected to metal. “We’ll probably encounter more of the same in the bathrooms. Best to take care of it now, replace rotting wood and old pipes with new while we have the chance. The wiring doesn’t look that bad to me, but I’ll leave that to the electrician. I also asked him to look at the main panel, see if we need an upgrade.”

  “We?” He cocked up an eyebrow just to rile her.

  “You have one electrical panel servicing the house and outbuildings. If I’ve learned anything from HGTV renovation shows it’s that the wiring always needs to be fixed and upgraded. You want to run a modern ranch, you need power for water pumps, refrigerators in the outbuildings, computers in the office.”

  “And a flat-screen TV,” he suggested. “I miss TV.”

  She gave him one of those reluctant smiles. “Upgraded lights in the stables. A new stove so you can eat.” She raised her thumb and pointed back over her shoulder. “A washer and dryer for the mudroom to replace the rust bucket you’ve got out there now.”

  He’d stopped letting himself get overwhelmed by the daunting task and number of new things coming to this place. “I’ll have one of the guys help me move those out.”

  “I’ll scrape the linoleum off the floor, then join you in the back to do the rooms. We get those done today, we’ll be on schedule and ready for the contractors tomorrow.”

  Austin raked his hand over his head. “I can’t believe how fast this is moving.”

  “I’ll take over the house once the contractors are done here. You’ll be busy with them repairing and adding on to the stables and barn. Once that’s done, it’s auction time.”

  “I assume you mean cattle and horses.”

  “Can’t have a working ranch without them. Two, three weeks, we’ll be up and running.”

  His hand went over his head again and he held the back of his neck. “I can’t believe it’s really happening. And this fast.”

  “I find it’s best to focus on the task at hand instead of the whole thing. Makes it easier to stay on course and not get overwhelmed.”

  He stared at her. So practical. But this was his life. His dream.

  He’d had an easy life growing up. When it all went away and he had nothing, everything seemed so hard. He didn’t trust that they’d keep chugging along on the house and ranch and everything would work out fine.

  “Trash the washer and dryer, then on to the bedrooms,” she ordered, getting him back on track.

  “Chris,” he yelled. “I need your help in here.”

  The worker poked his head into the kitchen and asked Sonya, “What can I do for you?” The suggestive tone made Austin glare.

  Sonya pretended she didn’t hear anything and walked out the back door. Chris’s gaze followed her every move.

 
“I’m not paying you to stare at her ass.”

  “I’ll do it for free.” Chris tapped him in the chest with the back of his hand like they were buddies picking up chicks in a bar.

  Austin shoved him by the shoulder to point him toward the mudroom. “Get to work.”

  He felt old. When did he turn into the guy who passed up fun and jokes to get the job done?

  The last many months had truly changed him.

  He hoped for the better.

  Chapter Seven

  They formed a line from the hallway into the living room, Austin at the lead, Sonya at the back of the three guys who were far more interested in her than doing the job. It took an hour to clear the hallway and unblock the doors to the two spare rooms.

  Austin opened the door on the left. “Office.” He stood back and let her stare past him.

  “It’s not that bad.” Once the mail and papers piled up on the desk and chairs and books and junk overflowed the bookcases, Austin’s grandpa simply closed the door and never went back in. Now dust coated every surface. “I’ll get one of the shop vacs and tackle this room. I’d like to go through the inside of these filing cabinets and papers. I’ll figure out what to keep and what to shred.”

  “I can go through the paperwork,” Chris offered. “You probably don’t need to keep anything past the last couple of years.”

  Sonya shook her head. “I’ll do it. You guys head into Grandpa’s bedroom. We need to get that cleaned out so I can redo it for Austin.”

  “I don’t mind doing the office,” Chris persisted.

  Austin shut the office door. “Stick to the heavy lifting. The office can wait. I’ll need to go through all the old paperwork and make sure my grandfather didn’t have any other assets or leave something undone.”

  Sonya waved her hand down the hall. “Go help the others box up the clothes.”

  Chris sighed and did as she ordered.

  She didn’t blame him for wanting a break from the overwhelming mess in the house. The office would be hours of sorting papers and figuring out what was still relevant and what could be tossed. She didn’t want to leave the task to someone unfamiliar with business paperwork. She also didn’t want anything sentimental ending up in the trash.