Home on the Ranch

by Trish Milburn

  “Thank you. Not looking half-bad yourself, cowboy.”

  He appeared momentarily surprised, and she wondered if it was because she’d complimented his looks or that she’d called him a cowboy. He might not self-identify that way anymore, but that’s how she saw him. And she thought that maybe deep down he did, too. It was just hard to admit because it brought him closer to a past that held some sad memories.

  “I hope this place is okay.” He looked so nervous all of a sudden that she couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “You mean because I’m part Hispanic and we’re at the only Mexican place in town? Oh, honey, I haven’t met a tortilla I didn’t like. Get me near a Taco Cabana, and I can do some serious damage.”

  “Good.”

  He looked so relieved she just had to tease him. “But if there is a sombrero anywhere in my immediate future, I’m outta here.”

  This time he chuckled and placed his hand over his heart. “No sombreros, mariachi singers or piñatas.”

  The hostess came to lead them to their table. Once they were seated, Ella grew nervous, afraid they’d find nothing to talk about. So she immediately picked up her menu to study it even though she already knew what she wanted. When it came to food, she was more often than not a creature of habit. Still, Austin didn’t know that, and she used the time she was supposedly reading the menu to try to form a list of possible conversation topics.

  “What are you having?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Chicken chimichanga. “So many good choices.”

  By the time the waitress took their orders, Ella thought she was going to be sick. Why had she thought this was a good idea?

  “So, tell me about your plans for your business.”

  Ella looked up from the spot on the table she’d been staring a hole through. “What?”

  He smiled. “You seem nervous, and I figure your business would be an easy topic for you to talk about.”

  She relaxed more than she’d thought possible only moments before. “You sure you want to hear about this?”

  “Yes. Maybe I can help.”

  She lifted a brow. “You think what I do is stupid.”

  “I never said that. I recognize there are a lot of trends I don’t understand. Doesn’t make them any less profitable.”

  “It’s not all about the money.”

  “You should want it to be about the money.”

  She sat back on her side of the booth and crossed her arms. “I want to be a success, yes. But I work so hard at this for other reasons. I love the creative outlet, and I hate the idea of our throwaway society and waste.”

  Austin leaned forward, his forearms on the top of the table. “That’s fine. But if you want all your work and passion to result in a profitable career, then you have to have a business plan. Know what you want and how to get there.”

  She mentally flipped through all the ideas she’d had about her business and decided to just tell him about her biggest dreams. If he thought they were crazy, well, he’d be gone soon and it wouldn’t matter.

  “I want my own storefront and a thriving Internet business, to eventually be successful enough that I can hire people to handle all the business stuff so I can work on the creative side. To grow enough that I can bring on more designers who feel the way I do about making beautiful pieces out of things that would normally be thrown away.”

  “Okay, big goals. That’s good. What have you done to move toward those?”

  “I have a website, and I get jobs via word of mouth.”

  “And?”

  “Um, I have a whole lot of raw materials to work with.” She gave him a tentative smile.

  “So more acquisitions than sales?”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  Austin held up a hand. “Not a criticism. Just have to have the whole picture in order to help.”

  As they waited for their meals, she took him through her finished-stock situation, storage, capital outlay, raw materials, sales and several other aspects of her business. She handed over the thin laptop she always had with her, and he scanned her numbers.

  She nervously munched on chips and guacamole as he flipped through her pages of documentation. This was like no date she’d ever been on, but excitement filled her nonetheless. That and no small amount of anxiety. She’d never shared this much about her business with anyone, and the fact that Austin had a business degree and worked at a large company made her hope to gain some valuable insight into making her business what she envisioned. Of course, the longer he looked at her laptop, the more her insides twisted that he would think it all an unholy mess. It was a testament to how hungry she was that she could even eat the chips.

  “My first suggestion is that after you finish with the ranch, you concentrate on preparing things to sell. One, you’ll increase your revenue. And you won’t become so overwhelmed with things you have to store.”

  She detected the hint of disdain, not toward her personally but the idea of too much stuff in too small a space. That, combined with the fact he’d been in his grandparents’ house only once—and only briefly then—since she’d met him, made her wonder something.

  “Are you claustrophobic?”

  He looked up from her computer just as the waitress arrived with their food. They didn’t speak other than to say thank you to the waitress until she was gone.

  “That would explain a lot,” she said.

  At first she thought he was going to deny it, probably didn’t like admitting that weakness.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded then shifted her gaze to her computer. “What else?”

  He didn’t immediately reply, as if he’d thought she was going to make a big deal out of the claustrophobia.

  “Everyone’s scared of something,” she said. “Me, it’s snakes. I don’t care if they’re poisonous or not, big as an anaconda or small as an earthworm, if I see one I’m probably going to scream like that blonde chick in Temple of Doom.”

  Austin smiled, making her insides tingle.

  “Way to pull out the old reference.”

  “My dad loved Indiana Jones. We watched those movies over and over when I was growing up. Now, you were about to tell me how I can become a fabulously wealthy designer.”

  As they ate, Austin went into full-on businessman mode. The fact that he still looked like a cowboy while doing it, showing his brain was just as sexy as the rest of him, made her want to drag him home and straight to bed. She wasn’t normally the hop-into-bed sort of person, but she felt as if she’d been waiting to do exactly that from the moment she’d met him. The magnetic pull toward him wasn’t like anything she’d ever experienced.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Oh, crap. She’d missed whatever he’d been saying while fantasizing about him. “Huh?”

  He closed the laptop. “I’m sorry. I’ve made this more like a business meeting than a date.”

  She reached across the table and placed her hand over his. “Honestly, this is the best date I’ve been on in forever.”

  “So you haven’t been on a date in the last decade?”

  She playfully swatted his hand. “No, seriously. I don’t really have an opportunity to talk to anyone about my dreams for the business. It’s nice, and energizing.”

  “What about your mom?”

  She started to pull her hand away, but he didn’t let her, instead entwining his fingers with hers. Her heart beat extra hard at the gesture before she remembered Austin had asked her a question.

  “I can talk to her about it some, and she likes what I make. It’s just that...she’s seen how easy it is to fail at something, and I think she worries.”

  “Because of your stepfather?”

  “Yeah. I mean, he’s a decent enough guy. He just doesn’t ha
ve much of a head for business but thinks he does. I tried to explain to her that I’m different, that I love what I do, that I will do whatever it takes to make it a success. He easily jumps into ventures other people tell him are a surefire thing.”

  “And they never are.”

  “Right again. Then he’ll work in a regular job for a while until the next can’t-miss opportunity comes along, and the cycle begins again. I feel bad for my mom sometimes. I’m not even sure she really loves Jerry. She just happened to meet him a few months after my dad died, and they got married a couple of weeks later. I think she was scared of being alone, or raising me alone. But it took me a long time to forgive her for that. At the time, it felt as if she was replacing my dad like he was a car that had quit running. I was angry for years.”

  “What finally healed the relationship?”

  “I walked in on her once holding a photo of my dad in uniform, and she was crying. I mean ugly, my-soul-is-broken crying. And just like that, my anger dissolved. It was the oddest, most freeing feeling. I sat down beside her on the bed, and we held each other for a long time.” Tears welled in Ella’s eyes at the memory, as they always did when she thought about it.

  Austin squeezed her hand, then pulled his away to retrieve his wallet and toss enough money on the table for the check and tip. Then he took her hand again.

  “Come on. No more business or sad stories. Time to have some fun.”

  Chapter Nine

  When they stepped outside, instead of heading toward their vehicles, Austin led Ella down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.

  “What’s your favorite flavor of dessert?” he asked.

  She pointed behind them. “You realize we just left the restaurant, right? And the bakery is in the opposite direction.”

  He just looked over at her, expectation and quite possibly a bit of mischief in his eyes.

  “Strawberry. Why?”

  “Just so happens there is a pie and cake auction at the music hall tonight.”

  “To benefit the high school rodeo team. I’ve seen the posters.”

  “I figured maybe dessert and music might make up for talking business all through dinner.”

  “I told you I didn’t mind. My head’s already buzzing with ideas based on what you said.”

  He didn’t look convinced he hadn’t been the biggest dud of a date ever, and she had the wicked notion of showing him later just how much he wasn’t a dud. Her cheeks flushed, but thankfully she could blame that on the heat as they crossed the parking lot to the music hall.

  As they walked in, the Teagues of Texas—brothers Simon, Nathan and Ryan Teague—were just launching into a Willie Nelson tune on stage, always popular with the local crowd.

  Austin still held her hand as he maneuvered them from the corner entrance through the crowd toward the front wall. Some of the tables had been pushed against the length of the wall and were laden with cakes and pies of every imaginable kind.

  “I think I felt three cavities form just looking at this,” she said.

  Austin laughed. “Come on, let’s see which ones are strawberry.”

  “We don’t need an entire cake or pie.”

  “Sure we do.”

  As they examined the offerings, Ella soaked up the feel of his hand wrapped around her smaller one. She couldn’t remember the last time a guy had held her hand. To her, it felt more important than kissing. She had to remind herself not to read too much into it. They were just going to have a few days of fun, then they’d go back to their respective lives and likely other people.

  “This looks good.” Austin pointed to a five-layer cake covered in cream cheese frosting and an abundance of strawberries. “Says it has strawberries between every layer, too.” He indicated the written description on the tented card beside it.

  Her mouth watered, but then she spotted something else a little farther down the line. She urged Austin in that direction. She read the card as she tried not to melt from Austin’s nearness behind her.

  “Just as I thought,” she said. “Keri made these. They are to die for. She puts some sort of secret ingredient in them that makes them—” She almost said “orgasmic,” but even thinking that was dangerous right now, like it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Delicious.”

  “Hey, you two.” The voice that sent single people who wanted to stay single fleeing.

  Ella turned, casually taking a step away from Austin. She did not want to give the other woman the wrong idea. She and Austin were temporary at best.

  “Hey, Verona. Which dessert do you have your eye on?”

  “What I have my eye on is you two. I knew you’d make a cute couple.”

  “We’re not a couple.”

  Verona grinned in her knowing way. “Maybe not yet, but you’re off to a good start. I hear you spent quite a bit of time at dinner, very involved in conversation.”

  “About business.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Not that she didn’t like the idea of being with Austin, but Ella was approaching whatever they would share realistically. Verona was a nice lady who did a lot for the community, but her penchant for aggressive matchmaking could grate on a person’s nerves.

  Ella pulled her computer from her purse. “I can show you.”

  Verona looked genuinely startled. “No, no. Just go and have a good time.” She moved quickly past Ella and Austin into the crowd, probably already zeroing in on her next target.

  “Is it just me or is she not used to not getting her way?” A grin tugged at the edges of Austin’s mouth.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Ella said as she slipped her computer back into her purse. “She’s probably just retreating long enough to come up with a new plan of attack. Maybe you’ll be able to make your escape before then.”

  “Yeah.”

  What was that odd tone in Austin’s voice? It almost sounded like regret, but that couldn’t be right. Maybe the part of her brain that wished he wasn’t leaving was trying to play a cruel trick on her.

  But what if...?

  “Wanna dance?”

  Austin shook his head. “I’m a terrible dancer.”

  “And yet you brought me to a dance hall.”

  “It’s a music hall, says so on the sign.”

  “Music meant to be danced to.” She grabbed his hand. “Come on. Let’s really confuse Verona.”

  When he tried to protest again, she just dragged him to the dance floor. “Oh, quit whining. Anybody can dance at least a little bit.”

  But after a couple of minutes of seeing Austin’s attempts, she couldn’t hold in the laughter anymore. “Okay, I was wrong. You really can’t dance.”

  “I told you. I think I’ll keep dancing just to embarrass you now.” He exaggerated his horrible dance moves until she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the edge of the dance floor.

  “You’re liable to throw something out of joint, or punch someone in the eye.”

  “Is that any way to talk to the guy giving you tons of free supplies?”

  She stopped once they were off the dance floor and looked up at him. “I’m just saving you from yourself.”

  “What if I don’t want saving?” His voice grew huskier with those words. Before she could say they needed to be careful because Verona was surely watching, along with half of the rest of Blue Falls she’d have to see once Austin was gone, he reached out and started to pull her closer.

  Dimly she became aware the music had stopped and someone had started talking into the microphone. She forced herself to shift and look toward the stage. Liam Parrish, who ran the local rodeos and was married to her friend India, turned out to be the speaker.

  “We’ll get back to the music in a while, but as you know we’re here to make some money tonight for the young ri
ders on the Blue Falls High School rodeo team.”

  A round of cheers went up as Liam pointed toward several teenagers standing beside the stage.

  “We’ve got some delicious-looking cakes and pies here tonight, and I can already tell you I’m going to outbid everyone for my wife’s fudge pie.”

  This time laughter came from the crowd. Ella spotted India over next to the teen riders, looking at her husband as if he were the only man in the room. Something moved deep inside Ella, a yearning to have that kind of connection with someone, to be so obviously loved.

  She prevented herself from looking at Austin because she was afraid he’d see what she was thinking and feeling in her expression. It was crazy to even have such thoughts about someone she hadn’t known long.

  Was she playing with emotional fire by going out with him? Instead of enjoying these few days, was she setting herself up to be hurt, as illogical as that might seem?

  Austin leaned toward her. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Just curious how much people will be willing to pay for desserts.” And how any of those sweet treats would taste on his lips.

  * * *

  AUSTIN COULDN’T FIGURE out if Ella had pulled away because she thought Verona was watching or she was having second thoughts about being out with him on a date. She’d been quick to tell Verona they’d had a working dinner. While part of him thought he understood her reasoning, it had still annoyed him some. And he wasn’t even sure it was her he was annoyed at and not himself. This was going nowhere beyond the next few days.

  Suddenly, he wanted those few days to be full of Ella, and more than working together at the ranch or sharing a meal in public. He longed to kiss her right now, right here, but he didn’t want to chance being smacked.

  They watched and cheered with the rest of the crowd as one dessert after another brought nice prices. When they got to the strawberry tarts Ella had praised, he didn’t wait for anyone else to bid.

  “Two hundred dollars,” he called out before the description was even complete.