by Emmy Eugene
Travis looked at her, his expression thoughtful. “That’s actually a good idea.”
Millie smiled and tucked herself right into his personal space. “And Travis, I hope you won’t wait another two months to call me again.” The last notes of the music faded, this dance over. “Or for the first time.” She slipped her hands down his arms and backed up one step, and then another. “I enjoyed dancing with you.”
With that, Millie turned and left the dance floor. Her internal temperature could only be labeled as scorching hot, and she needed to check in with Paige anyway. She reminded herself that she was working tonight, not there to dance the night away with a sexy cowboy.
Still, she felt Travis’s eyes tracking her as she wove through the tables to the exit. Once there, she turned back, but he was nowhere to be found. A sigh slipped from her mouth, and all she could do was hope and pray that he would call her this time.
Travis did not call that weekend, but Millie told herself it was because it was a holiday weekend. Her brothers had gathered for a Thanksgiving Day meal, but they each lived within a couple hours’ drive of their mother, and they hadn’t stayed the night.
So it was that Millie woke on Monday morning, her meeting with Serendipity Seeds still hours away. Darkness coated everything, and she was alone in the house where she’d grown up. Well, her mother was here, too, but Millie felt like she was alone.
Her mother had just turned seventy years old over the summer, and Millie hated seeing her feeble and weak. She’d always been rail thin and somewhat sickly from an autoimmune disease that she simply lived with. But she’d been diagnosed with ovarian cancer the week after her birthday, and things had gone downhill from there.
In and out of the hospital, her mother had needed help. So Millie had tied up her affairs in San Antonio, and moved the hour and a half north.
She sighed as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. At least her mother had converted the bedrooms where her children had grown up into adult sleeping spaces. Millie had a nice queen-sized bed, with gray curtains on the windows and a desk for her business work.
But she didn’t want to be alone the way she felt now. She didn’t want to grow old alone, the way her mother had. She wanted a family, and children, and lots of grandchildren, and a husband that would stick with her through thick and thin.
Every time Millie thought about her father, she grew a little angry. She’d worked to overcome the feelings of abandonment he’d left her with, and she closed her eyes and breathed in deep, the way one therapist had taught her to do.
Her father had left because of something inside him, not anything to do with her. She continued to meditate, working through the feelings that seemed more prevalent in the few months since she’d returned to Chestnut Springs.
Eventually, she showered and went into the kitchen, where her mother sat nursing a cup of tea. She’d been a vegan for Millie’s whole life, but when she’d been hospitalized, she’d been told that she was severely malnourished and needed to eat protein. She’d been eating small servings of chicken and fish since, and she had come out the other side of the bloating and inflammation well.
“Morning, Momma.” Millie dropped a kiss on her mother’s forehead. “Want to go for a walk after my meeting? We need to get in our mile.”
“Yes, baby,” her mother said, which is what she said to pretty much everything Millie said. She used to have beautiful, blonde hair that Millie knew she dyed to keep it the color she wanted. But since the chemotherapy treatments, she’d stopped doing that, and now her hair was a lovely shade of silver. She’d cut it too, and the natural curls made her look almost childlike.
“Did you eat breakfast?”
She lifted her teacup, and Millie suppressed a sigh. Her mother was often nauseous in the morning, but she still needed to eat. “I’ll make a protein pancake, okay?”
“Okay.”
Millie set to work doing that, glad they were going walking later. “All right, Momma. I have to go now.”
“Knock ‘em dead, baby,” she said, and Millie gave her mom a warm smile. She kept her confidence as she drove over to Serendipity Seeds, but the moment she got out of her car, she felt like a shell of who she should be. Why would they want to partner with her, an event coordinator they’d never worked with before?
Because they need someone, Millie told herself. And you’re good. You have a decade of experience, at a venue much more upscale than this.
She glanced around at the storefront, but she continued past it to the event center farther from the parking lot. The gardens back here would be glorious in the spring, and she really wanted to be here to see them. She wanted to plan a company party here. A wedding. A reception. The monthly meeting for the classic cars club in Gillespie County. Anything and everything.
Taking a deep breath and tugging on the bottom of her robin’s egg blue jacket, she opened the door and went inside.
All they could tell her was no. Millie was used to that word, if her dating history counted. Armed with the knowledge that no wouldn’t break her, she approached the woman sitting at the reception desk. “Hello, ma’am,” she said. “I’m here to speak with Mildred White about the event planning coordinator position?”
She put on her most professional smile at the same time her phone rang. She didn’t want to look at it, so she ignored it while the woman glanced at the large desk calendar on the desk in front of her.
Millie’s fingers fumbled over the phone in her purse, silencing it with the buttons on the side.
“Millie, right?” The woman glanced up.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can go right on back,” she said. “Mildred is waiting for you.”
For a terrifying moment, Millie thought she was late, but a quick glance at the clock behind the desk told her she wasn’t. “Thank you.” She stepped past the desk as the woman rose to open the door for her.
Once behind the safety of it, a hallway stretched for several yards, with another door waiting for her there. She quickly took out her phone, just to make sure Momma hadn’t called with a dire need.
One swipe, and she saw a number she didn’t recognize. So not Momma. Maybe it had been someone looking to hire her, and hope filled her chest before she could tell herself that few things were more dangerous than hope.
As she stared at the phone with a Texas area code, a text came in.
Hey, Millie. This is Travis Johnson. Call me after your meeting, would you? Sorry if I interrupted you.
The two numbers matched, and Millie’s elevated pulse shot right through the roof.
He’d called. Travis Johnson had called, and Millie lifted her head high and strode toward the door at the end of the hall. Even if she didn’t get this job, today was the brightest one she’d had in a long time—because Travis had called.
Chapter Three
Travis shoved his phone in his pocket, feeling foolish for calling and texting Millie. She’d told him she had a meeting that day, but he wasn’t sure when, and he hadn’t thought of it until his call went to voicemail.
And then he had to text, because she didn’t have his number. He only had hers. So if she didn’t answer numbers she didn’t know, and she wasn’t in a meeting, maybe she’d call him back.
His phone stayed silent and still in his back pocket, and he turned back to Tomas, Brian, and Darren. They all wore gloves, and Travis reached for a pair as well. “Okay, let’s go get the cattle moved.”
They all piled into one pickup truck, with Tomas behind the wheel. The drive out to the farthest edge of the ranch was long and bumpy, and the journey back toward the epicenter would take all day as well as part of another. Moving three thousand head of cattle took forever, and Travis wished Russ had drawn the short end of the stick as far as the cattle relocation went.
The thing was, there were certain chores around the ranch that none of the brothers liked. They still had to be done, and Travis had drawn the cattle this go-round. He’d move them in closer t
o the center of the ranch for the rainy winter, and hopefully, someone else would have to move them back out once spring came.
Russ would have his hands full with the animals as it was, including all of the dogs, horses, goats, chickens, and pigs. And while December was right around the corner, everything from the front gate, around Seth’s Canine Encounters, and back to the storage shed at the edge of the yard needed to be mowed back for the winter.
So Russ had plenty to do as well. Rex and Griffin would come out and scrub all of the stables, as well as all the feed and water troughs. Maybe they’d drawn the short stick, and Travis smiled to himself as he looked out the passenger window.
His mind had been circling Millie Hepworth for days now, and he hated that he was driving out into the wilds of the Texas Hill Country without talking to her first. He’d gone out with her several times over a decade ago, and he’d liked her then.
He was a different person now, and he was sure she was too. He just needed some time to find out.
“I love this song,” Brian said, reaching out to turn the radio up. He loved anything with guitars and country twang, about how the love of one’s life had walked out the door. Brian grinned as he started singing along, and Travis chuckled at him. Brian, Tomas, and Darren had been living and working at Chestnut Ranch since Seth had come back full-time, and they’d been a huge help.
Travis had worked with them the most, as he was in charge of the agriculture on the ranch, and it was a big job to prep fields, plant them, rotate them irrigate them, and then harvest them. It sure seemed like the fields just grew themselves, but Travis knew there was so much more behind farming.
And he loved it.
His phone buzzed near the end of the song, and he shifted to pull it out of his back pocket. He didn’t want to hope the message could be from Millie, but well, he really hoped it was.
A smile burst onto his face when he saw her name on the screen. I called but it went right to voicemail. Call me when you have service?
Travis checked his bars, and he only had two. They’d probably driven through a patch of better service, and her text had come through. Sure, he tapped out. I’m moving cattle today, but there’s usually service at the cabin.
He tapped the arrow to send it, but the circle just spun and spun. The text wouldn’t go through, and frustration built inside him. Sorry, the service is bad on some parts of the ranch.
He and Russ and Seth had talked about it before, but there was nothing they could do. Well, they could buy a cell phone tower, but those were super-expensive.
And you’re a billionaire, he thought. Sometimes he forgot he had a lot of money now. He’d taken his father’s advice and not spent a dime. Well, besides a truck. He’d needed that, though.
His texts went through, and he grinned at his phone.
“Who are you talking to?” Brian asked, glancing at Travis.
“No one,” he said, flipping his phone over.
“Oh, I see how it is.” Brian grinned at him. “Must be a woman.”
“Who?” Tomas asked, leaning forward.
“He said no one,” Darren said. “Didn’t you hear him?”
“I’ve decided I’m going to ask out Lucy McBride,” Tomas said, not an ounce of embarrassment in his voice.
“Yeah?” Brian asked. “Because you know she’s semi-crazy, right?” He laughed, and it was good-natured.
“I heard that too,” Darren said.
“In what way?” Tomas asked, and Travis was just glad they weren’t badgering him about who he was texting.
“She loves the full moon,” Brian said. “The rumors are that she does a little dance every month, claiming it’s good luck.”
“I like the moon,” Tomas said, and Brian and Darren burst out laughing. Travis joined in, because he wasn’t sure about dancing under the moon either.
He did remember that Millie liked doing things outside. Hiking and rafting and all that kind of stuff. Travis didn’t mind being outside sometimes, but the heat in Texas could be oppressive in the summer. Thankfully, he had a few more months before he had to deal with off-the-charts temperatures again.
His phone buzzed, and he flipped it over so fast he almost threw it into Brian’s lap. But Millie had said, No problem. Would love to chat when you get somewhere with service.
He hurried to send her a thumbs-up before he lost service—and before Brian could see. Yes, he needed service, but he also needed privacy.
He, Brian, Tomas, and Darren worked well together, and they made it to the cabin with the cattle about an hour before nightfall. As Brian set to work getting dinner going, Travis managed to excuse himself and find a spot on the front porch away from the other two men.
The scent of grass and horses and cows filled the air, and Travis took a deep breath of it. He sure did love ranching. The faint scent of wood smoke grew, and he heard Brian laugh from the back of the cabin, where he’d put something over the fire for them to eat.
Travis focused on his phone. Millie had texted a few more times, and he liked that she seemed as into starting a relationship with him as he felt about having one with her.
A relationship.
Travis took a deep breath and looked out over the fields in front of him. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said, as if he was two halves of a whole. The part that didn’t want to be alone anymore lifted the phone back into his eyesight.
She’d mentioned what she was doing that day and had asked him more about what it took to move cattle. He could type it all out, but Travis decided to call instead.
The half of him that had been scarred by pretty blondes like Millie wailed, but the ringing of her phone drowned that out.
“Hey,” she said, her voice happy and bright.
A bit of that light leaked into Travis’s soul, and he smiled. “Hey, there.” Problem was, he didn’t have much to say after that.
Thankfully, Millie said, “Do you have time for a story?”
“Definitely,” he said.
“So I went to Serendipity Seeds today, right?”
“Right.” He could sure get used to just saying one-word answers.
“Do you know Mildred White?”
“No, ma’am.” Seth probably did, but then again, Seth left the ranch more often than Travis did.
“Well, she’s kind of intimidating, and she’s like my mother’s age.” Millie laughed, and it added more of that bright light to Travis’s soul. “Anyway, the interview was with her, and I thought it went okay…until the end.”
“Uh oh,” he said. “What happened at the end?”
“She asked me if I had any experience planning bachelor parties.”
Travis couldn’t wait to hear if Millie did or not. “And?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.
“I worked at a golf course,” she said. “Country club. There were plenty of bachelor parties.”
“Oh, so easy answer,” he said, wondering what she thought of such events.
“I thought so, too,” she said. “Then Mildred kept firing questions at me about how I’d plan a bachelor party for a guy who loved fishing and whittling and the scenario was so specific, I asked her if Serendipity had a bachelor party already on the books she wanted me to do.” She laughed again, and she couldn’t stop. “And she finally…” She couldn’t speak through her laughter. “Said it was her fiancé’s bachelor party.”
“Oh, wow.” Travis chuckled too. “But hey, everyone deserves love, right?”
That got her to sober right up, and Travis wondered if he’d said something wrong.
“Right,” she said. “I just thought it was funny. She doesn’t want to plan his bachelor party, but she definitely does.”
“So are you gonna do it?” Travis asked.
“Yes,” Millie said, a hint of pride entering her voice. “Because you’re talking to the newest addition to the Serendipity Seeds family. I got the contract!”
“That’s great, sugar,” he drawled, really happy for her. Numbe
r one, it would keep her in town. And number two, he wanted her to stay in town for a good, long while. “Are you still going to run your own business?”
“Yep,” Millie said. “The event coordinator at Serendipity has some very slow times. For example, all of the Christmas stuff is already done, so I’m not really going to be doing much until the New Year anyway. Even then, all I do is make sure the different events at the farm are scheduled and our staff is ready.”
Travis’s mind started revolving, but he didn’t blurt out what he was thinking. He should probably at least talk to Russ about having a family Christmas party at the homestead before he hired Millie.
Maybe.
Or maybe he should just do it. They’d been going to his parents’ on Victory Street for the holidays for the past several years, but Travis really wanted to have some traditions back on the ranch.
He’d loved growing up out there, and his mother had put the “home” in “homestead.”
Despite his claims to the contrary, Seth had been broken when he’d returned to the homestead. Travis had been living there already, and he’d done the best he could when Russ and Seth moved in. But that meant they all went into town and let their mother feed them for birthdays and holidays.
After a while, they’d started playing games and having treats on Sunday afternoons and evenings, and Travis really liked that.
But with Seth gone…he wondered if his brother and his new wife would come over to the homestead on Sundays. He sure hoped so.
“So,” Millie said. “Do you have any funny stories from today?”
Travis thought about her question. “Do you think moving cattle is funny?”
She giggled. “I mean, maybe something happened that was funny.”
“Not really,” he said, wondering if he’d be exciting enough for Millie. “I mean, there was this cow that tried to disappear up into the trees, and I had to go after it. Then it just stood there and stared at me like I was the one doin’ something wrong.”
She giggled again, and Travis did like the addition of her laugh to his life. “Cows are stubborn things.”