This Time Around

by Stacey Lynn

  Every morning after I was dressed and ready, instead of making coffee in the four-cup maker in the guesthouse, I let myself into her kitchen where she was typically eating breakfast and had coffee waiting for me. We ate together in the morning and at night after I washed the stink and dust of ranch life off me, I returned to her place where we ate dinner. Sometimes I grilled, other nights she cooked, but we did it all together, side-by-side and hung out until it was time to head to bed.

  All of it was spectacular in its simplicity, but it was still the memory of getting Rebecca off that was the best memory in the last two weeks. Since then, we kissed, frequently. Rarely did a day, or hell a few hours, go by where I didn’t have my hands or mouth on her. I was moving slowly and intentionally, giving her time to get used to me and to the idea that someday I’d have her naked and beneath me, or maybe on top of me.

  I wasn’t picky. My hand saw more action in the last two weeks than it had in high school, and my need to have her grew every day.

  “An hour, probably. We should get moving soon. I need to get the balers out and ready. But I’ve already stocked the coolers with drinks for the day and Kelly spoke to our friend, Christa, who’s bringing food later on for everyone.”

  Rebecca got more done before the sun rose than I did in an entire day before I showed up there. Her tenacity no longer surprised the hell out of me, but my respect for her grew more every day I was around her. Even at night, when the ranch work was done out in the fields, she often spent hours in her office, going through paperwork, taking record of the cattle and goats.

  She’d sold three kids this week for 4-H projects. I refused to allow her to take photos of Pepper.

  The damn little gray goat was growing on me almost as much and as quickly as Rebecca.

  “Are those the coolers I saw on the deck?”

  “Yeah. I want to move them closer to the barn, though. I just forgot how heavy they were.”

  She gave me a look that made me laugh. Sometimes the woman amazed me with her strength and endurance, other times, I liked she needed my help. Even if she still hated asking.

  “I’ll take care of it.” I drained the rest of my coffee and rinsed it out before filling a to-go mug to take with me. My body had gotten used to waking up at oh-dark-thirty, but my brain still needed more than one cup of caffeine to wake up. “Ready to get to work?”

  She gave me another sweet smile. Setting down her coffee mug, she slid in between me and the small space between her counter.

  “Cooper?” Her hands brushed up and down my arms.

  Every time she touched me, my body heat spiked to feverish levels. Burning and ice cold at the same time. She scrambled my senses. “What?”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you’re here.” She thanked me often. The half-lidded eyes, blush on her cheeks that accompanied it then was new.

  “You’re wel—”

  She pressed her lips to mine before I could finish. Who gave a shit. She was coming onto me and I was not complaining. I set the coffee mug on the counter and held her close to me. The kiss didn’t deepen. I let her take the lead. It was over too quickly, but the sweet taste of her lingered on my lips and the soft feel of her body stayed on my hands when she pulled back.

  “Let’s go work,” she said.

  She took my hand and tugged me toward the door. I snagged my coffee mug and followed her like a damn puppy dog.

  * * *

  “Shit, it’s hot out here.” I wiped sweat off my forehead and resettled my hat. The weather forecast hadn’t predicted it would be in the eighties by noon but damn, I was burning up with all the work.

  “Wait until it hits four and you realize we’re not nearly done yet,” Ryan said next to me. He popped open a can of beer, forgoing the need to be hydrated in the heat.

  Actually, a drink sounded like a damn good idea.

  As all of Rebecca’s friends trickled in, she put us all to work. Little instructions were needed considering most of these friends had helped her for years and they all took up their regular spots. Brooke and her ten-year-old son, Nathan, hopped onto the tractor that would make square bales for the goats. Her husband, Andrew, got onto the flatbed trailer hooked behind the tractor. He’d stack the bales before they brought them back to the barn when the trailer was filled before heading back out. Her younger son, Oliver, went straight to the goats and started chasing them.

  I’d wanted to jump into the tractor with Rebecca, sit in the small jump seat and watch her maneuver the massive tractor through the fields like a pro but instead, I’d stayed back at the barn with Ryan where we’d move the hay bales once they were brought to us. We’d emptied the flatbed twice and there were still hours to go.

  Jordan was the only one not there. He was supposed to slide the large, round bales onto a different tractor and transport them. His absence had been noted by Rebecca and when he didn’t show when it was time to start, she’d pressed her lips into a firm line and shook her head.

  I’d ask her what that meant later.

  “How much does she make?” All throughout the fields, round hay bales rested wherever they’d landed when she’d complete one. The machine she was on was a thing of magic. It sucked up the cut hay, rolled it, and spit it out the back, tightly pressed and rolled and wrapped in twine.

  “Don’t know. Last year I think we had around six hundred large bales and obviously that lasted her the year. Sometimes if she rolls more than she knows she needs she’ll sell it off to smaller farms.”

  They found a way to make money on everything out here. All of it was inspiring. I’d never given much thought to farmers or even where my food came from, but my God, after a month out here, I was never going to forget it. Every day I learned something new.

  There were what looked like hundreds of bales already sprinkled through the pasture currently and none of them had been moved to the covered area where they kept most of them out in the fields.

  “Shit. And Jordan’s not here to move them.”

  “Yeah. But if he doesn’t show soon, I can grab them.”

  “Know where he is? Seems strange he’d miss this with all the grief he gives Rebecca about asking for help.”

  Ryan’s lips did that same tightly pressed line Rebecca’s had done. “Most likely he’s at Tillie Matsen’s place. Don’t ask. It pisses Rebecca off. And no, it’s not a woman he’s sleeping with. Tillie’s old enough to be our grandma.”

  “Must be a story there.” Rebecca being pissed Jordan helped an elderly lady didn’t jive with anything I knew of her.

  “More like a nightmare,” Ryan muttered. He tossed his beer can into a garbage bin and tugged on his thick, leather gloves. “Break time’s over.”

  “For you, maybe.” I reached for my own beer and opened it, biting back my curiosity. Rebecca would tell me if she wanted.

  Maybe.

  The cool taste slid down my throat just as the hum of the baler grew louder.

  I turned in the direction where Rebecca was headed from, curious as to why she was headed in when I saw Jordan’s Yukon kicking up dust as he headed up the main road toward the house.

  He had farther to drive and was faster, but they met near the barns where Ryan and I were still standing at almost the exact same time. Apparently, Ryan wasn’t ready to head back to work quite yet.

  Rebecca slammed the door of the tractor and jumped down, ignoring the four-step ladder it took to climb up and down safely.

  “Watch this,” he muttered. “You ain’t ever seen nothing as good as the Marxs when their lids blow off.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Rebecca shrieked, hands on her hips.

  “Lay off, Rebecca,” Jordan said. “Tillie needs help and I give it. It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s not a big deal? Why didn’t you tell me you were spending time with that woman?”

  Jordan’s face turned to granite so quickly I moved. I rushed to Rebecca. Didn’t care he was her brother. He wouldn’t get in her face even if she might deserve i
t. I had no clue what was going on, why this would set Rebecca off, but it wasn’t like her at all.

  “That woman’s old and alone. She called me when I got to town.” He walked by her, stomping toward the deck where several pairs of leather gloves had been laid out by Rebecca this morning. “Like I said, it’s not a big thing. She calls, I help. I mow her grass, tend her garden. She can’t do it much anymore.” He tugged on his gloves and I was at Rebecca’s side when he spun on his heels. “And don’t say shit about Tillie. She’s good people.”

  “Tillie’s—”

  Jordan leaned in, rage all over his face. I shoved Rebecca to my back, holding on to her when she stumbled at my quick movement and kicked up rock. “Watch it,” I warned.

  He didn’t look at me. He was focused on the woman at my shoulder. He shoved a finger into his chest. “I know exactly who Tillie is, Rebecca. Don’t forget that, but that doesn’t mean I’ll kick her to the curb when she needs something from me. I’m helping her.”

  “Yeah. And her.”

  Definitely a story there. At that implication, Jordan threw his hands in the air.

  “It’s not about her. Now, are you gonna yell at me, having a conversation that makes me want to blow my head off, or can I get to work so we’re not here until nightfall?”

  “Get to work,” Rebecca muttered, clearly unhappy with her choices. “But we’re having this conversation.”

  He turned, his legs carrying him double-time toward the tractor. “Over my dead body,” he called out, not turning back.

  “That can be arranged,” she shouted back.

  Jordan’s response was his hand lifted high in the air, middle finger extended.

  Ryan grinned at me. “See? What’d I tell you?”

  Ryan was almost as nutty as his wife, good people though. I met him last week when Rebecca and I had gone in to eat at Down Home, the restaurant where Christa works with her family who would be bringing us food soon. He and Kelly had been there. They slid into the booth next to Rebecca and I, uninvited, and he’d shaken my hand. Then he picked up his menu—my menu, rather— and acted like he’d known me forever.

  Even the people of Carlton were growing on me.

  “What was that about?” I asked, spinning to where Rebecca was still huffing and puffing next to me.

  “Nothing.” She brushed back her hair and tugged on her ponytail, growling. “What an idiot he is, though, seriously. Isn’t he Ryan?”

  “Hey.” He lifted his hands and backed up slowly. “Leave me outta this.”

  “Whatever. I need to get back to work.” She kicked a patch of rocks and they sailed through the air.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “Well, I feel more in the mood to chop some wood even though I can barely swing an axe, but yeah. It’s just history crap.”

  Without thinking about our audience, I bent down and brushed my lips over hers. “You can tell me all about it later, get it off your mind if you need to.”

  Her eyes flickered to Ryan and back to me, a haze on her cheeks that had nothing to do with the heat. “Okay.”

  Twenty-Two

  Rebecca

  Muscles I didn’t know existed ached. I longed for a hot bath, a gallon of water followed by a glass of wine, and an ice pack to soothe the heat on my neck from a day of hard work. But it was done.

  I had a dozen if not more people to thank profusely for their help today. Near the end of the night, Peter and Gloria Whitman had even stopped by. Gloria said she’d heard all the ruckus on the ranch and seen the tractors moving in the hayfields. Knowing what we were doing, she and Peter came over and brought so many pies all of us could practically have our own. We were still stuffed from the four, six-foot-long subs Christa had delivered, eating those throughout the day but at the mention of one of Gloria Whitman’s prize-winning fruit pies, everyone acted like we hadn’t eaten in a week.

  After those were desecrated, Peter had gone to hang with the men still moving bales to the barns and putting the equipment away.

  Gloria had grabbed a beer and settled down with Brooke, her boys, Kelly, and I on the back patio and kicked up her feet where we talked about the day, the fact we made around five hundred bales, enough to get me through the next year assuming everything went well, and hundreds more square bales I used to feed the goats.

  Kelly and Ryan left shortly after. He was on the night shift at the police department and had to get home to change. I’d felt horrible when he reminded me of that. The guy had spent twelve hours tossing hay bales around and he still had twelve hours to work.

  My good friends weren’t just good, they were incredible.

  “What a day.” My arm was so sore it trembled as I brought my glass of water to my lips. “Every year I forget how long this takes.”

  It was almost nine o’clock, but no one had been in a hurry to head home. Next to Brooke, her Nathan was curled into a lounge chair, eyes closed and sleeping. The kid had worked hard all day long. Oliver, their six-year-old, had been active too, but mostly he played with the goats and occasionally sat on the hay in the flatbed while his dad worked. Still, he hadn’t been a nuisance.

  I made a mental note to have him back to the ranch more often. I’d forgotten how much he loved the goats and chickens. On the years my mom had grown a vegetable garden, Nathan had always enjoyed tending it with her. I didn’t have time for a garden, although I’d always wanted a large one. I imagined it being self-sustaining and enough where I could occasionally get a tent at the farmer’s market to sell what I didn’t need. I’d buy canning equipment and have my cellar lined with walls of canned vegetables and tomato sauces to last me all winter.

  Currently it was a pipe dream, considering I didn’t have much time for anything more than I was doing.

  Brooke pulled a piece of stray hay out of her messed ponytail and flung it toward the ground. “I’ll be picking hay out of strange crevices for days.”

  “Gross.” My shoulders shook. My friends were so weird.

  “Woman!” Andrew called, stomping up the steps. “Let’s get these boys to bed. I gotta hit the hay.”

  I snickered and then groaned. “That was the lamest dad joke ever.”

  “Never know what’s going to work unless you throw it out there.”

  “Better not get too crazy,” Brooke said, moaning as she lifted her tired body out of her chair. “Or you might be the one getting thrown back.”

  “Your threats are worthless.” He kissed his wife and came to me, bending down and planting a kiss on my cheek. “You host a hell of a workday as always, Rebecca. Remind us not to curse you too much when none of us can move tomorrow.”

  “You young un’s,” Gloria piped up. “Don’t know hard work. Hell, the tractors do most of the job.” She glared and pointed at Andrew. “And tomorrow’s the Lord’s Day. Your behinds better be in church like they always are.”

  “Come on, ma’am,” Andrew replied, cheeky grin on his face. “Even Jesus took a day of rest.”

  “Well I’ll be.” She grinned back. “Didn’t know thanking the Lord for all your blessings was exhausting work.”

  “Ugh. You got me.” He grinned at her and then lifted Oliver into his arms from his resting spot in another lounge chair. “When you put it that way, we’ll be there.”

  Brooke flashed me wide eyes that said over her dead body would she be in church in the morning. I bit back a laugh at her expression.

  Gloria got out of her chair as well and looked at me. “Will we see you?”

  Not likely. “I’ll think about it.”

  She came to me, her soft, old lips pressed against my temple. “Think harder, sweetheart. Know you’re mad at the lot you’ve been given, but guarantee that God wants to turn your ash field into somethin’ precious if you trust Him to.”

  I wasn’t ready for that. Although my field, as she called it, didn’t feel nearly as ashy lately. “Point made, ma’am.”

  Her wrinkled hand settled on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll k
eep prayin’ for ya’. He’ll work on you, I know it.”

  The woman was relentless. “Thanks for the desserts. They were all delicious.”

  I walked them all toward the edge of the patio where Peter was headed our way with Jordan and Cooper.

  It took all I had not to stare at him, watch the way his strong, muscled body carried him all the way toward me. Earlier, when he’d kissed me with Ryan around, I hadn’t felt the smallest twinge of embarrassment. This morning, when I kissed him, I hadn’t hesitated.

  Being around Cooper was easy. He still got me in ways no one else did, but it wasn’t just that, everything he did impressed me.

  Today hadn’t been any different. He’d worked his butt off all day long, right alongside everyone else who’d been doing this for over a decade, and he’d behaved like he was born for ranch life.

  He always did. Everything I taught him he took to like a natural, and he never stopped asking questions, wanting to learn more.

  He wasn’t just sexy. He didn’t just kiss like God had gifted him the ability of perfect form. Every single thing about him drew me to him in ways I wanted to stop fighting.

  “Thanks for everything today,” I said to everyone as they dished out goodbye hugs and handshakes. I held Jordan tighter than normal. “You’re a pain in my ass and I’m still pissed.”

  “Get over it,” he muttered, squeezing me back just as harshly. “I like Tillie and she’s old. Plus, I think she’s getting sick but she’s too stubborn to tell anyone. I’m just keeping her safe.”

  Ryan and Kelly lived across the street from her. They always kept their eye out. This had more to do with Tillie’s granddaughter who had put Jordan’s heart through a wood chipper way back before he hit the big leagues. I still hated her for it.

  Tillie was sweet, though. “Fine. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” He kissed my cheek and stepped back. “I’m headed to the resort. Need to check on how things are with a wedding reception out there tonight, but you call me if you need me, okay?”