The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny

by Mary Sue Jackson

  He went slowly at first, his thrusts controlled as he used a hand to push her ever closer to the edge. Her own hips moved with far more abandon, riding the growing feeling of heat building in her loins. When she finally tipped over the edge into the abyss, she cried out loud, shaking her head helplessly as her entire body shook. Austin moaned on top of her, repositioning himself so that the length of his body covered hers, melding them together. His movements became less controlled as he gave in to his own pleasure, and she moved her body in time with his, wanting only to bring him as much pleasure as he was bringing her. Finally, she felt him tense above her, the tendons standing out in his neck like cords as he let himself go.

  For a moment suspended in time, they remained that way, his face buried against the side of her neck, and both of them panting for air. When he rolled off of her, he pulled her along with him so that her head rested on his chest, just above where his heart thumped merrily along. She shut her eyes dreamily, timing her breathing to his and wishing they could stay that way forever.

  They couldn’t, of course, nobody could, but that was something they didn’t have to worry about just now. For the moment, there was nobody else in the world but them, and as far as she was concerned, that was just about perfect.

  Fifteen

  “Would it be too cliché if I said want to know what you’re thinking?” Austin asked, finally breaking their easy, post-coital silence with a question that made Sara shake with laughter. He groaned dramatically, which only made her laugh more. “You’re so rough with my feelings, Sara. It’s like you don’t even care.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, exaggerating the words and pinching him playfully for good measure. “And for the record, I was thinking about the snake.”

  “Seriously?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at her with mock-horror. “I’ve gotta tell you, Sara, I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

  "I was just wondering if it's gone," she said, shifting onto her side so she could look at his face. "You know, if we should, like, leave the hayloft or something."

  “Nuh-uh,” he answered immediately, shaking his head vigorously to punctuate his point. “There’s no way I’m going down there in the dark. That sucker could be anywhere. Creatures like that live for jumping out of the dark and scaring the bejeezus out of people.”

  “Do they?” Sara laughed, reaching up and running her hand along the side of his jaw, now covered with a healthy five-o’clock shadow. He shut his eyes and made a purring sound, leaning into her hand and tilting his head so he could kiss her palm.

  “They do,” he affirmed, his voice muffled by her hand. “But I suppose we can go if you like. I would understand if you didn’t want to spend the night in the hay.”

  “No,” she said quickly, pulling the blanket he’d discovered up closer to her chin. “I actually don’t mind that.”

  “Are you cold?” he asked, his brow wrinkling as he worried over her. “Do you need anything?”

  "Nope," she said happily, stretching to her full length and sighing at the pleasure the movement brought her. "I'm great just where I am. I just didn't want you to think we had to stay up here forever if you didn't want to. I thought you might have things you need to do."

  "Rachel isn't bringing Lea back until sometime tomorrow morning," he said, grabbing another of the discarded blankets and using it as a makeshift pillow. "And until then, I'm not going to worry about a thing. Because I can't remember the last time I wasn't worried about something, and I think it's high time I give it a try."

  Sara agreed, and they lay there together for another indeterminate span of time, Austin humming a tune she almost knew while she tried to remember the last time she had been this content. It didn’t take much effort for her to realize the answer might be never—at least, not in her adult life.

  “Can I ask you something?” she finally said, breaking the silence again and rolling onto her side. “And it’s not meant as a joke, in case you’re wondering.”

  “Sure,” he said slowly, giving her a doubtful look that made her smile. “But it sounds ominous, just so you know.”

  “I’m just wondering how you managed growing up on a ranch when you’re so afraid of snakes,” she asked in a rush, her heart leaping nervously at the idea that he might be offended by the question, thus ruining the mood. “It seems like it would be really hard.”

  He was silent for a moment, and Sara cringed, silently admonishing herself for being so pushy. As much as she wanted to understand what made everyone tick, there was a time and place for prying into a person, and this was likely not it. Then he slung an arm around her, pulling her in closer and kissing the top of her head. She relaxed into his heat, grateful to know that she hadn't messed things up just yet.

  “I don’t know how much you and Rachel talked about what things were like for our family when we were growing up,” he said slowly, his eyes trained on the roof above their heads.

  “I don’t know, a little,” she said truthfully, shifting so that she could look up at him comfortably. She distinctly remembered a handful of teary conversations with Rachel over how bad things were getting at home. Rachel had never gone into much detail, though, and Sara hadn’t wanted to press. Things weren’t perfect in her own home, after all, and she had understood that some things were just too difficult to say out loud.

  “Well, they weren’t great,” he said, an edge creeping into his voice that hadn’t been there before. “My mom spent a lot of time worrying, crying about where my dad had got off to and whether or not he would come home. Then when he was home, they had shouting matches loud enough to rattle the windows. More often than not, Rachel would sneak into my room so I could do something to distract her.”

  “Except that there was nobody to distract you,” Sara said softly, blinking back tears. Even back then, she’d been full of sympathy for Austin and Rachel—but now, with adult perspective, she realized that it wasn’t difficult for her to imagine how Austin’s mother must have felt. After all, she had her own intimate knowledge of what it was like to have a man consistently break you down until you didn’t know what was up and what was down.

  "Exactly," Austin said, his thumb running reassuringly up and down the sensitive skin covering her ribs. "So the ranch sort of became the only place where I felt like I could breathe. I used to walk the property for hours, losing myself in thoughts of how I could make things better. Every now and then a snake would jump out at me and break my calm, and I just kind of developed a loathing for them. It sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it? I've never actually told anyone that before."

  “No,” she said gently, kissing his chest. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

  “Can it be my turn now?” he asked, shifting his body so that they were staring into each other’s eyes. “To ask a question, I mean?”

  "You want to know why I'm here, don't you?" she asked her stomach flip-flopping. "Why I came to town?"

  “How did you know?” he asked with a small frown.

  "Because," she sighed, rolling onto her back and looking at the moonbeams peeking through the roof. "It's the natural question to ask. The shortest answer is that I screwed up with one of the kids I was working with in my school. I didn't hurt him or anything, but I lost my temper when I shouldn't have. After that, I knew I needed to bow out. I needed a change."

  "And yet you got roped into working with a kid again so you could get a job here," Austin said mournfully. He started to shift away from her like his mere presence might somehow make matters worse. She rolled onto her stomach, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look her square in the eye.

  “No, Austin,” she said with surprising forcefulness. “You’ve got it wrong. Being here with you, working with Lea, it hasn’t been a bad thing. It’s made me remember what I liked about working with children in the first place. It’s saved me, as dramatic as that might sound.”

  “Doesn’t sound dramatic at all,” he said, his voice rough and breaking. “
I think you might have saved me, too.”

  Austin woke with the sunrise, the golden rays coming through the still open barn door and creeping up the loft ladder to find him where he slept. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was, and he felt panic flaring in his chest, but when he looked down and saw Sara curled up beside him, he was once again flooded with calm.

  He rose carefully, wanting to make sure there was no trace of the hated snake before waking Sara up. When he was sure they were safe, they descended the ladder and walked back to the house together, moving hand in hand and laughing like a pair of teenagers who had just gotten away with something naughty.

  "Sit," he said when they got into the kitchen, grinning at the saucy look she shot him when she heard his command. "If you want breakfast, that is. If not, well--"

  “All right, all right,” she said, sliding into the chair but sticking her tongue out for good measure. “I’m sitting. But only because I’m desperate for bacon.”

  “Oh!” He snorted, stopping to pluck a lingering piece of straw from her hair before washing his hands and getting to work. “Is that the only reason?”

  "You better believe it," she answered smugly before blowing him a kiss.

  They were still bantering back and forth that way twenty minutes later, eating their breakfast and teasing each other playfully. Austin couldn’t help thinking that this was the sort of relationship he should have had all along. Even in their best moments, things had never been this easy with Lea’s mother. He hadn’t seen the problem back then, but he was starting to think it was because he hadn’t known any better. Hadn’t even realized he could have a relationship like this. Never mind that he and Sara weren’t actually in a relationship, as far as he knew. There was just something easy about his interactions with Sara, something that felt familiar despite their limited time together.

  When there came a knock at the door, Austin stood quickly, instructing Sara to keep eating. He padded to the door, running a hand through hopelessly tangled hair in a futile attempt to tame it.

  “Daddy!” Lea cried as soon as he got the door open, rushing forward and throwing her arms around his legs. Before he could so much as lovingly smooth her hair, she pushed past him, running down the hallway and shouting Sara’s name.

  "Well," Rachel said bemusedly, her hands on her hips as her eyes traveled from Lea's progress to Austin's face. "Looks like you guys have something in common."

  "Oh yeah?" Austin asked warily, although he was fairly certain he already knew where this was going. "What's that?"

  “Sara is a favorite with both of you,” Rachel said with a smirk, hitting imaginary drumsticks against imaginary cymbals.

  "Ha ha, very funny," Austin groaned. "We had a good time if that's what you're wondering, and that's all I'm going to say."

  “No, that’s great,” Rachel said, leaning against the doorframe and studying him closely. “Seriously, brother. You look genuinely happy, and I can’t remember the last time I could say that about you.”

  Austin cleared his throat, surprisingly touched by her words, and tried to figure out what to say. Before he could come up with anything more profound than "thanks," however, a truck pulled up in front of the house, causing Rachel first to turn, and then exhale loudly.

  “I didn’t know Dad was coming for breakfast,” she said, her tone carefully controlled and impossible to read.

  “No,” he said uncertainly. While Rachel had given him her blessing to invite their father to the birthday party, they hadn’t actually spoken about her feelings about the man’s return. “Neither did I. Do you want me to tell him to go?”

  "No, don't worry about it," Rachel said resolutely, already stepping away from the door. "I've got things to do today, don't I? Certainly don't have time to stand around and listen to you moon over a girl all day."

  He shot her the bird, but she only laughed, hurrying down the sidewalk and offering their father nothing more than a quick hello as she went. Pete looked ruffled at best by the time he got to the door, and despite all efforts to be an adult, Austin couldn't help feeling a small amount of satisfaction at that.

  “Pete,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  “Yeah,” Pete stammered, his hands immediately going to his pockets. “I guess I should have called, shouldn’t I? It was just that I was driving by, and...well, I don’t know. Here I am.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Austin said, kindly deciding against pointing out that the ranch wasn’t on the way to much of anything and therefore wasn’t something you would accidentally drive by. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  Pete didn’t say anything at first, just shifted from one foot to the other, staring at the welcome mat like he expected it to get up and walk away. When his eyes finally shifted back up to Austin’s face, it was clear that he wasn’t at all confident about what he was about to say.

  "I haven't been able to get this place out of my head since yesterday, if you want to know the truth," he said at last. "I keep thinking about that and about how badly I let you down when you were a kid."

  “Pete,” Austin started, not at all in the mood to travel down that particular memory lane.

  "I know," the older man said quickly. "We don't need to talk about it, but I want to do something good now. I want to help you get this place back in tip-top shape, whether with money or with my time. I don't care what you need, son, so long as I have it to give, it's yours."

  Austin stared at this man who was both the father he had despised and someone entirely different at the same time. It would have been easy to say no, as much as he needed the help. Each time he gave his dad access to another piece of his life, he was also handing him another opportunity to cause harm. But then his thoughts went back to the night before, to how willing Sara had been to move forward with helping Lea despite her painful past, and he understood the right thing to do.

  “All right,” he said finally, almost surprised by the sound of his own voice. “We’ll figure something out. I guess I could use an extra set of hands.”

  “Really?” Pete asked, his face rising with surprise. “Do you mean it?”

  "I mean it," Austin said, shifting uncomfortably in the face of his old man's emotion. "But now's not the right time to talk about it. I'll call you later, if that's okay, and we'll decide how to move forward."

  “Sure,” Pete said quickly, practically tripping over his words in his hurry to get them out. “No problem. I’ll be seeing you, Austin, and hopefully soon.”

  Austin nodded, remaining in the open door as his father hurried back to his truck and backed down the drive. He was still standing there some time later when Sara came up behind him, laying a tentative hand on his shoulder.

  “Your dad?” she asked curiously. There was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on beneath her tone.

  "That's right," he agreed with a nod. "He wants to help around the ranch, to get it back into working order. I never thought I would say yes to something like that, but lately, there have been plenty of things happening that I didn't anticipate, and almost all of them good. I figured I could take a chance on giving a little trust."

  He expected her to be pleased by this new turn of events, even proud of the way he'd handled the situation, but instead his words were met with silence. When he shifted so that he could get a look at Sara's face, he saw that she was frowning thoughtfully. He felt a flare of irritation and cleared his throat, his hands slipping into his pockets as they always did at times like this.

  “What is it?” he asked when he was reasonably sure that his feelings wouldn’t come through in his voice. “What’s the matter? You don’t approve?”

  “No, I didn’t say that,” she said carefully, still looking at the front yard where Pete’s truck had been. “I’m just worried that maybe things are moving a little too fast. I don’t want to see you--or Lea--get hurt.”

  The flicker of annoyance flared int
o anger in Austin's gut, and he swallowed hard, willing himself not to say something he would regret. In light of their previous night together, it seemed a little silly for Sara to talk about things moving too quickly, not to mention the fact that she was the one who had been going on about letting go of the past and moving forward. She must have sensed his displeasure, too, because she hugged her middle tightly, taking a discreet step away from him.

  "Do you really think I haven't thought of that?" he asked through gritted teeth, shutting the front door firmly. The magic of the night before was quickly fading, and he knew that soon his time in the hayloft with Sara would feel like nothing more than a dream. "Do you think I would do anything to put my daughter in harm's way?"

  “No,” she said quickly, holding up her hands placatingly. “No, I’m sorry. Forget I said anything, okay? It wasn’t my place, anyway. I need to remember that I’m just a guest in your house and trust that you know best. I’ll just go and find Lea, okay? Give you some time to process everything.”

  Before he could protest, she was off, hurrying down the hallway towards Lea’s room where sounds of his girl’s laughter could be heard. He wanted to call Sara back, to explain to her all the things that were wrong with what she had just said. Most of all, he wanted to tell her just how much it hurt him to hear her call herself nothing more than a guest in his home, to know that she still felt that way after everything that had happened between them.

  In the end, he did nothing but watch her go, his chest tight with the old, familiar feeling of discontent. If she didn’t feel like there was more between them than that, there was nothing he could say to change her mind.

  “It was just one night,” he reminded himself darkly, the buoyant mood of earlier long gone. “And that doesn’t have to mean anything at all.”