Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Hayden
INSPIRED
When I sneak back into my room, Wen is snoring softly, curled up under the covers like a cocooned butterfly.
I’ll have to untangle the comforter when I get in, but right now I’m too buzzed to sleep.
Normally, I thrive on controlling everything around me.
Coming here to review the Christmas Experience threw my head into a spin, but I clung to the itinerary like a safety blanket, and I was okay.
Then I met Connor, and nothing has been planned since.
I cuddled cows and coaxed a llama out of a pool, and I kissed him, and took him in a way I’ve never taken anyone before.
Most of my hookups were arranged through an app and were merely to scratch an itch.
Past boyfriends hated my need for control, called it clingy, and usually pushed back in the bedroom to assert their dominance.
That’s probably the best way to describe it, though what I just had with Connor wasn’t a dominant and submissive kind of thing, was it?
My mind is abuzz with ideas, and I grab my laptop and sit by the window looking out over the ranch with the starlit sky that seems to have awakened my passion in more ways than one.
It’s hours when I finally stop typing and close the lid.
A rough outline and three whole chapters of a new story just flowed out of me like it was inside me this whole time, just waiting to be written.
In the past, it’s only ever been this easy to write when I was working on my reviews.
My attempts at drafting my novel back in the city were always painfully slow.
I’d stare at the blank screen for an hour, or reread the last chapter, decide it was all terrible, delete it and start again.
That’s pretty much been the cycle for the last five years.
But when I read over the first few chapters of this story, my chest swelled with an unusual sense of pride in the words I’ve strung together.
I nudge Wen back onto her side of the bed, uncurling the blanket from beneath her and climbing in, the warmth from her surrounding me, and I drift away into sleep with images of a handsome cowboy calling my name, teasing my mind.
***
“Hayden, you have to see this one,” Wen calls from the mini goat section of the cuddle cove. She’s got a spotted baby goat in her lap, circling like a cat. “They’re so cute.”
“I’m good over here with the calmer cows, thanks,” I tell her as I brush down Miss Milky.
She’s a huge White Park that apparently belongs to Dean, the head guy on the ranch.
He and his brother Nial run this place, and she was the first cow he ever bought himself.
After knocking out another chapter of my book with coffee this morning, I started on the review article, though it’s reading a little like a list of facts rather than a review.
If I want this to read more like my other pieces, I need it to tell the story of this place.
That’s how my restaurant reviews always were.
Stories of my journey through the courses, the flavor profiles captivating my senses.
That is what this needs to be. I close my eyes and focus on the sounds of the ranch.
Children laughing as rocks skid along the gravel path.
They’re coming for the session today, I’m sure, as their voices grow louder.
The snorts and brays of the mini goats and the moo of the Highlands, and then the sweetest sound of all.
Connor’s voice is there like a melody floating toward me on the cool winter breeze.
“I see you’ve found a new friend,” he says, and I open my eyes, the smile on my lips growing as I take him all in.
He’s resting one foot up on the fence rail in his worn denim jeans and leather chaps.
His muscled chest bulges through a blue flannel shirt and is wrapped in a worn leather jacket that’s the color of fine whiskey.
If that wasn’t enough to already send my heart racing, his devilish grin directed my way under his tipped cowboy hat would have certainly done the trick.
“I told you, I’m great at making friends.”
“I remember.”
“So what about you?” I ask, and he lowers his foot and leans his back against the rail.
“What about me?”
“Do you have lots of…friends?”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t say lots, but I’ve got the ones I need.”
“Here on the ranch?”
“Yeah. This place has become my home. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“I used to feel that way about the city, or at least about the part of it that I live in now.”
“What’s it like?”
“My place?”
“Yeah. What is it about the city you love?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest, biceps bulging and his piercing gaze totally focused on me.
“The familiar noises are a constant hum in my mind. Like a lullaby helping to send me off to sleep. My place is small, not as small as the cabins here, but small enough to feel cozy. I’m not great with wide-open spaces, and being able to see all four walls helps me feel safe, I guess.
Secure. I’m not a hermit or anything. I go out all the time, for… work.”
“Writing your book?”
I pause, wondering how much I should tell him about me and why I am here. If I talk about the food reviews, he might ask if I am reviewing the ranch, and I don’t think I could lie to him.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t pay yet, so I take on a few articles here and there, enough to pay the rent and keep me in coffee.”
“Have you tried the brew in your room?” he asks.
“No, I’m no good with the press thingy, so I’ve been using the instant in the room. It’s okay. I can wait until I get back into town to grab a real coffee from the cafe there.”
“I can make you one, up in the house. Preston and Dean have a machine installed,” he says, reaching down for my hand and pulling me up to stand.
“You don’t have to. I mean, you are probably really busy here, and the session is starting soon, isn’t it?” I ask, acutely aware that he hasn’t let go of my hand, and the warmth of his large fingers surrounding mine spreads through my arm.
Connor shakes his head. “Nial is taking a group to see the bigger animals first, like Chewie. You know he was in the pool again this morning when Skye went to feed them.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, no clue how he’s getting out, though.”
“Probably jumped.”
“If he did, then we’d have the new Guinness world record; those fences around the pen are six feet, the highest ever jump is just under four.”
“One, how is it you know that? And two, you don’t have cameras on him?”
“I’m the king of useless animal facts, and we tried a camera a few times already, but he spots them and knocks them down before he escapes.”
“Wow, so he’s like the supervillain of llamas,” I joke, and he laughs, opening the enclosure gate to let me pass and dropping my hand into the cool winter air, so much colder than I remember from only a few minutes ago.
“He’s fast becoming my nemesis.”
“All the things you know about animals aren’t useless. I’ve seen you with them. You… connect.”
“They’re easier to be around than people… well, most people, anyway,” he says, tying a rope around the gate to make it extra secure.
“So…I started my book,” I say, and he turns toward me as we walk up to the main house.
“Really? Wait, didn’t your friend say you have been writing it for years?”
“That was a different one. This is new. I…was inspired after last night’s….”
“Experience?”
“Yeah.”
“So is there a big, strong, handsome cowboy?”
“Actually, yes.”
“And it’s a romance?”
“Yeah, but with a twist.”
“What kind of twist?” he asks, with genuine interest in his tone.
Wendy is always supportive of my writing, but she doesn’t hide the fact that she’s more interested in the potential for movie rights and who would be playing the main characters.
Usually, she chooses one of the Hemsworth brothers, though I can’t really blame her.
Ripped blond gods seem to be my type, too.
“You’ll just have to wait to find out.”
“Can I bribe you with coffee?” he asks with a cheeky smirk on his lips as we reach the old white porch steps that lead past Sally-May’s container home and into the back door of the main house.
They creak under his feet but appear solid enough.
The paint is rough under my hands, though freshly painted, it’s peeled and cracked showing the layers underneath.
It’s actually nice that it holds some of the signs of the years it’s been here, welcoming the Beakers and countless others into this house.
“You already promised coffee,” I say, peering up at the old, weathered house. It’s two-stories high, with wooden-framed windows looking out over the ranch.
“Rats, I did, too. I’ll just have to think up something more enticing to bribe you with.”
“You do that,” I reply with a smirk.
I follow him through the door into the kitchen, and he takes his hat off with one hand as we pass the threshold.
He quickly scrubs his fingers through his mess of blond locks to break the impression the hat left, and it’s kind of adorable.
The kitchen isn’t huge, but it’s double the size of the one in my apartment and has a large wooden butcher’s block in the middle of the room with pie trays and bags of ingredients laid out waiting for Sally-May.
There’s a huge old stove that is ivory and brass, and has five burners on top and three doors underneath.
The wrap-around benches are all stone, not sure what kind, but they sparkle a little, so I am guessing some kind of quartz.
Under the window looking out over the garden and ranch is a double farmhouse sink, also ivory and showing its age, with cracked enamel along the bottom edges and faint cracks snaking their way up the front in thin lines that actually make it feel more homey.
Everything in my apartment back home was brand-new. I was the first person to use the stove, the sink, sit at the table, and run the bath. Everything in here has a history to it. It’s been touched by generations and carries their memories with it.
“What are you thinking?” Connor asks, laying his hand over mine, that I only now register is resting on the rounded edge of the old sink.
“Nothing.”
“You can tell me,” he says, and his voice is like a calming wave that washes over me, giving me a quiet confidence.
I shrug. “I guess I was thinking it must have been nice to grow up here.”
“I thought the same thing the first time they welcomed me through the door.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. My childhood wasn’t so…warm,” he says with a sadness in his eyes I don’t like.
“I’m glad you found your way here, then,” I say, and he nods and laces his fingers through mine, and we continue through to the dining room.
It’s set with a large table and ten chairs sat around it, none of them matching.
An old buffet is against the wall to my right, and a china cabinet in the same stained wood is on the left wall, and on top is the coffee machine he promised.
“You take it sweet, with caramel syrup, right?” he asks, and I look up at him, surprised.
“How did you know that?”
“I remember from the cafe, plus you smell…sweet.”
“I do, huh?” I ask as another sudden rush of confidence urges me forward. I press up on my toes, and his grip on my hand tightens.
“Delicious, actually,” he says, and I press my lips against his, letting my tongue dart out just enough that it swipes over his lips, tasting him before I pull back.
“You’re pretty delicious yourself.”
“Careful, or I’ll have to drag you into a hall closet to finish what you’re starting.”
I pump my brows.
“You did offer to tempt me with something else.”
The sounds of people talking and children playing break through the haze of lust surrounding us, and he scrubs his hand through his hair again and covers his groin with his hat.
“As much as it pains me to say, I don’t think we have time for all the things I want to do to you right now. Do you want to maybe come to my place again tonight?”
“What time will you be done on the ranch?”
“We finish up at about six, then we meet in the house to eat and go through the day and plan for the next day, week, you know, ranch management stuff. Normally, I’m home and showered by eight.”
“I’ll be at your place about seven thirty then.”
He frowns a little with an inquisitive smirk. “Trust me, I’ll smell much better after a shower.”
“Oh, I have no doubt, I just want to watch you do it.”
His cheeks blush as he sucks in a breath, shaking his head.
“I only just got this guy under control, then you go and say shit like that to me and get him all worked up again.”
“Don’t worry, he has time to settle down. You promised me coffee, right?”
“Right.” He sighs, passing me his hat and turning toward the machine, but not before I get a good look at his bulge.
Fuck, I really wish there was time to take care of that right now.
Actually, making him wait for it, for me, is pretty fucking hot.
Turning his worn leather hat over in my hands, I watch him squirm, adjusting himself as he makes my coffee, and my excitement only builds, and I start picturing all the ways I can tease him before tonight.