Chapter 9 Beau #2
"Must be nice, having that kind of continuity. Knowing where you come from, where you belong." She says softly, and there's something wistful in her voice that cuts straight through me.
The longing in her words makes me want to ask about her own family history. But I've learned the hard way that pushing for answers only makes people retreat faster than spooked cattle.
Sometimes showing is better than asking.
"See that building there? The newer one with the green metal roof?" I point toward the structure that sits about two hundred yards from the main barn. "That's our calving barn. We built it five years ago for difficult births and bottle babies."
I hesitate, then decide to take the chance. "Want to see it? There's someone I'd like you to meet."
The barn is warm and dim after the bright afternoon sun, smelling of fresh timothy hay and milk replacer, with that sweet, clean scent that comes with new life.
In the corner stall bedded deep with golden straw, a week-old Holstein calf looks up, all impossibly long legs and liquid brown eyes that seem too big for her delicate face.
"Oh," Lucy gasps, and the sound is pure wonder. She drops to her knees beside the stall without hesitation, like she's been drawn by invisible strings. "She's beautiful. What's her name?"
"Doesn't have one yet. Her mother died during a difficult labor three days after she was born, so she's been my responsibility.
" I grab the bottle and milk replacer from the shelf, mixing it with the practiced efficiency of someone who's done this more times than I care to count.
"Been hoping someone might have a good idea. "
Lucy reaches through the wooden slats to stroke the calf's head with gentle fingers, and I watch her face transform with something approaching wonder.
When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper, like she's sharing a secret.
"I guess you're part of the tough girls without moms club now, aren't you, sweetheart?"
The words are spoken to the calf, but something in her tone, a recognition, a kinship, makes me look at her more carefully.
"You speaking from experience?"
"My mother died when I was almost eighteen." She doesn't look at me, just keeps stroking the calf's soft ears with infinite tenderness. "Cancer. I took care of her for the last two years, so when she finally... when it was over, I didn't really know what to do with myself."
The simple honesty of it hits me like a physical blow. Here's this young woman who should have been going to prom and planning for college, and instead she was watching her mother die.
"That's a lot of responsibility for someone so young."
"It didn't feel like a responsibility. It was just... us." She glances up at me, and there are unshed tears making her brown eyes luminous. "After she died, I wasn't exactly myself for a while. Nothing made sense anymore. I felt like I was drowning in a world that suddenly had no rules."
I hand her the prepared bottle, our fingers brushing in a contact that sends electricity shooting up my arm. "What about your father?"
"Car accident when I was five. I barely remember him except for the smell of his aftershave and the way he used to read me bedtime stories with different voices for all the characters."
She guides the bottle to the calf's eager mouth, smiling when the little animal starts nursing with desperate hunger. "So it was just me and my mum for a long while."
The pain in her voice is raw, honest, and it cuts straight through every defense I've built over the past two years.
Here's this young woman who's clearly been through hell, feeding an orphaned calf with hands so gentle they could coax trust from the wildest mustang, sharing pieces of her heart like they don't cost her everything.
"So what should we name her?" I ask, watching Lucy guide the bottle with infinite patience.
Lucy considers this with the seriousness it deserves, looking down at the small animal who's found safety in this warm barn. "Darcy," she says finally.
"Darcy?" I lean against the stall door, genuinely intrigued. "Any particular reason?"
"My mom and I used to read together when she was too tired for anything else. Pride and Prejudice was her favorite, we must have read it a dozen times." Lucy's smile is soft with memory, tinged with the bittersweet ache of loving someone who's gone.
"She used to say I was like Elizabeth Bennet. Stubborn and opinionated and too quick to judge."
"Was she right?"
"Probably." Lucy laughs, and the sound echoes in the quiet barn like church bells. "Austen wrote about strong women who didn't need rescuing, who could take care of themselves and still find love on their own terms."
"Darcy it is then," I say, my voice rougher than I intended.
She laughs again, but there's a tear tracking down her cheek, silver in the dim light filtering through the barn windows. Without thinking, without permission, I reach out to brush it away with my thumb.
The moment my skin touches hers, everything changes.
The air between us becomes charged, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes.
I can see in her eyes that she feels it too.
Her lips part slightly, and she leans into my touch like she's been starving for gentleness, her eyes fluttering closed for just a moment before opening again, darker now, heated with want that matches my own.
"Lucy," I breathe her name like a prayer, rough and desperate and full of everything I've been trying not to feel.
"Beau," she whispers back, breathless and needy in a way that makes heat slam through me hard enough to steal what's left of my rational thought.
I step closer, close enough to count every freckle across her nose, my other hand finding her waist and feeling the warmth of her skin through the soft cotton of her sweater. She doesn't pull away.
Instead, she moves into me like we're two pieces of the same puzzle, her free hand coming up to rest against my chest, fingers splaying over my heartbeat like she's trying to memorize its rhythm.
"I've been thinking about you," I confess, my voice barely above a whisper in the hushed sanctuary of the barn. "Every damn day since I met you."
Her breath catches, sharp and sweet, and I can feel the rapid flutter of her pulse under my thumb as I trace the delicate line of her jaw. "Beau..."
"Tell me to stop," I murmur, leaning down until our foreheads almost touch, until I can feel her breath against my lips like a promise. "Tell me this is a bad idea and I'll walk away right now."
But she doesn't. Instead, she rises up on her toes, closing the distance between us by precious inches, her lips parting in invitation that makes my knees go weak.
I'm leaning down, drawn by gravity and something stronger, when—
"Boss! We got a situation with the north fence line! Looks like we've got missing stock!"
The voice crashes through the barn like a gunshot, shattering the moment into a thousand pieces.
I freeze, my hand still cupping her face, our lips barely a breath apart.
Lucy's eyes are wide, pupils blown with desire, and I can feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against mine, matching the wild rhythm of my own heartbeat.
"Boss?" The voice is closer now, urgent with the kind of panic that means real trouble. "You in here?"
I drop my hand and step back like I've been burned, the spell broken as completely as if someone had doused us both with ice water. The loss of contact is immediate and devastating, like losing something I didn't know I needed until it was gone.
"I have to—" I start, my voice rough as gravel.
"Yeah," Lucy says quickly, her cheeks flushed pink, brushing nonexistent straw from her jeans with hands that aren't quite steady. "I should probably get back to the clinic anyway."
I want to say something that might bridge the chasm that's suddenly opened between us. Want to finish what we started, want to tell her that this moment meant everything to me.
But duty calls with the harsh voice of reality, and the ranch doesn't wait for anyone's convenience, not even mine.
I shove the feelings down the way I've done a hundred times before, bury them under the weight of responsibility and the Blackwell name, and make myself focus on what needs to be done.
"I'll have one of the hands drive you back to your van," I manage, though every word tastes like disappointment.
"Okay," she says, and there's hurt and resignation in her voice, making my chest tighten like a vise. Like she expected this, expected to be pushed aside when something more important came along.
I walk toward the barn door on legs that feel unsteady, my hand still tingling from the warmth of her skin, the scent of vanilla and spring flowers clinging to my clothes like a memory I'm not ready to let go of.
Behind me, I can hear Lucy talking softly to the calf, her voice gentle and sure, telling little Darcy that everything will be all right.
I wish someone could tell me the same thing.
Outside, my foreman Jake is waiting with his hat in his hands and worry etched deep in the lines around his eyes, ready to deliver news about cut fences and missing cattle that will require my immediate attention.
But all I can think about is the way Lucy looked at me in that moment before we were interrupted. Like I was something worth wanting, something worth the risk.
The way she made me remember what it feels like to want something more than duty and tradition and the carefully maintained control that's been my entire life for the past two years.
And the way I just chose the ranch over her, exactly like every Blackwell man before me.