Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Hank
Ring. Ring. Ring.
My plan to ignore the doorbell—which was probably someone trying to sell me something I didn’t want or need—wasn’t working. I’d let the first round go. And the second. But the third was insistent, like the person on the other side had been hired specifically to annoy the hell out of me.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t get up until the invoices were done, but clearly, the universe had other plans.
At some point, I needed to outsource my billing because every year it got more complicated.
When my parents had run this place, it’d been mostly angora goats with the occasional longhorn cow.
Now it was fallow deer, Watusi cattle, blackbuck antelope, Babydoll Sheep, oryxes, and the random nilgai.
It had taken years, but I’d finally managed to turn this place into something rooted in conservation and stewardship instead of a commercial operation to sell fiber, which didn’t pay for shit unless you were huge. And we never had been.
Sadly, that also came with mountains of paperwork.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“I’m coming. Lay off the damn doorbell,” I yelled as I approached the front door and wrenched it open. My question started as a yell and ended in a strangled whisper. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You say that a lot to me. Why do you suppose that is?”
Holy hell, what was this man wearing? He was in shorts again—but this time they were ancient cutoffs with fringe ends and strategic cuts that made me think dirty, filthy thoughts.
The T-shirt was vintage, featuring an army soldier riding a unicorn, and his flip-flops had been switched out for woven river sandals with rainbow lacing.
If he was going for casual, effortless sexiness in a pocket-sized body, he’d nailed it.
“No answer for me?”
“You can’t come in.”
“Oh, am I interrupting something?” He gave me an appraising look, head to toe, then peered around behind me. “I hope it was something fun.”
“I was working.”
Jasper’s plump lips pursed, then curved into a smile like a cat tasting cream. “What’s the wink for?”
“I’m just glad there’s no competition for you this morning.”
Another wink. It forced me to stare at his eyes—pale green, fringed with lighter-tipped lashes. He looked like he’d spent the last few days in the sun, the freckles across the bridge of his nose standing out against his pinkened skin. I doubt his blond curls were capable of being tamed.
“Like what you see, hon?”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
“Of course not,” Jasper said with a sing-song laugh. “It’s fine. I’ll let it slide this time.”
“Why are you here again?”
Jasper ducked around me and entered my house like he’d been invited. He wandered into the living room, eyeing the knick-knacks and pictures.
“Are these your animals?”
“They were here, but they weren’t mine. They belonged to research facilities or zoos.”
“Why were they here?”
“Mostly because schools and labs don’t always have the facilities to keep their subjects on-site. Zoos might not want breeding pairs on display or have room or whatever. They stay here until they’re moved somewhere else or returned.” I paused and added, “Why are you here?”
Jasper circled the room, inspecting the photo and fully ignoring my question. Finally, he said, “I thought game ranches were usually hunting-focused.”
“How do you know I run a game ranch? But to answer your question, most are. I wanted to go in a different direction.”
He ignored my question and kept up his inspection.
It finally struck me that Jasper was balancing a pan covered in foil on a heat pad. “What’s in the pan?”
“Oh, it’s for you!” Jasper lit up and crossed the room to stand directly in front of me like this was a completely normal morning. “I was experimenting with a banana coffee cake and wanted to get your opinion on it.”
Was this a trap? It felt like a trap.
He shoved the pan at me so quickly that I scrambled to get my hand underneath the hot pad. Then he turned on his heel and headed into my open kitchen, wasting no time opening drawers and cupboards until he found the silverware and plates.
“Yeah, just make yourself at home.”
“Thank you so much. You know what I like about Texas? Everyone is so friendly.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I was being polite.”
My defeat was obvious, so I grabbed napkins and added them to the table.
“Thank you. Sticky fingers are never fun.”
The place my mind wandered to must’ve shown on my face because Jasper added, “There are a few exceptions.”
His words conjured up images that were best left unmentioned.
“You came over here to give me cake at eight in the morning?”
“It’s coffee cake. You eat it in the morning.”
Jasper served me cake in my own kitchen like he owned the place. I dutifully took a bite, and flavor exploded in my mouth. The banana was mellow, but the brown sugar and cinnamon had a sweet kick.
“Did you make this?” I asked. Oh yeah, definitely a trap.
“I did.” Jasper beamed. “It’s on my list of recipes for the bed and breakfast.”
“What bed and breakfast?”
“The one I’m opening next door.” Jasper wiped the crumbs off the counter into his hand and brushed them into the trash can. “That might be one of the reasons I stopped by.”
“Shocking. What do you want?”
“My sweet, lovely ladies keep getting out through the fence. I’d like you to fix it.”
At my skeptical look, he quickly added, “I’m not asking you to do it for free. I’ll pay you.”
“If you’re gonna pay someone, you can hire a fencing company to come out and do it.”
“If I do that, I’ll have to pay them again when it breaks again. Or I pay you to do it, watch what you do, and next time, I can just fix it myself.”
Jasper’s logic was absolutely sound, but it still surprised me. This man—who had no idea what appropriate footwear was and made rhinestone collars for his goats—wanted to learn how to fix a fence.
“I don’t have time to do it this morning. Can you wait until this afternoon?”
“No worries. I will absolutely be there.”
“Fine. I’ll head over around four-thirty. Please wear appropriate shoes.”
“Appropriate shoes. Got it.”
“Christ on a cracker, what are you wearing?”
“What? You said to wear appropriate shoes. These are very appropriate. And cute. Really, it’s a win-win across the board. Ten out of ten, would wear them again.”
Jasper wore the same sinful cutoffs from earlier, but he’d swapped the sandals for pink cowboy boots—high-heeled with a pointed toe and bedazzled within an inch of their life. Sexy as hell, but totally wrong for fence repair.
We’d need to put up a row of barbed wire—no one walks away from that without getting torn up. I doubted he owned work gloves, so I’d brought a spare pair, but they weren’t going to protect all that exposed, lightly tanned skin. And those boots? They wouldn’t last an hour in the pasture.
He clearly loved them though. Loved the shorts too, judging by the way he pranced and posed like he was a one-man Pride parade.
“Sorry, sugar, you need to put on long jeans and boots you don’t mind getting dirty. Your legs’ll get torn up, and those boots’ll be in the trash by dinner.”
Fuck me. Did I really just call him sugar?
“Sure thing, hon.”
Goddammit.
“Give me five minutes to change, and I’ll be back down.”
He spun around and raced out of the room, and I got the perfect view of his ass on the way out. Those shorts would get him arrested, but I wouldn’t be the one to file a complaint.
Unlike Jasper, I thought it was rude to snoop through someone’s house uninvited—but I had been here a few times before.
The place was a mess. Boxes and suitcases in one corner, cleaning supplies in the other.
A disaster zone in progress. I could practically hear him saying, Trust the process, but even that required imagination I didn’t have.
I already knew where the kitchen was from my previous visits, so I headed in to drop off the cake pan. I’d meant to hand it to him directly, but his legs had been a distraction.
At some point, I should probably tell him I wasn’t straight. Probably. Maybe. Later.
“Hello? Where did you disappear to?” Jasper called from the living room.
“Yeah, I’m here. I put your pan in the kitchen,” I answered, making my way back to the foyer.
Unfortunately for me, the cutoffs were well and truly gone. Jasper was fully dressed. Jeans—ripped, but at least they covered most of his legs—and a pair of sturdy hiking boots. Good enough for work, but not nearly as fun.
“How did you know where the kitchen was? When I first got here, I had to hunt it down,” Jasper asked brightly.
“Sissy used to have me come over to fix stuff. I’d be working on the pipes and she’d sit right next to me, telling me I was doing it wrong.”
“I don’t think she ever mentioned you.”
“I don’t remember her mentioning a Jasper either.”
“Fair. We were mostly online friends. Technically, we’re related.”
“How’s that? I didn’t think she had much family.”
“Third cousins, twice removed. On my mom’s side.”
“Shit. I don’t even know what that means.”
“Me either, but that’s what Sissy said.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t about to argue. She kinda scared me.”
“Yeah, same. I’d be fixin’ to do something one way, and she’d just jump in the middle of it. I’d say, ‘yes ma’am,’ and keep goin’.”
“We had plans for me to visit,” he said softly. “But she canceled last minute. Then she passed pretty quick after that.”
My chest tightened. I hadn’t known she canceled on him, but it made sense, knowing her. Sissy had enough pride for ten people.
“Sissy was stubborn as hell. She probably didn’t want anyone to see her sick. Bert came by a few times, and she’d let him in. I came with him once, and she wouldn’t open the door.”
I went quiet, and Jasper didn’t rush to fill the space.