12. Sunshine, S’mores and Sexual Tension
SUNSHINE, S’MORES AND SEXUAL TENSION
Felicity
Within forty-eight hours, I’d reached my sign-up goal, and a day later there was a wait list for the next Cowboys and Campfires experience. By the time I finalized the event roster, I’d added six more families and somehow convinced the ranch chef to double his projected s’mores output.
Word spread in Valentine Bay the way it always did—one person told their hair stylist, who told three teachers, who told the barista at Morning Tide Café, who immediately added a “Yeehaw Mocha” to the menu in solidarity—and suddenly my inbox was choked with questions about dietary restrictions, program schedules, whether or not trail riding would be available for adults, and if “cowboy karaoke” could be moved to another time so it didn’t coincide with line dancing.
For the past month, I’d spent every waking hour prepping logistics and printing out color-coded name tags and obsessively checking the weather.
Each department had volunteered to “host” an activity.
The lovely ladies and gentlemen who worked at the spa were going to lead goat yoga and sunset meditation.
The security team signed up to spearhead the scavenger hunt.
Ranch operations offered to handle the pony and hay rides, plus the lasso throwing.
The vineyard staff were overseeing the games which included bobbing for apples, tug-of-war, horseshoes, cornhole and sack races.
Catering was handling the cookout and fireside smore's.
At night, when Maverick was tucked into bed sleeping, I’d lie awake worrying about what I’d missed.
Would the hay bales trigger someone’s allergies?
Would the goat yoga be a disaster? Would I singlehandedly destroy the Lockhart Ranch’s reputation and end up on the Valentine Bay Crier’s “See It to Believe It” feature next to the guy who tried to surf the marina in a gorilla suit?
If that was the case, it was too late now.
The big weekend had arrived. I sat at my makeshift registration desk—a picnic table draped with a vinyl gingham tablecloth, set up in front of the main barn—watching the parking area fill with families.
The air was a little chilly, but the sun was out, and the scent of pine and saltwater mingled with the sweetness of my thermos coffee.
The place was alive with nervous energy, the kind I remembered from the first day of school or the opening night of a play.
There was laughter, shouting, the slam of car doors and the distant lowing of cows.
I was, in equal and opposite measure, fifty percent nervous and fifty percent excited.
Maybe a little extra nervous, if I was being honest.
If things flopped, it would be my name on the failure. My idea. My baby.
There’s a peculiar kind of energy that exists only at the registration table of a community event, and I was right in the eye of that hurricane.
One minute, I was waving at an incoming convoy of minivans, clipboard in hand and smile dialed up to “unassailably cheerful,” and the next I was listening to someone’s grandmother detail her granddaughter’s flax allergy at a volume that could have cleared a stadium.
I’d laid out the table like a command center: color-coded name tags stacked in neat pyramids, waivers, sharpies, a mason jar of Lockhart Ranch buttons, and a schedule posted in three font sizes.
I’d even splurged on custom lanyards. Did any of the parents care?
Questionable. Did the kids notice? Absolutely not.
But, as the morning rolled forward and a river of families surged in, I could see the parents relax a little as they collected their packets, their faces softening when they realized everything was already handled.
Mav was perched on the edge of the table with Selma’s grandchildren.
Tabitha, who was six and Blake who was fourteen.
Selma’s oldest son Deacon St. Claire was visiting his mom this weekend.
I’d had no clue Selma had another son. Apparently, she gave Deacon up for adoption when she was nineteen, and his adoptive parents hadn’t kept up their end of the agreement to allow her to correspond with him.
He had no clue who she was until his parents passed away in a car accident.
Sadly, she’d not been allowed any contact with him until about a year ago when he showed up at her door.
I’d recruited Blake as my backup babysitter to watch Maverick for me while I was working at the registration. He and Tabitha were getting along like a house on fire. They were currently methodically peeling every sticker off the rolls and applying them, mostly to each other’s face.
Blake was fourteen, a future STEM queen with the confidence of a startup CEO.
She hovered just behind the registration table, ready to intercept Mav or Tabitha if they made a break for the goat pen that he’d been eyeing with more focus than he’d ever shown for anything, up to and including birthday cake.
My organizational prowess was making registration go surprisingly smoothly, but the real secret weapon was Selma Lockhart.
She swept into the mix at 9:03 a.m., dressed in her signature style.
She was “cowboy chic” with a black Amex limit, fifty-something, gorgeous, and polished enough to make denim look expensive.
Brunette hair with blonde highlights spilled beneath a cream Stetson, turquoise dripped from her wrists, and dark jeans disappeared into buttery leather boots that had probably never seen actual manure.
She looked equal parts rancher, socialite, and don’t-fuck-with-me.
Which made sense.
She owned the place.
Immediately, she began circulating through the crowd like a cruise director with a PhD in emotional triage.
If a child was crying, she produced a tissue and a sticker.
If a dad looked lost, she introduced him to another dad.
If anyone said the phrase “gluten-free,” she had an answer for them before they finished the word.
She made sure every guest felt not just welcome, but important. And when she finally made her way over to me, arms open and eyes shining, it felt like being inducted into a very glamorous, very exclusive secret club.
“Felicity, mija!” she exclaimed, enveloping me in a hug that smelled like vanilla and victory. “Look at this!” She gestured to the crowd, the rows of cars, the barn festooned with hand-lettered signs and bunting. “You did this. You’re a genius.”
I was halfway to a thank you when a deep voice behind me said, “She’s something.”
I turned, and there was Dean Lockhart, Sunshine himself, arms folded across his chest, leaning up against the barn’s shadowed wall as if he’d been there all morning.
He was wearing a dark henley that did unspeakable things to my heart rate, jeans with precisely the right amount of wear, and an expression that was equal parts bemused and unreadable.
His brown eyes met mine and—maybe it was a trick of the sunlight, or maybe I was just running on too little sleep and too much caffeine—but for a second, I thought I saw a smile.
If I were the type to get paranoid about people’s motives, I’d have sworn Dean Lockhart had been deliberately avoiding me for the past few weeks.
But I wasn’t that girl. I was the girl who put her head down and did the work and didn’t have time to read into the micro-expressions of the man who haunted her every waking thought.
Still, there was no denying it, after the Saturday he spent at the farm playing Mr. Fix It, Dean had mastered the art of never being in the same place as me for more than sixty seconds.
He appeared at the margins of every logistical meeting, always with a plausible reason to leave.
He signed off on vendor contracts electronically.
He even managed to schedule an off-site inventory trip during the final walk-through, and if his brother Damon hadn’t let it slip that he was only at the feed supply in town, I’d have written the whole thing off as a cosmic coincidence.
So seeing him at my check-in table on the morning of the event, arms folded, shirt stretched tight across his chest, almost caused me to drop my clipboard.
Not out of nerves—okay, mostly nerves—but also because I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed seeing him up close.
Dean in outdoor lighting was a public safety hazard. I could feel drool filling my mouth.
Fine, so maybe I was a little bit obsessed.
I schooled my face into professional, unbothered event manager mode. I’d just finished restocking the weekend programs when Dean’s shadow reappeared, closer this time. Before I could brace myself, he spoke.
“Looks like you weren’t exaggerating about the turnout.” The words dry but not unkind.
“Yep, and there’s still a second wave coming for the cookout,” I informed him, not able to hide the pride I felt for the event.
His lips twitched, ninety percent to a grin. “I might have to alert the fire marshal.”
I held up a finger. “You can’t alert anyone until you officially check in.” I slid a badge across the table to him, pre-printed in bubble letters, Sunshine, and beneath it, Your Friendly Ranch CFO.
Dean took the nametag and examined it, as if weighing whether to comment. When he spoke again, it was quieter, just for me. “You actually printed this for me.”
“I did,” I confirmed, amazed at my own bravado. “I nearly went with Mr. Spreadsheets, with the s’s being dollar signs, but I thought this was more professional.”
He peeled the sticker from its backing and, with a precision that should’ve been illegal, centered it on the left breast of his shirt. “Your restraint is admirable.”
Nothing he said to me was sexy, but tingles spread through my entire body at his words.
It was his voice. His attention. His BDE—because if anyone had big-dick-energy, it was Dean Lockhart—that had me on the edge of jumping off a cliff, saying fuck it, and going for it every time he came within a mile of me.