Chapter 6 #2
“Of course,” Luna says, showing no irritation at the turn from endearing to demanding.
There’s a heavy duty door at the far end of the room we’re in, and I expect it to lead outside, but when Luna pulls it open, I realize the building continues—and we’re not alone in the new space.
Zane is unloading big bags from the back of his truck.
He stops abruptly when he sees us, one of the heavy sacks perched on his shoulder.
His grey t-shirt is damp from exertion, clinging to his muscles.
And despite the tension I felt earlier, the look on his face now is nothing but welcoming.
As if he really doesn’t mind us tromping through his work space, interrupting him mid-task.
“We’re going to the chickens.” The words wobble out of Bellamy because of irrational fatigue-driven grumpiness.
“Yeah?” He gives her a soft smile, his moustache twitching, and pats the bag he’s carrying. “This is their food.”
Bella looks up at me, confused. Tired. And then cross, her little eyebrows pulling together. Inexplicable toddler fury in three, two, one—
“Do you want to feed the chickens?” Zane kneels and brings the sac to the concrete floor with a thud. He rips the top of the bag open, then scoops a handful of pellets out.
“Feed the chickens?” Uncertain, she takes a step toward him, then stops.
Luna finds a faded plastic yogurt container on a shelf and hands that to her. “Here you go.”
Bellamy takes it and carefully approaches Zane.
He pours the pellets from his hand into the tub.
“More,” she demands.
He gives her more. And then an extra handful, until her lip recedes and she gives him a solemn little nod.
As if she knows best for these chickens she hasn’t even met yet.
When Luna leads her to the next door, I hang back and thank Zane under my breath.
He straightens up, rising to his significant height, and gives me a slow nod. “Any time.”
“Don’t say that,” I mutter. “She has a lot of tantrums.”
“Was that a tantrum?” His eyebrows lift in surprise. His expression is warm, amused, and it’s hard to look away.
“You couldn’t sense the impending storm cloud?”
“There was a little pressure in the air, sure.” He winks at me, and my breath catches in my throat. A wink should not be that devastating to a girl’s resolve. “Nothing I can’t handle, don’t worry.”
I don’t want to think about what Zane Kincaid can and can’t handle.
Tongue-tied, I trip over my feet as I try to turn to flee out the door Luna’s holding open.
Thankfully, there’s a flurry of fluttering feathers and mad clucking to distract me from whatever that just was. Bellamy freezes as we approach the outdoor chicken run and the chickens sense she has food for them.
“You do it,” she says to Luna, shoving the container to the older woman.
I’m about to interject and warn Luna that Bella’s just going to freak out if the container is empty before she gets brave enough, but I don’t need to.
Like her son, Luna has a good instinct when it comes to my daughter. “How about we do it together? I’ll give them a little, then you can do some next.”
They push some pellets through the fence first, taking turns, then we go inside the fenced enclosure. I hold Bellamy in my arms so she’s well above the chickens, and they scatter more feed for them.
Once the brood is fully occupied with a snack, we go to the coop. Little access doors allow Luna to quickly retrieve six eggs in a variety of colours. She holds the hem of her shirt up, creating a little cradle to tuck five of them into. The last one, a creamy blue egg, she offers to Bellamy.
“Oh, I don’t—” I start to say.
But Luna just winks, and without saying a word, she makes sure I know it’ll be all right if Bellamy drops or crushes the egg.
We have lots to spare, I feel her project.
It’s true. This ranch does have lots of everything to spare. Bedrooms, kale, eggs, and handsome sons.
And maybe it’s because they have plenty, but Bellamy doesn’t break the egg. She carries it all the way up to the house, where Luna takes it from her in the kitchen.
As our hostess puts the eggs in a tray on the counter, I help Bellamy wash the dirt off her hands and face.
Then she wants to play with her frog, which we left upstairs in the spare room. I follow her to find it, and when she starts playing with it on the bedroom floor, I look at our bag of clothes. I think about unpacking, but that feels too much like trusting this to not evaporate beneath us.
I’m grateful, but I’m not trusting anything.
Instead, I go to the window and look toward the outbuilding where we bumped into Zane. As if conjured by my subconscious, I hear tires bite against gravel, and a truck comes into view—but it’s not Zane’s. Wrong colour, too much dirt.
A pulse of something visceral whomps in my belly. A painful mix of relief and disappointment. A big bruiser of a man in a cowboy hat gets out and lifts his hand in the direction of the outbuilding.
Maybe Zane’s brother, waving to him.
I wonder which one this is. I already have a mental picture of their family. Dax is the rodeo cowboy, and he’s on the road. Cash is the mechanic in town, fixing my car.
So this must be the oldest one, Ridge. He looks mean, the way his shoulders hunch up around his ears.
Instinctively, I don't want to meet him. I don’t want to meet any of them.
Except Zane.
I bristle at that unwanted, instinctive exception.
No, even Zane. Not because he isn't kind—he is, too kind—but because of the unwanted way my body responds in his presence.
The flutter in my stomach when our eyes meet.
The heat that races to my cheeks. My awareness of his size, his strength, his kindness. And his thighs.
I'm too aware of his thighs. They were the first thing I noticed when he stopped behind our car yesterday, long denim-clad legs, muscles making themselves known in a you want me to kick someone’s ass kind of way.
They were the last thing I noticed as he distracted Bellamy from her grump.
After I looked at every other part of him, pretending I wasn’t aware of his powerful squat, I finally gave in and catalogued this view.
The dust on his quads, the faded lines at his hips.
The brawn of him, all of him, but those tree-trunk legs are really something else.
A girl could foolishly fantasize about a body that strong. About the breadth of his shoulders and the bunch of his fists. Dream about a man like him handling anything life throws at him without breaking a sweat.
Or just a little sweat, like when he was carrying that feed.
It reminds me too much of how I felt when I first saw Derek. The pull, the attraction, the stupid, foolish belief that someone strong could keep me safe.
I've learned that lesson. I won't make that mistake again.
But the traitorous flutter in my stomach needs reminding of that fact, because it’s foolish and forgetful.
And Zane’s name is the first thing out of Luna’s mouth when we meet in the kitchen to make dinner.
“He keeps a pretty well-stocked kitchen,” she says as she stands in front of the open refrigerator. “But it's usually a fending-for-yourself situation, unless somebody happens to be cooking at the same time. Which is almost never me, so let’s see what we can find.”
“We aren’t picky,” I promise.
“I want cookies!" Bellamy announces.
I cringe. “She's had more cookies in the last twenty-four hours than she's had in her entire life. Whatever you have will be fine, though. We’ll eat anything.”
“Truthfully, I hate cooking. Flashbacks to having to stretch food to feed four teenage boys, probably.”
“Would you like me to make something?” I’m surprised to hear myself offer that. I don’t really want to extend myself like that, because what if she doesn’t like whatever I make?
“Do you like cooking?” She blinks at me. Maybe she’s surprised that I’m offering, too.
“I don’t mind it. I can follow a recipe, if you have cookbooks.” I think of the men I chased out of this kitchen. “I could make enough for your family, too. If they have requests.”
“They will also eat anything.”
Heat flares in my cheeks. It feels like we’re lobbing a don’t want to make a decision ball back and forth.
Maybe Luna figures that out, too, because she reaches for her phone. “I’ll ask them.”