Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
ELIZA
I’ll follow you.
He meant it, his ebony horse keeping a distance far enough to pass a couple cars through. It feels strange having him at my back.
Like there’s more to his presence than flesh and bone. It shouldn’t make sense, but it does.
At the house, I lead him to the trough where we tie up the horses.
He stands transfixed before the structure, throat working, though no words come out. He looks like he’s seen something he shouldn’t have.
And that’s when I look at him. Really look at him for the first time.
Eyes the color of turquoise. Too bright, almost iridescent. Face rugged and square, jawline sharp beneath thick black hair, curling to his collar—windblown, unruly.
His nose is proportional and aquiline. Or maybe it’s been broken before. He stands a good six foot four or more, clothes threadbare but tailored too carefully.
“Done staring?” he grunts, eyes dark and narrow.
“Sorry,” I say, catching myself too late.
“Won’t see me around here again. I can assure you.”
“But I haven’t asked you to assure me,” I say, forehead creasing.
His eyes dart back to the house, something behind them I can’t read. Then, he lifts a thick, black brow. “Name?”
I swallow hard. “Eliza Wakefield. And yours?”
“Kael Guthrie.”
“No Guthries around these parts. At least not that I’ve ever heard of,” I say before I can catch myself. The words come out nervous and silly, like I have to fill the silence.
His eyes shift back to my face. “Only one Guthrie left. Best that way.”
That’s when I realize he’s waiting for me to invite him in. “Please,” I say, stepping forward. As I pass him—closer than I mean to—a shiver runs the length of my spine, sharp enough to steal my breath.
An odd feeling. An unprecedented one that settles lower than it should.
He grinds his teeth hard. Like he feels it, too… and hates it.
My cheeks heat. God help me.
No, Eliza. My mother’s words fill my head. Any man who knows Mags is off-limits. Not worth the time or the pain.
But this thing shuttling back and forth between us isn’t asking permission.
My throat tightens, air snagging in my chest.
“Can I get you something? Tea or lemonade?”
“Tea,” he says, taking the seat at the kitchen table I motion toward. He’s too big for the furniture. Too big for the room.
His cerulean eyes pierce the space, not seeing. Remembering.
“You’ve been here before, maybe?” I ask, not sure where secrecy ends and begins with him.
He nods once, face hard as granite.
“Not much of a talker?” I say, opening the fridge and pulling out a glass pitcher filled with brown liquid, ice, and thick slices of lemon.
He grunts.
“Do you take sugar with your tea?”
The question awakens something behind his eyes that I can’t read. They meet mine, his expression dull and far away. “Used to work this land once. Long time ago.”
I set the glass already sweating in the heat of the day in front of him. Then, a sugar bowl and spoon next to it, just in case. He eyes them suspiciously.
“You don’t look familiar,” I counter, a tally of recent ranch hands shuttling through my mind.
“Before your time.”
“When my family was larger?”
“Yup.” He takes a sip, swallowing loudly. “Just as I remember.”
“The tea?”
He nods.
A family recipe. I want to ask more, but I don’t know where to start.
“Day like this makes me wish this place had air conditioning,” I say, grabbing a glass and filling it next to him before sitting. The air between us feels awake, like a live wire. I should sit farther away, though I don’t know if that would change anything.
“Former employee. Any way to talk you into taking that position back up?”
Our eyes meet. A pulse of pure energy.
He looks away too quickly, face darkening and hardening. “Nope.”
I knew the question would be a long shot. But still.
“It’s no joke,” I add. “My ranch hand up and left after the bull, and…” I stop short, try to shove the words back in my mouth. Waitressing mornings at the café has made me generous with information. Too willing to share.
“And?”
“The field. I’m sure you noticed as we passed.”
He sets his hat brim up on the table, stabbing thick fingers into his ebony hair, disheveling it rather than smoothing it.
He looks wild. Downright feral. But lithe and controlled.
Like one of the bobcats that menaces the chicken coop before dawn.
Dangerous because it doesn’t waste energy.
“Don’t notice anything you don’t want me to. ”
That’s an arrangement that could work.
“But surely you at least looked?”
He nods, eyes blazing. Body hunched forward and moving as if he can’t quite hold still. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“Thoughts?”
He shakes his head. “No more than you.”
“Pranksters, maybe?”
“That what you really think? Like the bull?”
“Don’t know,” I say, shoulders drooping. “Just that this weird activity—whatever it is—came with the storm. And if there’s another like that… I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
“Too much ranch for one woman,” he mutters.
True. But the way he says it makes me sit up, set my spine. “Too much for one person. Female or otherwise.”
He huffs a laugh, more exasperated than amused. “Don’t expect me to keep up with your newfangled ways of talking.”
“Does that mean you’re staying?”
His face looks torn, like my question hit bone. “Pay decent?”
“Nothing special. Twenty-three hundred a month.”
He whistles low. “I remember when it was forty-five.”
“Forty-five hundred?”
He shakes his head. “Forty-five. Period.”
I gasp. “But that would’ve been…” I look away, studying the hardwood floor.
“Don’t think about it too hard,” he scolds darkly. Before I can respond, he adds, “You a decent cook?”
I shrug. “Frank thought so.”
“Not that it matters. Mostly eat from cans anyway.”
“I can do better than that.”
He tugs at his beard, deep in contemplation.
“Enough about you. What do I get out of this arrangement?” I ask.
“Help you desperately need not enough?” he grumbles.
“You came out here because of the bull. Can Mags… can you make that stop?”
After a long pause, his turquoise eyes meet mine, swirling with some unknown energy. “Dunno.”
“Frank said you people—” my voice drops to a whisper, “you Wildbloods have ways of making things work out here, making the mountains behave.”
“Had.” His Adam’s apple works. “Wildbloods.” He shakes his head, face scrunching. “What else you know about them?”
He asks like he’s not one. Now I’m confused.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” I apologize.
“Didn’t you, though… Wakefield?” The last syllables are a curse.
I straighten, wondering how deep his story runs. “Not a fan of my family?” I ask.
“Not a fan of humanity.”
The words land between us, heavy, inexplicable.
“Huh,” I finally say to break the silence.
He stares at the wall, expression suddenly morose.
“How about the field? Can you protect my crops?”
He shrugs.
“You’re not really selling your services here.”
He stands too suddenly, and my face burns.
“I should go.”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“There ain’t enough money in the world that could tie me to this ranch… to this land.”
“This land?” I counter. “You say that like something’s different here. Like you already know why I spent the morning at the café asking around. Then made calls only to find out nobody, not one other rancher experienced anything strange this past week.”
“You put the call into Mags, then?” he asks almost fiercely.
I shudder, sitting back. “Yes, there a problem with that?”
“Only that things like this circulate through small towns for years, decades even,” he answers in dark tones.
“Why my land? And only my land?”
“Lay lines maybe. Mineral deposits. Not my thing.”
It’s not his words that intrigue but the spaces between them.
“Will you at least stay for lunch?” I counter, feeling down to my bones the rightness of his presence, though I can’t explain why.
“Staying is dangerous.”
“So is rambling. Besides, I haven’t given you the full ranch tour yet,” I say, raising my chin defiantly.
“Don’t matter how fancy your bunkhouse is, Miss,” he says too fast.
“Oh, that old thing. You wouldn’t stay there. The house has a guest bedroom. Much nicer.”
“The barn. I can sleep there. Or maybe the stables.”
“Never,” I protest, throat tightening.
He lowers his voice. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
I don’t know if it’s machismo or something else. It emboldens me. “I do.”
That hits him hard enough to steal his breath.
He leans back into the chair, crossing his arms. “Still growing alfalfa on the back forty?”
“Maybe you’re the one who should be giving the tour,” I say before thinking.
Silence hangs, thick between us.
“You don’t want that.”
But he doesn’t push back his chair or round the table. He doesn’t walk away either. Instead, he stares at me hard, deliberate as if he’s trying to figure something out between us.
Heat curls low, twisting my belly when our eyes meet again.
“Lunch. But that’s it.” It comes out unmovable.
“Fair enough,” I answer, already sensing he’s staying, even if he won’t admit it.