30
When they were both composed, the storage building seemed too quiet.
Talia could still feel him.
That was the trouble.
Her clothes were back in place. Gordon’s belt was fastened. His shirt had been smoothed down. Her hair had been finger-combed into something close enough to respectable if nobody looked too carefully. From the outside, nothing had happened.
Inside her body, everything had happened.
Gordon stood a few feet away, jaw still tight, eyes still a little darker than usual. He looked at her like he wanted to cross the room again. Like the list in his hand was the only thing keeping him from doing it.
Talia appreciated the list.
She needed that list.
She needed work, dust, supplies, practical tasks, anything that did not involve him kissing her like she was something precious and dangerous at the same time.
Gordon cleared his throat and reached into his back pocket. He unfolded a paper and handed it to her.
“Read off the list,” he said. “I’ll locate the items and load them onto the back of the truck.”
Talia took the paper and looked at it.
His handwriting was neat. Surprisingly neat. Every item had a number beside it, with small notes about quantity and location.
She looked up. “You make organized lists?”
“Yes.”
“That feels unfair.”
His brow lifted. “Unfair?”
“You already fix things, ride horses, look good in denim, and kiss like that. Organized lists feel excessive.”
For one second, he froze.
Then his mouth curved.
Talia immediately regretted speaking.
Not because it was untrue.
Because his smile made her want to say worse things.
He stepped closer to the storage room door. “First item.”
She looked down fast. “Canvas water bags. Six.”
Gordon unlocked a metal cabinet near the back wall and opened it. “Top shelf.”
He started pulling them down, and Talia tried not to stare at the way his shoulders moved under his shirt.
Tried.
Failed.
Recovered.
She made a check mark beside the item.
“How long is this cattle drive?” she asked.
Gordon stacked the water bags near the open door. “Three days to move the cattle from one fenced pasture to the other.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s enough. It’s not about distance only. It’s about moving them carefully, keeping them together, watching the weather, watching the horses, and keeping a few stubborn cows from deciding they have other plans.”
“Cows make plans?”
“Always bad ones.”
Talia smiled and marked the next item. “Rope coils. Twelve.”
Gordon crossed to another shelf. “Once the cattle are moved, the crew returns. They can come back faster because they won’t be corralling any cattle that have a mind to do some sightseeing.”
She laughed softly. “Sightseeing cows. Got it.”
“All in all, they’ll be gone five to seven days depending on weather.”
“And you’re not going.”
“No.”
“Because you’re important.”
He gave her a look over his shoulder.
She smiled innocently.
He shook his head and gathered the rope coils. “Because someone has to stay behind.”
“Important people stay behind.”
“People who are useful stay behind.”
“There’s that word again.”
He carried the ropes past her and out to the truck.
Talia followed, list in hand. “You use it like a shield.”
“I use it like a fact.”
“Facts can still be shields.”
He set the ropes in the truck bed, arranging them neatly. “Next item.”
She glanced at the paper. “First aid kits. Three large, two small.”
He nodded and went back inside.
She followed. “What about food?”
“Elise used to go along and keep everybody fed.”
“Used to?”
“With Earl unable to take the trip, she’s staying behind.” He opened another cabinet and checked the contents. “Edye is going in her place.”
Talia stopped walking. “Edye?”
“She’ll manage meals, supplies, communication, and probably half the people too.”
“She can cook for a cattle drive?” Talia also told him what was next on the list.
“She’s a great cook and Elise has taught her what cooking for a cattle drive is like.”
Gordon laughed softly and pulled down the first aid kits.
The sound warmed something in her.
She looked back at the list before she could get too caught in it. “Lantern batteries. Eight packs.”
“Second shelf behind you.”
She turned, found them, and handed them to him.
They worked that way for a while. She read.
He located. Sometimes she helped carry smaller items. They loaded feed sacks, extra halters, rain ponchos, gloves, portable chargers, tarps, repair kits, saddle soap, bedroll straps, and enough miscellaneous supplies to make Talia wonder if a cattle drive was half ranching and half preparing for disaster.
As they worked, Gordon told her stories.
Not in a showy way. Gordon was not a man who performed for attention. He told stories like he was handing her pieces of the ranch, one at a time, trusting her to hold them carefully.
“Cody delivered his twins on a bale of hay,” he said while lifting a box of lanterns.
Talia nearly dropped the gloves she was holding. “Excuse me?”
Gordon looked back. “You heard me.”
“Twins? On a bale of hay?”
“Yes.”
“You cannot say that like it’s normal.”
“It wasn’t normal.”
“Then give it the proper amount of drama.”
He set the lanterns down near the truck. “Sierra went into labor and didn’t tell him.”
Talia stared. “Why not?”
“Because Cody and Travis were trying to finish something in the barn on their part of the ranch, and she thought she had enough time to get to the hospital.”
“She thought?”
“She was wrong.”
“Oh no.”
“Her water broke when she was entering the barn to tell him to take her.”
Talia pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, that poor woman.”
“Cody was worse.”
“He was giving birth?”
“No, but he looked like he might pass out and join her.”
Talia laughed, then immediately felt guilty. “Sorry.”
“He’d laugh too. Now.” Gordon leaned against the side of the truck for a moment. “Dr. Foxx talked him through it over the phone until help got there. Cody did a good job.”
“On a bale of hay.”
“On a bale of hay.”
“Were the babies all right?”
“Yes. Loud. Tiny. Angry about their entrance into the world.”
“And Sierra?”
“Tired. Proud. Mad at Cody for looking terrified.”
Talia shook her head. “That family is made of stories.”
Gordon’s expression softened. “Yes.”
“What about Dwight? Did he have hay-bale birth drama too?”
“No. Luckily for Dwight, there was no drama when his daughter was born a month before the twins.”
“Dwight has a daughter?”
“Yes. He and Mari.”
Talia made a note in the margin, not for the article necessarily, but because every detail helped her understand the ranch. “You like telling these stories.”
Gordon looked down at the box in his hands.
“I like the ranch,” he said.
“I know.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
She smiled. “It shows.”
He did not answer, but she saw the quiet pleasure in his face.
They went back inside the storage building. The air had warmed, and dust motes drifted through the sunlight from the high windows. Talia read off more items. Gordon pointed, lifted, stacked, and explained.
He told her about Nia’s first Fourth of July on the ranch and how she had announced she was not afraid of fireworks, then spent half the evening in Luke’s lap with her hands over her ears.
He told her about Malik sneaking cowboy hats from every man he trusted but only wearing Gordon’s until it covered his eyes because, according to Malik, “real cowboys figure it out.”
He told her about Eli writing half a song in the middle of repairing a fence because Rose had laughed at him from across the pasture.
Talia listened.
Really listened.
These were not throwaway details. They were threads. Connections. A whole world built out of people choosing each other over and over, sometimes in big ways, sometimes with a plate left on a bedside table or a hand offered at the right moment.
Of course Gordon loved the ranch.
Of course he wanted to belong to it.
She was beginning to love pieces of it too, and that frightened her almost as much as Gordon did.
“Your turn,” Gordon said.
She looked up from the list. “For what?”
“A question.”
“We are working.”
“We’ve been working all morning.”
“And you’ve been talking.”
“So now you can.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Ask.”
He picked up two folded tarps and carried them toward the door. “Why are you single?”
Talia stopped.
The question was so blunt, so Gordon, that for a second she almost laughed.
Then she saw his face.
He was serious.
Not jealous.
Not prying for sport.
Curious.
She followed him outside, taking her time with the answer.
“Why am I single?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Because I’m difficult.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is one.”
“It’s not the real one.”
She sighed.
Gordon loaded the tarps, then turned to face her.
Talia leaned one hip against the truck and looked out over the ranch. The easy answer was career. Ambition. Bad timing. Men intimidated by a woman with goals. All true enough, in pieces.
But Gordon had given her truth all week.
She owed him more than the neat version.
“Men didn’t see me as worth their time and effort,” she said.
His expression changed.
She went on before he could interrupt. “Based on my experience, I was fine to fool around with. Good for fun. Interesting enough for a little while. But not someone they wanted to build anything around.”
Gordon’s jaw tightened. “They said that?”
“Not usually in those words.”
“Usually?”
Talia looked at him, then away. “Tyler did.”
“Who’s Tyler?”
“An ex. Sort of.” She gave a dry laugh. “He told me I was cute and fun.”
Gordon’s face darkened already.
“But,” she continued, “he was concerned that I’d get bigger with each passing year, and he couldn’t imagine being with me long term.”
For a few seconds, Gordon did not speak.
When he did, his voice was too even. “He said that to you?”
“Yes.”
“Out loud?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like Tyler.”
“No one asked you to.”
“I’m saying it anyway.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, though the old hurt still pricked. “Then there was Chris.”
Gordon folded his arms. “I’m not going to like him either, am I?”
“No.”
“What did Chris do?”