Chapter Six
S loane almost called Jonas to tell him she wouldn’t make it out to the ranch.
He’d want to talk about Ken, and she didn’t have much to say about her movie date last night.
And since it was nice but wouldn’t win any awards for best date of the year, she didn’t want to have another conversation about the two of them going out, either.
I wonder why?
Rolling her eyes, she closed up shop. The garage was only open until noon on Saturdays and closed on Sundays, a schedule her dad had established when he first opened.
A single father, Ron Michaels liked his weekends unencumbered, he said, so that he could spend quality time with his young daughter.
After he retired, Sloane had kept to the same schedule.
She would continue to date, not Jonas, of course, but she’d try some things outside her comfort zone, like mountain climbing, skydiving, or maybe glamping. She was certain a guy out there liked to do those things. She just had to find him.
She loved fixing cars, but working ten, sometimes twelve-hour days, and half a day on Saturday, was getting old. Folks talked about work-life balance. She had none. It wasn’t something she’d worried about until Jonas came back to town and wasn’t interested in becoming more than friends.
It had weighed heavily on her mind and was one of the reasons she’d signed up for Perfect Match.
She didn’t want Jonas to figure out she’d been waiting around for him all these years.
If she wanted to move on from her crush on her best friend, she should take a chance on the dating market and at least open her life to new possibilities.
And it made sense to widen her dating pool.
Jonas wasn’t the only guy around. His suggestion that he be her backup date was... infuriating. It’d taken him a long time to decide she was maybe more than his best friend. Did he feel sorry for her? Was that what was going on? If it was, then that wasn’t going to fly.
Her biggest problem dating anyone else was trying not to measure them against the guy she couldn’t stop caring about.
If she kept looking, surely, she would find a man who made her heartbeat go faster than her BFF.
Someone who shared the same likes and dislikes, and whom she could see having a fulfilling future with. She just had to keep looking.
She parked in front of the barn. The horses were in the pasture across the driveway. Jonas stepped out of the barn. “Hey, you made it.”
“I almost didn’t. I had a lot of work to do.” And a lot of thinking to do on how to get Jonas to keep his distance from her personal business.
His grin was contagious. “How did your date go?”
She knew he wouldn’t forget. “The movie was great. It was just as good as the first time I watched it.”
“And did Ken like the movie?” Jonas led the way back to the barn, where Duke was still in his stall.
The horse stretched his nose out and nickered at Sloane. She scratched him between the ears. “He thought it was good.”
“Only good?”
Sloane ignored Jonas’s question. “What are we doing with the horses?”
“I need to take a hair sample from Duke’s mane for DNA testing. You get to hold his head still for me.”
Sloane moved her scratching fingers to under his jaw. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
For a moment, she could see the two of them building up the Rangerbred breed on the ranch and working with the horses.
“All done.” Sloane watched Jonas seal the hairs he’d collected in a small paper bag and put it in his shirt pocket. He patted the horse’s neck. “So, what does Ken do for a living?”
Any ideas she might be harboring that she and this man her heart was hanging on to could perhaps make a happy-ever-after future together were dispelled.
“Actually...” She was going to tell him it was none of his business but changed her mind.
There was no reason not to tell Jonas about the guys she was dating.
In any case, she wasn’t asking for his opinion on the gentlemen or for his approval.
“He’s the head chef at the Starry Night Grille in one of the historic hotels in downtown Durango. ”
Jonas’s brows drew together.
She almost laughed. “What?”
“He wanted to take you on a picnic.” He fed Duke a carrot when the horse butted his shoulder.
Making sure Duke had moved out of the way, Sloane punched Jonas’s arm. Payback for him thinking she couldn’t pick a good man, even on her worst day. “I like picnics. And Ken is a nice man.”
“I’m sure he is,” Jonas said, rubbing his arm as he took a step out of reach.
She tapped her booted foot. “You said you wanted help with the horses. So, what’s next?”
“We could go on a picnic,” he said, his scowl disappearing into a teasing smile.
Sloane shook her head.
“No? Okay, then—” Jonas’s cell pinged. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the message.
“Nathan and Izzy are on their way. He’s giving her barrel racing lessons and wants to know if we can saddle up Duke and Rosie.
” His fingers were already moving across the face of the phone.
“We can do that.” He handed her a lead rope.
“Do you want to bring Rosie in from the pasture?”
“Sure.” Unable to tamp down her sudden excitement, Sloane went to get the horse. She loved the Triple L. Loved the horses. Whenever Jonas would come from Denver, she’d sneak in a visit at least once during his stay.
That all stopped when he moved back because she didn’t know how to hide her overwhelming feelings for her best friend.
At thirty-five, she was getting too old to be hanging around the barn, hoping a certain rancher would notice that she was more than his convenient friend.
The sad news was... the more she spent time with Jonas Lohmen, the less she was interested in dating other guys.
How dumb was that?
She hooked the lead to Rosie’s halter and led her back to the barn. If she didn’t straighten up, she’d have to face the fact that she’d managed to give her heart to the wrong guy. She already knew that, but she wasn’t about to let it be the final caption on her life.
“Here we go, sweet girl. Let’s get you ready for some barrel practice.” Pasting a confident smile on her face, she patted the mare’s neck.
Jonas was already grooming Duke. Sloane got busy with Rosie, prepared when he asked the question she knew was coming. “When’s your next date?”
“I haven’t decided.” She wasn’t sure it was fair to go out with Ken again. He seemed interested, but there was just no spark on her end.
Jonas hefted the saddle and positioned it on the stud’s back.
He pulled on the cinch. “While you’re thinking about it, do you want to help me set up a Rangerbred pedigree record for the Triple L?
” He glanced at her over the saddle as he cinched the strap to hold it in place.
“I’d like to get started on the groundwork.
And since you have business experience with bookkeeping—”
“I’ll be glad to help. We can set up a spreadsheet on your computer and back it up to the cloud. That way, unless you intentionally delete it, you’ll always have the information.”
“That’s exactly what we need.” Jonas helped her finish saddling Rosie. “What do you want for dinner? I have steaks ready to barbeque.”
She didn’t know who was the better cook, the chef or the lawyer. All she knew was that Jonas made great steaks on the grill. “That sounds wonderful.”
Was it bad that, of the two, she was rooting for Jonas?
“Good. I’ll get them started, and then we can work on the horses’ pedigrees.” The grin he shot at her made it hard to think about arranging another date with Ken.
They were tying Duke’s and Rosie’s leads to the stalls flanking the arena when Nathan and Izzy came into the barn, holding hands, talking about where they wanted to live after they got married.
“We can live in the main house, depending on what Jonas has in mind,” Nathan was saying as he leaned in to kiss his fiancée on the cheek.
Jonas stepped around the stud, informing his brother, “Once the ranch is back on its feet, I’m planning to build a house just beyond the pond.”
Sloane held her breath, waiting for their usual chiding disagreement, but it didn’t come.
“I can be on board with that,” Nathan said instead. “Blake wants to build his and Malorie’s house on the north forty. So, what do you say we make solid plans as soon as the dust settles at the bank?”
The boys might have their disagreements, but they were family, and it was clear that in the end, despite their different approaches, that seemed to matter most.
Wasn’t this what Sloane wanted? A family close, surrounding her as they planned their future? She was an only child. The family she could draw close to was her dad and whatever family she made when she found the perfect guy.
Jonas is the perfect guy.
No, he isn’t , she contradicted quickly. Jonas Lohmen didn’t want the same things she did.
“The horses are ready.” The man of yesterday’s dreams bumped her shoulder, gently nudging her in the direction of the house. “We’re going to grill steaks and work on setting up records for our little band of Rangerbred. Do you want to join us?”
“You guys go on. We have other plans.” Nathan slanted her a speculative look. “There’s ice cream in the freezer for dessert if you want it.”
Izzy grinned at Sloane, a knowing look in her eyes. “We’ve got dinner reservations in Durango. You guys have fun.”
Nathan and Izzy’s hints weren’t very subtle. Nathan gave her a cheery wave on their way out. Sloane shook her head. Somehow, the newly engaged couple must’ve gotten the idea that there was something more than friendship between her and Jonas.
Jonas waved Nathan and Izzy off as they walked the horses into the arena. He gently wrapped his hand around her arm and said softly, “I’m not sure what that was all about. Pay no attention to them.”