Chapter 8
The crew had started work on Cricket’s stables.
It was weird, now that his focus had shifted.
He actually wanted her enterprise to be a success.
And that meant looking at things from an entirely different point of view.
That meant teaching her about ranching, rather than just making overarching statements and watching her stumble around.
It meant bringing her alongside him for repairs, not just to show her how hard it was, but to show her that she could.
And with each improvement on the property, he saw her become more firmly rooted in her sense of who she was, and there was a great sense of accomplishment inside of him that he couldn’t quite explain.
Except that... Except that he’d felt useless to fix the sadness that he saw inside of his mother, and being able to do something to give Cricket a better life did something to help heal that sense of failure.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he always thought that if his mother had gotten better, maybe he would have helped her leave his father.
Given her a place to stay, proved to her that it didn’t matter whether they were together like a traditional family.
What really mattered was her happiness. She didn’t need to stay.
Not for him. But he’d never said it to her.
She’d died before he ever could. Before he’d gotten his own place up and running.
And maybe part of him had still been working toward that with wanting to expand to Cricket’s property.
But he didn’t need to do that now. What he could do was help Cricket find her way to a dream.
And then maybe that would help put something to rights in his own life.
Cricket wasn’t out with him today, she was off bustling around the house.
He told her he would check in on the building site, and then he was going to drive up to the upper pasture, and get the lay of things. It really was a beautiful property.
He thought back to what she’d asked, if ranching was in his blood, as he stood out in the middle of the bright, patchwork field, filled with brilliant green mixed with patches of dark olive and backed by rich pine.
As he looked at the sprigs of yellow that clustered around the perimeter interwoven with waving fire-colored Indian paintbrush and dappled orange fritillaria, at the pale blue sky that would be a richer blue come the height of summer, he knew the answer was...
It was deeper than blood. It was down in his bones.
He was part of the land, and it was part of him. Something that went further than want.
And he’d never thought about it that way before. Only when Cricket had asked, did that thought grow into a feeling.
And he understood. He understood why she wanted this. Why she was here. It was true. When it was part of you, it simply was. Nothing you could do about it.
He heard the sound of a truck engine and turned, and there was Cricket, rumbling up the dirt road, driving that big beast of hers.
That was another thing that was getting down into his blood. Because he hadn’t just been helping her on the property.
No.
They’d spent long nights in beds that were too small, exploring, tasting, and he loved to say that he was teaching her there as much as he was around the ranch, but it was more than that.
Because Cricket was a whole new landscape, one he’d never seen or explored or imagined before. She was strong, and she was energetic.
She had no limit as far as he could tell. Nothing embarrassed her.
Rather, she touched and tasted with full enthusiasm, never shying away from anything.
That wild girl he’d seen out on the swing at the Maxfield Vineyards brought that sense of the unrestrained into the bedroom, and there were no lessons involved in any of it.
No. He was just on the ride. At the mercy of it. And he loved every minute.
He gritted his teeth. There was no getting attached to it.
Why not?
He pushed that thought aside. Cricket got out of the truck, wearing a white tank top and tight jeans, holding a blanket and a picnic basket. And she looked like far too much of a temptation for him to handle.
And hell, she wasn’t a temptation he had to resist over the last couple of weeks, so why should he start now? He crossed the distance between them, and wrapped his arms around her slender waist, pulled her into his arms and planted a kiss on her lips.
“What are you doing?”
“I brought lunch,” she said, a pleased smile curving her lips. “I’ve been practicing being a good pioneer woman. I made bread, I cooked a ham and I’ve made sandwiches.”
“You really made bread?”
“Yes,” she said, her face shining with triumph. “And two of the four loaves turned out. So, you have sandwiches.”
“Cricket, that was awfully nice of you.”
“I know,” she said. “And often I’m not very nice, so it surprised me too.”
“You’re plenty nice.”
Or at least, her particular brand of sharpness was nice for him. Didn’t really matter either way.
She spread the blanket out in the meadow and took a seat, and he stared at her, the golden glow of the sun shining on her face.
And he couldn’t figure out quite why she’d done it.
Quite why she’d given him this. He couldn’t recall anyone else doing similar for him.
Sure, his mom cooked for them. But... She was his mom. Family.
Cricket wasn’t family.
She wasn’t beholden to him in any way. He’d lost a bet to her. That was why he was here. And his education hadn’t included cooking. She had just done this. Just because.
And it did something to his chest that made him want to growl, because he wasn’t a sentimental man. And he didn’t concern himself much with things like this. But it was...unexpected, and it was a hell of a lot more than he’d ever wanted or gotten from another person.
It shocked him how good everything she made was.
Though he supposed it probably shouldn’t surprise him.
Everything Cricket set her mind to she did with her whole self.
And it didn’t mean she couldn’t fail, but she was determined enough that he had a feeling she would have baked ten loaves of bread in order to present him with just one.
Because what she wanted, she went and got.
And that was something. It was really something.
He liked to watch Cricket eat, among the many things he enjoyed about her.
Because she did that with the same level of ferocity and intensity she did everything else.
She was sitting on the blanket with her elbows propped up on her knees, her sandwich gripped tightly in her hands.
She had brought cans of Coke for the two of them, and when she had eaten about half of her sandwich, she brushed her hands off and picked up the Coke, tipping it back like a beer.
She looked over at him. “What?”
“What?” he repeated.
“You’re staring at me.”
“You’re pretty.” That made him sound like a dumb high school boy. Come to that, he kind of felt like one.
But Cricket blushed. Cricket, tough little thing that she was, blushed, and he found that was all the payment he needed for the worse moment of feeling like an idiot. Something he wasn’t accustomed to.
“Well,” Cricket said. “So are you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve always thought so.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You mentioned something about that.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Because already he felt some kind of strange obligation to her.
Deeper than his obligation to any other woman he’d ever had a physical relationship with.
And he wasn’t sure he wanted to dig in any deeper, but sitting there under that brilliant blue sky, eating her homemade bread and ham sandwich, he didn’t know if there was any other option but to dig in.
He didn’t know how not to be involved with her, and it was absurd.
It had started with a bet, an assumption on her part that they might be related, a nefarious plan on his part to talk her into selling him her ranch...
But maybe that was it. The whole thing was so bizarre—how could they come away from it with neutral feelings about each other? Maybe it was impossible. Maybe the only option in a situation like this was to develop some kind of attachment. Maybe it was the only way.
“I’m pretty sneaky,” Cricket said. “I mean, I’m used to hiding what I feel from people.
And you were no exception. I mean, the way that I felt about you.
I would just tell my sisters that I thought cowboys were annoying.
And that I didn’t want anything to do with any of them.
It was a pretty convincing ruse, if I say so myself.
Plus, I knew you were way off limits. A thousand years older than me. ”
“Hey. Not a thousand.”
“Well, it seemed like it at the time. The gap feels a lot smaller now.” She smiled.
“Oh, I didn’t like any of the boys at school.
None of them. But how could I, when I already liked a man?
And a Cooper at that. I knew nobody would understand.
But nobody understood me, so that didn’t really bother me.
And so I just...kept it a secret. And then I was so mad when Wren hooked up with your brother, because I felt for so long that being attracted to you was this great, impossible thing, another sort of deeply rooted difference in who I was.
In my genetic makeup versus the rest of my family.
And then she got to Creed before I could get to you.
Honestly. It was an insult. But still, when she told me that I would maybe find my own cowboy...
I played it off. I told her no. That I didn’t want anything to do with a man like Creed, and I didn’t.
I just wanted you. So it feels right, you know?
To start this new phase of my life with you...
Though I’m not asking you for anything. I promise. ”
“Well, happy to help.”