Brothers of Miller Ranch Box Set

by Natalie Dean

  This was going to be a good night indeed.

  15

  Ben

  Ben watched perhaps a little too keenly as Chastity marched right up to the barn, looking far more excited than he had ever hoped she would be. Part of him had been worried that she would resent the horses and the memories that they were tied to, but the smile that had burst from her face when she saw the building had been borderline intoxicating.

  She was oblivious to the paralyzing effect she had on him, however, and her eyes were glued to the building all the way until he pulled up and parked.

  Shaking his head to himself, he slid out of his truck and went to open the door for her.

  She was bouncing from foot to foot, and he tried not to pay attention to the alluring movements of her body. He always felt like he was balancing somewhere between appreciating all the facets of her beauty and thinking thoughts that he certainly wouldn’t want his mother or the reverend to hear. He remembered when he was young, he’d barely resisted temptation several times, and it was only Chastity’s determination not to be another teenage statistic that had kept the boundaries so solid between them.

  As he opened the door for her, he had a quick flicker of curiosity if those same boundaries held now that she was an adult. Had she found a lover in the city who had touched her the way his teenage self had always longed to? It certainly wasn’t any of his business, but he couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of jealousy.

  Which was ridiculous! She was a grown woman, living on her own in the city. What boyfriends or lovers she had wasn’t his business.

  But still…

  “You okay over there?” Chastity asked with a smile, already well into the barn. “You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts.”

  “Nothing important,” he said quickly, joining her in the barn. All of his family’s horses were there in their stalls, some of them trotting to their doors in the hopes for a treat and some of them so relaxed in their pens that they clearly couldn’t be bothered. He reminded himself to stay in the moment. After all, he was here with Chastity.

  He was making up for lost time, so nothing else mattered.

  “I don’t suppose you brought any treats?” Chastity asked, looking sheepishly back at him.

  Ben grinned. Some things never changed. “As a matter of fact,” he said, walking over to the small fridge they had near the door, “I did prepare for this occasion.”

  Reaching in, he pulled out two bags that he had placed in there that morning. One contained thick slices of apple, and the other, cubed pumpkin for some of the pickier horses. “There’s enough in here for everyone,” he said, handing her one of the bags. “I’ll tell you who likes what.”

  She let out a happy sort of squeal and went right over to Gwen, his mother’s oldest horse. She had been retired from riding long ago but still had plenty of life to her. Often when there was a colt who was a bit mean, they were put into her care, so she could teach them some manners. She hadn’t gone wrong yet.

  “Wait, I remember this one…” Chastity said, reaching out and stroking her head. “She’s a bit grayer around the nose, but… is this your mom’s?”

  Ben nodded. “You got it. She’s still kicking.”

  “Wow. What a matriarch.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” Ben said, laughing ever so lightly.

  And down the line they went, feeding each one carefully, taking their time. For the friendlier horses, Chastity would rub their muzzles and scratch behind their ears, talking to them as if they were humans and could understand everything she was saying. The horses that were more ornery, she gave the appropriate distance.

  He had always thought she was meant to be around animals. If he had ever met someone who was born for ranch life, it was her. All of the horses, even the less friendly ones, took to her, watching her with their large, honeyed eyes. He remembered being surprised at first—all those years ago—when she just waltzed in and made friends with every creature he introduced her to, but now he cherished it.

  He realized that one of his ways of discouraging a money-hungry pursuer had been to bring the pursuer around the dirtiest parts of the ranch and the meanest animals they had. Inevitably, they would always decide he was more trouble than his parents’ fortune was worth. He’d never thought that Chastity had given him the idea, but seeing her laugh and coo at the horses reminded him how he had always been holding women up to a standard that he doubted any of them could ever reach.

  After all, there was only one Chastity Parker. He had learned that lesson the hard way.

  Eventually, however, they finished feeding the horses their treats, and when they stepped outside again, it was already dark. Before they could even reach the truck, Ben heard a sharp slap, and Chastity let out a light swear.

  “I forgot how fast the mosquitos and horseflies descend. I don’t suppose the rest of our date is indoors, is it?”

  “It’s not,” Ben answered with a smirk. “But don’t worry about that.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she groused. “You’re not the one being eaten alive.”

  He strode forward and opened the truck door for her. She huffed, but got in anyway, allowing him to close the door then go over to his side.

  Once he was sure that she was belted in properly, he took off, bouncing over the vague roads that formed from him and his brothers crossing their lands. Only he and Benji had full-on trucks, the others usually preferred to use four-wheelers, but they all tended to walk the same paths.

  Well, except for his younger brother. Ben couldn’t remember the last time that he had been on the ranch to do any work, but hopefully he would shape up once his wild years passed.

  At first, he had been tempted to take her to their old favorite date spot, but he then remembered that was where they broke up and quickly decided against it. Instead, he chose to take her to what was called Juniper’s Grove. When they were younger, it had been overgrown with thistle and the like, but he and Benji had cleaned it out with the help of their father until it was a beautiful grove of weeping willows. Apparently, it was named after the daughter of the founding Miller, but he didn’t know much about her beyond the fact that she was the independent type.

  Not unlike a certain someone he knew…

  He pulled up to the path that led to the grove and put the truck into park once again. Reaching over to Chastity, he noticed that she tensed. He felt himself smirk again as he opened the glove compartment and pulled out of a bottle of insect repellent.

  “This should hold you over until we get to the spot,” he said, handing it to her. “Spray outside the truck, please.”

  “Wow, you really did think of everything, didn’t you?” she asked, seeming genuinely grateful.

  “Perhaps. I guess we’ll have to find out.”

  “Huh, when did you get all mysterious and dodgy?”

  “I think you’ll find that a lot of things have changed about me in my old age.”

  “Old age? You’re thirty.”

  “I know. And my knees remind me every single morning.”

  She straight up snorted as they got out of the truck. On most people, perhaps that would be an unattractive sound, but on her, it seemed right. It was an honest sound, and that was what was so lacking in a lot of people he dealt with lately. Whether it was the man from the bank, or another woman looking to marry into the family, or distant buyers in other states, or competition who also claimed to have happy cattle but didn’t treat their livestock with the same respect that the Millers did.

  But he didn’t have to worry about that with Chastity. If she felt something, she showed it. If she thought something, she spoke it. Even if she broke his heart, she was up-front with him.

  He heard her spraying away outside of the truck and went out to the back, grabbing the cooler and backpack that he had prepped. He had been in shock when she agreed to the date. He was sure that she would shoot him down right there in front of her house. But since she did say yes, he’d spent the p
ast three days preparing for it.

  Once he had it all in hand, he went back around to her side and saw her finishing up her insect-repellant shower. He remembered how once she had gone camping with his family, sleeping in her own tent next to his parents with another girl from school, whom she was trying to make friends with, and she had awoken with bright red bumps all up and down both her legs and arms. They really did seem to like her blood.

  “Ready?” he asked, looking her over.

  Even in the starlight, she was radiant. He remembered the first time that he saw her. He was a freshman, and she suddenly appeared in his grade one day. She was wearing simple jeans and an oversized T-shirt, with her dark hair in a bun, but his eyes had been glued to her. She had these broad, lovely cheekbones that always seemed to catch the light, and her eyes were a different shape than everyone else’s. Her skin wasn’t as tanned as some of the girls who hit the town’s only tanning salon, but it was a different color, one that spoke of horseback rides in the sunset and summers spent in the fields.

  He remembered asking around to see if anyone knew her, and by the end of the day, he knew that she was a younger student that had tested two years higher during eighth grade and had been shuttled up to freshman year. Unfortunately, that meant that she was either twelve or thirteen, depending on her birthday and since Ben was the ripe old age of fifteen, Ben knew that she was too young for him.

  So, he settled on being friends. Not that friendship with Chastity was settling in any way, as he soon found out. With her, often everything was an adventure, and she had this stark ambition for life that he admired. Her family was poor, and her parents’ views were traditional, so he knew practically from day one that she was out to make better than most people would expect of her. Because people expected so little of her.

  It was strange, really. Just because of her parents’ money issues and the fact that she was one half Native American, and it showed, people thought they could make certain comments to her. They were never outright enough to get them fired, reprimanded, or scolded, but they were enough for Chastity to know that they thought of her as different. Whether it was a remark about being “off the rez”—or returning to it—or “avoiding the vices of her people,” or asking if she was going to try to get a job at the casino a city over. Ben remembered seeing these remarks steel her resolve instead of crumbling it, but he couldn’t help but want to shoulder that pain for her.

  Unfortunately, often all his teenaged self could do was listen. So, he did. The two of them became thick as thieves, and it was in sophomore year, after her fourteenth birthday and while he was still fifteen, that he asked her out. The age difference seemed less important when they were only a year apart—even if his own birthday was just two months later.

  That was how it all began. Four years of knowing each other and three years of dating, before it all slipped through his fingers. And now, looking at her bathed in starlight, he recognized that he still felt much of the same way as he did back then—enraptured by the beauty and force of nature that encompassed everything she was.

  There was never going to be another Chastity, was there?

  “Ready!” she answered with a bright smile. That smile. Man, how he had always loved that smile. It seemed like nothing could be wrong with the world when she was grinning at him like that.

  Ben would have liked to offer his arm, but he was quite loaded up at the moment, so instead he gave her a nod and walked past her, through the weeping willow grove where it quickly grew dark. Thankfully, Chastity lit up the bowed trees with her cellphone, and they made it to their destination.

  Looking to Chastity, he hoped that she could feel the natural serenity of this place. And maybe, just maybe, how he still felt for her.

  But that was probably too much to hope for.

  16

  Chastity

  Chastity looked around at the beautiful grove he had taken her to. She had somehow never been to this part of the ranch before, but it was utterly breathtaking. Weeping willows bowed on either side of a comfortable, circular clearing, just big enough for a few people. The leaves hung from the tree’s slender whips, glittering silver in the moonlight.

  There were two gaps in the thick circle of green, one being the entrance with a beautiful, vine covered trellis, and the other overlooking one of the many large ponds that the ducks and geese loved to nest around.

  “Wow,” Chastity said the word in awe, as he led her to a fire circle. “How do I not remember this?”

  “It didn’t look quite this good in our days back on the ranch.”

  Chastity’s breath caught for a moment, and he looked back at her curiously.

  “What is it? Did you see something?” he asked.

  “No. It’s just… it’s silly.”

  He set down the cooler and the backpack, unzipping the latter to pull out a soft, thick blanket that she was pretty sure his mom had probably knitted herself. That woman was amazing with a needle. “What? Come on, now I want to know what you were thinking.”

  “I dunno. It was hearing you call it our days. It was…” Romantic? Moving? Nostalgic? “…weird.”

  “Hah. Sorry about that. I guess I could refer to it as the time in which you and I used to be involved. More of a mouthful though.”

  “It’s fine,” Chastity said, settling on the very edge of the blanket and starting to build up the center part of the fire. She loved building bonfires and took pride in being skilled at it. Of course, Ben was the one who taught her, so it was mostly his doing, but still. That didn’t stop her from enjoying the meticulous process nonetheless. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, that’s your job.”

  She looked up sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

  The corner of his mouth went up in that lightly teasing way of his. “Between the two of us, who do you guess overthinks things more?”

  She laughed at that, feeling herself relax. Even after all this time, they still had their same sort of bantering rhythm. “Oh, you may have a point.”

  Although Ben had never been a huge talker, he always had been quick-witted around her. It was one of the things that drew her to him. He knew how to make her laugh.

  He also knew how to end a conversation with infuriating skill.

  “Glad you think so.”

  He settled down further back from her, and she heard him pulling several things out of the cooler. She was sure that they were probably delicious and way more expensive than anything that she could afford. Once the structure of the fire was fully ready, she leaned back, her hand out.

  “You got a lighter?” she asked.

  “You know, typically the gentleman does all the preparation.”

  “Yeah, and typically the lady doesn’t have a proclivity for pyrotechnics.”

  “That always was a bit concerning. I don’t need to look up arson reports in the Big Apple, do I?”

  Chastity laughed, tilting her head back. “You’ve found me out.”

  “And here in this good, Christian country? What a scandal.”

  “It wouldn’t be our first. Remember when we went to the Snow Ball together?”

  Ben chuckled lightly as he passed her a long lighter. “Oh, I remember. There were a lot of accusations of robbing the cradle and if we had your parents’ permission.”

  “You would have thought I was twelve, not fourteen.”

  Ben shrugged, but Chastity didn’t miss the smile around his lips. “Well, I had just turned sixteen a couple of months before, so I understand the concern they had that I might have been taking advantage of you.”

  Chastity couldn’t help but laugh again. “Hah, can you imagine me letting anyone take advantage of me?”

  Ben shook his head. “Judging by your right hook? No, I can’t.”

  “And that’s after calming down over the past decade. I used to be a real spitfire.”

  “Used to be?”

  She tossed the lighter at his head, the fire beginning to flicker to life in th
e kindling. “I’m a right proper lady now, I’ll have you know. I’m almost thirty.”

  “And I am thirty,” his eyes narrowed. “Which means your birthday is coming up soon.”

  “Yup, and for a slight bit of time, you will only be a year older than me.”

  “And then that will quickly end as I turn thirty-one.”

  “Yes, that is how math works…last I checked.”

  “Cheeky.”

  Finally, she turned around, a pithy response ready, but her words stalled as she saw the spread he had prepared for them, all of the containers already open.

  There was a bottle of champagne and four bottles of what looked like half-frozen water. He remembered how much she liked water with her meals. That was nice.

  In the center was what looked like a roast pheasant, stuffed with a decadent rice that smelled both sweet and savory. There was a side of mashed potatoes, and she didn’t need a time machine to remember how delicious his mother’s dish was. There was also corn on the cob, some greens, and even a small platter of ribs. It all looked mouthwatering, and she had to swallow quickly to stop herself from drooling.

  “You like?” Ben asked, looking at her over the spread as he pulled out two of those special candles that she knew repelled bugs. He lit them and gently placed them on either side of the blanket, far enough away from the edge not to be a fire hazard, but close enough to repel the insects—and give it a romantic feel.

  “I like,” Chastity answered honestly. Her heart was thumping in her chest and her palms were sweaty. It felt like there was a heavy but welcome presence in the air, one that made every moment, every interaction that much more special.

  She knew she should probably resist the emotions swirling through her and tell herself that she was caught up in the magic of the ranch and its open plains, but for once she let herself enjoy the moment.

  That couldn’t be so wrong, could it?

  “Are you ready to dig in?” Ben asked, looking to her hopefully.

  “What, and no prayer?”