“Just a livestock swap,” she said finally, not sure why it made her uncomfortable to talk about it.
Ashley waited, legs planted on the ground like she was getting ready for another ram to rush her, but both men headed inside. Her body relaxed an inch, until she realized Darius was the last one outside with her.
Not willing to fall into another staring trap, she avoided his gaze and headed for the hose bib.
“Need help?” Darius said.
Ashley laughed as she unwound the hose.
“Why is that funny?” Darius said, a curious note in his voice.
“My boots are covered in sheep shit. You may want to step back before I ruin your nice clothes.”
“I’m not afraid of getting dirty.”
Something deep in her belly flipped. Shit. She glanced up and caught him staring at the curves of her body and felt that zing again. There were many ways to interpret his words and she was pretty sure he meant all of them.
She shook her head. Well, she’d take care of that right quick. Most people though they could handle farm life right until the moment they came up close and personal with farm shit.
She turned on the hose and began spraying off her boots, not even trying to keep the spray from hitting him. He would step back eventually, they all did.
Darius stepped closer, surprising her. He pointed to the back of one boot. “Missed a clump right there.”
“Thanks,” Ashley said, unsettled now.
The way her body reacted to him made him dangerous. The banker was still inside somewhere. She had her first cheese tour and tasting to give. She couldn’t allow herself to get distracted.
Shifting her weight to allow the hose to reach the right section of boot, she felt it when it happened—a little slip of traction on the wet ground. It sent her legs splaying out and the hose spraying wildly.
Darius stepped in close, despite the shit and the hose spray, to steady her by her shoulders. His hands felt warm and delicious. His clothes barely did a good job of covering up a great deal of chest muscle.
She shifted away, scared of how him touching her would make her feel, while angling the hose away—and goddamn slipped again. But barely moved at all this time because he was right there, holding her up against his length, so close, his hands at her waist now because goddamn it she had fallen into him. He was hot and hard against her back and her body jumped into a response as if it had a mind of its own. Warmth pooled low in her belly and she felt an ache.
The hose sprayed a mist that created a rainbow in the sunlight. Something frenzied and wild rose up inside of her. She felt the hard muscles of his stomach, his hands, and a large knot in his pants that pulsed once against the flesh of her butt cheeks.
Instead of stepping away like she knew she should, she nestled in, arching her back to press that hot, bulging knot of his deeper into her flesh through her clothes.
He groaned, almost silent, and it raised the pitch of her feverish wildness even higher. His mouth was right next to her ear, his hot breath tickling her neck and she thought she was going to melt like butter right there into the ground.
The heat and emptiness started in her low belly and spread out, demanding to get filled up.
“Sheep-wrangler, cheese-mongering woman.” Darius dragged in a deep breath, slow and seductive, like he knew exactly what affect he was having on her. “I think its time to get you inside. We need to taste some of that delicious cheese I keep hearing about.”
Ashley silently cursed herself for pretty much throwing her body at him. Scratch that—actually, literally, throwing her body at him.
She finished up with the hose, quick now, taking deep breaths to cool herself down, and ducking her head in embarrassment. How stupid was she? She had no idea who this man really was and her dreams were riding on her doing a good job today. She couldn’t afford to blow it because some guy drove in on a bus.
Hot guy, a very hot guy, who drove in on a bus and didn’t mind getting dirty either.
Nothing like the town men she’d met in the past.
Nothing like them at all.
When she finished curling the hose up and knocking excess water off her boots, she stole a quick glance in Darius’ direction. He stood there, back to her, looking down at King and Gandalf, because, she suspected, he was trying to get control over that hot bulge in his pants.
Something about that thought was very satisfying.
She didn’t like how upside down he’d made her feel with all of two seconds worth of touching.
She hoped he at least had the decency to feel upside down too.
Chapter 3
Darius cursed himself and every stupid decision he had ever made, up to and including offering to help Ashley the cheese-monger, sheep-wrangler to help clean her boots off.
Help clean her boots off? What the fuck?
He was here to do a job. One simple job. And she would hate him for it if she ever found out.
He kept his back turned to her now to better compose himself. He could not, would not, look at her right then. It wasn’t safe. So he stared down at the paddock containing those two rams and wondered again at the scene that had played out below.
Trash can lid and broomstick? Who was this woman?
Some kind of wonder—he felt that truth deep in his body.
And it was his job to ruin some of that wonder.
He sensed more than heard when Ashley finished shaking off her boots and went into the dairy shop. There was a coldness that swept over him at her absence. He needed to get in there and get a better sense of her and this place—and then get gone. But first he had to make sure the bulge in his pants was completely gone.
He repositioned his jeans, wincing at the tightness, and remembered the way her shoulders had felt slim and strong under his hands. She had slipped in the mud and fallen right into him and he had felt the warmth of her waist and the way his hands had cupped her curves, her hard stomach, the way she had fallen into him, nestling herself onto his—
This was not helping.
He hoped he hadn’t scared her off, though he suspected she wasn’t that easy to scare. He hadn’t meant for things to get out of control like that.
He stared hard across the little valley, forcing himself not to think about her, forcing himself to get back to the job at hand and the way this job was going to ruin the spark of something he wanted very much to explore further. He had to take all his attraction to her and stuff it down, lock it up, and throw away the key.
He was using the tour today to get a sense of the area. He expected the job to be straightforward—take out the ram, provide the Italians with proof, get the blackmail information on his father destroyed.
The problem was, he hadn’t expected Ashley. Her presence shook him in a way he hadn’t expected—and didn’t like.
Scratch that. He liked it all too much.
The job hadn’t been that big a deal when he’d signed on for it. He was a convenient mercenary for hire because he wasn’t afraid of trouble, thanks to his Army days. He was convenient because the people who hired him had information that would bankrupt his father’s Vermont dairy farm.
Darius didn’t quite care about that part. He’d told his father years ago that he was only inviting trouble by smuggling in straws of illegal breeding semen—acting like European laws didn’t matter. Europe, especially Italy, was serious about that sort of thing. Sometimes deadly serious.
When his father had gotten caught this last time, it was not by the authorities, but by someone much worse, a smuggler who didn’t like competition. It was his father and mother’s lives—or else Darius was to go out on the hunt for the semen.
It was laughable, farcical, even. Murder for the sake of some ram semen? But the gun one of the Italians had pointed at his mother’s head was no joke.
So he was here because it had taken too long to track down the last straw of semen. Someone had used it to inseminate several ewes, not even knowing what they had.
All offspring
had been destroyed except for this last one. King.
King could not be allowed to breed, not when Darius’ mother was at risk.
The ram Ashley had managed to buy had come from a straw of semen that should have never, ever been allowed to cross into the United States. There were a dozen such straws that had been smuggled across the border and he’d been tracking them all down over the past year.
King was the last traceable progeny from that smuggled straw. This line of sheep had been bred for generations back in Italy to produce twice as much milk for longer than the standard six months per year. It would be a catastrophe for the European Sheep Cheese market if the US got on any sort of level playing field.
With Darius’ head now back in the game and his erection settled enough to make him presentable, he headed inside. The shop was small, with barely enough room for half a dozen people, and it smelled like stinky cheese. Strong, woody, barnyard, ripe.
Cheeses were laid out artfully in wheels and wraps underneath a glass display case, but all the tourists were in the back room.
He followed them, the smell only intensifying, and noticed the decorative details in the shop. Little rosemary satchels, laminated and framed magazine articles about the dairy farm, dried flowers hung on the walls, woven baskets hung from hooks as if ready for someone to go collect some eggs.
It smelled like home and made him ache in a way he hadn’t felt for a long time.
“I call it The Wonder.” It was Ashley’s voice, floating out from the middle of a group of tourists.
It startled him, having her use the word he’d internally used to describe her.
It took him a long second to realize it was the name she had given her cheese.
As he approached, he noticed the white walls, the sloped floor, the dairy pasteurizer, plastic cheese molds, a working table. Everything an artisan cheesemonger needed to make good cheese.
Ashley stood in those blue striped boots like she owned the floor, and she did. There was something about the way she smiled and talked that drew attention to her like a bee to a flower. He couldn’t help but notice his own attraction for her, but also the way those two men were hovering. A fierce stab of jealousy pierced him, but he controlled himself because what was the point? He wouldn’t be around long enough to start or finish anything.
That was the problem, as his father always told it, and any of his ex girlfriends would agree.
He never stuck around.
But he knew why that was—he had never felt like any place was really home, not after the falling out with his father.
“You see, people here in the United States are used to goat and cow milk cheese,” Ashley said. “Which is all fine and beautiful. But if you really want your cheese to sing to you, it’s got to be 100% sheep’s milk. Did you know sheep’s milk naturally contains double the fat and protein that cow and goat milk contain?”
There were murmurs of surprise from the group.
“The Wonder really is something like you’ve never tasted before—nutty, savory, rich, and buttery. Come around now and grab a piece.”
A few braver souls stepped forward and popped a dime-sized piece of cheese into their mouths.
Ashley smiled at them, waiting expectantly for their reactions. They all exclaimed, turning to husband, wife, or friend with some sort of variation on, “She wasn’t kidding! You’ve got to taste this.”
Others crowded around as Ashley sliced up more pieces. People came back for seconds and thirds and asked where they could buy some.
Ashley beamed and her cheeks flushed. “Oh, nothing is officially for sale.” She glanced at a guy in the back who, of all things, was wearing a full suit on a dairy farm. “Yet.”
Loose tendrils of hair framed Ashley’s proud face and Darius felt the world spin on him. She was gorgeous, smart, strong, capable—everything he had been looking for in a woman for a very long time—and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
One of the aviator-men stepped forward, picking up a piece of The Wonder like it was a pebble of rat poop. He flicked it into his mouth and scrunched up his nose. “This is not anything special.”
Darius stepped forward, about ready to punch this man in the gut for his disrespectfulness, but something about the man’s voice stopped him. Had he heard a faint accent? These two guys had been all but silent on the bus ride over. Tension knotted his stomach. What if Darius wasn’t the only one hired for this job?
He stepped back, on full alert now, and surveyed the room and all its people. Those two, and the banker-looking guy, were the only ones who didn’t seem to fit though they had tried. Jeans, boots, flannel shirts. But there clothes were too new and still wrinkled from the original package folds. And those sunglasses were like something out of a movie. He’d worked alone on every job until now and didn’t recognize the guys as being part of the Italian crew. Something was up.
“Storm Weather Dairy has done a magnificent job,” a short, stocky man said. He wore dark jeans and something styled almost like a chef’s coat. A hat tilted at an angle on his head. “This truly is a wonder. You promised it would sing and it does.”
Ashley’s smile deepened. “Thank you—”
“With your permission, I’m going to feature The Wonder in the food contest tomorrow. We could win first place with what I have in mind!”
Ashley glanced quick at the older woman, the owner of the farm, who nodded.
“What do you say to that?” The chef said.
“Yes,” Ashley said. “I say, yes!”
The room of tourists clapped as if he had proposed and she had accepted. Darius felt a stab of jealously, but this was about her cheese and he was happy for her.
He wanted her as a woman. Let the chef have his cheese.
Darius looked around, found a business card near the opening to the dairy shop, and pocketed it.
Maybe he could do this job and she’d never know it was him. He could give it some time for things to cool down, and then reach out to her again. He knew dairy well enough, maybe he could offer his help, later, once she’d settled down from the blow he was going to give—
The two men with the aviator sunglasses bent their heads together, drawing Darius’ attention. Shit. What was he thinking?
He had to do this job and get out of before these two could mess things up big time. If they were here for the same reasons as him, he wanted it to be him to take care of things. At least he could guarantee Ashley’s safety that way, and make sure his mother and father stayed safe too.
The two men left, dark looks on their faces. They glanced at Darius on the way out, frowning. Through the window, he watched to see if they were headed for King, but they only returned to the bus.
Still, Darius’ gut told him something was up with those two. There was a hard edge to them that made him fearful for Ashley’s safety. Darius was here to take out a ram, that was all he had promised. No one was going to get hurt. Even though those who hired him had hinted for something more.
But what would those two men be willing to do to protect the interests of whoever had hired them?
Chapter 4
Ashley leaned against the dairy shop’s cheese display case, exhausted. There was still so much to do, but she needed a minute to let everything that happened soak in.
Janice had gone up to her house hours before to get ready for a night out with one of her male friends, so she was long gone by now. The ranch could be a lonely place, but even though Ashley very much enjoyed Janice’s company, she didn’t mind a night like this when she could have the ranch all to herself. Janice’s house sat on the edge of the ranch, almost on the opposite end from Ashley’s little place. Ashley’s place was far from the sounds and smells of road and barn.
Inside the dairy shop, the only noise was the whirring sound of the air condition that kept the display box extra cool. It rumbled against her stomach in a soothing way. The light outside had begun to fade, the tourists had left hours ago, full of bags of her cheese, onto the next
stop—the distillery next door for some rum and gin sampling.
She couldn’t smell the cheese anymore, staying in the shop for hours like this destroyed her sense of smell for a while, but it didn’t matter. The bacteria in the culturing rooms were all doing their work—eating up the milk sugars and transforming them into cheese.
Her cheese. The Wonder of Storm Weather Dairy Farm.
Plus, a local all-star chef was featuring her cheese in a food contest that was the highlight of the cheese festival. The first place winner would get written up in national magazines, be featured on local TV, and offered shelf space in the local participating grocery stores.
She told herself not to hope too high—that way had only ever led to disappointment—but she couldn’t help herself. The chef had said he was going for first place and needed her cheese to do it.
First place.
The banker had been impressed and said winning the food festival would pretty much guarantee the loan she needed to really make a go of all this.
It was a heady feeling to think about everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. Dairy farmhand to award-winning cheesemonger? She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but it was too late. She was already making plans to source more ewes and equipment, ramp up production, actually take herself and her dreams seriously.
If any of it was going to happen, though, then she needed to get out there and feed her soon-to-be award-winning herd. They were her future. The light would only last for a bit longer and there was a lot to do.
Ashley brushed back her hair and clomped outside, her blue striped rain boots still relatively clean from the earlier hosing off. She blushed as she passed the hose bib, remembering the masculine force that seemed to surround Darius. His eyes had taken her in and his hands had cupped her body to keep her from falling into the muck.
Janice had commented on the way Darius had been staring at Ashley the whole time she spoke to the tourists about making cheese sing.
A smile played across the old woman’s lips as she pulled a condom from her purse and said, “Why don’t you keep this for any emergencies that pop up.”
Smuggled Wonder Page 2
