by Soraya Lane
Her expression didn’t change, her eyes warm as she stared back at him. “Of course I would have.”
Chase smiled and started walking with her again, even though he didn’t believe her for a second. Something had changed, something was different about her, and it wasn’t just the fact that they’d grown up. But if there was one thing he was good at it was being persistent, and if he had a chance to get Hope back in his life, then he’d make damn sure he didn’t miss the opportunity. If she were happily married he would have accepted the fact, but she wasn’t.
“That was a lie,” she suddenly said.
He raised an eyebrow as he turned to look at her. “What was?”
“If I’d seen your name I would have tried to get someone else to cover for me.”
He nodded. “Nothing beats the truth.”
She stopped and stared at him, her eyes locked on his. They weren’t touching, but she was standing close, her perfume filling his senses, strands of her hair being teased by the wind and blowing toward him. He was recalling exactly why he’d found it so damn hard to keep things platonic between them.
“How did things end up like this between us, Chase?”
He shrugged. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we did.” She blew out a breath. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I never stayed in touch. If it’s any consolation, I’ve missed you a lot.”
“Me too,” he grunted. “All these years and I’ve never found a drinking buddy half as fun as you.” The reasons he liked Hope were a whole lot more than having someone fun to drink with, but he was pretty sure she knew that without him having to spell it out.
Chase chuckled and slung an arm around Hope’s shoulders. She tensed slightly, shoulders bunching under his touch, like she’d stopped breathing for a beat, but he didn’t care. Before they’d slept together, they’d touched all the time, buddies but on the verge of flirting every time they hung out. Then after they’d been between the sheets, they’d barely touched again. Well, he was taking charge now and he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around.
“I might just take you up on that kicking-ass offer, you know,” Hope muttered, her body finally relaxing.
“You have my word,” Chase said, pleased to be talking instead of picturing her naked, because the moment he’d seen her he’d started thinking about their night together. “I don’t care how many years have passed. An enemy of yours is an enemy of mine. You say kill him, he’s dead.”
As they reached the barn, Chase reluctantly removed his arm, set the kit down, and hitched a boot against the nearby railing. He had a small herd of heifers waiting in the round pen for Hope to look over, and the sooner he got his mind on cows instead of the woman standing beside him, the better.
“So these are my girls,” he said.
He recognized the change in her face as she leaned over the railings to look them over. When they’d been studying she’d played hard and studied even harder, which was why his grandfather had always thought she was such a good influence on him. Now, he got the feeling that he was the only one getting time to play—the tiny lines around her eyes told him she was nothing short of exhausted.
“You’ve got quite the harem of ladies,” she joked.
“Best organic purebred cattle in the state,” Chase told her. “Now I just need to get them pregnant with the New Zealand sperm that cost me a small fortune.”
“And that’s why you called in the big guns.”
Chase laughed with Hope, but what he really needed was for them to stop talking about sperm. And sex. And insemination. His head was already in the gutter without any encouragement.
“I’m guessing you must be pretty good if you managed to get a green card,” Chase said, still leaning on the rails but watching her now instead of the herd.
“I’ve worked my butt off,” she told him. “But yeah, seems that I managed to specialize enough to be of value, and it didn’t take long for me to get approval to move.”
Chase nodded. He’d never doubted she would succeed at whatever she set her mind to, not for a moment.
* * *
Hope held up a hand to shield her eyes from the bright sunshine. Keeping it together in front of Chase wasn’t easy, and it was taking every ounce of her energy. Staring into his eyes was like … She clamped her jaw down, teeth grinding. Her problem was that she’d mentally left Chase in her past, and she sure as hell hadn’t been expecting to see him today. Or any other damn day for that matter.
“So did you ever practice?” she asked, ducking through the railings to get a closer look at the heifers. They’d graduated together after training as veterinarians, but he hadn’t been sure about his exact career plans when they’d parted ways.
“For a short time,” he said, following her into the yards. “After I graduated I came straight back here and started working alongside our foreman whenever I could, but I also worked with our local vet for a while to get some practical training in. Granddad liked the idea of me having a backup plan career wise in case ranching wasn’t profitable for our land one day, but the truth is all I’ve done since hearing him say that is come up with ways to make sure I can keep the ranching side of our business booming.”
She cursed as he moved near, wishing he’d just back the hell up instead of coming into her space. Having him so close—smelling him, seeing him, looking into his dark eyes as he spoke—it was too much. After trying to forget him for so long, suddenly every memory, every touch was rushing back so fast it was almost impossible to breathe.
Hope inhaled deeply, the smell of cow dung way more calming than the citrusy scent of Chase. She glanced sideways, noticed the wayward curl of his dark hair. He’d kept it shorter in college, and now it was more unruly, but it suited him. Just a little too long at the back and around his ears, almost black, and so hard not to touch.
Enough. She hadn’t thought about Chase in a long time and she didn’t need to start now. She was here for work and that was it.
“What I need to do today is give them a work-up, make sure everything’s in order, then we can go about getting them in calf. You know the drill.”
Chase cleared his throat. “I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but we only purchased a modest number of straws. Are we looking at a pretty high take rate?”
Hope met his gaze, but she kept her body angled so she hadn’t turned her back on the cows. She had enough experience to know how easy it was to land a sideways kick.
“Understood. Each insemination has to count, and I’ll only inseminate the ones that fit the criteria perfectly.” She nodded as she glanced over them all again, pleased with how they looked from the outset—a healthy herd of big young cows. “Although from looking at them I doubt we’ll find any obvious problems from the outset.”
“Nate’s riding me big-time over this so I need to prove it was the right decision,” Chase said. “He’d turn this whole place into an oil field if it wasn’t for me riding his ass to keep our stock numbers high.”
“Nate’s your oldest brother, right?” She was only making conversation, there was nothing about Chase she’d forgotten.
“Yep, that’s him.” Chase took a step back and leaned on the railings, his elbows pushed down, legs relaxed as he kicked them out, one ankle crossed over the other. “My granddad’s stepped down from the day-to-day running now, and Nate’s handling the business side of things with me in charge of the ranches. We have a couple other places nearby, too.”
“So you’re living the dream, huh?” she mused, ducking beneath the timber so she was no longer in the yard.
“I guess, yeah.” Chase followed her back through, frowning when she turned to look at him. “What about you? What the hell are you doing living and working so far from home anyway?”
Damn. She’d walked into that question all on her own. “Ah, things didn’t work out quite as planned.” Hope tried to look unconcerned, her natural reaction to make up an excuse and get the hell out of dodge to avoid Chase’s
questions. But he didn’t know, couldn’t know, any of it, which meant she just needed to avoid the topic for as long as she could. If not forever. She could tell him about her ranch one day if she had to, but that was it. She’d moved on, dealt with what had happened, and what he didn’t know wasn’t doing him any harm. Hell, he’d probably forgotten all about her the day they graduated—she was a quick blast from the past for him and that was it.
“So your family…”
“Chase, have you thought about how many heifers you want me to do in the first round of inseminations?” she interrupted, desperate to get the topic off her and back on work. “We could do a few first, monitor the results before continuing on? Then we could let Nate see for himself how good these New Zealand straws are. I’m guessing that quality is more important than speed given what you’ve told me.”
If Chase was surprised by how rudely she’d changed the subject, he didn’t show it. “Whatever you think. I want to leave this up to the experts, but we don’t need to be overly cautious. I just want to make sure we’re focused on the end result.”
“Good, sounds like a plan. I’ll talk to my boss, discuss the results from my prelim work-up with the girls here, then we’ll get them in calf as soon as we can.” She laughed. “You’ll have unruly calves to worry about before you know it.”
“Yeah, ones that owe us so much money we’ll be keeping an eagle eye on them twenty-four-seven.” He grinned at her. “Just give me one good bull calf and I’ll be indebted to you forever. It’ll make all this worth my while.”
She looked from the yards back to Chase and saw his face change, his jaw go from soft to hard as stone as he scowled past her. When she turned she saw who he was staring at—a man as blond as Chase was dark, a big smile greeting her when she locked eyes with him. It might have been a long time, but she recognized Chase’s little brother straight away.
He grinned when he reached them, holding out his hand for her to shake. “Man, you’re an improvement on the last vet.”
“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or offended,” she replied, laughing more from the look on Chase’s face than the joke.
“He was about seventy and bald, so yeah, take it as a compliment.”
“Hope Walker,” she said, taking her hand back when he released it, his eyes never leaving hers as what she guessed was recognition flickered in them.
“Ryder King,” he replied, shaking his head as he folded his arms, like the penny had slowly dropped. “And you’re…”
“Hope, just like she said,” Chase interrupted. “As in my old friend from college. Ryder, Hope. Hope, Ryder. We’ve got some business to attend to, so if you don’t mind…”
“No fucking way,” Ryder swore, completely ignoring his brother.
“Small world, huh?” she said.
“So do you mind my asking what the hell you’re doing here? When Chase was all miserable and pining for you, I’m sure he said there wasn’t a chance of you leaving your ranch in Canada and heading back to the US.”
Hope fought the grimace threatening to take over her face. She glanced at Chase but decided to focus on Ryder—it was easier looking at his brother. Maybe she hadn’t been the only one missing what they’d had.
“My family doesn’t own the ranch anymore,” she said, keeping her voice as devoid of emotion as she could. Hope worried the timber behind her, digging her nail in so hard that it hurt. “To cut a long story short, I wanted a fresh start, and I was recruited by Dallas AI. It was too good an offer to turn down, so here I am.”
“Your dad sold the ranch?” Chase asked, his gaze so intense he could have burned a hole through her skin.
“Not exactly.”
Hope smiled at Ryder and bent to take some things from her kit, purely for something to do, wishing Chase would stop staring at her and change the subject. When she looked up, both men were watching her, but neither pushed her further.
“So instead of being the beautiful heiress to your family ranch, you’re staring at semen through a scope and inseminating unsuspecting heifers? Sounds like fun.”
She had to give Ryder credit—he’d made her laugh when she’d been about to burst into tears only moments before.
“Let’s just say that I’m better off on my own.” And with my son. The silent words echoed through her head, her eyes dragging toward Chase and seeing the familiar dark-brown gaze meeting hers. Only it wasn’t Chase’s chocolate-hued gaze she was used to seeing on a daily basis, it was her son’s. “So you boys going to help me put these ladies in the crush?”
Ryder shook his head, holding out his hand and clasping hers. “It was lovely to meet you, Hope, but I’m off to see a man about a horse. I’ll leave you two to reminisce and sort out the cattle.”
“You still riding rodeo?” she asked.
Ryder went to answer before Chase nudged him hard in the side, making him grunt.
“That was in the days before he was whipped,” Chase said. “My baby bro is all grown up and married now.”
Hope smiled. “Congratulations.” Just because she was cynical about marriage herself didn’t mean she couldn’t be happy for someone else.
“She’s fucking amazing,” Ryder said, giving her a mischievous wink and slapping his brother on the back before starting to walk away. “I’m one lucky son of a bitch and I damn well know it.”
A shiver trawled Hope’s spine as she turned to face Chase, his mouth smiling but his eyes still creased with concern. She knew he’d have questions, it wouldn’t be natural for him not to, but she didn’t want to go there. Not without thinking through what she would tell him first, figuring out how much to say. It wasn’t like she’d been expecting a reunion with him.
“So how do you want to do this?” Chase asked.
She sighed and squared her shoulders. “Can we just focus on work today?”
He flashed her his gorgeous dimple, the one that always creased when he grinned, a dimple that had made almost every girl in her dorm swoon on a daily basis, including her.
“I was talking about using the crush,” he told her.
A warm flush worked its way up her neck, but she refused to let the blush hit her cheeks. He’d always known how to get under her skin, how to reach her like no other guy had, and being around him now was scaring her. Because it was dredging up thoughts long forgotten, memories she’d forced away so many times they’d almost completely disappeared from her mind. But the fantasy had never died, and being with him, here and now, she wished she’d chosen Chase over everything else. It had been the stupidest decision she’d ever made, and one day maybe even her son would find it hard to forgive her.
Chase touched her arm when she walked past him on her way toward the cattle again.
“You don’t want to talk, we don’t need to,” he said, his voice husky.
“Okay,” she managed, refusing to glance at him, her gaze firmly ahead on the first glossy black Angus heifer in front of her.
“But you do owe me dinner,” he said, raising one eyebrow as he stared at her, making it impossible for her not to look back into eyes the most delicious shade of milk chocolate in the sunlight.
“I…”
His hand squeezed over her forearm, the heat in his touch making her flush. His face showed how serious he was, eyes boring into her, the hint of smile crossing his lips the only attempt he made at concealing his determination.
Hope took a deep breath. “Only if I can find a babysitter on short notice.”
Chapter 2
“A babysitter?” Chase was close to choking on the words, his tongue stuttering. He narrowed his eyes, stared hard at Hope to see if she was just giving him shit. But she wasn’t. The flicker in her gaze, the way she met his stare, then looked away told him it sure as hell wasn’t something she was joking about.
“I have a son,” she said, walking away from him. “But, ah, let’s get this done and I’ll get back to you later about tonight.”
He ground his teeth together. So her dea
dbeat husband had left her and their child? What an asshole.
“You did mean tonight, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I did.”
Chase couldn’t recall the last time he was actually rendered speechless, but he was finding it damn well impossible to figure out what the hell to say to her today. He blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders back, standing up tall. What he did know was that he wanted to know more, and that meant not letting her say no to dinner. If she didn’t commit now, he had a gut-deep feeling that he’d never see or hear from her again—she’d get another specialist to do the inseminations. They might not be in college any longer, but she’d damn well disappeared without a trace then and he wasn’t going to let it happen a second time.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and it distracted him, took his focus off Hope. He glanced at the screen. Damn. He’d forgotten all about Sarah, aka his date for tonight. They’d had fun a few times, but he had no problems extracting himself from drinks with the cute brunette. He silenced the call and pushed it back into his jeans.
“You can take it,” Hope said, glancing across at him from her safe distance a few meters away. “I’ll just do my thing here.”
Fuck that. Chase shook his head, over the shock of seeing Hope after so many years and ready to launch into full-on offensive mode. They’d been young when they were friends, had had fun, but he’d learned a lot since then, and one of those things was not taking no for an answer.
“It’s not important,” he told her. He’d let Sarah down gently, and it wasn’t as if they were exclusive. They had fun some times, and sex most times, but he wasn’t even remotely interested in getting anyone between his sheets except for Hope now that he’d seen her in the flesh again.
“Well, if you want to help, come and get these lovely ladies ready with me.”
Chase followed her, taking in the curve of her ass as she walked, her long legs impossible not to notice, the denim of her jeans tight to every inch of them. Her T-shirt was plain, fitted but not tight, and it showed him that her figure had hardly changed over the past five years since graduation.
