Putting the Heart Before the Horse

by Zoe Chant

  The pleasant, slightly nervous look fell from his face. “Uh, yeah. The agency didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” she said. “I guess they left that out.”

  “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No,” she said again, not entirely certain.

  He took a deep breath and fiddled with his shirt cuffs. “Look, why don’t we just spend some time getting to know each other? Then maybe you’ll have a better idea.”

  “Yeah,” she said, her uncertainty warring with the flat-out lust dancing around in her stomach. “Let’s do that.”

  ***

  Josh gestured for Hope to lead the way to their table, mentally cursing whoever at Single & Serious had left that important fact out of his file. This date might be doomed before it even started, and that would be a real shame, because he hadn’t ever seen anything as delectable as Hope. Several inches shorter than he was, what she lacked in height she made up for in curves. Lush, full breasts that sloped into the shadow of her cleavage. Round hips, incredibly kissable lips that begged to be nibbled and sucked—there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for a chance to touch some of that creamy skin.

  He pulled her chair out for her and got a tentative smile in return. “Did you want some wine?”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” she laughed. “Maybe it’ll relax us both.”

  “White or red?”

  “How about a nice Chardonnay?”

  “Sounds good.” He ordered a bottle when the waiter came by and then spent some time looking at the menu. Say something, he thought frantically. “So you’re a writer?”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking at him briefly but then returning her gaze to her menu. “Magazine articles, mostly. I’ve got a couple of regular gigs writing for airline magazines, so sometimes I get to travel to some really great places. I got back from Barcelona a few weeks ago.”

  “Wow, that sounds amazing.” He tore his attention away from the sight of her beautiful fingers toying with the stem of her wine glass.

  “Have you ever been to Europe?”

  “No. I don’t do very well with long plane trips. I need room to move.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Because of your...”

  He let the silence draw out for a second before rescuing her. “I’m a horse shifter. Most of my family is too. We need room to run. It’s why we have the ranch.”

  “That sounds—”

  “Weird?”

  “No,” she said, finally raising her head to meet his gaze with those beautiful blue eyes. “It sounds lovely.”

  He breathed a little easier after that. When the waiter returned, he ordered butternut squash soup and a pork chop with grilled asparagus. Hope frowned a bit over her menu, then ordered a grilled chicken breast and a Caesar salad. When he said, “No appetizer?” she shook her head.

  “Good,” he said encouragingly. “Leave room for dessert.”

  She frowned again, but tried to smooth out her expression. “Oh, I’ll probably skip dessert, but you should feel free.”

  He waited until the waiter took their menus and left. It didn’t take a genius to know that someone in Hope’s past had given her crap about what she ate. Probably more than one someone.

  “Listen.” He reached across the table for her hand. “I don’t know if this will turn into anything, or if we’ll shake hands at the end of this and never see each other again. But you never have to worry about what you eat around me.”

  Her mouth quirked in a rueful, one-sided smile. “Am I that obvious?”

  He shrugged. “Lots of guys are idiots. Lots of women are too. But anyone who can’t see how incredibly gorgeous you are doesn’t deserve to be around you.”

  She blushed, staining her beautiful cheeks with red, and Josh finally acknowledged to himself what he’d been feeling since he saw her walk in the bar. He wanted her. Physically, sure, but more than that. He’d spent his life wondering what it would be like when he found his mate, and now he knew. It was a pull, a certainty, a voice deep inside him that said She’s the one. Make her yours forever.

  ***

  Okay, Hope thought, mentally relaxing. I think this is going well.

  Their soup and salad arrived, and they made small talk, exchanging stories about their upbringings. He told her about his parents’ accident when he was just eight, leaving him in the custody of his numerous aunts and uncles.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have been hard.”

  “It was, of course, but I always had my family.” He smiled, and the affection on his face made her heart thump in her chest. “It’s hard to explain unless you grow up in that kind of environment. They’re loud and opinionated, and they drive me nuts, but any one of them would do anything for me.”

  Hope sighed, remembering her own childhood. “You’re right, I do find it hard to imagine. My dad passed away when I was in college, and my mother left us when I was thirteen.”

  Josh set down his spoon with a clatter. “She just left?”

  Hope shrugged. “I think she decided she wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, taking her hand in his, as he had earlier. His thumb stroked across her knuckles. He probably intended to comfort her, but Hope felt anything but comforted. The longer he touched, the more she got hot and bothered. Without even meaning to, she found herself wondering how those long fingers of his would feel on her face, or her breasts, or, oh God, inside her.

  She cleared her throat and pulled her hand away, just in time for the waiter to bring their entrees. Josh stared at her for a moment, and she could only hope he hadn’t guessed the direction of her thoughts. What was wrong with her? They’d only just met, and she was fantasizing about having sex with him.

  After the waiter left, Hope concentrated on cutting up her chicken, and not on looking at Josh like he was her next meal. Her knife and fork clanked on the plate while she tried desperately to organize her thoughts. Ask him something. Something safe. Something about his family, his ranch, his favorite color. Anything.

  Before she could think of a good topic, Josh beat her to it.

  “What else do you write besides travel articles?” he asked.

  “Oh, a little bit of everything,” she said. “After I graduated from college with my English degree, I spent a couple of years doing freelance work for some of the big financial companies in town.”

  “Sounds exciting,” he said wryly.

  “It wasn’t that bad, actually. I got to work on all kinds of different things—annual reports, blog posts, some community outreach stuff. It helped me learn versatility.”

  “Here,” he said, cutting a piece of his pork chop and offering her his fork. “Do you want to try a bite of this?”

  “Thanks.” His fingers brushed hers softly as she took the fork from him. The meat was tender and had a subtle, smoky flavor. “That’s really good.”

  From the look on Josh’s face, he wouldn’t mind a taste of her either. Unless that was just wishful thinking, projecting her feelings on him. Maybe if she flirted a little bit, he’d flirt back, and she’d know for sure.

  If only she had any idea how to actually flirt.

  “Do you mind if I ask you why you signed up with Single and Serious? Or is that too personal for a first date?”

  “Not at all,” he answered. “The town I live in is pretty small, and I realized about a year ago that I’d never find my mate there.”

  Mate? Hope thought. Like soul mate? I guess that’s one way to say it. Maybe a little old-fashioned. Or a little...agricultural. He does live on a ranch, after all.

  “Worked your way through all of the local girls?” she teased. Maybe teasing was close enough to flirting.

  “You know it. Broke their hearts and then walked away into the sunset.”

  God, the sight of his smile set off fireworks inside of her. It had to be unfair for a man to be that attractive.

  He took a sip of his wine “All joking aside, I knew it wasn’t going to h
appen. And I was ready for it to happen. So I had to figure out a way to meet other women, and this seemed like a better idea than putting up a billboard on the highway.”

  “My reasons are pretty similar,” she said. “Except I had to date half the guys in Chicago to realize that I wasn’t finding Mr. Right.”

  “Well, whatever brought us here, I’m glad we got matched.”

  Oh, no, Hope thought. He’s smiling again.

  The smile transformed his face. Without it, he was handsome to the point of being unapproachable. When he smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkled, and that little bit of mischief drew her in. But no matter how much she was drawn to him, she needed to remember that they’d only just met. Just because she felt this incredible attraction, it didn’t take the place of actually getting to know him and figuring out if they were compatible long-term.

  She contented herself with saying, “Me too.” He seemed to sense that she was pulling back a little, because he brought the conversation back to a more neutral subject.

  “So what’s your favorite article that you’ve ever written?” he asked.

  “Oh, that’s a hard choice.” She ran through a mental catalog of her work. “Maybe the one where I went to Iceland? Remember that crazy volcano that erupted a few years ago? Well, the name’s crazy, not the volcano. The volcano’s perfectly normal.”

  “Just going about his business, sitting there, erupting every once in a while.” He grinned at her, his even white teeth flashing briefly, contrasting with his bronzed skin.

  “Exactly,” she agreed, chuckling. “Though actually, it hadn’t erupted since sometime back in the nineteenth century. No one expected it to interfere with air travel like it did.”

  “Was your article about that?”

  “Some, but mostly it was a typical airline profile about where to go and what to see. The scenery is amazing, though. Glaciers and fjords, the Northern Lights, hot springs, waterfalls—” She caught herself before she listed every place she’d visited. “Well, it’s hard to talk about that part without sounding like a travel guide.”

  “No, it sounds great. To visit places like that and really get to know them.”

  “It’s definitely one of the best parts of my job,” she agreed. “You know I grew up on a ranch?”

  “Yeah, I saw that in your profile.”

  “I love being outdoors—like, really outdoors, wide open. It’s something I really miss when I’m in a city for a while.”

  “That’s definitely something we have in common.”

  “Hey,” she said, cutting up the last few pieces of her chicken, “we’ve spent all of this time talking about me. I want to hear about you. Tell me about your ranch.”

  He leaned back against the padded chair. “Well, we’ve mostly got cattle, and some sheep. Most everyone in the family helps out, though a couple of people have jobs in town, and the kids have school, of course. Half of the time it seems like complete chaos, but we get by.”

  “I figured you had cows, but sheep too? Do you raise them for meat? Wool?”

  “Right now, it’s just wool, though I’d like to build up the flock enough that we can sell some sheep’s milk too. There are some dairies up in Idaho that are producing sheep’s milk cheese, so the market’s growing.”

  “Interesting,” Hope said, and she meant it. It was something that had served her well in her career—it was easier to write about a subject if you could get genuinely interested in it. “How long has your family owned your ranch?”

  “It’s almost a hundred years now.”

  “Wow!” she exclaimed.

  “My great-grandfather came back from fighting in World War I and decided he wanted to own some land. The area was moving away from ranching and more into oil production, and he got a good deal on the land. The rest is family history.” He laid his utensils on the plate and pushed it slightly away from him. Somewhat to her surprise, Hope noticed that she’d also cleaned her plate.

  “You keep saying your family’s big, but how big is it?” she asked.

  He laughed. “My dad was the oldest of nine kids, and six of my aunts and uncles live on the ranch, along with their husbands, wives, and kids. I’ve got about twenty first cousins. I could count them all up, but we’d be here a while.”

  “That is a lot,” Hope said. “To be honest, a family like that is as unfamiliar to me as you being a shifter.”

  “If you come to the ranch, I can show you both of them first-hand.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed.

  ***

  “Were you interested in dessert?” The waiter proffered two small menus, and they each took one. Josh scanned the list: creme brulee, cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, a trio of gelatos...

  “Everything looks amazing,” he commented to Hope.

  “It does,” she agreed. That same frown—the one she’d had when deciding what to order—crinkled her forehead. He never wanted to see that expression on her face again.

  “Hey,” he said, aware of the waiter’s presence. “Do you want to split the chocolate cake?” He tried to project his caring and support through the words, so that she remembered he would never judge her. And maybe it worked, because her frown smoothed out, and she smiled at him.

  “Sure, that would be great.”

  When the waiter had gathered the menus and left, Hope said, “I told you about my favorite article, but do you want to hear about my least favorite?”

  “Of course!”

  “One time, I got an assignment to fly to Detroit and interview this up-and-coming musician. Very avant garde. Think Ozzy Osbourne meets Nine Inch Nails meets Marvin Gaye.”

  “I didn’t see that last part coming.”

  “No one ever did. His career didn’t last very long. Anyway, my flight to Detroit was a disaster, one of those ones where everything goes wrong, and it was super-late. If I’d known, I would have just driven, but I kept hoping it would work out. Also, it was January, and of course it was snowing.

  “By the time I finally got to Detroit, I’d already pushed the interview time back twice. I grabbed a cab and made it to the café about fifteen minutes late, but there was no sign of the guy. I texted him, nothing. I texted his manager, nothing. I texted him again. By this point, I was starving. The café didn’t have much of a menu, but I ordered a burger and fries and decided that if he wasn’t there by the time I’d finished eating, I’d give up and try to catch my flight home.”

  “I’m trying to figure out where this is going,” Josh said, “but I’m not having much luck. It can’t just be that he ditched you and you didn’t get the interview.”

  “Oh, just wait,” she said, waving a teasing finger at him. “I made it about halfway through my burger, and the guy walked in. Remember that it was a Michigan winter. He had on ripped jeans, a mesh shirt, a hot pink women’s blazer, and army boots. Nothing else.”

  Josh tried to picture that, but the resulting mental image was almost too ridiculous to believe.

  “He stomped over to my table, grabbed a handful of my fries—without asking—and said ‘There’s an emergency outside. I need your help.’ But he didn’t sound panicked or worried, just spoke in a flat monotone as he ate my french fries. I thought maybe there was a car accident, or someone having a heart attack outside. The barista had disappeared into the back somewhere, so I grabbed my phone and followed him outside. And when I got outside—”

  “Yeah?” Josh found himself leaning forward in anticipation, one hand clenching the chair arm. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “He said ‘I have to go smoke,’ and then he handed me the leashes attached to his two Pomeranians, Widget and Gidget.”

  “Wow,” Josh said, sitting back. “Widget and Gidget. Didn’t see that coming either.”

  “After five minutes, I gave up waiting outside and brought them into the cafe. Good thing the barista was a dog lover.”

  “Is there any chance you’re making some of this up?” he asked suspiciously.

  Sh
e placed her hand over her heart. “I swear, it happened just like that. Scout’s honor.”

  The flourless chocolate cake arrived, along with two forks. As they each took a bite, Josh tried not to let on how arousing he found it, watching her lips close around the fork and her pink tongue chase after the stray bits of chocolate. He’d never felt such a connection with another person so quickly, and not just physically. She was smart, funny, and genuine. Now he just had to hope that she felt the same way.

  She definitely felt the physical connection; he was sure of that. A few times during dinner, he’d caught her gaze and watched her flush. And when he’d refilled her wine glass and their fingers brushed together, he could have sworn she felt the same spark he did.

  The delectable cake disappeared quickly, and the check arrived promptly after that. After he paid it, he stood and moved behind her chair to pull it out for her.

  “Thanks,” she said as she arose.

  They stood there together for a second, separated only by a few inches, and his awareness of her was almost driving him crazy. As he escorted her out of the restaurant and into the hotel’s lobby, he searched for a way to prolong the evening. He was irrationally afraid that if he let her out of his sight, she’d vanish into the night and he’d never see her again.

  “Do you feel like going for a walk?” He gestured at hotel’s sliding doors and the sunset staining the sky. “We’ve got some time before it gets dark.”

  “That would be nice.”

  As they stepped outside, he reached for her hand. Her fingers fumbled with his for a minute, then threaded through to clasp them. He let his thumb caress the soft skin of her palm as they ambled down the sidewalk, past the stores lining the streets. The stores were a combination of tourist traps selling cheap souvenirs and quirky shops that featured everything from perfume to jewelry to books. Many were closed for the night, but an open door caught his attention.

  “Do you mind if we go into that toy store?”

  “Of course,” Hope said. “Are you planning to bring stuff home for your nieces and nephews?”

  “Cousins,” Josh corrected. “Even the youngest ones are cousins. If I can find something small enough to get for everybody. It’s all got to fit in my suitcase.”