by Tessa Layne
“Consider yourself promoted to assistant foreman. Cash is gonna stay here with Hope and keep working with the recruits on training the new crew of Mustangs, and the rest of us are gonna round up some cattle.”
“So you want me on horseback?”
Sterling nodded. “It’s nothing you can’t handle. There will be about twelve of us. We’ve got to round up all the cattle, then cut the Herefords and drive them into another pasture on the Grace property.”
“Anything else I should know?”
Sterling smirked. “Yeah. You might want to clean up with that fancy soap.” He nodded at the basket. “Millie’s coming with us.”
CHAPTER 9
Fifteen minutes later, Jason arrived at the barn, nervous energy zipping through his veins. He spotted her instantly. It was hard not to, with her bright curls bouncing underneath her pale straw hat. Her back was to him while she adjusted the cinch on her black and white painted horse. No one filled a pair of jeans the way she did. He flashed back to the feel of her generous hips beneath him, the way she’d responded when he’d squeezed her soft flesh.
As if sensing his eyes on her, she turned and caught him staring. She stared back, eyes lighting with expectation. The rational half his brain shouted at him to walk the other way, but the lizard part had already decided it wanted more Millie. Lots more. Sterling leaned in as he walked by, and whispered so only he could hear. “Ask her if she’s read any good books, lately.”
Jason flipped his middle finger over his shoulder and kept walking, not taking his eyes off Millie. Sterling’s laughter rang out behind him, but he didn’t care. Seeing her after so many weeks brought all his feelings to the surface. He’d spent less than a handful of hours with her, and yet the ache in his chest was confirmation that he’d missed her.
She turned back to her cinch as he came abreast of her. Jason’s heart hammered unevenly. “Hi,” he said quietly.
The expression in her eyes when she glanced at him, punched him in the gut. She needed to stop looking at him like he was her fucking prince charming. He was no hero. If he had been, his buddy Gabe wouldn’t have died in his lap, and he’d still have his goddamned leg. She gave him a small smile. “Hi, yourself.” She turned back to her horse.
What now, dumbass? Johnny’s voice taunted from inside his head. She should have rejected him. Dismissed him for being an asshole and not calling. Instead, the kindness kept coming. His chest pinched and filled with the same sensation he had before every High Altitude Low Open jump. That feeling of sick anticipation. He’d loved that response in his body, had lived for it. Now? In this situation? Not so much. Every cell in his body went on high alert. Millie wasn’t a mission. She was a sweet, albeit somewhat nutty hippie trying to grow grapes in Kansas. A fool’s errand. And yet… he was never one to walk away from a challenge, from a mission. Just so long as he kept her pretty curls at arm’s length. “How are the grapes?”
She slid him a sideways glance, then mounted up. “Growing.” She winked at him, and just like that, his cock had other ideas about keeping her at arm’s length. Was she flirting? Fuck, she must be flirting. “See you on the trail.” Without a further word, she wheeled her horse around and joined the group waiting to head out.
He hurried to saddle his own mount, a bay named Gina. The mission is not Millie. The mission is rounding up cattle, he said over and over to himself as he double-checked the cinch and mounted up. He’d make good on his promise to help her with her grapes, once he figured out how to keep his damned dick under control.
Travis gave a quick whistle for everyone’s attention. “Thanks everyone, for coming out to help us today. Teddy Grace’s Herefords pushed through a fence and into our pasture. Problem is, with it so dry this spring, we need that grass for our own herd.”
Jason maneuvered Gina to the back of the pack, easily picking out Millie among the dozen or so neighbors who’d gathered to help out today.
Travis continued. “Brodie and Ben, I need you to take half the group and get on the west side of the herd. Drive them to the far corner of the Northeast pasture. Sterling and I will take the other half and push north from the south, along the fence line. There’s a gate in that corner, that’s where we can cut out the longhorns, then drive the Herefords through, back to Teddy’s. We should be done by lunch.”
The riders split into two groups, self-selecting. If he was smart, Jason would go where Millie wasn’t. But the lizard brain won out, and he fell in behind Millie’s horse. About a mile into the ride, when they paused at the top of a rise, cattle in sight, Millie pulled up alongside him. “We’ll be working in the vineyard tonight, if you want to join us.”
“Why tonight?”
“It’s a full moon, silly. Perfect time for pest control.”
Jason stared at her. “Let me guess. Do you go out and dance, too? Sing to your vines?”
“I happen to enjoy my grapes by moonlight,” she said loftily, but with the tiniest edge to her voice.
“I bet you do.” He could see it, too. Her hair a silvery halo as she floated down the rows, blessing the grapes.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Maybe just a little.” She’d taken this biodynamic stuff to an entirely new level. Straight into froufrou. “There is no scientific merit to farming during a full moon. Or dancing.”
She shook her head, curls bouncing underneath her hat. “It’s when the life-force of the plants is strongest.”
He bit his cheek, fighting the laughter that pressed against his chest. “C’mon. You know there’s no mention of moonlit dancing in the biodynamic handbook.”
Her lower lip jutted out. “There’s no handbook. Even you should know that.”
“Because if there were, it could be tested. Scientifically.”
She tossed her head with a huff. “I don’t need to test it when I know it works.”
“Maybe it doesn’t work.”
Her eyes snapped to his. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Have you tried anything else? Other methods?”
“No.”
“But you know your wine can be better?”
She nodded, shoulders slumping a fraction. Kill him now. He hated seeing her upset. Especially when there was something he could do about it. “Fine. I’ll come tonight, but you have to take my advice. All of it. Are you willing to do that?”
She nodded eagerly, looking like a sunbeam bursting through a storm cloud. Miss Sunshine indeed. So trusting, so easy to please. No suspicion or ulterior motives, no manipulation. Just one-hundred-percent pure goodness. His chest fluttered uneasily. What if she trusted him and he was wrong? What if he couldn’t deliver? She’d probably never taste the difference. But he would. All his anger and cynicism corked up, bubbling out the first time someone wasn’t too careful opening the bottle.
“Jason,” Sterling called as he loped by on his mount. “You and Millie circle ‘round. We’ve gotta calf that’s lagging and his mama’s bawling for him.”
Just like that, they were back on the job. Millie wheeled her horse around, scanning for the baby, and cantered off in the opposite direction. By the time he caught up with her, she was off her horse, circling the calf and shooing him in the general direction of the herd. But he refused to budge.
“Move along, little one,” she called, waving her arms. “Your mama’s calling you. Don’t you want some nice mama’s milk?” Millie eyed him. “The babies get tired easy. We just have to encourage him to go find his mama. You can come down, just don’t get too close to him. His mama won’t like it.”
Jason looked from her to the rest of the herd, where a mama, obviously this little guy’s, stood bawling about a hundred yards off.
“Once he gets moving, he’ll go straight to her.”
Dismounting, Jason came to stand on the other side of the calf. “What do we do?”
Millie shrugged. “Be patient. Talk to him. He’ll get up.”
“Talk to him?”
“Just like you talk to
your horse. Or a baby.” She looked at him expectantly.
“You want me to talk to him?”
“If you don’t feel comfortable making conversation with a cow, I suggest poetry. Do you know any poetry?”
This conversation was drifting into the absurd. He’d always thought cowboy poetry was a joke, but maybe it wasn’t. “Uhh… how about this?” He still remembered snippets of a poem he had to memorize in high school. Clearing his throat, he began. “I sing the body electric, the armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them.”
He paused, searching for the next line. Millie picked up where he left off. “They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them.”
He finished the final phrase of the opening stanza with her. “And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.”
Millie’s face lit up. “Where did you learn Walt Whitman?”
“Mrs. Kenney’s class, eleventh-grade English. I had the entire poem memorized at one point.”
She cocked her head, studying him intently. “You’re full of surprises, Jason Case.”
He wasn’t the only one. Just then, the calf hauled himself up and went trotting after his mama.
“See? Isn’t that the sweetest thing?” Millie sighed beatifically. “The mama was not ever going to leave her baby.”
They were partway back to their horses when Jason heard it. The telltale rattle. He froze. “Don’t move,” he barked.
Millie froze, eyes wide. “Where is it?”
The snake rattled its tail again. Jason scanned the grass. It might be late May, but there was still enough brown grass to easily camouflage a snake. Look for the anomaly. His ability to pick out the slightest unusual flutter or movement, even at half a mile, was part of why he’d been one of the best snipers in his unit. The rattle hissed again, and he spotted the snake, coiled and ready to strike, maybe six feet from them. He nodded in the direction. “To your right,” he murmured softly. “Off your shoulder and six feet beyond.”
Millie slowly turned her head, eyes widening when she spotted it. Then she made a beeline for it.
“Millie, stop,” he bellowed, fear coiling in his gut. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get away from it.” He sprang after her, ready to yank her back to safety, but he was too slow.
She raised her boot and brought it down. But gently, not smashing it. Then she bent and grabbed the damn thing by its tail.
“Are you fucking insane?” he shouted, pulse roaring in his ears. Dear God, if anything happened to her. They were probably a mile or more away from emergency help. He didn’t have a knife, or first aid, or, or… he was going to be sick. And why in the hell did she look so calm?
The snake writhed, but she swung it away from her body, then snapped it back like a bullwhip, breaking its neck.
Jason sagged with relief, the air gone from his body. Just as quickly, anger surged through him, and he closed the distance between them. “Are you nuts? What in the hell did you do that for? You could have been bitten. Or worse.” Visions of her lying limp and helpless in his arms had him weak in the knees.
She tossed the snake into the grass and looked at him, face perfectly calm. “It’s okay. I learned how to do that when I was a little girl.”
“A little girl,” he repeated, stunned. So his Suzie Sunshine was secretly a snake-killer? He wasn’t the only one full of surprises. He snorted in disbelief. “What other secrets do you have?”
She flashed him a dimple. “None, really. We spent a lot of time in Bend, Oregon, and I liked to wander through the sagebrush looking for fossils, so Pops showed me how, in case I startled up a snake.”
The vision of Millie as a tow-headed little thing wandering by herself, murdering snakes, was too much. He shook his head. “How many snakes have you killed?”
She shrugged. “Maybe six?”
“But I thought you said you valued all living things.”
“I do.”
“But you kill snakes. With your bare hands.” Sexy. As. Fuck. Not that he’d ever admit it, but holy hell.
She nodded, mouth quirking. “Only when I need to.”
“And then you leave them?”
“The buzzards enjoy them for dinner.”
He shook his head, scraping a hand over his face. “So is this why you’re a vegetarian? To balance The Force and all that?” He was only half-kidding.
She snorted, shaking her head. “No. I’m a vegetarian because it takes fewer resources to grow plants than livestock.”
“But you live in a community that relies on livestock sales.”
“I do.” She drew out the last word, as if she was considering his point, then shrugged. “So maybe I am balancing The Force.” The corner of her mouth twitched and she winked up at him.
Who was she? He’d never met anyone so comfortable in their own skin, so unapologetic for who they were. She made him question everything he knew about himself. And at the moment, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The only thing he was sure of, was his overwhelming relief that nothing bad had happened to her.
The mama cow and her baby disappeared over the rise, leaving the two of them alone except for a hawk riding the thermals above them. Jason stepped into her space, overcome with the need to touch her, to assure himself she was okay. His throat grew tight, and breathing hurt. “I think my heart stopped when you grabbed the snake.” He drew a finger down her jawline, secretly pleased when goosebumps erupted where the collar of her shirt left a few inches of exposed skin. He bent, sorely tempted to press his mouth there, taste her. He caught himself just in time. They had an agreement. Instead, he settled for a whiff of her heady perfume. How she didn’t have a swarm of bees following her, was beyond him. He’d sip her nectar any day of the week.
Her mouth curved up and she stepped back. “C’mon. They probably need our help.” She turned and sashayed back to her horse, and Jason swore there was an extra swing in her hips.
CHAPTER 10
The full moon hung golden and low in the sky as Jason pulled under the whimsical arch naming Moonbeam Acres. The sky held on to the last of the day’s blue, and the first fireflies winked to life as he parked next to a vintage lime green VW van. Jason made a noise of amusement deep in his throat. Of course Millie drove a hippie-mobile.
Across the barnyard stood two geodesic domes. It wasn’t so dark that the birds had quieted, and the barnyard was filled with the clucks of various fowl and the bleats from a pen of goats. In the distance, rows of vines cascaded down a short hill. On the hill beyond, another single dome home stood, lights winking like a beacon. Judging from the moonrise, the vines faced southeast, which given what he’d learned about the climate in the Flint Hills, offered the grapes the best chance of producing good fruit, while protecting them from the hottest summer sun, as well as the winter cold. He shook his head, mystified. Who in the heck took grape-growing seriously in Kansas? It was too hot, here. Too humid. Too brutal in the winter.
A door slammed, and an older man with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail made his way across the barnyard. Millie’s father? He’d assumed her parents were in their fifties, but this man looked closer to seventy. The man extended his hand. “You must be Jason?”
“Yes, sir.” He shook the man’s hand, surprised by the strength in his grip.
The man flashed him a warm smile. “Welcome, welcome. I’m Mike, Millie’s father. Thanks for coming out tonight, she’s told me so much about you.”
Me? Not us? Where was Millie’s mother? Come to think of it, she’d mentioned that she and her dad ran the farm. No one else. He tabled those thoughts, more concerned about what Millie had disclosed about him. Knowing her, she could have said anything. And he’d die of mortification if she mentioned how they’d had hot, sweaty, monkey sex on the side of a hill. Repeatedly.
“Don’t worry.” Mike patted him on the shoulder and released his hand. “All of it, good. She says you’re quite the wine expert.”
“I
don’t know about that.”
Mike waved a hand. “I know all about the Case family. Used to work harvest there every year when Millie was a young girl.”
Color him shocked. “Oh?”
Mike nodded eagerly. “Yep. We’d start down in Santa Barbara and work our way up the coast every year. All the way to Washington. My wife,” he paused and shook his head. “Sorry, my late wife. She’s been gone five years, and I still feel married.”
An ache erupted in Jason’s chest. “I’m so sorry. I lost my mother when I was two.” His father had foisted him off on a series of nannies until Angelique had come along when he was four. The triplets had been born a year later, and he’d ceased to exist. Until he secured an appointment at West Point and his father had something to brag about.
“It looks like you and Millie have another thing in common, then. She’s the spitting image of her mother. Same blue eyes, same yellow curls.”
“You must miss her very much.”
“We both do. Every day.” Mike coughed and shook his head. “As I was saying, Charlene, Millie’s mother, homeschooled her while I worked the fields.”
Jason warmed toward the other man and his easy demeanor. Obviously, Millie had inherited her personality from her father. It was impossible not to like the man. A far cry from the fractious relationship he had with this own father, and the rest of his family. “Sounds like you have stories to tell.”
Mike flashed him a wide grin. “Come for dinner one night. We’ll make a bonfire, and I’ll tell you all the stories.”
The words of acceptance flew out of Jason’s mouth before he could stop them. “I’d love to, sir. Thank you.”
“Stop with all this “Sir” nonsense. I’m just Mike.”
“Okay, Mike. Can you tell me where to find Millie?”
“She’s already at work in her vineyard spreading tobacco tea.” Mike gestured to the far hill of vines.
Her vineyard? “Tobacco tea?” This family was a kooky as a box of cracker jacks.
“Good stuff. Bugs hate it.”
