by Ana Lewin
“Better view too,” she added on, trying to shuffle discreetly to the side. His proximity was making it a lot harder for her to think straight.
“I agree,” there was something flatter about his voice when he spoke this time, but she couldn’t place why. “Did you want the rest of the tour right now, or would you prefer to get settled first?”
“I’d love a moment to unpack a few of my things if that’s alright.”
“Of course, I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen. You should be able to find me easily.”
With that, he was gone almost before she realized he had moved and she was finally able to release a long breath. To think, she’d thought that her biggest challenge at Honeydew Ranch was going to be keeping up with the workload. She now realized that her biggest challenge was going to be keeping her wits about her around the owner. Maeve was going to have a heyday when Olivia told her about this.
Chapter 2
Olivia
Setting foot onto the ground floor twenty minutes later, Olivia felt ready to face Grant again. Unpacking her meager belongings had given her a chance to collect herself and prepare for him the way she hadn’t been able to the first time. The quick text she had sent to Maeve had been replied to immediately, and she could almost hear her best friend’s excited squealing in her ear. She’d barely been able to avoid a phone call detailing the situation, having only gotten out with a lame excuse about having to finish the tour and a promise to call in the evening before she went to sleep.
Straight down the hallway from the front door, the corridor opened into a spacious kitchen and dining room. In the dining area, the wood table was long enough to comfortably seat twelve people, with bench seating on either side and an intricately designed chair at each end. Grant was sitting on one of the bench seats beside another man, muttering over something they were looking at on a tablet. Clearing her throat to alert them to her presence, she strode over and held out her hand to the other man. “I’m Olivia Montgomery,” giving her last name had been ingrained in her from years of conditioning, and was still an insurmountable instinct.
He took her hand and she thanked God when the touch didn’t send a wave of arousal through her body. This man was undeniably just as gorgeous as Grant, with wide shoulders and a clean-shaven jaw, but luckily she didn’t have the same reaction to him. Dirty blond hair was pulled into a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck and tattoos stretched from his neck down into the collar of his shirt. Despite his brawn and, as her mother would put it, unseemly appearance, he had an air of professionalism about him. If she didn’t know any better, she would have taken him for an investor as opposed to an employee. “Oscar Terrell. I do most of the heavy lifting around here.”
From the looks of the detailed marketing material on the tablet, it was clear that was far from all he did. Regardless, she didn’t pry. “Nice to meet you. I’ve finished unpacking my things, so I’m ready whenever you are,” she addressed the second part of her statement to Grant, cursing herself when her breath caught in her throat.
So much for being prepared to see him again. If it was possible, he was even more handsome now. She bit her lip and looked away, trying to focus her attention on anything but him. Her focus landed on Oscar, her frantic mind trying to figure out why she wasn’t anywhere near as attracted to him. Surely, he was more attainable than the owner. “I’m ready now,” Grant stood abruptly, forcing her back a few feet as he crowded her away from the bench.
Oscar looked confused, his mouth open as he gestured to the tablet, but before he could say anything Grant’s hand was on the small of her back and he was leading her away. She looked back and gave a little wave, trying to ignore the hand on her back even as her cheeks went up in flames. His confusion morphed into a knowing smirk, and she flushed a deeper shade of red as he went back to work on the marketing materials, clearly knowing exactly how she was reacting to Grant. Of course, that was just perfect.
“You said that you had four full time employees including you, right?” she said the first thing that came to mind as Grant led her away from the kitchen and up the stairs.
She felt rushed, struggling to keep up with his longer legs even as his hand stayed firmly on the small of her back, burning a hole in her shirt. By the time they reached the top of the stairs on the third floor, she was panting while Grant didn’t even look the slightest bit winded. “Yeah, there’s four of us. Oscar always says he does the heavy lifting, but he does all of our marketing too,” he changed the topic, going back to explaining the layout of the house. “This top floor is just bedrooms and you probably won’t spend a whole ton of time up here. On the right is the master suite, where I stay. To the left is Levi’s room. You’ll meet him when we get out to the barns.”
Olivia couldn’t help but wish Grant had left out the part about her not spending a ton of time up here. She was more than willing to spend plenty of time warming his bed if he would have her. Instead of saying something wishful and silly like that, though, she just nodded along and followed Grant through the halls and up and down the stairs. It was a giant house, every wall in the common areas painted bright white which made it seem even bigger. By the time they were heading down the slight hill to the horse barn, she wasn’t entirely sure if it was the house or the barn that was bigger.
“You must be the new volunteer!” she heard the voice before she saw the person it belonged to, but a second later a tall man rounded the shady corner of the barn. “I’m Levi. I hear I’m going to be teaching you how to ride a horse.”
Momentarily disappointed that it wasn’t going to be Grant teaching her how to ride a horse, she hesitated before sticking out her hand. “Olivia Montgomery. Nice to meet you.”
Again, her last name spilled out without her express consent. She had to look up to see the man’s face as he towered even a few inches above Grant and she shielded her eyes with her free hand. His grip was strong and firm but once again didn’t send the tingles through her like Grant’s touch had. There went the idea that she was just horny. Her body was reacting exclusively to Grant, even though the other men on the farm were proving to be much more handsome than she’d anticipated. Levi had his head shaved and the sun seemed to glint off the smoothness of it, but he did sport a slight, tidy beard. His arms were corded with muscle just as the rest of the men’s had been and she couldn’t imagine the fourth member of the team was going to be any different. “Have you ever ridden a horse before?” he asked, releasing her hand after that one quick shake.
“Never in my life,” she admitted, rubbing a hand across the back of her head, under the thick curtain of her hair. “We don’t have many horses in New York City. And my parents never took me anywhere in the U.S. aside from Florida.”
She purposefully neglected to mention that her parents whisked them off to some tropical paradise or another whenever they were able to get the time off work. At this point, she’d probably been to every notable tourist destination in Mexico and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, her parents had never granted her request to go on a vacation that didn’t involve beaches. Levi chuckled and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow. “Florida definitely isn’t the place to go if you want to learn how to ride a horse. But you’ve come to the right place now. By the time your six months are up you’ll be riding like a pro.”
An unladylike snort left her. She almost apologized for the sound, before realizing that here it wasn’t offensive and wasn’t frowned upon. Being out from under her mother’s thumb was only making her realize how much she had been under it in the first place. “I seriously doubt that,” she said. “I’m not the most coordinated.”
“You might end up being surprised,” Levi shot her a flirtatious wink. “Sometimes it’s the uncoordinated ones who make the best riders. Do you want to go meet the horses?”
Olivia was about to accept when she felt that hand on the small of her back again, sending a shiver up her spine. “You have things to do,” Grant sounded annoyed, and she flushed in embarrassment at having unwittingly g
otten Levi in trouble. “I’ll introduce her to a few.”
“Sure, boss,” Levi shrugged and mock-saluted Grant, before disappearing back the way he came as if they’d never seen him at all.
Part of her wished that Levi had insisted on showing her around the barn, but she knew deep down that she was much happier to spend the time with Grant. As distracting as he may he. Once again he kept the hand on her back, the simple touch making her feel safe and secure and aroused as they approached the horses.
They were bigger than she had been expecting. Sure, she’d done her research on how big horses were supposed to be, but it was hard to have a point of reference when she’d never been around any animal larger than a dog. The one directly in front of her was tall, but marginally smaller than the other horses nearby, and had solid brown coloring with a white patch on its forehead.
Her feet stalled without meaning to when they got closer to the enclosure, and the sudden stop resulted in Grant’s arm wrapping further around her. When he looked back at her there was something in his gaze that she couldn’t quite place, but he removed his arm a second later, leaving her cold where he had been. “Are you scared?” his tone didn’t sound condescending, just curious.
She let out a quick whoosh of breath and shrugged. “Not scared, just… nervous. I’ve never been around horses before.”
“They’re gentle, don’t worry.”
To punctuate his statement, he went up the brown horse in front of them and gave her a couple pats on the flank as she moved closer to the edge of the enclosure where they were standing. Olivia couldn’t tear her eyes away from the interaction, but she wasn’t sure if that was more because of her curiosity about the horse, or Grant. He looked like he was in his element here, all calming energy. “This one is Daisy. She’ll probably be the one Levi starts you on, because she’s a bit older and she’s gentle. Definitely the easiest of our horses to ride. Come on over, she wont hurt you.”
The first step she took forward was tiny, hesitant, but as she gained courage she took bigger steps until she was standing right beside Grant, the heat of his body mixing with hers. Her fingers reached out to gently stroke along Daisy’s side with Grant’s encouragement, and she lost herself in the moment. The smell of hay and horse and being outdoors mixed with the soft sounds of hooves tracing along the ground and the indistinct voices in the distance. Daisy moved her head and she jumped before smiling and drawing her hand back from inside the enclosure. “I’ll admit, she does seem nice,” she said, looking up at Grant.
His gaze was boring into her with an intensity that made her lose breath, but he quickly moved away and left her wondering if it had even happened at all. Was it possible that Grant could be interested in her? She severely doubted it. Reading too far into things was a bad habit of hers. “You can give her a treat if you like,” Grant reappeared beside her, holding two slices of apple in his hand. “Hold out your hand like this.”
He demonstrated for her and Daisy eagerly took the treat, finding the one in her hand as soon as she held it out. It was strange feeling and she laughed. “I think I’m going to like it here,” she didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it slipped out.
“I hope you do.”
Chapter 3
Grant
The way she smiled irked him.
She was sitting across the table from him, flanked on either side by Levi and Oscar who were telling her jokes that she was finding far too funny. Their plates had been sitting empty for ages now, but no one, not even the introverted Finn, had bothered to get up from the table and leave. Olivia was keeping them all enthralled with her cluelessness and her formal tone that was completely out of place among the lot of them.
What bothered him the most about the whole situation was that she seemed to be paying the least amount of attention to him.
Not that it should bother him at all. For God’s sake, she was nineteen. Nineteen years old. Light years too young for him, not to mention the fact that she was a city girl, as good as she was at playing the part of a country girl wannabe. She would go running back to the comforts of New York City in six months when she was done here — likely sooner if his assessment of her type was right. She’d insisted on carrying her own bags and had been in complete awe at the sight of Daisy, the first horse she’d ever met, but the second they made her muck out a horse stall it would all be over. The rainbow ideal of ranch life would be forever ruined in her mind.
“… and that’s the story of the time Grant fell face-first into a pile of cow shit,” Levi’s voice broke through his internal monologue.
Olivia’s laugh irked him too, especially since this time she was laughing at his expense. The feeling of her eyes on him made him stiffen even more. “Did you need to tell that story?” he asked, his annoyance peeking through in his tone.
“It’s the best story we have about you,” Levi shrugged and smirked at him. “You don’t usually do anything funny.”
“That’s because I own the place, Levi. I can’t afford to go around doing things that are funny,” he gave his friend a pointed glare, wishing that they could at least stop talking about him. For some reason, he didn’t want Olivia to think poorly of him.
“That story isn’t anywhere near as bad as one that I have from when I was younger,” Olivia was grinning from ear to ear as she launched into the tale. “My family was at an event, a fancy one. Think expensive dresses and wine included in the price of admission, that fancy. My mother decided to put me in an expensive dress too, even though I’m the most clumsy person. Everything was going fine until I ran straight into one of the waiters and he spilled wine all over me,” she paused. “But the bad part wasn’t that he spilled wine on me. The bad part was that he spilled wine and dropped caviar all over one of the other patrons. And the other patron was some hotshot multi-millionaire. I’m pretty sure my mother never wanted to take me out of the house again after that and I had to go the rest of the night with an obvious wine stain on my dress.”
It was funny to him, how to her spilling wine and caviar in public was worse than falling into a pile of literal cow shit, but he supposed it spoke to her pedigree. She’d tried not to let on, but it was obvious in the way that she spoke and the way that she held herself, and now this story. And of course, that expensive purse she’d assumed no one would know the value of. Sometimes he was grateful for the previous girlfriend who had informed him that purses could cost upwards of $1000, as much as he wished he hadn’t been a chump and bought her one.
Olivia was the type of woman who had gone to plenty of expensive black-tie events in her life and would go to plenty more. She wasn’t the type who would actually like the simple life of a ranch owner. But as his employees and friends each gave their own embarrassing stories of clumsiness, Grant couldn’t help but watch her. Of course she was undeniably gorgeous — he’d known that from the second he walked up to her truck, praying that she was a potential student and not their new volunteer. Curly red hair fell in waves around her face, highlighting the light sprinkling of freckles she had across her cheeks, and she couldn’t hide her curves underneath the baggy sweatshirt she was wearing. When she’d bent over the front seat to get her bags from the passenger side, he’d hardly been able to restrain himself from reaching out and grabbing a handful of her ass.
Beyond her looks, though, there was something about her. Optimism radiated off her and her personality was sunny. She’d been shy and awkward during their time alone, but as soon as she was in a group setting again, she couldn’t seem to stop talking. Or laughing. At all of Levi’s fucking jokes.
Standing up from the bench seat abruptly, four sets of eyes turned to look at him. “I’ll take away the plates. I have things to do.”
The brusque tone in his voice seemed to put Olivia off, her eyes lowering to the table as she reverted to that shy version of herself again. His coworkers only looked at him with varying levels of insightful curiosity on their faces. Only Finn got up with him, gathering up the rest of the plat
es and walking over to the kitchen to put them into the dishwasher. It was only when they’d walked a bit away from everyone that chatter started up at the dinner table again. He finished with the dishes and went upstairs, planning on heading up to his room until he realized that Finn was following him. Since Finn’s room was in the basement, that could only mean that he wanted to talk. Instead of going up to the third floor he exited on the second, settling down onto one of the couches in the living room.
“So what was that all about?” Finn questioned as he sat down opposite him.
Finn was slightly smaller than the rest of them, not used to quite as much heavy lifting. He was also the most intellectually inclined, having gone to veterinary school in Austin, Texas. Being an intellectual didn’t help with his perception skills, though, and Grant was fairly certain he was the only one who hadn’t yet figured out that he was near desperate to get into Olivia’s pants. Levi and Oscar had sure as hell figured it out already. “Nothing,” he still denied that there was anything wrong, not willing to admit it out loud. “I just had things to do.”
“Like what?”
Maybe Finn was more insightful than he was giving him credit for. The man raised an eyebrow, which half-disappeared into the mop of black hair on his head. Grant didn’t even bother to answer, knowing that he didn’t have anything to do tonight. He’d made a point of not working after dinner since he’d hired his second full-time staff member years ago. It was someone else’s job to get the horses and cows and chickens all settled in for the night. “She’s into you, I think.”
Grant snorted. “Yeah, right. Because that’s a possibility.”
Shaking his head, Finn grabbed the remote and switched on the TV, flipping through the channels until he came to a cooking show. “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but I’m right. You’ll see.”
