by Ali Parker
I didn’t indulge her with an answer. She didn’t have bad intentions. Her curiosity was inherited from her nosy mother, I was sure, who was incessantly poking her nose into the business of the neighboring farms and ranches and then spreading the gossip like wildfire at church on Sundays.
Mrs. Lincoln had a reputation of being the community gossip queen, and she wore her crown like a proud mother. The fact that she was now a staggering ninety-six years old had not slowed her down in the least.
In fact, it was worse. Because of her dementia, she told the same stories a dozen times over to anyone willing to listen.
I eyed the flowers on my passenger seat as I drove to the airport and hoped they weren’t too much—and I hoped they were enough.
I had no clue which man Piper had spent the month of February with, and despite not being all that invested at this stage of the game, I couldn’t help but worry about inferiority and how I would measure up to the other Casanova bachelors.
I was not the classic definition of what most women put on their checklist for the perfect mate. Sure, I was tall, but that was about all I had going for me in the traditional sense.
Where Piper might be looking for someone to go on fancy dates with, or travel with, or for lavish evenings out on the town, I was a homebody. My ranch demanded my presence at almost all times, and it was where I wanted to be.
Still, the knowledge that I might not measure up to the other men didn’t stop me from wanting this. I’d been alone for too long. I was ready for someone to share my life with, someone who, if I was lucky enough to find her, would want to be part of the family business.
It was a tall order. I knew it. But it was necessary for me. I would never walk away from the ranch. And if Piper James had a problem with muck and dirt and long days, she and I didn’t stand a chance.
I frowned at the daisies.
Chapter 4
Piper
Spending four hours on a plane the morning after a fight with my father was, I discovered, a special form of torture.
All I wanted was to forget the way he’d looked at me at dinner last night. The sheer anger and betrayal in his eyes had been enough for my heart to freeze over. After he, Phillip, and my mother left for the evening, Janie emerged from the bedroom, a grimace on her face, and asked if I was okay.
I was not. I was very far from okay. Not only was I contending with my father’s disappointment in me, but I was also trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’d just learned he needed—and could not afford—open heart surgery.
And I was in fucking Austin.
I sighed and adjusted the strap of my carry-on bag on my shoulder as I followed the tight line between the aisle of seats to get off the plane. We inched forward at a snail’s pace until we hit the ramp that led from the plane to the terminal, and from there, I wove between the slow walkers, texters, talkers, and old people.
My thoughts were wild.
Should I quit the Casanova Club and take over for my dad at the restaurant?
That wouldn’t solve anything. It was a temporary fix for a much bigger problem. Even if I went back to the restaurant, my father would be incapable of relaxing because that was who he was, and we wouldn’t stand a chance of making the money to pay for his surgery.
I still have nine months to go before I can get my hands on the money. Is his heart strong enough to last for nine more months?
That thought invited in a heavy sense of dread and grief that sat right on my chest as I followed the crowd out through the gate and into the airport.
He needs me.
“Piper?”
I looked up and stopped walking. People bumped into my shoulders and scowled at me as they walked around.
Wyatt Brewer was standing on the other side of a half-wall glass partition. And he was smiling at me. It was a smile that cut through the panic swelling inside me. The clouds in my heart parted, just like that, and he gestured up the line. “Go around. I’ll meet you at the opening.”
I fell back into step with the other flyers and moved to the front, where Wyatt was waiting for me with his hands in his pockets.
He was nicely dressed and looked a hell of a lot more like the cowboy he was than he had back in December at the Casanova Club. He’d traded in his business suit for dark jeans and plaid and a leather vest. He wore the ensemble well.
His almost-black hair was messily slicked back like he’d run his fingers through it a hundred times on the drive over, and his sharp jaw was lined with black stubble.
I didn’t remember him being so handsome.
When I came around the corner of the partition, his smile broadened, pressing dimples into his cheeks, and he moved forward to wrap his arms around me in a hug.
At first, I stood perfectly still. Then I exhaled, wrapped my arms around his waist, and hugged him back. He smelled like leather and mint and freshly mown grass. I breathed in deeply and didn’t want to let go. His embrace was somehow familiar. And safe.
And here, in his arms, I forgot about the grief I’d felt on the plane and was present with him.
He pulled away but left a hand on my shoulder. “Should we go get your bags?”
I nodded. “Yes, please.”
Wyatt pulled the strap of my bag off my shoulder and slid it off my arm to hoist it over his. I thanked him, and then we walked side by side across the terminal, following the signs that declared “baggage claim” in yellow letters.
We stopped at the carousel for my flight just as the belt started to move, and when it spat my suitcases out from the top, Wyatt moved forward, collected both of them, and flat out refused to let me carry one.
I trailed along behind him, hop stepping to keep up with his long strides as he carried my carry-on duffel bag as well as toted my two full-sized suitcases behind him.
“I swear I’m not as vain as all this luggage makes me look,” I said, insecurity creeping up inside me as we crossed the crosswalk outside the airport toward the parking lot.
He looked over his shoulder at me with a smile playing on his lips. “I do not think you’re vain, Piper. A month is a long time. And a lady needs what she needs. No?”
I bit my bottom lip and nodded. “Thank you.”
“I just hope there aren’t too many fancy evening gowns or anything in here.” He chuckled. I might have been mistaken, but it sounded a little bit like a nervous laugh to me.
The sound of his uneasiness helped me relax a little. At least I wasn’t the only one who was anxious about all this. He was the third man in the lineup, but it didn’t seem like the first meetings were going to get any easier as time went on.
“No evening gowns,” I said, shaking my head. “Janie warned me not to and had me switch out some of my dresses for jeans.”
“Janie?”
I nodded. “My best friend. She works at the Casanova Club, so she has inside knowledge about what to expect.”
“Well, thank God for friends like Janie, right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
Wyatt cut across the parking lot, and I followed until we reached a massive silver pickup truck. He opened the back doors and loaded my luggage in. Then he opened the passenger door for me. In the seat was a colorful bouquet of daisies, which he picked up and held out to me. “For you.”
I took them from him and instinctively smelled them. “Thank you. They’re beautiful. You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know. I wanted to. I can only imagine how stressful all of this is on you, and I wanted to—I don’t know—make a gesture?”
I smiled. “It’s very sweet.”
He let out one of those nervous, endearing chuckles again.
I felt my cheeks turning pink and hid them from him by smelling the flowers again. “Daisies are my favorite.”
“Really?” he asked, his brow creasing as his dark eyebrows inched toward his hairline. “Well, isn’t that swell luck?”
Swell luck?
I fought valiantly against my urge to giggle
at his expense. I hadn’t heard someone say something so outdated in quite some time, and I had a growing sense that it might happen frequently over the course of my month with Wyatt.
He offered me his hand, and I took it, and then he helped me up into the truck and closed the door behind me. He walked around the hood of the truck, and I admired his profile, all sharp angles, dark features, strong shoulders, muscled forearms, thick wrists, and nbig hands.
I shook my head. Slow down, girl. It’s been fifteen minutes.
But damn, he was cute.
Wyatt got up into the truck beside me, turned the key in the ignition, and then nodded down at the cupholders between us. “I grabbed you an iced tea as well. Something refreshing after a flight. I hate planes. All that recycled air gives me a headache and makes me crave something sweet.”
The two iced teas in the cupholders had the straws punched through the lids, but the top half of the sleeves were still on the straws. I picked one up, pulled off the paper sleeve, and took a sip.
It was heavenly. “So good,” I said appreciatively. “Thank you. I’m not a fan of flying either. It gives me such anxiety.”
“Likewise,” Wyatt said as he reversed out of the parking space.
We were driving through Austin in no time. Wyatt pointed out landmarks as we went, and I admired the city’s architecture. Everything was modern and bright and clean, and the city had a real energy to it that I wasn’t expecting.
But soon, we were leaving the city behind in favor of empty roads lined with ditches filled with stagnant water and lily pads.
We took a right onto a road that was so long, it stretched into the horizon far in the distance.
“This is Cherry Road,” Wyatt told me as I gazed down the never-ending strip of pavement. “It’s over a hundred years old and was originally just a dirt path connecting all the ranches in the area.”
“How many are there?” I asked as we drove by the first ranch. A blue barn matched a blue silo, which matched a blue house with white trim at the front of the property.
“How many ranches?” he asked.
I nodded.
“About two dozen,” he said. “Although some aren’t ranches anymore. We have a dairy farm at the far end of the road. And there are greenhouses and a pumpkin patch.”
“A pumpkin patch?” I asked.
Wyatt pointed up ahead at a little yellow house. Behind the house were two classic red barns. “Yeah. That one there. It opened in nineteen eighty-eight as the pumpkin patch, but prior to that, it had been run as a cattle ranch. They sold off a ton of acreage and downsized, but now they turn a pretty good profit in the fall that covers all their operation costs. It’s a big attraction for families and elementary schools in the area.”
“I can imagine,” I said as we passed the farm.
We were surrounded on either side by green rolling hills as far as the eye could see. It was almost surreal being out here in the country after being in the dense city just a little over an hour ago. I’d long since finished my iced tea, and my stomach was unsettled with apprehension.
I wondered what Wyatt’s ranch would be like.
Wyatt tapped the glass of his driver’s side window. “This one here is Doherty Ranch. They are one of the originals built on Cherry Road back in the day. They’re hosting a spring party at the end of the month. I was thinking, if you’re up for it, it might be fun for the two of us to go.”
“A party?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. Dancing. Good food. Drinks. Socializing with the other farmers and ranchers in the community. They host one every few months, and it’s always a good time.”
“It sounds fun.” I smiled.
We drove for another five minutes or so before Wyatt slowed the truck down. He took a left onto a dirt road and stopped at a wrought-iron gate with two giant gold Bs on each side, back to back. He flipped down the sun visor, pressed a button, and then flipped it back up as the gate slowly swung inward.
“Home sweet home,” he said.
From there, things got infinitely more interesting.
We drove up the dirt road for about half a mile before reaching the ranch, which was for lack of a better word, breathtaking.
“Wow,” I said as I nearly pressed my face against the window to peer up at the massive house at the top of the property. It had been built on a slight slope, so the house was higher than all the other buildings, almost like it was surveying the ranch like a watchful parent.
The barn was white and trimmed in evergreen-colored paint. The bay doors were open wide, and as we passed it by, I could see beams of sunlight streaming in through the open rafters above. There were several other buildings on the property, all in the same color scheme, but I had no idea what their purposes were.
The house was a massive, two-story beast in the same white and evergreen. It was at the rear of the house that Wyatt parked the truck and we got out. Wyatt grabbed my bags from the back.
“This is incredible,” I said when he walked around to my side of the truck.
“Can I give you a tour?”
I nodded. “Please.”
Chapter 5
Wyatt
Piper had dressed well for a tour around the ranch. She wore white sneakers that would surely not be white for much longer, distressed faded jeans, and a long-sleeved mineral-wash gray shirt. There were small sparkly earrings in her ears, but besides that, she had no jewelry on.
She was just as beautiful as I remembered.
She did not have her signature red lip on like she had back in New York City at the Casanova Club in December. Rather, her lips were glossy and pink, and her eyes were framed in long, dramatic lashes, but she wore no eyeshadow or liner.
I started the tour with the house. “I figure this is where you’ll spend most of your time,” I said as I drew open the sliding glass doors off the back porch and lifted her bags over the doorframe to set them down inside.
Piper’s big brown eyes swept across the porch, soaking in the swing on the right side of the door in front of the living-room window.
“You’re welcome to go wherever you wish on the property,” I said, waiting for her to join me in the house. “Nothing is off limits, although I will caution you that the terrain can get pretty dicey the farther you get away from the center of the property.”
“I’ll make sure not to go for a walk in my stilettos.” She smiled, stepping over the threshold and into the house. I heard the softest intake of breath she drew as she looked around. “Wow. This is incredible, Wyatt.”
The house was pretty extraordinary. It still had the original hardwood floors and wooden stairs that led up to the second level. The kitchen cabinets were the same original cherry oak that matched the rafters in the ceiling that all joined above the stone fireplace in the living room.
“It’s home,” I said, slipping my hands into the pockets of my jeans and watching Piper as she looked around. “Your room is upstairs. Shall I show you there, and we can drop off your bags?”
“Sure.”
I took Piper’s bags and showed her up the stairs, telling her to mind her step on the first stair which was shorter than modern building codes. She followed me up to the landing which overlooked the lower level, facing the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other. I turned right, in the opposite direction of my room, and pushed open the door to the room I’d had made up for her stay.
“This is you,” I said, lifting the bags and setting them down on the bed. “You’ll have to forgive me. We haven’t had a woman on the ranch in a long time, and I wasn’t sure what would make you the most comfortable. So, I sort of got a little bit of everything.”
I wasn’t lying. I’d gone as far as purchasing an oil diffuser—something I had not known the purpose of until I happened upon it in the mall—and several essential oils for her to use to create a peaceful, private space. There were candles and flowers and new powder-blue sheets on the bed.
“This is perfect,” Piper said. “
Thank you.”
“Let me know if you need anything at all, okay?”
“Okay.” Piper nodded. She looked around the room and down the hall, cut through the walk-in closet to the bathroom. Then she turned back toward me with a smile on her pink, shimmery lips.
I swallowed. Her gaze and lips were terribly distracting. Whatever I was about to say had run out of my mind as soon as our eyes met.
She spared me fumbling over my words. “Do you have time to show me the rest of the ranch?”
“Oh, yes of course,” I said, clasping my hands together. “If you’d rather relax and get comfortable, I understand. Flying takes it out of me, and the first thing I ever want to do is shower.”
Her smile broadened. “I’m all right. Really.”
I chuckled nervously. “All right then. Shall we start with the barn?”
Piper nodded and fell into step behind me when I took my leave from the room. We went down the stairs, and I pointed toward the kitchen and living room. “This is your home for the month, Piper, so please feel free to use anything you like as your own. Coffee pot is in the far corner beside the stove. Uh, what else?”
“I’m sure I can figure it all out.”
I opened the patio door for her, and we stepped out onto the back porch. Piper drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. I liked the way her eyelashes grazed the top of her cheeks and cast long, spider-like shadows across her fair skin.
When she opened her eyes, she looked right at me. “The air is so fresh here.”
I laughed. “You might not think so on days we fertilize the fields.”
Piper giggled, and her cheeks turned nearly as pink as her lips. “I suppose that’s true. But it can’t be worse than New York City sewers or garbage bins, right?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Her smile brightened, and we went down the steps to walk across the dirt square boxed in by the main house, the bunkhouse, the barn, two outbuildings, and the corral. I took her straight to the barn. Its doors were already open, and I gestured around at all the stables. “The ranch used to be bigger than this, but when we downsized, we stopped purchasing new animals. At the moment, we have four horses here, one of which is not mine. He’s a colt from one of the other ranchers who asked me to train him to make him rideable.”
