by Ali Parker
Piper moved toward the stable I was pointing at and peered in at Duke, who had his ass to us and was pushing hay around the floor of his stable with his nose. “He’s very handsome,” Piper said. “And big.”
“Eighteen hands high and only two and a half years old.”
“Hands?”
“It’s how people measure a horse’s height.”
“I’m going to have to get used to all this ranch lingo,” Piper mused.
“You have time. These three are old timers on the ranch.” I showed her the other three horses that had been born and raised here. “Millie. Marge. And Myrna.”
Piper cocked her head to the side.
“I know.” I chuckled, running my fingers through my hair. “Odd names.”
“A little.”
“My mother had two sisters, and they all got it in their heads to name their horses after themselves. Terribly vain and in poor taste.”
Piper shrugged. “I think it’s kind of sweet. And funny.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Uh huh. What other animals do you have?”
I showed Piper the sheep and the chickens, and then we moved to tour the outbuilding and tool shed. When we turned toward the bunkhouse, my two ranch hands were coming outside with cocky smiles plastered on their whiskery, tanned, dirt-covered faces.
Piper smiled when she saw them approaching.
“These are my ranch hands, Raymond and Phillip. But we call them Boone and Dodge around here.”
Boone gave a courteous little bow and held out his hand to Piper. She shook it. “Pleasure to meet you, Boone.”
“And you, miss,” Boone said, all chivalry and manners—both of which he did not possess but was doing a valiant job of making it seem like he did.
Dodge cleared his throat and shook her hand as well. “Welcome to the ranch, Piper. I hope Wyatt hasn’t been boring you to death with rancher facts.”
Piper shot me a quick glance before smiling back at Dodge. “No, not at all. I find it all quite interesting, to be honest. This is so different from where I live and how I was raised.” She giggled shyly. “And when I was a little girl, I always dreamed of living on a farm and having my own horse. I suppose that’s the same dream as most little girls.”
Dodge cast me a wry grin. “You don’t say? Maybe you have a rancher’s heart.”
Piper, still all smiles and rosy cheeks, dipped her chin toward her shoulder in the cutest, most bashful gesture I had ever seen. “Maybe.”
I realized after a beat that no one was talking, and I was just standing there like an idiot, staring at her. “Well, I have a couple more hours of work to do before I call it a day. I have plans for dinner tonight, just the two of us, Piper. Feel free to spend the rest of the afternoon however you like. If you want to—I don’t know—have a bath, read a book… I should have shown you the study. There are a lot of books in there.”
“Study?” she asked.
“My mother was an avid reader. She collected horseshoes as well as books.”
Piper rubbed her lips together. “What are you working on?”
Boone snickered. “He’s breaking that dumb horse.”
“May I watch?” Piper asked, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.
I tried to maintain a neutral expression as my chest swelled. “Absolutely.”
Boone and Dodge followed along on either side of Piper as we went to the barn. I went into Duke’s stable to drape a rope around his neck and led him out into the corral. He resisted at first, making soft, unsure whinnying sounds, but after five or so minutes of just standing with him and waiting for him to relax, he was ready to follow me out.
Once I was in the corral, I took the rope off his neck and slung it over my shoulder, giving him a pat on his hindquarters to send him trotting around the outside of the corral.
Piper was standing on the other side of the fence with Boone and Dodge. Her eyes followed Duke around his laps, but she was paying attention to my ranch hands.
“So, New York City, huh?” Boone asked.
Piper nodded. “Yep. Born and raised.”
“Seen any other cool places yet on this weird dating adventure?” Dodge asked.
Piper glanced at him. “Montreal and Miami.”
“Polar opposites,” Boone mused.
“You have no idea,” Piper said softly. Something in her voice was almost nostalgic, and I got the sense that she was talking about the men she’d spent time with, rather than the cities she’d stayed in.
The Canadian, Joshua, and the football player, Easton Price.
Of the two of them, only one seemed a worthy candidate for her attention, but that was none of my business. In the short two and a half hours I had spent with her, I was already painfully aware of how flustered she made me feel. Piper was beautiful, clever, funny, and sweet. It was a bonus that she seemed to be getting on well with Boone and Dodge and had interest in the ranch.
But it was only day one.
There was a lot she didn’t know about me and my lifestyle, things that might change how she felt when she got a glimpse of what my life was really like.
I would never walk away from this ranch, and if this wasn’t a life she might want as an adult, not the young girl she used to be when she dreamed of living on a farm, then our courting was pointless.
The ranch had been in my family for generations, and I was the last man standing of the entire Brewer Clan. This was our legacy, and I would not step aside for anything. And not only that, but the competition around these parts could be mean.
Really fucking mean.
Chapter 6
Piper
The bathroom in my private quarters of the main house was straight out of a rustic interior design magazine. The floor was a rich terracotta-colored tile, and the walls were yellow and covered in colorful art. The bathroom cabinet was white with a royal blue counter that didn’t seem like it would ever go with the other colors in the room, but it all came together nicely, and I enjoyed the ambiance as I filled the claw-foot bathtub with hot water and a drop of lavender essential oil.
I’d enjoyed watching Wyatt work with Duke outside for his two-hour training session. I’d also had a good time chatting with Boone and Dodge, both of whom made me laugh a lot more than I had in the last couple of weeks.
It felt good to laugh. When I was outside with them, it was easy to forget about the argument with my father and his declining heart condition, if only for a moment.
Now that I was alone again, it was impossible to keep those negative thoughts at bay.
As optimistically as I could manage, I hoped that the lavender oils and the bath would calm me down and I would be able to walk into my date tonight with Wyatt with a clear mind and a genuine smile.
I stripped naked and got into the tub. The water kissed my skin as I settled down on my bottom, draping my arms over the edge of the tub. I closed my eyes as I rested my head on the back of the tub.
Wyatt was a very good-looking man. The kind of good looking that stopped traffic and made girls turn into giggling, childish, flailing fools. I had at least managed not to make an ass of myself.
Yet.
Not only was he ridiculously attractive, but he was kind and had a warm, comforting, familiar energy. Even though we’d only spent a few hours together, I felt like I knew him fairly well. I wondered if he felt the same way about me, or if it still felt to him like he was sharing his house with a complete stranger for the month.
Watching him with Duke fascinated me. Boone and Dodge explained that they had worked themselves to the bone trying to get Duke to respond to them and let them put a harness on, but they’d had no success over the last couple of weeks. Wyatt, in their words, had sauntered into the corral and effortlessly bonded with the animal.
When I asked if this was normal, both of them snorted and said “yes” in unison. And for some reason, that was even more of a turn on. Wyatt Brewer was a hell of a lot of man and a cowboy to boot.
&nb
sp; I was nervous for our date tonight. I had no clue what to expect, and that was the most nerve-wracking part. Was he taking me out somewhere? Were we staying in? What should I wear?
I opened my eyes and stared at the bathroom ceiling.
“You’re overthinking this,” I whispered, running a wet hand down my face and breathing in the soothing scent of lavender. “It will be fine.”
I could say those words to myself over and over, but they did nothing to calm the storm in my gut. I craved something I already knew. Something that could ground me.
Or someone.
Someone like Easton, who could make me smile with just a look. I’d been with him just yesterday morning before my flight, but it felt like it had been so much longer than that. A lifetime almost.
Or Joshua. My sweet, kind, ever-so-patient Joshua. Sometimes, on the hardest days, he came to visit me in my dreams, and I never wanted to leave them.
I sighed. Even thoughts of the men who had carved special places into my heart did not bring me comfort against the turmoil I felt about my father. One thing had become crystal clear to me over the last twenty-four hours. It did not matter if I fell in love with one of these men. It did not matter if one of them was perfect for me. This would not end in a proposal.
I needed the money now more than ever. And I would get it. And I had to trust that my father would stay strong until then.
* * *
At seven o’clock, I stood in front of the floor-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door and studied my reflection.
After my bath, I’d fixed my makeup, curled my hair, and changed into an ankle-length yellow dress with little white flowers all over it. I paired it with a flowing white cardigan and a pair of brown sandals that showed off my pink-painted toes. I hoped it was suitable for whatever Wyatt had planned for the evening.
I glanced over at the bouquet of daisies Wyatt had bought me, sitting on the nightstand beside my bed. When I came in from watching him with Duke, I’d put them in a vase with water. I walked over to it, plucked a white one from the bundle, and broke off the long stem to slide it into my hair above my ear.
I doublechecked my reflection, smoothed out the skirt of my dress, and gave myself an assertive nod. “Okay. Go get him, girl. It’s just dinner.”
I left my room and walked downstairs. Wyatt was nowhere to be seen, so I wandered over to the back door to steal a glance outside. It was just past dusk. There was a bit of natural light left, casting the whole ranch in a warm purple hue, but it would be gone soon. Within minutes probably.
A flickering glow caught my eye to the right on the back porch, and I opened the door to poke my head out and investigate.
“Oh,” I breathed, surprised to find Wyatt standing on the porch with his back toward me.
He turned around and greeted me with a white smile. He’d washed up from his day of laboring outside and had dressed in a pair of black jeans and a black and gray plaid shirt. The top couple of buttons were undone, and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.
“Hey,” he said, and then he gestured along the porch toward the end, where there was a table set for two with a single candle flickering on it—the glow that had caught my eye.
I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. “This is so nice.”
Wyatt offered me his arm. I hooked mine through his, resting my hand on the inside of his elbow, and he walked me the fifteen or so feet to the end of the porch, pulled out my chair, and tucked it in once I took my seat.
Then he took the seat across from me and picked up the bottle of Malbec beside the candle. “Can I pour you a glass?”
I nodded. “Please.”
Wyatt poured me a glass of wine and passed it to me. Then he poured one for himself, and he lifted it in a toast. “To our first night together.”
I smiled. “May it be less awkward than we have seen it going in our heads.”
He laughed. The sound was warm and deep. We clinked our glasses together and took a sip.
I admired the table setting. He had gone through a lot of trouble to make things just right. The table cloth was white and blue checkers—very country. The candle was a small tealight in a mason jar. Our plates were covered with metal lids, and I could smell the rich aroma of something wafting up from the small hole in the lid.
I took another sip of wine and looked out at the ranch as the sky deepened into a navy blue and the purple hue faded away to be replaced by the beginnings of night. They sky was dotted with hundreds of stars within minutes, and the full moon shone brightly down upon the property.
“Night time looks so different in the country than it does in the city,” I said softly.
“It never gets old,” Wyatt said.
I watched him watch the sky, and I wasn’t sure which sight I preferred more. Him or the stars.
He turned his gaze back toward me and smiled. “Shall we eat?”
I nodded.
He lifted the lid on his plate, and I followed suit. The meal looked spectacular. The plate was loaded with vegetables and roasted potatoes, accompanied by a piece of tender-looking sirloin. On the table between us was a small container of dark gravy, as well as horseradish. I went about drizzling gravy over my meat and potatoes and put a dollop of horseradish on top of the meat.
“How on earth did you find time to prepare a meal like this?” I asked before popping a perfectly roasted and seasoned potato in my mouth.
“I like cooking. It’s easy to make time for it. And if I’m being perfectly honest, I wanted to impress you. Did it work?”
I giggled and nodded. “Yes. Yes, it did.”
“Excellent.”
We enjoyed the meal together and talked about Duke and how irritated Wyatt’s success with the animal made Boone and Dodge. I told him I liked his ranch hands, which he responded positively to, and when I told him I was looking forward to seeing the sunrise in the country, he beamed as brightly as the sun itself.
I was in over my head with this man, and we still barely knew each other.
When we were finished eating, Wyatt put our plates aside on the railing, and we both leaned back to sip our second glass of wine. “So tell me more about you, Piper. Where do you come from? What’s your family like?”
Talking about my family had made me nervous with the two men prior to Wyatt. But there was something about him, a grace and an openness, that made me feel completely at ease with him. Being honest was effortless.
“My parents own their own restaurant called Piper’s Paradise.”
Wyatt grinned. “That’s brilliant.”
“It was, in the beginning. But in today’s economy, they’ve run into some hard times. Competition in New York makes it hard to run a successful restaurant as it is, and I think it’s time for them to throw in the towel. But they won’t do it.”
“A family business is not an easy thing to walk away from.”
“I know,” I said hurriedly. “I should explain better. They don’t have the finances to keep it running. And I was stretched thin going to school and doing everything I could to help them make ends meet. But it’s impossible. And now…” I broke off and shook my head.
Wyatt frowned. “We don’t have to talk about this if you would prefer not to.”
I drew a deep breath. “No, it’s just, I had a fight with my dad before I came to see you. And we didn’t leave on good terms. And he’s sick.”
Wyatt reached across the table and put his warm, callused hand on top of mine. He gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
I tried to smile and failed. “Thank you.”
“How sick?”
“Heart disease. He needs surgery.”
“That’s rough.”
I nodded. “Yeah. And you should see him at work. How much it stresses him out and how physically straining it is. With his condition, he should be taking it easy. So, when I saw them last night for dinner and they told me he needed surgery, I suggested it was time to get serious about making a d
ecision about the business. And he was furious and stormed out.”
“It wasn’t about you,” Wyatt said.
I licked my lips and stared at my lap as emotions swirled inside me, threatening to pour out onto the table. “It’s just hard. I only see them once every month all year. And it makes me sick thinking about the last things we said to each other.”
“Piper?”
I looked up at him.
“Everything will be okay. No matter how it all unfolds. It will all be okay.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
After that, I backed off on the wine. Wyatt was making short work of my defenses and had broken all my walls down over the course of one meal. After dinner, he walked me up to my room and lingered in the doorway for a minute or two. I was fully aware as I gazed up at him that if he tried to kiss me, I would have taken him by the front of his shirt and pulled him into my room for more.
But he was a southern gentleman, and he did not try to kiss me. Instead, he said goodnight, and I watched him walk down the hall toward his own room.
When he paused to look back over his shoulder, I ducked into my room and closed the door to press my forehead to the cool wood surface and close my eyes.
Chapter 7
Wyatt
I was outside by five in the morning and ready to face the day.
There was a lot I wanted to get done by a reasonable hour so I could spend the majority of the day with Piper. Our dinner last night had gone a lot better than I wanted it to, aside from the sad news about Piper’s father, and I was more than a little eager to get away from the ranch with her for the afternoon and spend more time getting to know her.
I had the growing suspicion that there was a lot more to Piper James than what I initially thought, which was already a lot.
