20
Clay stepped out on his front porch and took a deep breath, inhaling the morning air. It wasn’t quite officially fall yet, but the chill in the air would qualify it as fall in most of the country.
“You’re up.”
The sudden sound of a voice caused him to nearly drop his freshly poured cup of coffee. Sure enough, parked halfway up the drive was Colton’s truck. He was coming toward Clay, thermos in hand.
“I thought we could have our morning coffee together.”
Clay nodded. That was exactly what they needed. There was a lot of mess festering in Clay’s mind right now, and part of it was the way things had been left unresolved with Colton.
“I owe you an apology,” Colton said. “I should’ve looped you in on my discussions with Dad. I thought I could figure out a way to fix things.”
Clay shook his head. “I’m the one who should apologize. I’ve been trying to do this on my own, thinking I could protect the whole family somehow.”
“You’ve done that since we were kids,” Colton said with a big smile. “Always trying to take care of your three younger brothers. It comes from a good place, but we want to take care of you, too.”
“What I needed all along was to see that we’re all in this together,” Clay said.
“Well, we’re definitely in this together now. Reilly and I cleared out the barn yesterday. It’s good to go.”
“Let’s go see it,” Clay said, but before he could move, they heard the crunch of gravel off in the distance. A vehicle was coming. Clay expected to look over and see either Hank’s or Reilly’s truck.
Instead, it was an all-too-familiar red sports car.
Clay had been trying to put Harley out of his mind since yesterday. When she’d rejected his offer to put her up in Jared’s house while they got to know each other, he’d figured he’d done all he could. What would help would be for him to find a way to get away from her, not a way for her to be mentioned every day.
And yet now here she was.
“How about I meet you over at the barn?” Colton asked, obviously recognizing her car. “Just take your time.”
Colton hopped in his truck, waiting for Harley to reach the part of the drive that widened into a parking area. He waved in greeting before taking off up the driveway, leaving the two of them alone.
“Hi,” Harley said as soon as she was out of her car, driver’s side door closed behind her. She stood awkwardly just a few feet from her car like it was her safety zone. Even from here, he could see her smile was tentative.
“Hi,” he replied.
Don’t get your hopes up, he told himself. She could very well be here for work reasons. He wasn’t going to put himself out there again, only for her to tell him she was heading back to Seattle.
“You looking for Colton?” he asked.
He already knew the answer to that. If she was here for Colton, she would have stopped him as he left. Clay figured he was probably afraid to assume she was here to see him. Every time he got his hopes up, he regretted it.
A hint of a smile played on her lips. “No. I’m looking for you.”
Looking for him. Again, he told himself not to get his hopes up. He’d offered her a gig, after all, and she needed to pay the bills. If she came here to take him up on the job offer, he’d have to agree. He’d have to settle for keeping things professional unless she decided she had feelings for him, after all.
Feelings she didn’t have to take a whole weekend to think about.
“You found me,” he said, stomping down the stairs and heading over to where she was parked. “What’s up?”
“I told you I needed the weekend to think and you freaked out,” she said. “I don’t think a weekend is too much to ask. You, after all, aren’t the one who had to uproot your life.”
“I didn’t ask you to uproot anything,” he argued.
“Okay, but I put things on hold to come here,” she said. “Because I wanted to give us a chance.”
Oh.
That one sentence changed everything. It was exactly what he’d been hoping to hear. He didn’t want to scare her off by being too enthusiastic about it, but he was holding in a huge smile.
“No pressure.” She held up her hand as though to stop him from objecting. “We’ll just get to know each other and see where this thing goes.”
“Sounds good.” He stepped toward her. She took a step toward him, too. He reached out his free hand and took hers in his. “Thanks for coming back.”
“Thanks for inviting me back. Especially since you drove all that way. You could have just called.”
“I thought maybe you’d show me around Seattle.”
She smiled. “We’ll have to do that. But right now, I’d just like to spend some time enjoying the peace and quiet.”
She stepped toward him, closing the remainder of the distance between them. Her lips parted—those lips that had tempted him since the second he met her. Now he could freely give in to that temptation.
Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to hers, moving his hand to her face. As his thumb caressed her jaw, she let out a sigh and moved in closer, pressing her body against him. Suddenly, he realized he didn’t need that coffee at all.
Harley was all he needed to keep him warm.
21
The ranch house was finally beginning to look like Clay’s home. Working together, Harley and Clay had gradually replaced the various signs and knick-knacks until the interior decor represented Clay’s brand perfectly.
“Brand means something else entirely on a ranch,” Clay said.
“Really? Because that’s exactly what we’re doing with the fall fest. Building a brand. Cedar Tree Ranch Pumpkinfest is like a small startup.”
“And our brand is that we don’t grow pumpkins or corn?”
Harley laughed. She didn’t have to pull out her phone to show him how their photos created branding for the event. He’d seen it plenty of times in recent days. They already had a dozen or so people in the ‘interested’ column of one of their social media event invitations.
Harley was handling all of that. She’d also lined up some local sponsors to help keep ticket prices down. It turned out, there were plenty of local businesses willing to pay a fee to have their business advertised on a banner posted on the truck for the hayride or on some hay bales.
The only bad news was that her two weeks were running out. A renter would be showing up that Friday sometime, and Harley assumed that meant she needed to be out that morning. Apparently, Jared paid to have someone come to clean the house between uses.
Although she’d been dancing around the subject since she’d arrived, Harley knew she had to say something. No time like the present, as they stood in his kitchen, admiring their hard work.
“Is there a specific time I need to be out of Jared’s house Friday?” she asked. “I think my original checkout instructions said eleven?”
“Brandi Norcross has an apartment in town she’s willing to let you borrow.” The way he blurted it out, she couldn’t help but think he’d been saving up to say it for a while.
“I’m under a lease on my condo.”
“Can you find someone to take it over?” he asked. “I wouldn’t ask you to give up your life in Seattle unless you wanted to. But if it helps to think of it as relocating for work…”
She smiled. Actually, that did help. It also helped that she would be living independently, several miles away. She’d be just close enough to easily commute here every day, but she wouldn’t have the pressure of living on the property.
Not that living on the property had been anything less than amazing. She’d worked all day both from the cabin and in town, only crossing paths with him occasionally. After the workday was through, though, they’d have dinner and spend time together like they were in the early stages of dating.
“I’ll check with my roommate,” she said. “Maybe she can line up someone who can take over my lease.”
Now he tu
rned to face her, giving his full attention to her. Her heart still did a little jump every time their eyes locked. She hoped that would never change.
“I don’t care if you’re here or in Seattle or on the moon,” he said seriously. “I want to be with you. Whatever it takes.”
“You are this ranch,” she said after digesting his words. “If there’s one thing I learned from my initial visit, it’s that. That’s why I couldn’t go back to work for Mr. Cutler even if I’d had no other choice. I can’t spend my life doing something that doesn’t bring me passion.”
Interestingly, it was helping Clay and his brothers save this ranch that had become her passion. The fact that they would likely start building up income gave her a great sense of pride. It also pushed her to work harder—a motivation she’d been missing in her previous job.
“My life hasn’t been the same since you pulled up that driveway a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “I never imagined watching someone step in cow poop would change everything.”
She nudged his arm playfully with her fist. He’d never let her live that down. That was fine. She pretended it bugged her, but he seemed to love the fact that so much of this was unfamiliar to her. She may not have grown up in the city, but her time in Seattle had made it all too easy to forget the pleasures of wide, open fields and beautiful scenery.
She stepped back from him. “We’d better get started on dinner. Your brothers will be here at six.”
“First, I need something from you,” he said.
She knew exactly what that something was. He pulled her to him and kissed her like they’d never kissed before. It was like that between them. It felt like the first time every single time. That was another thing she hoped never changed.
He was right. Dinner would wait. Right now, all that mattered was this kiss.
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Turn the page for a bonus excerpt from THE COWBOY’S SURPRISE BRIDE, Colton’s story.
One thing was clear. Mina Baxter had no idea who Colton Briscoe was.
He was trying not to find it amusing. There had been maybe four people between them on the front row at high school graduation. Yet she’d been too stuck in her own head back then to notice he existed.
“Mina Baxter,” she said, extending her hand. “Thank you for having us today.”
He reached out to return her handshake. “Colton Briscoe.”
Mina, now a mayoral candidate, looked completely out of place on this ranch, standing next to the oversized wheels on their tractor. But that was exactly what the photographer wanted as he snapped pictures next to Colton.
“Welcome to Cedar Tree Ranch.” Colton kept his tone as formal as he could. “We’re honored to have you as our first guest.”
This all felt canned and silly, but absolutely necessary. Colton depended on this venture to pay his bills now that he’d left his soul-sucking job at a law firm in town to run the place. It had long been his dream to start his own business, so he was handling the marketing and community outreach part of things while his brothers took care of most of the day-to-day operational stuff.
“I haven’t been on a hayride since high school.”
Mina looked over at the walled trailer they’d hooked up to the tractor. Hay bales were lined up along the edges for seating, and they’d put a little padding against the walls for comfort. One of those ‘extras’ he thought made their fall fest a little better than all the others in the area.
“At Old Man Varney’s ranch,” Colton said.
Mina’s eyes widened and suddenly he realized how that made him sound. Like he was some kind of stalker. But back in high school, there had been two big ranches—theirs and the Varney ranch. Varney’s ranch put an amateurish hayride together every year from the time he was thirteen until a few years after they graduated. That was when all Varney’s own kids were grown.
“It wasn’t fall until you took a spin around the Varney property on a bed of hay.” He gestured toward his own trailer. “We’ve tried to make the ride a little more comfortable for everyone here.”
“Progress. I can definitely get behind that.” Mina turned toward the camera. “Should we climb on board?”
We? The plan, as far as he’d understood it, was to help her climb up on the hayride and step back, letting her crew take it from there. Maybe she meant the photographer was going with her.
“Let’s get some shots of the two of you right here,” the photographer said.
Colton had no problem with pictures. He’d had his fair share of photo opps while working at the law firm. He’d always hated the sort of networking events that included those kinds of photos. He would rather be behind the scenes, making everyone else successful, than standing in front of cameras himself.
But the goal here was to get the word out about Cedar Tree Ranch and hopefully draw some crowds in. If that meant plastering his photo across every surface in town, he was all for it.
“How about another handshake?” Mina asked.
She thrust out her right arm, stiffly extending her hand to him. This time, though, she kept her body fully facing the camera, a broad smile on her face as the photographer waited for Colton to do his part.
This was the problem with Mina, even way back in high school. Colton had been on the football team, pretty much constantly hanging out with the same people as Mina. He couldn’t count the number of times he was in the same room as her and she’d completely ignored him. Yet even now, standing on the ranch owned by one of the best-known families in town—back then, anyway—she acted as though he were a complete stranger.
Mina was all show, no go. And he had a feeling that was going to come back to bite her in this election.
Yes, Mina Baxter was running for mayor of their town, Canyon Falls. After graduating from one of the most prestigious universities in the country and logging a few years in Washington, D.C., she’d returned home to bring her political expertise to the “little people” of Canyon Falls. Unfortunately, that pretty much summed up the talk he’d heard around town. People saw her as some big shot who’d come home to take care of the “little people.”
And it also meant she didn’t stand a chance against the current mayor, a longtime political figure in this town who did clearly send the message that he cared about the people of Canyon Falls. Colton personally didn’t buy that, but the older folks around here sure did.
Colton gave into the photo opp, grasping Mina’s hand to complete the fake handshake. This time, he was all too aware of the feel of her dainty hand in his much larger one, probably because they were technically holding hands this time rather than shaking.
Another problem with Mina was that she’d always had this effect on him, despite the fact that he seemed invisible to her. She’d moved to town in sixth grade and had immediately slid into her friend group. She’d never been a cheerleader, but they’d pulled her into their clique, and she’d ended up on the homecoming court almost every year through graduation.
“Shall we climb up?” Mina asked.
Colton tried not to smile as he looked at her. She looked pretty out of place here with a big barn off to her right and a gigantic tractor wheel as her backdrop. Not many people wore skirt suits and high-heeled shoes on a ranch. He had a feeling the photographer was eating the contrast up.
“I’m driving,” he said. “But I’ll help you up.”
The forced smile on her face fell and, for the first time, he saw the real human being behind the political facade. He’d seen that side of Mina many times in high school. She pretended she had it all together, but there were insecurities behind those crystal blue eyes.
“I’m riding up there alone?” she asked.
“It’s perfectly safe,” he said. “We do require you remain seated at all times while the ride is in motion.”
She smiled, and this time he
r smile reached her eyes. “Like a ride at an amusement park,” she said.
“Exactly.”
They just stood there, staring at each other, for a too-long moment. So long, in fact, that neither seemed to realize that the photographer was snapping photos until the click of the camera suddenly broke through the spell.
“Are there steps?” she asked, looking around.
“No, but you can just step up right here. I’ll help you.”
He pointed to the front of the trailer, which had been left without a gate so that riders could get on board easily. The kids would need a lift up, but it was far easier than dealing with steps or a ladder, which could be dangerous themselves.
“This part is safe when it’s moving?” She pointed to the open area.
“If you’ll notice, the hay bales don’t come up this far. That’s by design. We also recommend all parents keep younger children close by. And we’ve leveled the path to make sure we won’t hit any holes along the way.”
“Wow,” she said. “And when it rains…?”
“We’ll have to go over it all again. At Cedar Tree Ranch, we’re committed to safety.”
He realized even as the words were coming out of his mouth that he sounded like a brochure. He’d been working on his marketing-speak far too much. He needed to work on his customer relations skills a little more.
“That’s great,” she said. “Make sure we mention that in the news release.”
That was directed at the photographer, who obviously worked for her in some capacity. He was fairly young, so Colton assumed he was a political aide of some sort. Not that he knew anything about campaigning for office beyond the fact that some of his law school classmates had political aspirations.
Colton looked from the man behind the camera to Mina, at this point not sure which one of them he should thank. “Ready to get started?”
Mina still looked a little too wide-eyed as she moved her gaze from Colton to the trailer. She was afraid to step up there, and he could see why. It wouldn’t be easy in a skirt like the one she was wearing. He supposed he could lift her up, but he wouldn’t dare do that without explicit permission. He might even need it in writing to avoid getting caught up in some sort of political scandal.
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