Page 13 of A Cowboy in the Streets

A totally normal, acceptable reaction to one’s boss.

Keep telling yourself that, babe.

Two hours later, stuffed to the ribs with chili, cornbread, and cobbler, the dishes done—I insisted on washing, despite Ted’s protests—I took my beer onto the back patio to enjoy the view at golden hour.

If I had known my grumpy cowboy boss was already out there, I might have made a different choice, but it was too late now. I wasn’t the type to turn tail and run.

He sort of grunted at me, which I took to mean hello, so I smiled and tipped my beer to the mountains. “This place is incredible.”

He grunted again. I took that to mean, I agree. Please keep talking.

“My cabin is really nice, too. Thank you for that.” I paused to give him time to reply. He jerked a nod, which was at least a step up from grunting, and took a pull of his beer. Words were clearly not this guy’s forte. I switched tactics. “Tell me about the ranch.”

He squinted at me. “We train quarter horses. Sometimes we breed them.” Said drily, with a smidge of irony lacing the words.

I laughed. He ducked his head and the corner of his mouth twitched up. It wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a scowl, either. “No, I mean tell me about the history. I want to know everything.”

“Everything?” He rubbed his stubbled jaw. My fingertips tingled, like I could feel the scratch of his unshaven beard against my skin. “This land has been in the Hale family for generations, ever since the gold rush days of the eighteen hundreds. Thomas Hale came over from England without a penny to his name. Figured he would strike gold.”

“Did he?” I asked, fascinated.

“No. But he did open a whorehouse and proceeded to make a tidy little fortune selling women and booze.” Adam smirked when I let out a shocked laugh. “He bought acres of property. The next generation started a cattle ranch. The generation after that discovered the land was worth more than the cattle and sold a good chunk of it. By the time my dad inherited, we were down to ninety acres.”

I gazed out at the green pastures that stretched to the mountains. “It’s a good ninety acres, though.”

“That’s what the developers say, too.”

My head turned sharply in his direction. Coming from California, I knew all about developers. Open land was at a premium these days. Everyone wanted this view, even if there wasn’t enough water to go with it. “Would Ted ever sell?”

Adam shook his head. “Nah. Not unless there was no other choice. Lodestar Ranch means too much to him. Horses were always his dream, but he didn’t know what form that would take until he met my mom. Jenny. She was the brains behind it all. They built this place together. Made his dream a reality.”

I was quiet for a moment while I took that in. Ted had told me he had lost his wife to cancer a couple of years ago. He had been up front with the toll that loss had taken on him—and the ranch. I saw that loss a little more clearly now. No wonder it had been hard for him to show up every day at the stables, when everything was a reminder of how much he had lost.

“He must have loved her very much,” I said softly.

“That I did,” Ted said, startling me as he stepped through the doorway to join us on the terrace. “I still do. That’s what grief is, isn’t it? Missing someone you love. I miss her every day. I named this place for her, you know. Lodestar. That’s what she was to me. My lodestar, guiding me through the dark. She never steered me wrong.”

Shit, my eyes were wet. I blinked rapidly. “That’s beautiful.”

“We met in high school. She was fourteen, I was two years older. She was always the one for me from the moment we met. Love like that, it only hits once, and when it hits, you know.”

Only once.

I tried to wrap my mind around that. The confidence of it. It was hard to fathom. In my twenty-eight years, I’d had a handful of boyfriends, none of whom lasted longer than a year. Horses were my focus, not boys. But they had all been good guys—great, some of them. Twice I had even been in love, and those breakups had hit hard.

Yet looking back…phew. I couldn’t imagine being married to any of them. Not happily, anyway. But if someone had asked me three months in, if this was forever? With my last boyfriend, Todd, I would have said yes. Now, a year past the breakup, all I could say was thank god it wasn’t.

“I’m going to see what Ben is up to. I’ll leave you two to the sunset,” Ted said, slipping back into the house.

I peeked curiously at Adam behind my beer, wondering what he thought of his dad’s love story. Ben’s mom wasn’t around, I knew that much. There wasn’t a ring on Adam’s finger, and no one ever mentioned her. Were they divorced? Had they ever been married at all? Where was she now? I scrunched my nose.

Adam took a pull of beer. “What?” he asked.

“Just thinking about what your dad said. How love like that only happens once.” I shook my head. “I can’t decide if that’s romantic or terrifying. What do you think?”

He stared silently out at the mountains for so long, I figured he wasn’t going to answer. And then, finally—

“A relief,” he said.

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