Page 105 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

“What about it?” she asked. “It’s never mattered. I mean...no one says that, Zack, come on, my sister probably thinks she’s happy half the time, but she makes our parents miserable. She’s made me miserable. I don’t have to do that. I want to aim for...for a certain level of success. My parents worked really hard to give me the life that I have. It wasn’t about what made them happy, it was about...making things better. For me and for Hannah. She threw that away, but I won’t. Especially not when I’ve pushed everything else out of the way for it.”

“What things have you pushed aside for it?”

She shrugged, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Everything. Friends. My ex-boyfriend. I just... I ignore people when I get busy because something is going to slip and I know it can’t be the job. It can’t be my parents. I... I don’t know who I would be, to them or to me, if I wasn’t the best. I don’t know how I would matter.”

“Look, Grace, I’m sorry about your sister. I am. I’m sure... I’m sure you feel like you need to make up for the lack of it. I wouldn’t know how that is. I’m an only child, and my parents never expected big things from me. Nothing more than taking care of the family ranch, getting married, giving them grandkids. And they were never rushed about it. So... I don’t know, the family expectations were always manageable. So I can’t speak to disappointing parents, or wanting to make up for what a sibling has done. But what I can tell you is that I’ve had happiness. True, blinding happiness. Holding your child for the first time? There’s nothing deeper than that. It changes you. It grows your world. I’ve felt that, I’ve lived it. And I’ve had success. But only one at a time. Not one with the other. And I think...having had the happiness first? I would choose that, Grace. If you have a hope of that? Screw success. I would trade so much to go back to obscurity, and a small house in Oregon if my daughter could just be asleep in the room down the hall.” He lifted his head and looked at her, golden eyes so full of pain it cracked her heart. “The reason I care about all this so much? It’s only because I don’t have anything else to care about.”

“Maybe someday...”

“No,” he said, his words harsh, shotgun fire in the stillness of the room. “I had it. And the flip side of that is that I’ve lost it. There’s a limit to what one man can go through and... I don’t even think I could feel that again if I wanted to. I think it broke something in me.”

“You’re not really selling it, Zack.”

He laughed. “No, I guess not. But trust me on something, okay?”

“Sure.”

“You deserve happiness. You should have that. And you should figure out what it means for you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You can go home,” he said. “I think I’m going to be here until I figure this out.”

She sat down in a chair near where he standing. “Then I guess I’ll be a while, too. Should we order food?”

He smiled, and it made her heart do a weird, flippy thing. And she didn’t even try to stop it. “Sure,” he said. “I could eat.”

“Great. Get to work.”

She watched him labor over the statue while she sat in the chair and ate noodles from a carton. She took off her jacket, he took off his shirt.

After about an hour she stood up and put the carton under his chin, lifting her chopsticks to his mouth. “Eat.”

He opened and took a bite, then glared at her. “Are you force-feeding me?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

“Yes. Because you didn’t stop to eat.”

“I’m pondering,” he said, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

She couldn’t help but ponder the drops of sweat running down his skin. She wanted to lick his body. All over. And then she wanted to hold him all night. She’d never felt this way about anyone before. And that was...well, it wasn’t what she’d bargained for.

It felt a lot like what she’d been missing in her previous relationships.

It felt a lot like she was falling for him.

Lusty. It’s just super extra lusty-pants stuff.

It was all it could be. He’d said himself, it would never be anything else ever.

“Well, chew and ponder at the same time,” she said.

“It’s good.”

“I know. One of my other favorite places. I don’t cook, if you were curious about that.”

“You don’t strike me as the type. I cook,” he said. “If you were wondering.”

“You cook?”

---