Page 23 of Rescued By the Mountain Man

“Like a bull with a matador waving a red flag in his face,” I replied flatly, eking a raspy laugh from him.

Sitting back, I canted my head to the right. “I think that is the second time I’ve ever heard you laugh. You don’t do it much, do you?”

“I never had much of a reason,” he replied with a wry downtick of his lips while getting out of his seat. “Now, I might.”

“Is that supposed to mean…me?”

He lifted his coffee and flatly shut me down. “Caffeine and dopamine, a feel-good cocktail.”

“Ouch,” I slapped a hand to my chest. “That hurt.”

“You’re a tough girl.” He held out the door for me. “You’ll be all right.”

I suppose we were ignoring the elephant in the room—my freakout last night.

Fine by me. I’d rather not remember it, either.

As we drove off, my phone pinged: a text from Local Pizza Place. We’re running behind but your order is archived. A courier is coming with your order.

Meaning they know where I am, that I was okay, and they will tell me what they’ve found on my almost killer.

“Do you have a lot of horses?” The question came out of nowhere, but I didn’t mind. Warrick and I were starting to get a rapport, a strange one, but one nonetheless.

I wanted to know more about his business, and while it felt strange to make small talk, what else could I do? I could hardly pour out my heart to him and tell him the convoluted reasons why I had dropped by his doorstep. I had to keep the focus on him.

No matter how kind he was, he was still a stranger, and I hoped to keep my shit to myself. He did not need to get dragged into my mess.

He glanced over at me again. “We do, almost thirty-five, and we have a stud breeding operation with the horses and the bulls,” he explained. “For the most part, we’re self-sufficient when it comes to keeping our stock going.”

“And what happens if it dips?”

“I call Rhys and Anna Channing from the Winding Ways Ranch,” he said. “That man is a genius when it comes to genetics. He’ll send me a cryogenic cylinder, and I’ll get a new herd that is impervious to foot rot, pink eye, and gout.”

I laughed. “I don’t think cattle get gout.”

“Well, if they did, he’d cure it,” Warrick replied.

Half an hour later, after grabbing an overnight bag from the inn, we crested the hill and headed to the main house, but I decided to pay attention to the surroundings I had not seen the night we dashed to the ranch.

As we grew closer, I damn near plastered myself on the window; while the ranch house was in the distance, I saw extensive grasslands that spread out beyond it to the Western Larch, Grand Fir, and Blue Spruce shrubs.

Corrals, red-roof barns, and a couple of other buildings, such as these outhouses, or maybe bunkhouses for his stable hands, spotted the area. Large cattle roamed in a field beyond the corrals, and I saw a long-slanted roof with solar panels and a couple of work trucks and ATVs beyond the line of sight.

As we approached the ranch house, I saw that it had a wraparound porch and tall sycamore trees on either side of it. Grassy lawns surrounded the place.

“I hadn’t seen all this last night.” I smiled at him. “I like it.”

“Why, thank you,” he said. “I try not to live in a cave or in a shack. Now,” he shut the truck off and reached for his coffee, sipping it and wincing. “It’s cold.”

“Cold Joe is the pits,” I pulled the inner handle and stepped out, dragging my overnight bag from the backseat. “Would you mind if I asked one of your guys to show me around for a while?”

“Get Isaac or Santos to do it,” he said while stepping out. “Frankie is a smartass at best and, I hate to say it, a douche at worst.”

I laughed. “Noted. Now, can I get my coffee warmed up first?”

Chapter Eight

Zoe

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