Page 41 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

I wiped my dirt-ridden gloves on my overall pant legs and glanced over to where the sun was dipping toward the horizon.

To be honest, I’d been certain that William would have given out long before now. Instead, he’d lasted a good eight hours, with only a quick break for lunch and a couple of one-minute phone calls from his work.

If he wasn’t currently bouncing on his toes, I would have been able to tell myself that he was exhausted and that he’d never last this length of time again.

Not to mention his fear of blood. That alone might have sent most people packing. Not William.

Now, looking at his dirty, greasy jeans and torn shirt, I had a feeling he was in this for the long haul.

Which meant I was going to have to figure out how to modify my plan to turn him off of my ranch.

We had ended the day at the horse barn, and William had cleaned out as many stalls as I had. I still couldn’t figure out if he’d slowed down to match my pace, if he didn’t want to beat me again, or if he didn’t want to do more than me.

Now he stood under the awning that we’d used as shelter from the storm just over a week before as he poked at his phone.

“What did we do after the sheep?” he asked.

I let my eyes graze his face, trying desperately not to notice how adorable he looked with smears from engine grease on his forehead and cheeks, and said, “The tractor.”

“Right.”

I took a long pull on my water bottle before asking. “What are you doing?”

“Making a list of what we’ve done today.” He didn’t look away from his screen.

“So you can check the items off and feel better about yourself?” It seemed like something a successful businessman would do.

He let out a low chuckle.

It wasn’t jovial, but I could tell he was amused. “No, so I can keep track of what I should know how to handle.” His eyes finally swiveled to meet mine. “In theory.”

“In theory,” I said.

We’d talked a lot about how things should work and how they actually worked throughout the day. William always had insightful questions and was interested in my answers, whether they were fact or just my opinion.

For instance, in theory, you should only need one or two of the same tool on the ranch. Over my lifetime, I’d discovered that you needed three or more, because one always got left out in a field or in a truck somewhere, another ended up in my mud room, which left a grand total of one where it should be.

William had said business principles were much the same. Logic dictated that a process should work, but when it was implemented, something unexpected always came up.

He’d related the story—which I’d heard before—about a sausage company that got a brand-new factory. The new sausages didn’t taste right, so the company had to go and find the problem. It turned out that incidental smells and gas from the old plant had lent themselves to the final flavor of the product, and they had to add them back in.

At least he understood the difference between what might look like laziness or being unorganized verses chaos theory at its finest.

My stomach grumbled, and William, who had gone back to his screen, lowered it to look at me. “Should we get you back for dinner?”

“It is about that time,” I said, ignoring the stirring butterflies in my gut. Whenever I’d seemed the slightest bit uncomfortable or frustrated, William had offered a solution for the problem. I’d slammed my thumb with a hammer, which was a weekly occurrence for me, and he’d been on his four-wheeler ready to get me some ice for it. I’d gotten a little out of hand with my language when a sheep refused to cooperate as we tagged it, and he’d asked if I needed a break. I’d run out of gas—something I was still kicking myself about—and he’d asked where the tank was so he could go get some for me.

Of course I’d grumbled that I was fine, and I’d walked the quarter mile to get it.

William hadn’t chided me, or even looked at me in judgement. Instead, it felt like he was watching and learning.

About me.

About the ranch.

Right, it wasn’t about me; it was about the ranch.

I’d been avoiding dinner talk, because I knew my dad wanted me to invite him to eat here, but I wasn’t ready for that. I needed a break from William Harris and his nerdy glasses, handsome face, and almost overwhelming kindness.

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