Page 24 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

There was also the fact that Meg was here in the first place because she was supposed to be evaluating the ranch. Not a whole lot of evaluating had been happening. Nothing at all if you wanted to get technical about it. Between navigating being thrown together with Nash, horses giving birth and recovering from the depths of burnout, Meg had barely even scratched the surface of the job she was here to do. The problem was that now she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to be partly responsible for taking this place away from Nash. Not to mention, the longer she was away from the stifling world of the industrial livestock yards, the less she wanted to add yet another smaller farm to their catalog. As her fragile new relationship with Nash thawed out, she became less and less certain about what she was actually here for?—

“Come on then,” said Nash, interrupting her internal spiral of doom. “You can ride Nickel if you’re that interested in coming along.”

They could take the truck around the property, sure. That would be the more efficient way to do things. Instead, they saddled up the horses and decided to do things the old-fashioned way. Nash insisted it was just to keep the horses fit and healthy, but Meg suspected he just wanted the opportunity to go riding. She’d never seen him enjoy something as much as he enjoyed taking care of these animals. But who could blame him? As soon as she climbed on top of Nickel, Nash riding ahead on Gadget, Meg could feel her whole body start to unwind.

This was what she needed. Sitting indoors had never really been her style, and even when she’d been outside on the feedlots withthe cattle, it was still a whole bunch of steel fences, flat ground and rectangular buildings.

Nash’s ranch couldn’t be more different. As they rode from pasture to pasture, the land swelled and dipped, morphing from hills to shallow valleys. The grass was green and thick, so fresh you could smell it, and trees dotted the landscape, making it look like a storybook. Then there was the sky — blue as crystal and reaching on forever. Meg found herself straining her neck with how much she was looking up at it. You’d think she’d never been outside before, but being out here in all this openness was making her realize just how closed off and oppressive the yards really were.

At least Nash didn’t have to witness her existential crisis while he rode slightly ahead of her, his head constantly dipping up and down to inspect the fences. Occasionally he’d kick a foot out and tap at some of the wooden posts, but he was so engrossed in his task that Meg was free to soak it all in in relative privacy.

They spent a good hour riding around checking the fences, and even then, they hadn’t explored all of the ranch. They hadn’t spoken much, but the silence between them was no longer awkward. In fact, Meg had been enjoying herself immensely.

Eventually, Nash came to a halt and Meg stopped beside him. This was the farthest she’d ventured from the house. Right now it felt like they were the only two people on earth.

Nash was giving her a funny look, one she couldn’t read at all. It was like he was thinking really hard about something.

“Those fences are looking real good,” Meg said dryly, hoping to snap him out of it. “You know, ’cause I’ve definitely been helping this whole time.”

An amused grin flickered across his face. But then the look of concentration came back, and Meg felt like he was looking straight through the middle of her.

“I wanna show you something,” he said, and without any more explanation than that, he took off across the field. Meg followed — of course she did — encouraging Nickel into a canter to keep up with Nash. They were heading towards a cluster of trees, a massive and ancient oak taking pride of place. Its branches spread out like the fingers of a hand. Nash pulled Gadget to a stop as he neared the trunk, and Meg followed suit.

“Nice tree,” she said. “Very good tree. Definitely worth the ride.”

Nash gave her a dirty look over his shoulder as he jumped to the ground. Meg just smiled brightly in return.

“It’s not the tree I’m showing you,” Nash grumbled. “It’s what I madeinthe tree.”

“Wait, what?”

“Look up.”

Meg did as she was told and noticed the ladder hanging down for the first time. Following it up, she saw the bottom of a tree house sitting above them, held in place in the fork of two branches with elaborate wooden struts.

“You made a treehouse?”

“Yeah,” Nash said, eyes only meeting her sparingly. “Thought I’d recreate the old one, you know. The one we only ever used when we were sneaking around at night.”

Meg looked back up at the treehouse, which was a little hard to see from this angle. Immediately any desire to tease or poke atNash vanished into thin air. She hadn’t thought about that little tree house in so long… mostly because it hurt to think about. It had been her safe place, her little sanctuary foryears. And part of that sanctuary was having Nash there beside her. So Meg had stopped thinking about it, had left it behind with the rest of her life in Fordswell.

But seeing that Nash had literallyrebuiltthe treehouse all on his own, that he’d been thinking about it over the years… it left her speechless.

Nash started fidgeting as her silence stretched on.

“Thought you might like to see it,” he said, flushing red around the collar of his shirt.

“Yeah. Yeah, I would,” Meg said, sliding off of Nickel before Nash could get too embarrassed and change his mind. She wanted to see inside more than she’d ever wanted anything.

He climbed up the ladder ahead of her, escaping her scrutiny. She was still feeling knocked sideways by the fact that he had built this. He was the one that had blown her off so spectacularly, seeming so indifferent the whole time. Now it seemed that he was the one hanging onto memories all this time. It was hurting her head, trying to make sense of it all.

She hadn’t climbed a rope ladder in over a decade, and it wasn’t nearly as easy as she remembered. When she somehow managed to wobble her way to the top, Nash reached a hand down for her and she wrapped her fingers in his. He hoisted her up and she stood up in the little house, pretending that she wasn’t disappointed at having to let go of his hand. Luckily, she was distracted soon enough.

She’d been expecting the same interior as the old tree house, bare boards that hadn’t even been sanded, banged together with ancient nails. She expected it to be small too, having to crouch around like a goblin so she didn’t smack her head. But this treehouse was huge; she could stand upright and walk around even. Not to mention that it was nothing short of beautiful inside. Nash really had gone all out. There was paint on the walls and ceiling, an off-white, with soft blue painted around the window frame and the skirting boards. Because the treehouse hadfloorboards, and they were nicer than the ones inside Nash’s house. Sanded and stained a golden brown and clearly so well constructed that Meg knew she could do jumping jacks up here and the place wouldn’t so much as wobble.

“How long did this take you?” Meg asked, fingertips against the wall.

Nash leaned back against the wall. “A couple of months for the actual building part. Whenever I had some free time, I’d put together another bit of wall or something. But then I finished it, and it looked kind of boring, so I’ve been prettying it up over the years. Just bits and pieces. It needs curtains, but I’m terrible at sewing anything.”

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