Page 55 of The Cowboy Takes A Bride

For the first time ever, Meredith was glad her father's demands and lifestyle choices for her had put her through an emotional gauntlet. She called upon those previously over-taxed coping skills to not burst into tears.

23

Jace and Meredith never talked about what Marjory had said that day in the kitchen. Their arrangement was easily forgotten as the day-to-day activities never allowed for downtime and wandering thoughts. Life around the ranch was fast paced, and when Willow returned to school, it meant one less hand to help out.

Pops decided it was his job to armchair quarterback and help with the new calves. He'd sit on the porch and belt out instructions while scrutinizing each step in the locate and tag process. Jace found working beside him bittersweet. Something he’d always taken for granted, Jace now wanted to press pause and enjoy. Whenever possible, he picked his father’s brain about the best times to supplement feed and about the kind they should use. One day he wouldn’t have his old man guiding him through the business, but Jace tried not to let that crippling pain consume him. It was hard enough watching Pops grow weaker.

While that was happening, Meredith was blossoming. She fit in among them snugly, much like the way he fit inside her. Perfectly. Her days were spent canning and freezing fruits andvegetables from the garden and then turning it over for next year’s crops. As fall crept up on them, she decided to try her hand at gourds, pumpkins, and an autumn harvest with parsnips, onions, and peas. Sometimes, she brought the Farmer’s Almanac to bed––having never moved out after Willow left–– and would question him about frost and composting. Lord knows they had enough manure around to help with that, but each time she’d start a discussion about the ranch, they’d end up sweaty. He liked it.

All her talk of what she wanted to do around the place made him horny. Jeez, the things he found sexy. Tuck would laugh if he knew they’d made love the other night after an invigorating discussion about growing butternut squash. Then yesterday she’d found another snake in the chicken coop and had handled it herself. Instant wood. Watching her carry the shotgun had done it. Getting her target in two shots, those firing lessons paying off, had cinched it. He was falling for her.

He liked that her days revolved more around the house and with his mom and Pops than coming out into the pasture or corral. She’d invaded enough of his space that he wasn’t ready to relinquish that part, too.

On the first morning of autumn, he took her out to watch the sunrise, a tradition they’d started and kept with each solstice. He could see them doing it every year, but fantasies like that were hazardous.

It was just as easy to picture them doing the barn dance every year. A family tradition that went back nearly a hundred years, the Shepard’s put on an annual hoedown in their barn. Many of the locals were done with their crops or had finished at auction with their livestock. Now the resetting for next year would begin, but not before they blew off a little steam and energy.

Tonight was the night. Willow was home for the event, and the three Shepard woman had been cooking for three days solid.

Jace moved a few bales of hay to the floor to offer more seating, then looked around the space. They were ready. He watched Meredith set up a table, smoothing the tablecloth before setting the vase of flowers in the center.

This would be the first time, their brief reception aside, that they were among the town folk. They’d talked about going into town for dinner several times but never made it. If something needed to be picked up in town, Meredith and mom went in but never lingered. He got the feeling that Meredith liked to stay on the ranch. When he’d asked her about it, she’d said she’d spent enough time mingling with people to hold her over for a while and she’d let him know when the urge to start back up kicked in. If it ever did.

He had one pressing question that he couldn’t hold back any longer. Only he didn’t know how to ask, afraid it would rock the boat too much.

“You all sure put together a nice feast.” He stood back, looking at the covered dishes on the table she’d just set out. He hoped he wasn’t starting something that could ruin the evening.

“It was fun. Exhausting, but still fun.” She moved to the next table and began moving covered dished from the cart they’d bought in town a few weeks back, proclaiming it would save them work. Not that he wanted to lug each dish from the house to the barn, so he wasn’t about to disagree.

“Listen, Mer, I have an awkward question I need to ask.” He stepped next to her, sliding an arm around her waist, hoping she would see it as a casual yet concerned question and not take offense.

She narrowed her eyes, but her smile didn’t fade. “Okay. I guess I’m ready.”

He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I like when youmake your ‘this isn’t going to be good’ face. Your nose crinkles up.”

“Are you stalling?”

“Yes.”

“Jace.” She laughed. “Just ask.”

He huffed out a sigh. “It’s no big deal really.”

“You make it seem like one.”

“A lot of people will be here tonight and in your business. They’ll wonder why you haven’t come to town much, and some might even speculate that you’re hiding out here.”

Her smile dropped. “Some or you?”

“I only want to know if that’s really why you stay away from town. Are you afraid of something? I know I should have asked this earlier, but—”

“It’s true that I don’t want my father to find me. I want time here to know where—” She bit her lip.

“You want to be.” He nodded. Some days he felt like there was no chance she’d ever leave. That their arrangement didn’t make any difference because she knew she belonged here. The question "what next" was always the elephant in the room. They'd become skilled in avoiding it. Instead they'd make love, laugh like fools in the rain at target practice, and he'd slap her ass every day in the kitchen while she made dinner, but none of that meant she was going to stay.

She wrapped her arms around him. “There is always the chance my father will find me, but right now there is no place I want to be but here. There is nothing I need in town. That’s why I don’t go. Not because I’m scared to go into town, but because I don’t want to go.”

“And how will you do tonight with all the people?”

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