Page 69 of When We Were Us
I give her a smirk. “One and the same.” She shakes her head and follows me out of the barn.
I point to the white Chevy parked next to my truck, as it has a small horse trailer already attached to it. We may not end up needing it, but if she’s in pretty bad shape, it’ll be faster to have a trailer ready if we have to bring her back here.
“What?” I say, catching her eye over the hood before climbing in.
“That was a great night.” She gives me another one of those tentative smiles as she turns and opens the door to climb in.
I chuckle to myself.
Damn great night.
Chucking the halter into the back of the truck, I check to make sure I’ve got my long-handled bolt cutters with me. I think I know the exact spot she’s stuck, and if I’m right, it shouldn’t take much to get her out. I’ve got everything I need to repair the fence if I do have to cut some.
“Does this kind of stuff happen a lot?”
“No, but calves aren’t the smartest. Sometimes they don’t see the fencing, or if something like a coyote spooks them, they can get hung up on a stretch of fence. Haven’t seen it myself in years, but it happens.”
“I don’t know much about cattle ranching, but I’m impressed you keep all this stuff stocked at the ranch. It’s not everything I usually have at my disposal, but I should be able to manage whatever she’s got going on.”
“We try to do as much as we can before I have to call in Doc. When you’ve got this many cattle, calling the vet for every little thing gets expensive pretty quickly.”
When I glance her way, she’s watching me intently and I remember the feel of her hands all over me at the bar. I try not to stare as she drops her gaze and buckles her seat belt.
There are a few wayward strands of hair at her nape that won’t stay in the bun she quickly fashioned. I’m momentarily caught off guard when she leans forward to re-tie her shoelace with a wince.
“Sorry about stepping on your toes, by the way.”
She lets out a light laugh and groans. “It’s fine. I’m the one who was dumb enough to go hiking this morning without proper footwear.”
Her shirt rides up her back a bit and I catch a two-inch-wide strip of sun-kissed skin between the waistband of her leggings and the bottom of her shirt.
My mind snags on a memory of eighteen-year-old Wrenley in a teeny, tiny red bikini and a freckle in the shape of a heart on her lower back. A quick glance isn’t enough to find it, but I can just make out the fine blonde peach fuzz that dusts her lower back.
Fuck me. Focus, man.
I drag my eyes back to the dashboard and put the truck into gear. Throwing an arm over the seat back, I reverse until I can swing around and pull out onto the dirt road that runs perpendicular to the main ranch house and stables.
“How far is it?” she asks, settling back against the seat and opening the tote box on her lap. She starts sorting through her supplies. Organizing, it looks like.
“Not long. Six, maybe seven minutes,” I say, cutting a quick glance her way.
We ride in silence for a minute or two before she breaks it.
“How long has it been?” she asks, and I can feel her eyes on the side of my face.
It takes me a few seconds to process her question because my mind is on that freckle and how badly I want to find it. Not to mention how badly I want to kiss her and touch her again. Hear her soft moans and whimpers against my skin.
“Since you took over the ranch?”
“Uh, almost four years,” I tell her and glance in her direction.
Her eyes on me, she waits for me to continue.
“Pop was thrown from his horse three and a half years ago. His back is messed up pretty badly. Even with months of physical therapy, he just isn’t the same physically. Took him a good six months to finally admit that he wasn’t able to do the job anymore.”
“I can imagine.”
“When he finally handed things over for good, I made some changes. If it were up to Pop, he’d slap some duct tape on everything and everyone and call it fixed. He never even had a first aid kit, just a box of bandages and some crusty, old, expired Aspirin.”
