Page 5 of Craving Her Cowboy
Asha didn’t rise to the bait. She measured Gavin’s reaction, the tight coil of his frame, the way his gaze flicked over her then away. He was pissed but not surprised. She imagined he was used to getting his way, or at least used to working alone.
“Copy that,” Gavin said, voice flat.
Andy stood, signaling the meeting was over. “You two talk logistics. Figure out what you need. Material should be here this week.”
Asha took her cue and turned toward the door. Gavin moved at the same time, and for a split second, they blocked each other. She sidestepped, but he didn’t, so their shoulders brushed. More collision than contact. Static leapt from his skin to hers, a tiny shock that made her pulse jump.
She didn’t turn back, just kept walking, but in the mirror above the old sideboard, she caught him watching her leave. Not evaluating, not threatening, just… watching.
She made it down the hall before letting out the breath she’d been holding.
***
Evening hit the ranch like a switch. One minute heat rose off the pastures like steam, the next a bruised sky of purple, gray, and pink, along with the distinct scent of cooling grass. Asha walked the long way back to her cabin, skipping the main road and cutting through the overgrown path along the fence line.
Her cabin was the last in the row. Small, square, perfectly anonymous. The windows were dusty, and the porch had seen better days, but inside, everything was squared away and clean. She dropped her day-bag onto the chair in the corner and took a slow lap, checking the perimeter. Door locked. Windows latched. No blind spots. The ritual calmed her more than she liked to admit.
She flicked on the overhead light and set her work for the next day: boots lined up, jeans and shirt laid out, tool bag inventoried and zipped. Everything in place, everything accounted for. The only indulgence was her battered paperback copy ofEnder’s Game. She’d read the book so often, most pages were dog-eared and nearly falling out. She placed it on the pillow, a promise to herself for later.
In the tiny bathroom, she caught her reflection in the mirror. The face looking back was older than she remembered, eyes a shade too sharp, the scar above her eyebrow brighter in the fluorescent light. She splashed water on her face and leaned in, searching for cracks.
She thought about Gavin and the way he seemed to resent her presence on instinct. She couldn’t blame him, really. She’d spent her life in the orbit of men who thought they were the only ones tough enough to survive the hell they’d been in.
She dried her face and stood up tall, giving her reflection a hard look. “This is just another mission. Get in, do the job, get out. No need to dissect it too much.”
She set her phone alarm for 0600, then changed it to 0530, just to be sure. She wasn’t about to give Gavin the satisfaction of showing up first.
There was nothing left to do but wait for morning. She took her boots out to the porch and started cleaning them, the familiar rhythm a comfort. Across the ranch, lights flicked off in the other cabins, one by one. The world got quiet except for the cicadas and a distant cow mooing in the distance.
She finished with the boots and lined them up by the door. Then she just sat, arms crossed, gaze pinned on the horizon until the last window in the main house went dark. She didn’t sleep easily, but she didn’t expect to. There’d be time for that when the work was done.
Chapter 3
Gavin’s alarm went off at 5:30am on the dot, but he’d already been awake for half an hour. The ranch was dark and so was his mood. He showered cold, dressed in old jeans, a battered tee, and boots. He took his coffee black and too hot, holding it to his lips for a moment before gulping it back. The walk to the ridge was uphill all the way, a quarter-mile of dirt track.
He made it to the ridge by 7:12. The sun was just pushing over the horizon, lighting up the pastures and the distant water tower. It was the perfect moment for him to get his bearings. Until he spotted the figure up ahead, head down, measuring tape looped at the hip.
Sleeves rolled, arms already marked with dust. She was staking the ground with a precision that was, if he was being honest, pretty fucking admirable. But he’d be damned if he let her know that. He stood in her line of sight and waited.
Asha didn’t jump. Didn’t startle or even pause, just sighted down her tape and called, “You’re late.”
“It’s seven-twelve,” Gavin said.
She smiled, thin and sharp. “Time is relative.”
He wanted to argue the point, but she’d clearly been here long enough to make him look like the tourist. He tried to ignore how much that stung.
“You already started marking the foundation?”
“Per the plan.” She turned the stake in with a boot heel, checking the line. “Unless you want to redesign the whole thing.”
“No.” He came closer, scanning her work. “Not yet, anyway.”
They stood there, both looking at the flagged outline of what would become a six-person bunkhouse. The sun was climbing now, pulling a faint mist off the grass below. Far off, a pickup engine chugged to life and a chorus of crows bitched at each other from the trees.
He heard the soft thud of tires on dirt and turned to see Andy Harvey coming up the last hundred yards in the Polaris Ranger with a cooler strapped to the back, radio blasting old country from the dash. He killed the engine and dismounted with a groan, waving a folded paper at them.
“Mornin’, you two.”
