Page 3 of Made for You
“Short trip?”
She hesitated. “We’ll see.”
“You ever been to Montana before?” I asked.
She took another sip of her wine. “Once.”
“And?”
“I liked it.” Her eyes met mine over the rim of her glass. “What about you?” she asked. “What are you doing here tonight?”
“Same thing everyone else is doing.” I gave her a half-smile, the one my brothers always teased me about, but which usually had a woman ready to drop her panties. “Blowing off steam after a long week.”
She shifted on the stool, crossing one leg over the other. “And what do you do for a living?”
Huh. Not the question I expected. I blinked, caught off guard by the shift. I figured she’d tease me for trying too hard to flirt with her, not pivot to job interview mode.
I found I didn’t mind the change in direction. Hell, I figured it meant she was interested.
I took another pull of my beer, considering. I’d tell her anything she wanted to know—hell, I kind of wanted to—but first? She had to give me her damn name. “I’ll trade you,” I said, setting the bottle back down with a decisive thunk and meeting her gaze directly. “You tell me your name, and I’ll answer any question you have.”
She held my gaze for a beat, her fingers drumming once against the bar in what might have been indecision. Then she relented with a faint smile. “Siena.”
“Siena,” I repeated, letting her name settle on my tongue. “Pretty name for a pretty lady.”
That earned me a soft, throaty laugh. “Don’t ruin it, Gage.”
I flashed her a grin. “I wouldn’t dare.”
She smirked into her glass, and I leaned back slightly on my stool. “My family owns Three Pines Ranch.”
Her brows arched slightly, and her gaze swept over my frame, clearly reassessing me. The surprise in her expression shifted to something that looked like impressed recognition.
“You know it?” I asked, turning my bottle in slow circles on the bar top.
She lifted one shoulder in the tiniest shrug, but I caught the way her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her wine stem. “I might.”
That surprised me more than it should have.
Most people within a couple hundred miles knew the Mercer name. Hard not to when your family owned the largest ranch in the valley. But Siena didn’t strike me as the type who kept up with Western land dynasties. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be shocked. Thanks to that damn Netflix show that was loosely based on my family’s ranch, we’d become low-level local celebrities in the past few years.
I rubbed the back of my neck, still not entirely comfortable with the attention it sometimes brought. “Lemme guess,” I said, watching her closely. “You’re a fan of overly dramatic ranch soaps.”
“I plead the fifth,” she said with a little smirk. “Let’s just say I’ve done my homework on the area.” She took another sip of wine before asking, “And what do you do on your family’s ranch?” She sounded genuinely interested, and not just because of the show.
I relaxed back into my seat, my chest expanding slightly as I talked about the place I loved most on Earth. “I spend most of my time on horseback, looking after things. In my copious amount of free time, I’m wrangling whatever project’s blown up that week or helping my brothers out.” I chuckled and shook my head. “Never a dull moment.”
Her eyes sparkled with a mix of amusement and approval. She glanced around the bar, taking in the mix of patrons. “So you’re a real, honest-to-goodness cowboy, not one of these cosplayers.”
She waved her glass in a lazy arc, encompassing the guys in pristine Stetsons and clean, expensive boots who’d never seen a day of actual ranch work. The gesture was casual, but I caught the slight edge of disdain in it.
“That I am.” I took another drink, then added, “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The land’s in our blood. Always has been.”
That seemed to land with her. She went quiet for a moment, like she was weighing something, then leaned in a little closer. “What’s it like?” she asked. “Waking up every day knowing where you belong.”
That stopped me. I studied her for a beat, trying to figure out what she wasn’t saying. Her question hadn’t come from nowhere. “It’s…” My posture straightened as I thought about home, about the land that had raised me. “It’s a gift. But it’s a responsibility, too. The kind that doesn’t come with days off.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving mine.
