Page 7 of Dusk's Devotion (Blue Ice Ranch 3)

“Hey sorry, dropped it.”

“Shit be careful. Landon paid a fucking fortune for those things,” Nate informed me as if I didn’t know. We’d all gotten the lecture. Handle the long-range walkie-talkies as if they were your own precious newborn. Or cough up a few thousand bucks. “What kind of visitor did you have?”

“Lone wolf. Injured.” My sight lingered on the swell of Shep’s buttocks all bound in worn denim. “He’s been taken care of,” I added, then turned from the man lying in my bed on my blanket with his head on my pillow. There was no time to dwell on what had happened to the youngest McCrary princeling. I had work to do. That was one thing you could rely on when ranching/farming. No matter the weather you always had chores to tend to.

Some days choreswere relatively easy.

And some days they kicked your motherfucking ass.

Today was one of those ass-kicking days. It started off with shoveling. And that theme hung around all damn day as I moved from digging a path to the lean-to so I could water and hay Dundee. That was his name as long as I drew breath. To hell with what McCrary said. I dug my way to the snowmobile and shoveled that out. I rode in whiteout conditions to the feedlot where the cattle gathered, heads down, backs coated with snow, like hungry patrons outside a swanky eatery in Soho. Not that I’d ever been to Soho…

It was more digging to get the doors of the barn open. I shoveled more as I waited for the engine block warmer to warm the engine. Then things picked up speed a bit. With the skid steer I could plow wider swaths. It still took me hours to spear, carry, unwrap, and place the massive round bales. All of this while snow, bits of ice, and wind howling off the sides of the Tetons whipped me unmercifully. After the feeding came the watering so I switched out shoveling for chopping. One saving grace was that with the storm parked overhead, the temperature had warmed a bit. So the ice hadn’t gotten any thicker. Thank God for small miracles and all that. I rode back to the cabin after dark, soaked through, freezing cold, starved, and thirsty. The pop-open can of beans and cold coffee from my thermos was gone by eleven o’clock.

I shouldered my way to the door, face turned from the blistering wind and snow, and pushed through it. The warmth on my face and frigid fingers nearly made me weep with joy. If not for Shepherd McCrary sitting at the table spooning something that smelled delicious into his buggered up face, I might have.

“Lucy, I’m home!” I bellowed as I kicked the door shut. His eyebrows beetled. Even that small motion looked painful.

“Fuck all the way off, Abbott. I’m not your wife.”

“You could be if you’d only wear that cute little apron and the heels I bought you for our special date nights.” I peeled off my gloves, threw my helmet to the floor, and unwrapped my frozen scarf as Shep tried to look menacing but only got to pissy. It was a joyful moment seeing him so utterly disgusted with me. The feeling was mutual. How funny would it be to see him in a fucking lacy apron?! For some freaky reason, my dick hummed in pleasure at the thought. I gave it a slap with my stiff scarf just to knock some sense into it.

“I truly hate you. You’re the most immature man I have ever met,” he said as he jabbed his spoon into his bowl of—I sniffed the air while unzipping my snowmobile suit—beef stew by the smell. My gut rumbled.

“Right, and you’re not wholly immature? I’ve seen you standing there in your ten thousand dollar suits simpering along with every asinine joke and racist or homophobic slur your moronic siblings throw out at people,” I flung out.

His shoulders were tight, as was his jaw. “I never use racial or homophobic slurs!”

Ouch. That hit a nerve. Good. He needed his nerves hit. All the McCrarys did. I tossed my sodden outerwear over the back of the empty kitchen chair as my brain churned to come up with a counter to his comeback. Huh. Okay, yeah, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t recall hearing hateful shit tumble out of him.

“But you do just stand there and smile at the hate they spread so that makes you complicit.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Snappy comeback. I thought you college boys were supposed to be so sharp and literate. Is that fresh fry bread?” I asked as I padded over to the table in saggy long johns and damp wool socks.

That smug look tried to settle on his battered face but failed. “It is as a matter of fact.”

I sat down and stole some, shoving it into my mouth. Oh, holy fuck. It was still warm. He tossed his head in the direction of the fire. I got up and hurried to grab a bowl from the drainer and paused when it hit me that there were clean bowls. Shepherd McCrary had washed the dishes? Huh. Color me shocked. And hungry. I hurried to the cast-iron pot sitting on the stove and ladled up myself some canned stew. Then I dropped down, took more fry bread, and dove into the stew.

“How the hell do you know how to make fry bread?” I asked around mouthfuls.

He chewed delicately. Either because he was raised refined or his teeth hurt from someone hitting him in the face.

“My mother died when I was young. There were four men in the house to feed,” he said after chewing tenderly and swallowing.

“Please, like you don’t have cooks, maids, and butlers.”

I smiled as his hackles shot right up. “We don’t have a fucking butler! And for your information, we weren’t always as wealthy as we are now. We had lean times.”

“Pfft. Right. So lean that you had to settle for community college instead of Ivy League?”

He called me a prick, and that was when I knew I’d hit that nail directly on the head.

“I went to Vassar.”

I smirked at him with cheeks stuffed full of bread and stew. “It’s not that prestigious.” I arched an eyebrow. He pushed his empty bowl away and sighed. “Fine, yes, it’s prestigious, but it’s not…never mind. Why am I even talking to you?”

“Because it’s either talk to me or the cans or the towel. Thanks for washing that shit up. Did your hands pucker up and fall off touching hot, soapy water?”

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