The Rancher's Untamed Heart (13 page)

Monday evening, my phone rang, interrupting my bad television marathon.

"Hello, Clint!" I said as soon as I picked it up.

"Hey, sweetheart," he said. "Are you busy?"

"No, just the opposite," I said, turning off the TV and stretching back on the couch. "I'm on my second episode of Wife Swap."

He laughed. "You watch that sort of thing?"

"Only occasionally, when I've had a long day and want to turn my brain off," I said, crossing my fingers. I wasn't sure I wanted Clint to know the extent of my love affair with trashy shows right off the bat.

"Are you busy this Friday?" he asked.

"Nope," I said. "I was going to go out to a trivia night with some coworkers, but I told them today I wasn't up to it."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Well," I said, turning the remote over and over in my hands while my phone was wedged in my ear, "I was sort of hoping that I'd be going on a date."

"Glad to hear it," he said. "Can I pick you up at six?"

"Sure," I said. "That's pretty early to get here from your place, though, isn't it?"

"I've stayed late so many weekends for my hands, so they could go on dates. I have a list of favors to call in the length of your arm," he grumbled.

I laughed.

"Are you sure you want to use them?" I asked.

"No better time," he said. "You want steak? I'd love to take you out for steak."

"I'm always in the mood for a big hunk of steak," I said.

There was a pause on the line.

"Was that meant to be sexy?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I just really love meat."

It was my turn to pause.

"Damn," I said. "I'm not good at this."

He laughed softly. "I don't know, I think I'm a fan," he said.

"Do you have to get off the line right away?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "I'm sitting in my office with my feet on the desk. Bad habit, but I'm pretty comfy and I have nowhere to be."

"Good," I told him. "What is your television secret shame?"

We both laughed.

It turned out that he would admit to watching episodes of any of the reality shows about home improvement or home buying.

"I like it when they're choosing between two houses and one is just terrible, like it's a big guess which one they'll take," he said.

"Ugh, sometimes they take the horrible one, though!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, never buy anything with termites. I don't care if it's in a better school zone," Clint said, his tone completely confident.

We talked for almost an hour, not just about termites and television. We talked about the other hands on the ranch, and I told him about my coworker Sarah, and a few of the other girls at the office.

When we finally hung up, I tidied the house and went to bed, dreaming of steak dinners with Clint.

They were good dreams.

That Friday night, I rushed home from work. If he was going to take me out to a steak dinner, I wanted to look great, and I only had an hour.

I hopped into the shower and quickly freshened up my hair and shaved my legs.

Unfortunately, that meant blow-drying my hair, which was one of my least favorite things to do. It always took me forever and I found it tedious.

It took me ten minutes to get it somewhat under control, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped that the dry air would work on it before Clint showed up.

After my shower, I tried on three pairs of jeans and five shirts, before giving up and going with my first choice, tossing the others into my overnight bag. I grabbed toothpaste and toothbrush and everything else that I thought that I might need if I ended up staying the weekend. I didn't want to end up looking like I'd brought a suitcase to move in with, so I tossed some of the shirts and jeans back on the bed.

Then I realized that I didn't want Clint to see my messy bed if he came in to get a drink or something, so I quickly cleaned my bedroom.

Then I cleaned the kitchen, and the living room, and the bathroom.

Fortunately, my apartment was small and I wasn't incredibly messy, but by the end of the week it usually had at least a little that needed to be tidied away.

It took me a record amount of time to clean the apartment. I should go on dates more often.

Always amazing how much you can get done when you're not dawdling.

Unfortunately, my speedy shower and cleaning left me with more time to kill.

I put on my makeup in a leisurely fashion, and by 5:45 I was checking the time on my phone every minute or so. It felt like I'd been waiting forever.

To keep myself busy, I started reading a book, my tattered old copy of some fun chick lit I'd read last summer. I still checked my phone every minute or less, though, and it was hard to stay engaged.

After seven checks of my phone, I gave up, kept it out, tossed the book onto the end table, and stretched out on the couch to play Angry Birds.

I got through a few levels and realized that 6pm had come and gone, and Clint was four minutes late.

This waiting was killing me. I resolved not to check the time.

Focus on the silly game, I told myself.

I made myself get through another chunk before I checked my phone. 6:18. That's not a little late, that's just plain late.

I called him, but there was no answer. Shot off a "Where are you?" text.

My heart started to beat a little faster. Did he decide that he didn't want to come after all? Had he just gotten wrapped up in ranch work? Was he in some sort of terrible accident?

I spent the next five minutes picturing all of the gruesome things that could happen to a man on a ranch or in a truck on the highway.

I was starting to get really concerned, so I called him again and left a voicemail.

"Hey, Clint, it's almost six-thirty and I haven't seen you. Hope everything's okay. Please give me a call."

My voice sounded too-perky, but I didn't bother re-recording.

At 6:45, I decided to go out to the damn ranch myself.

I stuck a note to my front door in an envelope with Clint's name on it, saying where I'd gone, and headed out to my little car with my overnight bag and my purse. I didn't drive the car much, but I liked it.

I did have a few moments of doubt, did we not know each other well enough for me to be hunting him down like this? Was I violating his privacy?

Damn it, he'd told me he'd be there to pick me up, and he wasn't there. I had never gotten the impression before that he was at all flighty or unreliable, and I didn't want to think that he was.

I guess, if he had just forgotten, I'd know that he didn't like me that much, and I wasn't missing anything. I'd write him off, roll my eyes about it to Sarah, and try to forget him.

The drive was long enough to shift me from worried to just plain mad.

This man had gotten my hopes up and then left me to stew for an hour. I understood that things come up, but damn, give me a call.

I was hungry, I had eaten a light lunch in anticipation of the steak, and I was grumpy, and I was disappointed.

Clint Cannon was handsome and, in his own surly way, charming, but this wasn’t how I liked to be treated.

When I got to the ranch, there were lights on in the cabin that Brandon and Will shared, and there were a few cars parked. I recognized Clint’s truck by the dark house, illuminated briefly in the beams of my headlights.

There were only a few outside lights, this was a ranch that truly got dark at night.

I didn’t want to beat Brandon’s door down demanding to know where Clint was like some sort of crazy woman, and I saw that the light in the window of Clint’s office in the end of one of the barns was on, so I headed there. I parked my car by the truck and walked over, to give myself time in the fresh air to cool down.

When I got close to the window, I heard Clint’s voice, and it sounded angry. I wondered if there was someone in there with him, so I hesitated, and walked quietly up to the window to listen for a minute.

If someone else was in there, they were getting really chewed out. His voice was going on and on, in a low rumbling growl of anger.

Even though I was still worried about how he’d take me showing up like this, I was a little turned on by the heat in his voice.

I had to tell myself firmly that this was not at all the time.

The window had white red-and-white checked curtains on it, I couldn’t see through to the man inside. I crossed in front of it and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Clint barked.

I opened the door and stepped inside. It was easy to see that Clint was alone. It was a small room, not filthy like some farm offices I’d seen, but not exactly spic-and-span.

Even though I wiped my feet on the doormat, I might have added to the dust and oats on the floor.

Clint’s eyes widened when he saw me, and he sat up in his chair.

“Naomi?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

"What are you doing here?" I retorted. "We should be eating dessert right now, or on our way back here after a lovely dinner, or on a walk."

Clint looked highly concerned. He looked down at the paperwork, and then blinked in a slightly dazed way. "I had a few minutes to kill before I picked you up, and I sat down to check a number in these reports. I was going to leave at five."

He looked at the gingham curtains.

"I'm guessing it's not five," he said, lamely, and yawned.

"I waited for you until seven, and called five times. It's eight," I said. I'd crossed my arms and was tapping my toes in the dust on the floor.

He looked stricken. He sat up and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Damn," he muttered. He looked back up at me, his eyes full of regret.

"Naomi, I'm so sorry," he said, simply. "I never should have gotten distracted, it wasn't fair to you and it wasn't right to leave you waiting. I promised you a steak dinner at six and I didn't keep my word."

"No, you didn't," I said, eyebrows raised. It was a good apology, a great apology, but I was still hurt.

He stood up, unfolding his lean body and rising above the desk.

"Will you let me cook you a steak now?" he asked. "Have you eaten?"

"I could eat," I admitted.

"Please, let me cook you dinner. It's the least I can do," he said. "Unless you'd rather go out now? We can get in the truck and be there, they don't close until ten, maybe eleven."

I stifled a yawn of my own.

"It's been a long week," I said. "I think I'll let you cook me dinner."

He came around the desk and opened the door for me, taking a moment look into my eyes. His presence did funny things to my body, lighting a spark within me.

Clint reached out and took my hand, holding it in his own.

“It really is the least I can do,” he repeated. “I broke my word to you, I let you down. I’m truly sorry about tonight.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said. “I wondered if you’d gotten in some kind of accident.”

The tall rancher shook his head. “No, just being a fool.”  He smiled down at me. “You look absolutley gorgeous,” he said. “It is a cryin’ shame that I won’t be able to show you off tonight, but it’s my own fault.”

I smiled back at him. “Thanks, but I’m still mad at you. I got all dressed up and everything.”

He nodded. “I understand. Let’s get back up to the house and get you fed.”

It seems like he knew a thing or two about pacifying an angry woman - food, compliments, and regretful apologies. It wouldn’t mean a lot if he did it again, though.

As we walked the worn path up to the large house, I finally asked what was driving me crazy. “What had you so distracted that you forgot about coming out for three hours?”

It was hard to see his face in the dim light, but his sigh was pretty clear.

“Like I said, I sat down to check one number, but what was in the computer couldn’t have been right, so I had to hunt down the paper I’d started with a while back, and then I realized that I’d put it in wrong, so I had to re-enter all the numbers. I still don’t have the blasted count of how much I’ve spent on hay for tax time,” he finished.

“So, paperwork, not your strongest point?” I asked.

“I hate it,” he said. “Worst part of running a ranch.”

“Why do you do it? Most of the ranchers I’ve dealt with have at least one person to take care of that for them,” I pointed out.

We’d reached the porch, he stepped ahead of me to open the door.

“My father always taught me that you can’t cheat yourself, but anyone else can cheat you if you don’t know what you’re doing. A rancher who doesn’t know how to do all of this himself is at the mercy of every shark with a certificate,” he said.

It sounded like a direct quote from his father.

“Well, if it’s this much of a struggle for you,” I said, trailing off as I walked into the kitchen and he gestured me to a stool on the other side of the island in the kitchen.

“I get someone to check it for me,” Clint said. “By the time tax season comes around, I’ve wrestled the figures into control, and they rarely find mistakes. It’s just a headache to keep up with.”

“Enough of a headache to keep you working through your date,” I pointed out.

I wasn’t ready to let that go.