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He gave her no time to react when he swept her into his arms and kissed her hard. Then, he stood her back upright and smiled.
“Okay, let’s go.”
When she unlocked the door and flung it open, Jordon bolted first and then Lacey, moving quickly past the roommates who stood in the hall in shock. She didn’t even remember exactly what she’d said about having no time to talk and she’d see them later. They ran to Jordon’s truck, and took off as soon as he got it started.
“Oh my gosh that was hilarious. Did you see their faces?”
“Seriously priceless. You do know they’ll probably call you all day.”
“They might but I don’t believe I’ll be answering them.”
He could tell she was incredibly pleased with herself. She had an unbelievable natural beauty and her smile warmed his heart.
When Jordon stopped the truck in front of her parent’s ranch, he turned it off and turned to her.
“I hope you have a productive day. If you’re interested in a quite dinner for two at my place later, just come on over after you’re done here. If I don’t see you, I’ll eat alone.”
He put on his best pouty face and she laughed.
“Thanks Jordan. That sounds nice. What’s on the menu?”
“Do you like steak?”
“Oh boy do I like steak. You can’t work on a ranch and not like steak.”
Chapter Ten
Nothing about this day had been normal for Lacey. It was weird to pull up to her parents’ house and see her car already sitting there but even more weird that it looked like a ghost town. No tractors out and she didn’t see her dad’s pickup truck. She’d said goodbye to Jordon and walked toward the house where she saw that her mom’s car wasn’t in the garage either and the door was open.
“Looks like they’re both gone. Wonder where the are?” She went in through the back door—which was never locked—but the house was quiet. There was, however, a note taped to the fridge letting her know that her dad was out in the far pasture fixing fence again and her mom ran to the grocery.
“But no direction as to whether I should join Dad. No big deal, I’ll just check the horses. If there was another break in the fence, he might not have had time to feed.” She grabbed her rubber boots, threw her hair up in a bun, and put a ball cap on to cover the mess. The horses seemed pretty anxious to eat, not waiting until the bucket was full to stick their heads in it.
“Good grief, impatient much?” After they were done—which wouldn’t take much time by the looks of it—she’d turn them out into the pasture to graze. She didn’t have any lessons scheduled for the day because of the rodeo and fair in town.
While the horses meandered out into the back forty, Lacey saddled Nutmeg and took off down the dirt path onto the trails around the farm. She hadn’t ridden in a while and they could both use the escape—and for her, a little bit of clarity. She’d had a busy twenty-four hours, unlike any other. She was unsure how to process it all, actually.
She never wanted a boyfriend. The last one was an utter disaster. However, sure seems like that’s exactly what she was getting, a boyfriend. Of course, nothing had been officially discussed. But, against her better judgment, she admitted that she actually liked the guy. Even though they’d obviously slept together, they couldn’t really have a relationship based on sex when they didn’t remember doing it.
She probably could have asked him a little more about himself before they started drinking. She didn’t really know where he was from and why he came to Rock Creek. Who knew if he had family anywhere around, either.
As she got to the creek, she remembered Jordon saying his farm backed up to her dad’s right there. Made her wonder what he was doing at that moment. Seems she never bothered to even ask what he did on his farm. Some friend she was. Guess that would leave more for them to talk about during dinner.
“Okay, Nutmeg. Let’s run out some of those bugs, whadda ya say?” She turned her horse back toward home, gave her a little kick, and they ran like lightning.
* * *
“Hello, sir.”Jordon jumped out of his truck and approached the man working on the fence. He’d received a call a little while ago from the owner of the property backing his, to possibly coordinate efforts to control the fence line between their two pieces of land.
“Mr. Cross, nice to meet you. Thanks so much for coming.”
“It’s my pleasure. What can I do to help? Are we rebuilding fences?” Unfortunately, he didn’t know the first thing about fencing but he was more than willing to learn.
“Seems like I am forever re-doing this damn fence but I’d like to know why. Just yesterday my daughter and I were out fixing in a different spot. I’m not losing any cattle that I can tell but something is taking these down. I suppose it could be kids but this is pretty far out here. What kids are gonna come out here day after day and not be seen?”
“No idea, sir. I do admit this is all kind of new to me but common sense would tell me no one is camping out here waiting for you to fix the damn thing and to go take it down somewhere else. Are you sure it isn’t a wild animal?”
“That’s a good question. Could very well be, who knows. Other than broken fencing, I haven’t seen any fur or skin caught in the barbed wire so it’s just puzzling. The cattle guards were always set to deter wildlife from crossing the bridge but I would think just about any wild animal we’d have out here would just jump right over the fence.”
