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“What?” she replied, her eyes softening as she looked from Day back up to me. “Don’t believe I’m actually an engineer because I can open a beer on my hip? I can do it in a lot of different ways, actually.” She grinned at me, her eyes sparkling in the dusty amber daylight filtering through the screen door.
“No, uh,” I stammered, then smiled back at her, shaking my head in disbelief. “Yeah, you know. I didn’t expectyou.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” she breathed, looking back at her son, who was now trying to climb into the tree.
“I’m not disappointed,” I said, and meant it. I was goddamn reeling if I was being honest. “You have the most experience in this field I’ve ever seen, especially for someone so young.”
“I don’t like to stay in one place for very long,” she said quickly, some of that fire draining from her eyes.
“I see.”
“Day!” she hollered through the door, pressing her fingers against the screen. “I saidgo get your stuff out of the car!”
“Okay!” he hollered back, rolling his eyes and slouching as he scurried around the side of the house and out of sight.
I ran my tongue along my lower lip, looking her up and down once more before reaching up and tilting my head toward her, my fingers resting on the ridge of my cowboy hat.
“I’m right next door if you need anything at all, ma’am.”
“Moira,” she corrected, her wide, full lips pulling into a smile. “I’m far from a ma’am.”
“Moira,” I repeated, her name like a fine scotch on my tongue. “I’ll leave you to settle in.”
I walked back through the bunkhouse, grinding my teeth as I shut the front screen door behind me and stalked back down the path.
A whole year with Moira Raylan, huh? That was a long time.
But it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
ChapterFour
Moira
Day slept like the dead our first night in the bunkhouse, which was a cozy log cabin nestled in a thicket of pine trees on the developed edge of the property. It was beautiful, and from the front porch I could see the sweeping plains and the cattle and horses Grant kept and keptwell.
I pushed the thought of Grant away from my mind for what felt like the millionth time and poured myself a cup of coffee before settling in the old rocking chair on the front porch.
Grant had been on my mind since he walked his fine ass away two nights ago after I’d made a goddamn fool of myself in the kitchen.
I’d been expecting some old, wealthy gentleman with too much time and money on his hands who thought a historical ranch was a good investment, a plaything, something to show off to his rich buddies from time to time.
Not a beefcake with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen, with a face like looked like it could have been carved from marble, and Wrangler jeans that fit like a fucking glove.
I squeezed my thighs together, shaking my head.
“Mmm, no. No, no—” I rocked furiously, careful not to spill my coffee as I watched the early morning mist roll over the field in the distance. A few farmhands were walking between the warehouses now, cowboy hats catching the first light of the sun as they started up tractors and carried saddles and spools of rope.
I wasn’t sure what they were up to on a Sunday morning like this one. Animals didn’t take days off, I guess. Neither did the people tasked with taking care of them.
Day and I had spent all day Saturday exploring the property. I hadn’t run into Grant at all. I’d seen him though, far in the distance with another equally handsome man roughly his age, the two of them on horseback as they inspected the cattle.
Grant was a country girl’s dream, something straight out of an old western film or romance novel.
He was also my boss, so there was no fucking way I could ever act on the feelings of lust currently plaguing me like a bad flu I could take nothing for.
He was much younger than I expected him to be, not even in his forties. He was tan, with sun-bleached brownish-blond hair that fell in soft curls around his ears beneath a well-worn cowboy hat. He had the delicious scruff on his face that I loved, and when he’d been standing in the bunkhouse kitchen, so close I could smell the woodsy cologne he wore, I’d wanted nothing more than to know what that stubble would feel like against the soft skin of my upper thighs.
“Christ, get yourself together!” I hissed at myself, standing up abruptly and pacing the porch, setting my coffee down on the railing before I spilled the scalding liquid all over myself.
