Heart & Hope (Rosewood Ranch #2)

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

REED

I t takes every fucking thing I have to stand still as Ruby kisses my cheek. A friendly thank-you kiss. A platonic gesture of kindness. Like you would give your grandma at the Christmas holidays. And my cock is stretching in my jeans with her this close.

But I will be damned if I’m going to make her uncomfortable. Besides, she’s all New York and ambitious and wants a career and shit. And then there’s me—the wanderer, the least driven person on the planet. Hell, I can’t even decide on a direction, let alone head that way.

So, I tussle her hair again as I reclaim my hat, some kind of big-brotherly, friendly gesture. And I will the fire in my core to peter out before it burns me alive. But man, she smells fine. That sweet smile of hers is enough to suffocate a man with his own desire.

“Hop up, baby.”

I pat the saddle and reaffirm my grip on Magnet’s reins.

“Okay,” she says, pushing the cap back on her head as she ducks to the other side of the horse to mount. Her boots bounce on the ground before she launches herself into the saddle. She adjusts her seat and grips the pommel. Leading Magnet outside, I round his head and flip the reins over his neck and hand them to Ruby, slipping her foot from the stirrup and sliding my own in.

I swing up behind the saddle and put my arms around her waist, taking the reins from her hands. She leans back a little and returns her foot to the stirrup. “This alright?” she asks, the two words breathy.

“Perfect, Rubes,” I whisper against her ear.

She glances over her shoulder with a gaze that would bring the toughest of men to their knees. Her fire fades to sweetness as I nudge Magnet into a walk.

“Mountains, fields, or stream?” I ask.

She’s quiet for a moment.

“Mountains, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I squeeze Magnet forward, and he breaks into a lope. Ruby squeals and holds on to the pommel. I close my body around hers as we ride past the barns and toward the northern fields, heading for the mountains.

Thirty minutes and two hard-ons at being this close to the most beautiful girl I’ve ever had the privilege to know later, we make it to the base of the mountains.

“Oh, wow. They are much more intimidating up close.” Ruby tilts her face up.

“Mother Nature’s finest. Want to go up?”

“Maybe a little way? I don’t want Magnet to be exhausted.”

“He’s tough.”

We walk up the incline until we make it halfway up to a plateau. I rein in the gelding to a halt and swing down. Ruby kicks her feet from the stirrups and holds her arms out. She must have seen Addy do the same. I smile up at her, and she swings her right leg over the pommel. I catch her as she slides from the saddle.

Holding her up against my chest, she’s the only thing I can focus on. Heart hammering like thunder, I let her down to the ground. But she doesn’t let go of my arms. And I don’t want to let go, either.

Sweet Jesus, Reed.

My gut ties into knots as I force air in and out of my lungs.

“Thanks,” she rasps, pulling away with a ragged inhale, and walks away.

All I can do is watch her as she takes in the mountains and fields that will be my home for the rest of my life. And I’m grateful for what my parents have given me; I am. But it wasn’t my choice. My decision.

And that smarts.

And I all of a sudden have an acute understanding of what it’s like to be a caged animal. I come to stand at Ruby’s side. She studies everything in sight from our high vantage point. “This place is going to be wonderful, Reed.”

I shove my hands in my back pockets as the wind plays with my shirt, and stare down at the ranch that Harry gave me.

When I don’t respond, she turns back. “You don’t think so?”

“I don’t know, Rubes.”

“Which part?”

“All of it. The part where I own it. The responsibility is solely my own. The part where I have to live up to Harry’s expectations.”

“You’ll be fine. You’re smart and you work hard. I’ve seen it.”

“Maybe, but I?—”

She holds my gaze, waiting.

“What if I can’t do this on my own? What if...” My shoulders are concrete, and the air in my lungs burns. “What if I fail and let everyone down?”

“You won’t, okay? You can do this, Reedsy.”

My hands tingle and I walk back to Magnet, grappling for each breath. Trembling fingers find the saddle fenders and grip tight. Struggling to pull in air, I’m fucking drowning.

A small, warm hand rests on my back. “Reed?”

I drop to my knees when dizziness floods in. Bile rises, and I pull at my loose collar. My hat hits the ground. I choke in noisy breaths.

“Shit, Reed.” Ruby is in front of me, hands cupping my jaw. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

Each inhale I take is too tight, and a strangled moan slips out on every exhale.

Worry and fear tighten Ruby’s eyes.

Goddamn it.

Shit, I’m scaring her.

No.

I close my eyes, desperate to take back control. My heart flings against my ribs, and I shake my almost numb hands out, forcing air in and air out.

“Reed, look at me.” Her words are wobbly, her voice cracking at the last one.

I open my eyes and try to apologize for scaring her. She pulls me close, her head dropping against my neck. “You scared me.”

Tears burn behind my eyes, and I fold her into my hold. Letting her warmth, her body pressed to mine, extinguish the raging torrent that stole the air from my lungs. Her smell swallows me whole, and her beating heart against my chest calms my own.

“I’m sorry, Rubes,” I rasp.

Now she pushes out of my hold, holding me at arm’s length, and I miss her already. “Don’t you dare apologize. You hear me?” She’s shaking her head. “Don’t you ever be sorry for being who you are.”

“Harry may disagree with you there.”

“Harry can bite my ass. You are more important than his bottom line. Or any grand plan he has.”

I stare at her. The fire she carries, the way she knows who she is. I run my hands through her hair. What I wouldn’t do to kiss that beautiful mouth. To have her want me the way I have wanted her since the second I saw her that night in Great Falls.

“What caused this?” she asks tenderly.

“I can’t do it. I can’t be tied to the land for the rest of my life. I’m not Hudson or Harry. It’s not who I am.”

“You don’t have to be either of them. You’re you . You have no idea how incredible you are. You’re kind, extremely thoughtful, hilarious most of the time and...” Her gaze drops to my mouth before returning to my eyes, laced with fire. “And if this was another time and I led a different life, I would?—”

I run my thumb over her bottom lip, trailing it over her jaw. “I wish you could stay.”

The words tumble out on their own accord.

“I can’t?—”

She closes her eyes as if she is thinking about what’s right in front of us. Like she feels every single thing that I do and has been for months, too.

“I know. Sorry, baby. It slipped out.”

She huffs a small laugh before wiping her eyes dry. “Why do you call me that?”

“Baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Feels right, ya know. I know we will only ever be friends. But my brain doesn’t have another name for you, Ruby.”

I have to be honest. I know she’s leaving. She doesn’t owe me a thing. And I want her to have the life she dreams about. Just wish it didn’t mean I had to lose the only thing I have ever been sure of in my entire life.

Fully recovered and in command of my own respiratory system, I bundle her back onto Magnet, and we head down the mountain. She’s quiet on the way down, leaning back into me. Her hands are around mine on the reins, as if anchoring me in case I spiral again. My life preserver.

“There are other ways to make an income on a ranch that don’t include being tied to the land and Harry’s way of life, Reed.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” She twists in the saddle, our eyes meeting. “You have options. You want to check out some other business models?”

“Sure, baby, whatever you want.”

“No. No, Reed. It’s what you want. Stop people-pleasing, or you are going to end up miserable.”

I hug her tighter and sink my face into her hair, never wanting to leave this spot. “If you say so, beautiful,” I say, muffled against her neck.

“Maybe that’s what happened to Harry?” she quips.

I laugh so hard my gut hurts. Apparently, I’m not the only funny one on this horse.

The ride home is too short, even with Magnet’s overloaded, lazy walk. And when I unfold myself from Ruby and swing down off the gelding, my world feels colder.

And I’ll be fucked if I want that.

Ruby Robbins may have found a way to turn things around for me. But I’m the mug standing in front of Harry Rawlins right now, nerves sending me higher by the minute, as I try to articulate the idea we came up with that I can live with.

My palms are sweaty and my pulse bounds through my head, drowning out the words I struggle so hard to make come out of my mouth.

A ranch resort.

A holiday place for city folk to escape to and live like a cowboy, or cowgirl, for three to seven days. Experiencing everything Montana mountain country has to offer.

Ruby stands beside me, and Ma sits at her spot at the kitchen table with Harry at the head.

Always.

Ruby’s shoulders are back, her work face is on.

Kind of feel sorry for the old man.

Nah, nope. Not a bit.

Ruby nudges me, and I slide the tablet with her presentation down the table to Harry. He doesn’t break eye contact as it moves toward him.

“With your perm?—”

Ruby elbows me hard to remind me we talked about this. Time to make decisions.

“I have come up with a way to move forward with my ranch that will be a better, more profitable model. And I want to run it past you, since you have experience with business.”

Harry’s focus drops to the tablet.

“This model helps turn a profit even in the dry time and when cattle prices are low. Spreading the income generation to more than one basket, so to speak.”

A small smile pulls over Ma’s face. I glance at Ruby as she sits in the seat next to her. I take the one at the end of the table as my old man swipes through the slides. Which, after hours of research and calculations, Rubes and I put together. A working holiday ranch model with three tiers of involvement, from those folks who want a vacation and a bit of fun to people who want to dirty their hands and do the real cowboy work.

When Harry reaches the last slide, he pushes the tablet to Ma, who carefully goes through each feature of the presentation. It’s the first time I have ever done something like this. But I’m sure Ruby has pulled this sort of thing off many times.

Harry steeples his hands and leans back in his captain’s chair. I have always found that ironic; that chair should be Ma’s.

“You’re not happy with the operation we already have?” Harry says. His gaze flickers between Ruby and me. As if this upheaval is somehow her fault. I sit forward in the chair, heat trickling through my veins.

“The current model is reliant on one income stream. This gives us two, possibly more. It’s smart. And means I can enjoy my days, instead of being saddled with the entire workload and isolated from the rest of the world.”

Ma snaps her head up. “You’re not happy?”

I stare at her for the longest time, a stone growing in my throat. Her face falls as the seconds tick by.

“Ma . . .”

But she pats my forearm and says, “If this is what you want, you have my support.”

“Now, hold on!” Pa shoots forward, pointer finger pressing into the table. “We have to triple-check the demand for what you wanna supply. These numbers need to be compared and accounted for by our accountant. And son, changing the way things are simply because you don’t like them isn’t a valid reason for change.”

And there it is.

The sucker punch to my gut that only Harry Rawlins can provide. His subtle way of saying I don’t stack up to his expectations.

“Harry,” Ma warns.

He turns to her. “No, Louisa, he hasn’t even worked a full season on that ranch, and he wants to change it up. The way things are done around here are done for a reason. Some fad that city folk wanna come out here and blend in is just that—a fad. And when it dries up, we are back to ranching, pure and simple. But we will have debt and overhead that this resort takes to start up. Not happening.”

Pa slams a hand on the table and stalks from the kitchen, snatching his hat on the way out.

“Harry!” Ruby stands, calling after him. Ma holds a hand up, rising from her seat. “Louisa...” Ruby’s face goes from businesslike to pained.

I sink my head into my hands and tangle my fingers in my hair with a sigh. Fuck. I knew it was going to be a hard sell. But I thought we at least had a shot.

Fine fingers wrap around my wrist. “Reed, let me talk to him. I know more about this kind of thing.”

“It’s fine. Thanks anyway, Rubes.”

Groaning, I slide my hands down my face, letting them drop to the hardwood surface. I’m doomed to be a rancher. Same shit every day. Maybe I’ll get lucky and die of boredom. I rise from the table, but she doesn’t follow.

Pushing through the back screen door, I pad to the table under the willow. Ma’s favorite spot. The place where we have Sunday lunches. Our family tradition. But instead of sitting at one of the long bench seats, I slump against the trunk of the tree, partially hidden by the weeping, swaying green branches.

Dropping to my ass on the ground, I close my eyes.

Well, no one can say I didn’t give it a shot.

Footsteps crunch on the grass, closing in slowly.

“You alright, gunny?”

Mack.

“I’ll live.” I don’t bother looking at him, but when my brother sighs and the seat creaks, I force them open.

“What’s got Harry’s goat, saddlin’ up poor Chancy like the ground’s on fire?” Mack chuckles, but it’s strained.

“Told him his whole way of life isn’t up to par.”

He releases a low whistle. “Geez, bet that went down well. The old man doesn’t like being the dumbest guy in the room.”

Always cut and dry, our Mackinlay.

“Yeah, well. That’s probably because he’s the smartest guy we know.”

“Reed, the ranch is yours. You don’t need his permission to do a damn thing. If you want to start a llama circus and grow cannabis for Canadians, he can’t stop you. He signed it over to you.”

With that, I snap my gaze to the house. Ma leans by the back door, studying us. When she sees me staring, she smiles and rolls off the doorjamb, crossing the grass to where I sit.

“You still think our plan is okay?” I ask.

I stand as she weaves her way into the weeping willow. “I do. I think it’s a wonderful idea. But I do have one addition, speaking of adding income streams to the mix.”

“Yeah?”

“Events, Reed. You should make it an event location as well. It’s pretty as a picture over there and with a few strategically placed larger buildings, you could have weddings, birthdays, family reunions, etc. It would be good business for you and for the town.”

My mouth gapes. It’s as if Ruby and my mother are one person in this moment. Mack’s attention snags on something behind the veil of willow tendrils, but I don’t take my eyes off Ma.

“Events? Ma, I don’t have the first clue on how to set up or run events. Or how much to charge...”

The curtain of green moves, and Ruby appears.

“But I do.”