CASSIE PULLED THE fencing pliers out of her back pocket and skillfully pried the rusted staples out of the wooden post. Once done, she bent and collected the staples off the ground, tossing them into the metal container in the back of the side-by-side UTV.
Travis brought his attention back to the wire stretcher, which he clamped onto the broken ends of the top wire. Once he had the wire stretched, Cassie hammered a new staple into the post, holding the wire in place while he slipped a narrow metal sleeve over the broken ends and crimped it. They worked well together—when they didn’t speak.
Once the top wire was secured to the other posts, Cassie pushed her blond hair back from her forehead and stared out over the pasture, making Travis wonder what she was thinking. She seemed more relaxed in the open air, surrounded by the country she’d grown up in. Who wouldn’t be happy in knee-deep grass with a gentle breeze ruffling their hair?
Did she like living in the city?
He’d thought he’d be okay with it back in the day, but the job he’d given up before returning home had been with an agriculture-consulting business funded by the government. Although he’d have been based in a small city, he would have spent a lot of his time in rural settings advising ranchers and farmers.
Cassie spent all her time in town. In fact, it sounded like she spent all her time in her office.
She shot a look his way, her expression distant, as if she was pulling herself out of deep thoughts. “I can’t believe you didn’t lose any cattle through this break. You could have driven a truck through it.”
An old post had gone over—Travis suspected a moose might have been responsible since all the cattle were accounted for—taking out a good twenty feet of wire. They’d reset a new post, then managed to fix the broken and stretched wire without having to add more.
“My good luck.” He set the wire stretcher into the back of the side-by-side, then held his hand out for the fencing pliers.
“Mmm.” She took a last look around, then got into the side-by-side. They’d barely spoken that day, which was one way to keep from sniping at one another, but despite the lack of conversation, the air between them had practically crackled whenever their gazes connected.
A pent-up need to engage? Or something else?
The third time Travis caught her studying him, he decided it was something else.
When he’d caught her staring the previous day, he’d assumed that the guilty shift of her gaze had to do with feeling bad about his black eye.
But two days of black-eye guilt?
He didn’t think so. Cassie didn’t operate that way. Putting together the clues—surreptitious looks coupled with the way she looked totally ticked off when he caught her—he suspected that she found him interesting in a way she hadn’t expected.
Funny, but the exact same thing had already happened to him.
“I have an idea,” she said as he started the side-by-side.
“Yeah?” He gave her a sideways look. Her hands were settled in her lap, loosely clasped, giving her a prim look that he would have never seen on Cassie’s face back in the day.
“I’ll load McHenry’s Gold tomorrow morning and bring her over when I come to work.”
Travis put the machine in gear and started across the pasture. “I take it you’ve spent enough time in my company?”
“Yes,” she said simply, and he couldn’t help smiling.
“Sounds good.” Because he wasn’t about the push things.
Yet.
CASSIE DIDN’T LIKE the way Travis kept studying her, as if he knew something about her that she didn’t want him to know, especially when she couldn’t keep her eyes off the guy—or keep herself from getting clumsy when they worked together hauling a barrel or some such thing out of the barn. She was so concerned about Travis discovering her unfounded fascination with him that she was self-sabotaging.
And she was going to stop doing that.
She squeezed her hands together in her lap, wishing she wasn’t so ridiculously aware of the guy driving them across the bumpy field.
He’s winning...
It’s not a contest.
When had things not been a contest with him?
Now. Things are no longer a contest.
She glanced over at him. “Things are no longer a contest.”
He shot her a bemused look in return. “Good to know.”
“Just stating a point out loud. Getting myself on track in the name of peaceful relations.”
“Thank you for including me.”
She nodded at the windshield. “Anytime.”
Travis drove the rest of the way to the ranch with his eyebrows knit together. Cassie knew because of her excellent peripheral vision, which she’d developed during her early teaching days. Mission accomplished—he was no longer giving her those see-into-her-head looks. Instead he was wondering what her new tactic was.
When in doubt, divert. Of course, she should have known that Travis would not be diverted for long. After parking the side-by-side, Travis hesitated before opening his door.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive over and pick up the mare? The trailer’s hooked up.”
Indeed, there was a long gooseneck cattle trailer hooked to the ranch flatbed truck.
“That’s okay,” she said. They’d had enough together time for one day. They got out of the side-by-side and he walked her to her car.
“I plan to put her in that pen there.” He pointed to a corral next to the barn. “Just in case you get here before I get back from feeding.”
“She can get to know her sisters over the fence.” The corral abutted the pasture where Travis’s three McHenry mares grazed. If McHenry’s Gold didn’t work out, he might have four, and she would have to let the mare go for less than she’d paid for her. Depressing thought, but maybe what she deserved for letting impulse and her competitive nature get the best of her.
He cocked his head at her as if he was about to comment on the horse situation, but instead he reached for her with one hand, and Cassie, having no idea what was going on, leaned away from him. Part of her wanted him to touch her and the other part was afraid of what that might lead to. Impulsive behavior with Travis had led to her downfall more than once and this—
“Hold still,” he said gruffly, interrupting her analysis. “There’s a spider.”
Cassie made a startled exclamation, then abruptly pressed her lips together and did the impossible, clenching her fists and holding stone-still as Travis gently swept the spider from the shoulder of her shirt with the backs of his fingertips. The little beast landed in the gravel and scuttled away, thankfully in the opposite direction.
“Wolf spider. It was probably on you since we left the barn. We have a lot of them in there.”
Cassie’s eyes probably doubled in size. Logically she knew that a wolf spider wasn’t a threat, but the thought of the creepy, crawly thing clinging to her for hours...
“On that note, I think I’ll just go home,” she said in a choked voice.
“Do you want me to check for more spiders?” he asked blandly.
Now her skin was crawling as if there were spiders everywhere. “No. Thank you. I’ll just go home and burn these clothes, and everything will be fine.”
“I never knew you were afraid of spiders.”
“Not afraid, creeped out,” she said as she opened the car door. She looked at him over the top of the door. “I dare you not to be creeped out by the thought of a spider riding around on you for an hour.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Remember, Cassie. This is not a contest.”
Cassie made a face at him and got into the car, shushing the small voice that once again whispered, He’s winning.
“I WOULD APPRECIATE help with the haying,” Travis said after he and his grandfather settled into their chairs on the front porch. His grandfather seemed suspiciously enthusiastic about a chore he once said made him want to put a stick in his eye. Will had never made a secret about preferring cow work to farming, and had been unreceptive to Travis’s suggestion to invest in headphones and listen to music or podcasts.
Will propped one foot up on the wooden box he used as an outdoor footstool. “I think it’s important to get that barn cleaned out ASAP. Rosalie will rest easier once it’s done.”
Travis tipped up his beer instead of saying, “Only Rosalie?” Because as he saw it, his grandfather was just as invested in the wedding plans as his bride-to-be.
They sat in silence, watching a flicker peck away at the pine tree closest to the house. The air was warm and heavy with humidity. Another storm was brewing.
“How are things going in the barn?” Will asked a little too casually.
Travis gestured at the piles stacked on either side of the barn bay door. “I can’t believe how much more we have to do.”
“Yeah,” Will said conversationally. “There’s about a century worth of collecting there.”
“The Callahans cleaned their barn yearly,” Travis pointed out.
“They had more manpower,” Will said without any hint of taking offense. Rosalie had softened the man.
The ranch had kept Travis, his dad and his grandfather busy to the point that there really wasn’t a lot of barn-cleaning time.
They’d hired help after Travis’s dad had started to lose his mobility, but while Will was an excellent bronc-riding coach who volunteered with the local high school rodeo team, he was not an easy man to work for. After three guys had been hired and subsequently quit, Travis had decided he needed to put his career on hold and come home to help his father and grandfather through a difficult time. By the time his father had to depend on his wrist crutches and made the decision to move to Arizona, Travis knew he was staying on the ranch. Some things were meant to be, and this was one of them.
“Nice afternoon,” Will murmured as he reached down to the cooler at his side and pulled out another beer. Travis shook his head when he offered it up, and Will closed the cooler before popping the top.
The flicker moved from the pine tree to the eaves of the barn, hanging sideways as it picked at insects hiding in cracks between boards. Now that his grandfather spent more time off the ranch than on it, Travis enjoyed these sit-downs with him. And he enjoyed watching how the old man changed as new things came into his life. Funny that Will’s life was taking new turns, and with the exception of Cassie, his continued on the same path.
“Are you and Cassie getting along all right?”
“Fair to middling,” Travis replied, hoping his grandfather wouldn’t ask for details.
“Rosalie’s worried about her. Thinks that job of hers is eating her alive.”
“There are signs of that.” Travis took a drink as the flicker disappeared into the trees near the barn. “But she’s kind of reverting back to her old self as we work together.” Or rather ping-ponging back and forth. Sometimes she was the Cassie he’d grown up with, and then, as if she caught herself being herself, she was back to wearing her administrator hat. He didn’t like that hat and felt a striking urge to knock it off.
“Probably no chance of her deciding not to go back.”
Travis shook his head. “She seems committed to her career.”
“Careers can be modified.”
Travis gave his grandfather a sideways look. “You know that you can’t give Rosalie a smooth path in all things.”
“Nope,” Will agreed affably. “But where I can, I will.”
“It probably won’t happen in the Cassie arena.”
A few seconds of silence ticked by, and then Will said, “Do you want her to go back?”
Travis gave his grandfather a sharp look. “What kind of question is that?”
Will met his gaze placidly. “A reasonable one, given the circumstances.”
Travis pulled his gaze away and searched the trees for the flicker while he dealt with his grandfather’s question. He wanted to ask what circumstances, but decided it was better to let the matter drop.
Will was not of like mind. “My feeling is that someone can’t set you off like that unless there’s some kind of spark between you.”
“What if it’s the spark of irritation?”
“Is it?”
Travis scowled at his grandfather. “You aren’t going to let this drop, are you?”
“It’s dropped.”
Will focused on the barn, leaning back in his chair, the picture of nonchalance.
Travis did the same, but he was pretty darn certain that he could hear the old man humming under his breath.
MCHENRY’S GOLD WALKED the peripheries of her new enclosure as Cassie coiled the lead rope and halter. The horse had loaded with only a minor amount of balking that morning, which gave Cassie hope. The mare was smart and maybe with a few Travis lessons, she’d be good to go. If not, then Cassie had spent a whole lot of money keeping Travis from having something he wanted. Something he probably couldn’t afford to buy from her, since he’d given up bidding and let her win the horse.
“Thank you for doing this.” She hung the halter, which was old and had spent a lot of time out in the weather, over the fence post so it would be available when Travis needed it.
“Looking forward to seeing what she can do.”
Cassie didn’t doubt that. Travis had a way with horses, just as she had a way with high school kids. She’d enjoyed her emergency substitute stint in the high school English department. There was a lot of energy, angst and flat-out goofiness. Several of the kids in the AP class had a deliciously dark sense of humor and they’d played off each other nicely after she’d established who was in control of the classroom. It wasn’t the job she wanted to do eight to ten hours a day, but it’d been nice to know that she hadn’t lost her knack with kids.
“Do you like working in an office?” Travis asked conversationally. “Being indoors all the time.”
“It keeps the rain off.” Travis took hold of the handle and rolled the gate open. When the squeaking wheels came to a halt, she asked, “Why?”
“You seemed more...I don’t know...relaxed...when we were fixing the fence yesterday.”
It had been pleasant working in the pasture with the sun on her back, the scents of grass, pine and damp earth filling her lungs. “I enjoyed it, but trust me, I can relax in other circumstances.”
“When?”
“When you aren’t around.”
He shot her an amused look and she felt like smiling back until he said, “Why haven’t you been home for a significant visit in the past years?”
Not an attack, she reminded herself. Merely a question—on an issue she was touchy about.
Cassie ran a hand over her opposite arm. “To begin with, I was on a probationary period with my job. I couldn’t come home.”
“And when it was over?”
She dropped her hand. “Things happened. You have no idea what it’s like having so many irons in the fire.”
“I don’t,” he agreed easily. “But I know what it’s like to be in the moment instead of plotting minutes, hours and days ahead.”
“I think you’ve done your share of plotting, or you wouldn’t have been so successful in academics,” she pointed out.
“But I can also do something that hasn’t been written into my daily goals.”
“As can I.”
“Once upon a time you could, but can you still?” He raised his hands. “Not sniping. Just asking.”
No. He was trying to get her to demonstrate.
Cassie tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ve worked hard to rein in my impulsiveness, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“Merely lying dormant?” His lips formed another fascinating half smile.
“Unfortunately,” Cassie replied; she glanced down at the gravel, wondering how in-depth she wanted to get with this man who put her so on edge, and why she felt twitchy about answering questions she would have freely answered had anyone else asked.
She wasn’t secretive about the changes she’d made as she worked her way into a management position. She had always been organized to the max, and been driven to succeed, but she’d also sabotaged herself by not being shy about sharing her opinion or taking action without fully considering consequences. It’d taken a while to understand that there were other ways to achieve a goal than full-frontal assault.
She shifted her weight as she brought her gaze up to his. “Being impulsive, firing off my mouth without thinking, jumping into the fray without a plan of action, tended to get me into trouble professionally, so it seemed wise to adjust to circumstances. Now it’s a habit.”
“I kind of like impulsive you.”
“Do you? I always thought that impulsive me was the bane of your existence.”
“It was. Once.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think the meaning is clear.” He turned to face the interior of the barn, leaving Cassie to fight a sudden urge to grab him by the shoulders and turn him back toward her and demand a real answer.
The real answer doesn’t matter. He’s just saying something—again—to put you off-balance.
And it’s working.
Cassie rolled her shoulders as if physically shaking off the thought. “We should get to it.”
“Right.” He jerked his chin in the direction of some dilapidated wooden storage bins propped against the wall on what was his side of the barn. “Let’s get those out. I’d like to load them onto the trailer while it’s empty.” He’d backed a utility trailer close to the barn at some point.
“Right.” Cassie pulled her gloves out of her pocket and buttoned the top button of her chambray shirt. Two days in the barn had taught her to keep everything buttoned as closely as possible to keep the fine dust that coated everything from clinging to exposed skin and drifting in through open collars.
Together they manhandled the first set of bins out the door, making it almost to the refuse trailer before one of the boards gave and it fell, pitching Travis sideways. He regained his footing and took hold of a more solid support.
“Good to go?”
He nodded and they awkwardly carted the broken storage unit the rest of the way to the trailer. “One down.”
And only one to go.
The second was wobblier than the first, but they got it to the trailer without incident.
“What’s next?”
“More awkward stuff.” He pointed to the pieces of an antique hay rack and other bits of equipment that would never again see service. “Grandad says he’s going to put the rake together and use it as a lawn ornament.”
“Nice idea.”
“Still strongly in the idea stage.”
Cassie smiled, then made her way to the tangle of curved metal tines, some still attached to the framework, others lying nearby. Concentrate on the task at hand, not the man who created so many conflicting emotions.
She was concentrating so hard that when she turned to pick her way out of the jumble of tines, she caught her pant leg and pitched forward. Travis made a grab for her as she went down, somehow catching her before she hit the metal rake frame. She clutched at the front of him as he hauled her upright.
“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.
“My foot is still caught.” She pulled it free from the tangle of metal, using her hold on the front of his shirt for balance. His grip tightened on her arms, sending a curl of warmth through her.
“You good now?”
“Uh-huh.” But as their gazes connected, she found she wasn’t in any hurry to let go of the front of his shirt. Almost as if you’ve been looking for an excuse to touch him. Her heart started beating double time as he studied her face in a lazy way, then his gaze slid down to her mouth and there was no mistaking the direction of his thoughts.
“Well?” he asked softly.
“Well, what?” Cassie asked, somehow pushing the words out of her throat. What would it be like to kiss that mouth, which drove her to distraction? That mouth, which was now curved into an overly confident half smile. Really? “Do you think I’m going to kiss you?”
“I hope you’re not going to bite my nose.”
Cassie shoved her hands against his chest, sending him stumbling backward. He caught hold of a wooden upright before going down.
She gave him an unsympathetic look as he regained his balance, but her heart was hammering. He’d read her perfectly and she wasn’t ready to be read like that. “You are one cocky man, Travis.”
“Just calling things the way I see ’em.”
“Tell me how you ‘see ’em.’”
“There’s a reason you keep watching me.”
Prickly heat warmed her cheeks. “I’m watching you because we’re the only two people in the barn. Who else am I going to look at?” She gritted the words out from between her teeth. “Besides, I feel bad about your eye.”
“I think it’s about more than my eye.”
He lifted his eyebrows, silently encouraging her to unburden herself, but Cassie’s survival instinct, honed during many, many meetings in which she had to keep her personal feelings to herself, kicked in. She wasn’t going to utter a word until she knew exactly what she wanted to say, and since logical thought escaped her, that could be a while.
The silence stretched on and it began to feel as if the atmosphere between them would crack before either of them made a move. Finally, as Cassie was reaching her breaking point, Travis shifted his weight and glanced past her to the junk behind her. “We’d better get to work.”
The atmosphere didn’t crack. It diffused, leaving Cassie feeling oddly deflated, but her heart was still beating too hard of a rhythm against her ribs.
“Yes.” For once she was happy to leave unfinished business unfinished. And she was not going to look at him today. Not unless it was in the line of duty. She straightened her shoulders, and settled her hands on her hips, doing her best to look as if she’d had enough of this nonsense and it was time to go to work.
Travis stuck his thumbs into his front pockets, looking so much cooler than she felt, but looks, she reminded herself, could be deceiving.
“Opposite sides of the barn again?” she asked.
He nodded. “Seems safest.”
“No thanks to you.”
He tilted one corner of his mouth up into a yeah-right smirk, then reached for the gloves in his back pocket. Cassie did the same before turning and striding off to her side of the barn.
She only hoped the time passed quickly so she could get out of here and back to her own ranch, where she could indulge in some primal scream therapy.