Page 21 of Untamed Heart
‘I like her,’ Bailey said to Lil, shaking her head. ‘That same whip-crack style as you.’
Lil’s eyebrow lifted, her keen eyes moving between Cole and me.
‘Oh she sure does, don’t be fooled by the British accent. Ain’t nothing stuck up or uptight about that one.’ She laughed at my incredulous expression. ‘We’re just the same as our moms. Pair of them could tear down every wise-cracking asshole in town.’
Cole ventured nothing else, just a brief, curious glance back to me as he slowly helped himself to the contents of the table.
‘So, you’re a city girl?’ Bailey asked, mouth half open as she made light work of her pancakes. ‘London, right?’
‘Yeah, sort of,’ I replied, not missing a second glance from Cole, but this time, it was colder. A flicker of fear ran through me. Maybe I was wrong, maybe it was about something else. I added, ‘I mean, I’m notfromthe city, I just moved there for work.’
Lil sat down, Jesse and Bailey nodded, too engrossed in their breakfast to speak.
‘Country not enough for you?’ Cole asked quietly, his voice soft, but the words had an edge.
It hurt. More than it should. His warm, bright brown eyes were suddenly dark. The man that’d lit my entire being on fire just two nights earlier had gone.
I frowned, watching as the others looked between us, seemingly unsure of his reaction, of what mine would be in response.
‘No, that’s not it. Just more opportunities, that’s all.’
He shrugged and my stomach dropped. Whatever had taken place the night before last . . . had I imagined it all? Had I just been so starved of any depth of feeling with Kyle that the first gorgeous guy to kiss me with any passion had turned into something else in my head?
After a pause, Lil launched into a list of jobs and chores for the morning and I ate as much as I could, realizing how unused I was to real food, or certainly any large quantity of it. Nutrition had been fairly low on the list of priorities in the past year.
‘Okay, time to fly,’ Bailey said eventually. ‘See you sometime at the barn, Lottie?’
‘Sure.’ I nodded, giving her a brief smile, carefully avoiding looking at Cole.
‘Hold up,’ said Jesse, swinging himself off the bench at the same time as Cole and swiping his hat off the pegs. ‘Look forward to showing you the ropes, Lottie.’
He winked again, smiling as I nodded and tried very hard not to imagine him helping lift me into a saddle. Cole said nothing, disappearing under his hat and striding out into the hall.
‘Come out back with me.’ Lil grabbed her coffee. ‘Let’s take five minutes to ourselves before the day really gets going.’
Feeling numb, I followed her out onto the same deck I’d stalked across earlier, and we each took a rocking chair.
Lil sighed, clutching her mug like it was a lifeline, looking out over the view. The ridge we were on fell away steeply, the tops of the spruce trees below just visible over the edge, nothing to block the panoramic view of the valley floor below and the knife-edged Tetons in the far distance, the sky as blue and clear as sapphire.
‘In some ways this place hasn’t changed at all, has it?’ I murmured, lifting my legs up onto the chair and hugging my knees. ‘The trees are a little taller maybe, but the mountains, the house, the town . . . it’s like I never left.’
‘I can see that,’ Lil replied, rubbing at her eyes for a moment. ‘From your point of view. It’s a different place for me now, in lots of ways. Ever since Mom left for Colorado; maybe even before that when Dad left. Sometimes . . .’ She shifted, wincing almost. ‘I feel like an ungrateful asshole for saying it, but sometimes I just wish I’d let her sell it. Maybe then I could go get myself one of those city jobs, have a social life and some pretty clothes.’
Smiling, I shook my head.
‘Come on, you’ve got living proof sitting right here that that life isn’t all it’s sold as being. You’re even less of a city person than me. Besides, this place can’t be all bad, right?’
Lil shook her head, looking back out at the mountains, as if to anchor herself.
‘No . . . of course not. I love this place, to its bones, like you do,’ she said, glancing at me as she sipped her coffee. ‘It’s just, the financial side of running a ranch is complicated. Having guests helps, keeps things ticking over, but managing this much land is hard. Even with help.’
It dawned on me just how small my worries were in comparison to hers. How my life was just about me, my job, my relationship – whereas Lil’s were about a legacy, a family name and the livelihoods of three other people, not to mention the other services and small businesses that relied on ranches like the Diamond Back.
‘Anyone . . . special out there, to share the load?’ I asked, curious about the absence of any talk of boyfriends.
She gave a wry chuckle, raising her eyebrows.
‘Oh honey, even if I didn’t know every last man in town either from high school or through running this place, I’d need an extra day in the week to do anything about it.’
