Page 46 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

“It’s you,” I said, nighttime low. “You deserve the best.”

He tucked his head beneath my jaw, burying his face in my neck. I held him tight.

He wasn’t crying anymore, but he was shook. Somehow, this sweet, confident man, this man with his sunrise smile and summer-blue eyes didn’t think he deserved to have doors opened for him.

This was the same man who’d gotten up before dawn on a rainy morning and brought me coffee made my favorite way. Who’d knelt in front of me and offered it like a gift from his dearest heart.

He’d gotten Ruth into action. Gotten the kitchen opened early, which had never happened before.

Sure, we’d gotten hot coffee in china mugs on those mornings when we’d come in at dawn. But nothing else, certainly not tall thermoses brought to us in the barn and promises of a Sunday spread hours before the kitchen was scheduled to open. Even in Walter’s day, after having worked through the night we would have gotten hard-boiled eggs and the like, not fancy Dutch babies or French toast.

Now the reason for Dillon running out of the barn when there’d been so much work to do taking care of the horses made sense. Dalton must have asked Dillon to fetch him as soon as he saw me in the barn. I knew this like I’d been there.I need you to do this, Dalton must have said.It’s important.

If there was anyone who knew what it felt like to come in dead last every single time someone made a priority list, it was me. To find that Dalton felt the same made me want to find every single person who’d ever slighted him and teach them a lesson.

He’d put me first, ahead of himself. He’d made love to me in that cottonwood grove, pulling me into a dreamworld where nothing hurt and I didn’t have to pay for love with my skin. If being put first was new to him, that feeling of belonging, of magic, was new to me as well.

I held him close, and when I sensed his body releasing toward sleep, I lay him on the bed, making sure of the pillowbeneath his head. I pulled the sheet and quilt over him and watched over him until he was truly asleep.

I listened to the rain falling on the roof and wondered if they’d ever gotten that bonfire going. Probably not, but I admired the attempt just the same. The idea of sayingfuck itto the universe and lighting that fire, anyway.

Right about then is when I found out that Dalton snored. A thin whistle of breath, a sound in his throat. Every five breaths. Which, to me, was as cute as the rest of him, including his adorable pink toes.

It was way past midnight, it must have been, by the time I slithered beneath the covers to lie beside him. Inhale his scent. Match my breaths with his.

Distantly I wondered if I should wake him in case he wanted to sneak back to his own bunkhouse so Dillon and Cameron wouldn’t spread the word that their bunkmate had not come home that night.

But as Dalton snored his cute snore, he moved closer in my arms like he wanted to crawl inside me, and it would have taken a hot poker up my ass to make me wake him up and make him go out into the rainy night. There was no hot poker in sight, so I let him sleep. And let myself sleep, with him in my arms.

Chapter 15

Jake

We were back to work the next morning, of course—ranch work never stopped—though it wasn’t until afternoon that the rain let up and the sun finally blazed through the clouds, yellow and white slices of warmth among the gray swirls. With the weather improving, I drove cattle down the foothills. Horses, too. Sure-footed and willing, Buddy and Snowball took turns carrying me, no matter whether it was uphill or down.

On Sunday, I made adjustments to the straight-wire portion of the fencing, which was easier now that it was daylight and I didn’t have to hold a flashlight in my teeth.

I watched for the mountain lion that Jesse had told me he’d seen once again.

I was so busy that I missed lunch, but that was okay because when my chores were done and the workday was finally over, I saw Dalton waiting at the barn doors. Waiting for me. Looking dapper in his white button-down shirt, though I noticed he’d stopped wearing the tasseled loafers. Rather, he had on those borrowed boots that peeked out from beneath the tailored hem of his office trousers.

Worn to the bone, I smiled as I walked up to him, wanting to pull him to me and hug him with everything I had. But instead of a grand display, I took off my hat and shielded us for a quick kiss.

“I missed you today,” he said as I put my hat back on. Bright. Sunny. His arm slipping around my waist as if he didn’t care that someone might be looking.

“Missed you, too.” I said and meant it. His presence had so quickly become a lifeline to me, it nearabout made my head spin. At the same time, it settled me more than anything. Even so, part of me held back. I shouldn’t get used to this, but I could enjoy it while I had it.

He came with me to my bunkhouse, where I hung my hat, washed up, and changed into a clean y-shirt. Where I kissed him good and proper and got well kissed right back.

When we got to the dining hall, most folks on the ranch were already seated, eating their dinners. Dalton sniffed the air as we entered. “School pizza,” he said, rising on his toes.

“What?”

“You know, the kind of pizza the lunch ladies made at school just about every Friday. Pizza cut into rectangles to fit in the lunch tray. With carrot circles and buttered corn. Chocolate pudding for dessert.”

Now I remembered, though I didn’t want to tell him that I’d seldom been given money for school lunch.

The combination he described sounded amazing to me, and if I looked back, which I tried never to do, I was sure I could yank up some memories of standing in the lunchroom, watching other kids enjoying that exact meal.