Cowboy Take Me Away (3 page)

“So you're living the dream, huh?” she mused, ducking beneath the timber so she was no longer in the yard.

“I guess, yeah.” Chase followed her back through, frowning when she turned to look at him. “What about you? What the hell are you doing living and working so far from home anyway?”

Damn
. She'd walked into that question all on her own. “Ah, things didn't work out quite as planned.” Hope tried to look unconcerned, her natural reaction to make up an excuse and get the hell out of dodge to avoid Chase's questions. But he didn't know,
couldn't know
, any of it, which meant she just needed to avoid the topic for as long as she could. If not forever. She could tell him about her ranch one day if she had to, but that was it. She'd moved on, dealt with what had happened, and what he didn't know wasn't doing him any harm. Hell, he'd probably forgotten all about her the day they graduated—she was a quick blast from the past for him and that was it.

“So your family…”

“Chase, have you thought about how many heifers you want me to do in the first round of inseminations?” she interrupted, desperate to get the topic off her and back on work. “We could do a few first, monitor the results before continuing on? Then we could let Nate see for himself how good these New Zealand straws are. I'm guessing that quality is more important than speed given what you've told me.”

If Chase was surprised by how rudely she'd changed the subject, he didn't show it. “Whatever you think. I want to leave this up to the experts, but we don't need to be overly cautious. I just want to make sure we're focused on the end result.”

“Good, sounds like a plan. I'll talk to my boss, discuss the results from my prelim work-up with the girls here, then we'll get them in calf as soon as we can.” She laughed. “You'll have unruly calves to worry about before you know it.”

“Yeah, ones that owe us so much money we'll be keeping an eagle eye on them twenty-four-seven.” He grinned at her. “Just give me one good bull calf and I'll be indebted to you forever. It'll make all this worth my while.”

She looked from the yards back to Chase and saw his face change, his jaw go from soft to hard as stone as he scowled past her. When she turned she saw who he was staring at—a man as blond as Chase was dark, a big smile greeting her when she locked eyes with him. It might have been a long time, but she recognized Chase's little brother straight away.

He grinned when he reached them, holding out his hand for her to shake. “Man, you're an improvement on the last vet.”

“I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended,” she replied, laughing more from the look on Chase's face than the joke.

“He was about seventy and bald, so yeah, take it as a compliment.”

“Hope Walker,” she said, taking her hand back when he released it, his eyes never leaving hers as what she guessed was recognition flickered in them.

“Ryder King,” he replied, shaking his head as he folded his arms, like the penny had slowly dropped. “And you're…”

“Hope, just like she said,” Chase interrupted. “As in my old friend from college. Ryder, Hope. Hope, Ryder. We've got some business to attend to, so if you don't mind…”

“No fucking way,” Ryder swore, completely ignoring his brother.

“Small world, huh?” she said.

“So do you mind my asking what the hell you're doing here? When Chase was all miserable and pining for you, I'm sure he said there wasn't a chance of you leaving your ranch in Canada and heading back to the US.”

Hope fought the grimace threatening to take over her face. She glanced at Chase but decided to focus on Ryder—it was easier looking at his brother. Maybe she hadn't been the only one missing what they'd had.

“My family doesn't own the ranch anymore,” she said, keeping her voice as devoid of emotion as she could. Hope worried the timber behind her, digging her nail in so hard that it hurt. “To cut a long story short, I wanted a fresh start, and I was recruited by Dallas AI. It was too good an offer to turn down, so here I am.”

“Your dad sold the ranch?” Chase asked, his gaze so intense he could have burned a hole through her skin.

“Not exactly.”

Hope smiled at Ryder and bent to take some things from her kit, purely for something to do, wishing Chase would stop staring at her and change the subject. When she looked up, both men were watching her, but neither pushed her further.

“So instead of being the beautiful heiress to your family ranch, you're staring at semen through a scope and inseminating unsuspecting heifers? Sounds like fun.”

She had to give Ryder credit—he'd made her laugh when she'd been about to burst into tears only moments before.

“Let's just say that I'm better off on my own.”
And with my son.
The silent words echoed through her head, her eyes dragging toward Chase and seeing the familiar dark-brown gaze meeting hers. Only it wasn't Chase's chocolate-hued gaze she was used to seeing on a daily basis, it was her son's. “So you boys going to help me put these ladies in the crush?”

Ryder shook his head, holding out his hand and clasping hers. “It was lovely to meet you, Hope, but I'm off to see a man about a horse. I'll leave you two to reminisce and sort out the cattle.”

“You still riding rodeo?” she asked.

Ryder went to answer before Chase nudged him hard in the side, making him grunt.

“That was in the days before he was whipped,” Chase said. “My baby bro is all grown up and married now.”

Hope smiled. “Congratulations.” Just because she was cynical about marriage herself didn't mean she couldn't be happy for someone else.

“She's fucking amazing,” Ryder said, giving her a mischievous wink and slapping his brother on the back before starting to walk away. “I'm one lucky son of a bitch and I damn well know it.”

A shiver trawled Hope's spine as she turned to face Chase, his mouth smiling but his eyes still creased with concern. She knew he'd have questions, it wouldn't be natural for him
not
to, but she didn't want to go there. Not without thinking through what she would tell him first, figuring out how much to say. It wasn't like she'd been expecting a reunion with him.

“So how do you want to do this?” Chase asked.

She sighed and squared her shoulders. “Can we just focus on work today?”

He flashed her his gorgeous dimple, the one that always creased when he grinned, a dimple that had made almost every girl in her dorm swoon on a daily basis, including her.

“I was talking about using the crush,” he told her.

A warm flush worked its way up her neck, but she refused to let the blush hit her cheeks. He'd always known how to get under her skin, how to reach her like no other guy had, and being around him now was scaring her. Because it was dredging up thoughts long forgotten, memories she'd forced away so many times they'd almost completely disappeared from her mind. But the fantasy had never died, and being with him, here and now, she wished she'd chosen Chase over everything else. It had been the stupidest decision she'd ever made, and one day maybe even her son would find it hard to forgive her.

Chase touched her arm when she walked past him on her way toward the cattle again.

“You don't want to talk, we don't need to,” he said, his voice husky.

“Okay,” she managed, refusing to glance at him, her gaze firmly ahead on the first glossy black Angus heifer in front of her.

“But you do owe me dinner,” he said, raising one eyebrow as he stared at her, making it impossible for her not to look back into eyes the most delicious shade of milk chocolate in the sunlight.

“I…”

His hand squeezed over her forearm, the heat in his touch making her flush. His face showed how serious he was, eyes boring into her, the hint of smile crossing his lips the only attempt he made at concealing his determination.

Hope took a deep breath. “Only if I can find a babysitter on short notice.”

 

Chapter 2

“A babysitter?” Chase was close to choking on the words, his tongue stuttering. He narrowed his eyes, stared hard at Hope to see if she was just giving him shit. But she wasn't. The flicker in her gaze, the way she met his stare, then looked away told him it sure as hell wasn't something she was joking about.

“I have a son,” she said, walking away from him. “But, ah, let's get this done and I'll get back to you later about tonight.”

He ground his teeth together. So her deadbeat husband had left her
and
their child? What an asshole.

“You did mean tonight, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I did.”

Chase couldn't recall the last time he was actually rendered speechless, but he was finding it damn well impossible to figure out what the hell to say to her today. He blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders back, standing up tall. What he did know was that he wanted to know more, and that meant not letting her say no to dinner. If she didn't commit now, he had a gut-deep feeling that he'd never see or hear from her again—she'd get another specialist to do the inseminations. They might not be in college any longer, but she'd damn well disappeared without a trace then and he wasn't going to let it happen a second time.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and it distracted him, took his focus off Hope. He glanced at the screen.
Damn.
He'd forgotten all about Sarah, aka his date for tonight. They'd had fun a few times, but he had no problems extracting himself from drinks with the cute brunette. He silenced the call and pushed it back into his jeans.

“You can take it,” Hope said, glancing across at him from her safe distance a few meters away. “I'll just do my thing here.”

Fuck that. Chase shook his head, over the shock of seeing Hope after so many years and ready to launch into full-on offensive mode. They'd been young when they were friends, had had fun, but he'd learned a lot since then, and one of those things was not taking no for an answer.

“It's not important,” he told her. He'd let Sarah down gently, and it wasn't as if they were exclusive. They had fun some times, and sex most times, but he wasn't even remotely interested in getting anyone between his sheets except for Hope now that he'd seen her in the flesh again.

“Well, if you want to help, come and get these lovely ladies ready with me.”

Chase followed her, taking in the curve of her ass as she walked, her long legs impossible not to notice, the denim of her jeans tight to every inch of them. Her T-shirt was plain, fitted but not tight, and it showed him that her figure had hardly changed over the past five years since graduation.

He groaned, his mind going back in time, fingers clenching into fists as he remembered the weight of her full breasts cupped in his palms as she'd sat astride him.

“Chase?”

Damn it.
“Yeah?”

“I thought you said something.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Not me.”
Because that groan was about you, not for you.

“So tell me what you've been up to these last few years. Wishing you were a vet or damn happy to be on your ranch?”

“Damn happy,” he answered truthfully. “I wake up every day with a smile on my face. I wanted to get my qualifications to prove myself to Granddad, and prove to myself that if I didn't have this ranch I could carve out a career without any help from anyone. But the truth is there's nothing I'd rather be doing than hands-on running this place.”

“So do you have a blonde rolling around beside you when you wake up with that smile?”

Chase chuckled. “And there she goes.”

“What?” Hope's smile was as innocent as a fox about to steal a hen.

“That girl who used to give me more shit than any of the guys and get away with it.”

“Ha, only because you were too chickenshit to call me out.”

“Or the fact that I couldn't punch you because you were a girl.”

“Mmmm, there was that.”

Hope turned around before ducking under the railings, eyes flashing. He'd missed her so bad without even realizing it.

“You must be the new vet?”

Chase reluctantly turned away when Randy approached them from behind. He wanted his foreman close at hand—he liked him to be briefed about everything involving their stock, and this was no exception, no matter how bad he wanted to keep Hope to himself. He might be Randy's boss now, but he still valued his opinion.

“Randy, this is Hope. She'll be handling everything from start to finish.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Randy stepped forward and held his hand out.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” she said. “I'm going to check them over individually and mark them, make up some charts, and then come back for another visit when they're closer to being ready for insemination.”

Chase's phone buzzed in his pocket again and he pulled it out to check the caller ID. Damn, it was his granddad, which meant he had to take it.

“I'll check back on you shortly,” he told them. “I have to take this.”

Hope nodded and he answered the phone, walking away to the sound of her soft voice as she chatted to Randy.

“Granddad,” he answered. “Everything okay?”

“Just calling in for my daily report,” the aged yet strong voice said down the line.

“Don't tell me you're sick of playing dominos and bingo already?” Chase teased.

He received a noise resembling a growl in response. “I'll have you know I've never played bingo once in my life, and I don't intend on starting now.”

He might be in his ninetieth year, but there was no slowing down Chase's granddad even if his body was starting to give out on him.

“I have the AI specialist here now. Won't be long before I put the King name on the map for another reason.”