Good plan. Now if only his body would cooperate.
Within fifteen minutes Marcy had quieted her baby and climbed back into the front seat. Lance was beyond tired and hungry. And Marcy looked as if she hadn’t eaten a decent meal in about a week.
“Another half hour and we should be at the truck stop,” he told her. He took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced over to check on her.
She smiled up at him. Actually smiled. It felt as if someone had flipped on a light in a pitch-black room.
The unexpected sizzle of heat and tension made him jerk his head back around to stare through the windshield. He figured it was too dangerous to take his eyes off the road ahead. In more ways than one.
“How come you know the country around here so well?” she asked congenially. “Are you from the area?”
Now, this was better. They could talk for a while. Just as long as he didn’t have to look at her.
“No, ma’am,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve spent most of my adult life following the rodeo circuit. It’s a hectic way of life for a man…traveling from one rodeo town to the next. But after a few years of doing it, a guy gets to know the routes and stops pretty well. And a man can manage to make friends in the places he comes back to year after year.”
“You were in the rodeo? What’d you do there?” Surprise colored the tone of her questions, but she sounded more awed than disgusted.
He never knew what to expect when he mentioned his work. Many people had no idea about what went on at a rodeo. Others felt it was a low-class kind of life. Still others, like the buckle bunnies and camp followers, were too easily impressed by what was really just a job.
“I was a bull rider for the first few years,” he admitted. “Then later I rode the broncs.”
“Cool. That’s awesome. But isn’t it dangerous?”
“I’ve had my share of bruises and broken bones, I guess. But the point is to know when to stop before it takes you down for good.”
“You don’t do it anymore? You quit?”
Is that what he’d done? “I retired from the circuit. I moved on to something better.”
“Back at your ranch in Montana?”
“The ranch isn’t mine. I’m just a hired hand.”
She seemed hesitant to make a comment. “Really?” she finally said in a neutral tone. “What do you do there?”
He didn’t know if Marcy was truly interested, or if she’d even have the foggiest idea of what went into his job. But she was waiting for an answer. And he’d already made the decision that he wanted them to become friends.
So he figured he would just keep talking. “The ranch was always home for a good friend of mine. His family has lived on the land for nearly a hundred years.
“They’ve got a formidable operation there with many different kinds of businesses. Sheep. Cattle. They breed show horses and champion stock bulls, and do lots of other profitable things, as well. My friend’s dad, Buck Stanton, hired me to run the stock contracting end of the business.”
“Stock contracting?”
“Yeah. We supply the livestock to rodeos. Our operation isn’t big enough yet to produce the shows themselves. But we’ll be getting there someday.”
“Your ranch raises the bucking horses and those mean ol’ bulls?”
The question brought an automatic grin. “There’s a bit more to it than that. I acquire bucking stock at auction, study the genetics of breeding good buckers and make sure the stock stays rank by pasturing them far away from humans.
“So far we have a crew of thirty in my division. Vets, chute men, transporters. The whole deal is growing by leaps and bounds.”
“Goodness,” she said with a slight chuckle. “I had no idea so much went into that sort of thing. Have you been doing it very long?”
“Not long,” he told her with a shake of his head.
“I see.”
There was something in the way she said the words that told him she had questions not yet spoken aloud. He just didn’t know what answer to give if she wouldn’t ask the question.
Nothing for him to do but keep talking. Maybe he’d hit on the right answer by accident. Plus…all this talking was helping to keep him alert and was making the time go by quicker.
“But the ranch is definitely my home now,” he told her without a second thought. “It’s great not having to travel all the time.”
“But you’re traveling now. Was this trip for business?”
His thoughts on this trip were still all jumbled in his head. Grief and regret mixed together with a final release of duty and the promise of a brand-new life. He wasn’t sure he could talk about it just yet.
“No,” he grunted. “My grandmother passed away. I felt it was my duty to attend her funeral in New Orleans.”
“Your ‘duty’?” Marcy asked in a quiet voice. “I don’t understand.”
Hell, he’d managed to say the wrong thing after all. He really did not want to talk about this.
“It’s not important,” he said quickly. “What’s important is that I’m headed home. And if I’m lucky, I’ll make it there by Christmas Eve.”
“Does your family celebrate that with special traditions?”
“Didn’t know I had much family left. And now that Grandmother Steele is gone, I guess I’ll never know much about that side of the family.” Now why had he let that slip? Jeez, he was sure saying way too much to a stranger. “I hope to make the Stantons in Montana my family from now on. They’ve done more than give me a job—they’re more like family than just friends and employers.” Again, that was just too much to say. What was the matter with him?
“But you don’t have a wife and kids waiting for you back in Montana?”
Ah. He had a feeling that was the question she’d been wanting to ask. He’d noted over the years that it was a question most women asked when they first met a man.
“No, ma’am. Not as yet. But I’m hopeful that’ll be changing real soon. Now that I’m building a home, I intend to have everything that goes with it.”
“Oh? You’re engaged, then?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But I expect that Lorna Stanton will consent to marry me when I propose at the family’s traditional Christmas Eve party. So…no, as of this moment, I’m not engaged, either.”
“Did you mean to say that this Lorna is your girlfriend?”
“I suppose you could call her a girlfriend,” he admitted hesitantly. “But I’ve never thought of her that way. We have a lot in common. A marriage between us makes sense. It’s a good solid fit.”
“Hmm. So does she love you? Do you love her?”
“I can’t say that we’ve come that far yet. But I believe the best marriages are the ones where love grows over time. I’m starting a little late in life, but we still should have fifty years or so to learn about love.”
“Wait a minute.” Marcy held up her hand, palm out. “You intend to ask this woman to marry you, but neither of you are in love? Have you two, uh,