Cole let out a breath. He didn’t want her to go. And wasn’t that just nuts?
“Yeah. Maybe so.” He took her lips again in a kiss that promised more. Much more. Later.
Surely there’d be a later?
With Taylor, with their odd situation, there was no telling.
* * *
WHEN TAYLOR HEADED out to feed the calves the following morning, Jancey was already there, cooing and loving the little animals as she fed them.
“I take it these were your babies?” Taylor said as she approached.
“They are.” There were still signs of stress in the girl’s face, but she looked better than she had the night before, making Taylor wonder how Cole looked this morning. He’d been smoldering while they’d watched the movie. Before she’d distracted him, that is. Distracted him, distracted herself.
It was crazy how right it had felt.
Jancey finished the last calf and dropped the bottle in the bucket. “The heifer that tried to take out my brother is mine, too. I’m selling her, and he was supposed to deliver.”
“Yeah. That didn’t work out so well.”
“Got to check your ground before working. He knows that.” She climbed out of the pen. “I have to clean up. Job hunting today.”
“Good luck.” Taylor did her best to keep the irony out of her voice.
“Thanks. I guess I should be grateful that Miranda made me wait tables last summer.”
Taylor smiled as if she didn’t know who Miranda was, then headed back to the bunkhouse to do the networking she didn’t feel like doing. Seattle seemed very far away today.
An hour later, a movement outside the window caught Taylor’s attention, and she looked up in time to catch sight of Jancey getting into her car. Cole followed, leaning down to say a few words through the open window, then he headed for the machine shop after his sister drove away.
Taylor grabbed her jacket and let herself out of the bunkhouse. When she walked into the machine shed, Cole was standing in front of the long workbench staring at nothing in particular. He turned, scowling.
“Nice stay-away face.” Taylor leaned a shoulder against the door.
“Not intended for you.” He rubbed his hands over his cheeks and then dropped them again. “Still working through stuff.”
She couldn’t help but wonder if some of that stuff involved her…and how she felt about that. But for now, she wasn’t thinking, plotting or planning. She was doing.
“How would you feel about taking a drive with me today?”
“To…?”
“The ranch.”
Taylor pushed off from the door and moved a couple of steps closer. Jancey had been bullied by their step-aunt, and now Cole was going to the ranch. How could she say no? She wanted to see this ranch and meet Miranda. She wanted to make certain Cole didn’t do anything he’d be sorry for later. The guy was starting to matter to her in ways she’d never dreamed of.
She gave an overly casual shrug. “When do you want to leave?”
COLE’S FAMILY RANCH was something out of a picture book. Set at the edge of a wide meadow where a herd of Angus grazed, it wasn’t much bigger than Karl’s farm but had so much more visual appeal. The house and barn were both sided with rustic boards, which had weathered to a beautiful golden brown. A jackleg fence stretched along one side of the meadow, and the corrals and pens were constructed of poles instead of wire. The place looked rustic yet manicured.
“The siding is fake,” Cole said before she could utter a word. “Well, the barn’s real, but Miranda wanted the house to have more impact, so she paid to have the vinyl siding taken off and replaced with the cedar boards. Then she wanted us to pay for it, but I fought her on it.” He stopped at the gate. “That was our first rift after my uncle died.”
He got out to open the gate, even though Taylor had volunteered, hooking it back against the fence with a chain before driving through.
Cole had gone over the situation with his ranch as he drove, keeping his gaze locked on the road. He’d explained how Miranda had married his uncle several years ago and initially charmed everyone. The Bryan brothers—Cole’s father and uncle—had been steadily losing money on their ranches and had agreed that a guest ranch was worth a shot, especially since Miranda had offered to take the helm. Things went well in the beginning, but once his uncle died, the situation had changed. Miranda had changed. True colors began to show.
Cole’s expression had grown increasingly tight as they’d neared the ranch, and now, as he parked next to the house, she was wondering if he was in danger of cracking a tooth. She touched his arm.
His gaze jerked over to her, and then he made an effort to relax his features. “Sorry. Lots of crazy emotions tied up in this place.”
Taylor was beginning to toy with the idea of kissing him before his blood pressure redlined. Instead she got out of the truck. A kid in his late teens came out of the barn as Taylor closed her door, and Cole motioned for her to join him. They walked over to meet the boy at the ATV he’d left near the pasture fence.
“How’s it going, Matt?”
“Jancey’s staying with you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I tried to text her, but she didn’t answer.”
“She’s fine.”
The kid nodded, looking relieved. He glanced behind him as if expecting someone to be there listening, then said, “The queen is pissed that she just took off without telling anyone.”
“She’s going to have to get over it.”
Matt threw a leg over the ATV. “Tell Jancey hi and that it wouldn’t kill her to text back.”
“She’s off her game right now, but I’ll tell her.”
The kid started the engine, then with a wave, headed back across the pasture.
“Miranda sends him to do the chores. Since she uses the place, she wants it public ready at all times.”
“She uses the entire place?”
“Not the house. The house is ours. Well, the entire place is ours, but she has the rights to use it tied up.”
“Renegotiate.”
“It’s a fifty-fifty ownership deal. She won’t budge and neither will we.”
“Unless you have something she wants and can bargain.”
Cole turned to her, his expression serious. “I have nothing that Miranda wants other than this property. That leaves us in a bad place.”
“So it seems.”
“Come on. I’ll show you the house and you can see why it isn’t used for guests.”
The house was totally old-fashioned inside, with small rooms. The kitchen was large, though. There were heat grates in the floors of the upstairs rooms to allow the heat from the kitchen to permeate the rest of the house.
“They made the rooms small so that they could close off the ones not in use during the winter and not heat them.”
“I can understand that, but wow, if you knocked out some walls—”
Cole shot her a look that stopped her dead. “Then Miranda would probably come up with a loophole to use the house.”