Page 10 of Snowed In with the Rancher

“Rancher.”

She lifted her head, her full spoon paused in the air. “Pardon?”

“I’m not a cowboy. I’m a rancher. This is a stud farm and dude ranch.” His nose wrinkled. “And petting farm, I guess, too.”

Nodding, she rolled the word around in her head for a moment, then said, “Sorry, rancher. I never expected to be snowed in with a rancher for Christmas.”

“What can you do?”

I can climb into your lap and wipe that scowl off your face. Why did her brain immediately go into the gutter?

“Any experience working with farm animals?” he asked, tucking food into his cheek and chewing.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. But I’m a fast learner and have no problem getting my hands dirty. If you want me to muck stalls or … or … I don’t know what else there is to do, but I have no problem doing it.”

A tight, barely discernible smile lifted on one corner of his mouth. “Ever been on a horse?”

She shoveled some of the delicious savory oatmeal into the mouth, so all she could do was nod. “I have,” she said with a smile, after swallowing. “I went to ranch camp one summer when I was a kid. My best friend wanted to go, but my parents couldn’t afford it since I’m the second oldest of five girls, so my friend’s parents paid for me to go as a birthday present for me. It was two weeks of riding horses, brushing them, feeding them and it was so much fun.”

He snorted, but it didn’t seem like a cynical kind of snort. “Ranch camp, huh?”

“Yeah. Each kid got assigned a horse for the week and my horse’s name was Indiana. She was beautiful, very gentle—a blonde Tennessee Walking Horse if I remember—and I swear I could have sat there and stroked her velvet nose for the rest of my life.”

A softness creased his eyes and he took another bite of his oatmeal. “How’d you say you know Hannah?”

“We met in grad school. I’m a speech path, too, but I live in Connecticut and she, well, you know she’s in Manhattan.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything. She’d already realized from last night that he was a man of few words, it didn’t matter whether he was woken up from his sleep or not it seemed. If he didn’t have to speak, he didn’t.

Whereas Triss was a talker. She always had been. Silence made her nervous. She felt like people we judging her when they were quiet, particularly when they were quiet and looking at her—like Asher was.

So she filled that quiet with chatter.

“I mean, if you’d rather keep a one-summer-ranch-camp kid like me out of your barn, I’m happy to cook in here. I’m no Nigella Lawson, but I can roast a chicken over a beer can almost better than anybody.” She grinned and sipped her coffee.

“Who the fuck is Nigella Lawson?”

“A celebrity chef out of England.”

He grunted, stood up, and finished his coffee, taking his empty plate with him to the dishwasher.

Man, he ate fast.

She scrambled to finish her own breakfast and stood up to put her dishes with his in the dishwasher.

“Meet me in the barn,” he said, his voice like honey-coated gravel as he stood almost toe to toe with her, his eyes raking her body and causing flames to ignite along her skin wherever his gaze touched. “Once you’re dressed.”

She nodded eagerly. “Thank you. I’ll go get dressed right now.”

She finished her coffee, put the mug in the dishwasher, then practically skipped down the hall toward her room excited to distract herself from her heartbreak and also cuddle some goats.

Triss brushed her teeth, hair and was dressed in under six minutes. She figured Asher would already be in the barn, so when she found him in the kitchen filling up two thermoses with coffee and adding cream to one of them, she was surprised, but also delighted.

“Here,” he said, handing her the thermos he’d just added cream to.

“Thank you.” She accepted it from him and followed him to the front door where they pulled on their coats, gloves and boots. She’d brought hers out of her room with her earlier.

“You got a hat?” he asked her, pausing to glance at the top of her head, his hand on the doorknob.

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