Page 4 of Cowboy Dreams

“I’ll have you know I’m tall and easy,” I drawled. “Six-three, last time I checked.”

“I’m six-four.”

“And ain’t no one called me pretty.”

“Maybe not. Rugged. Striking. All planes and angles and colors like the raw earth and the winter grass and the mountains in fall.”

I liked that, a bit too much. I said, “That me or Mount Rushmore?”

“Your hair’s all kinds of golden shades, from deep amber to pale wheat straw. I noticed it, first off.”

“Sticks up like wheat straw too,” I said. “Anyhow, the lights in Max’s Place are too low to make out much.”

“Your eyes are gray, like storm clouds.”

“Are you a poet or a weatherman?”

“You don’t know how to take a compliment, do you?”

I turned my hat around in my hands and admitted, “Haven’t never gotten many of those.”

He glanced my way, eyes on me long enough I was glad he’d dropped our speed down to legal. “I might have to fix that.”

Something needy inside me wanted to sit up and beg like a dog.Yeah, say nice things. Not just how good I can suck cock, or how fast I rope a steer. Make me feel special.I squashed it down flat. “Where are we going, Sylvester?”

“I thought my place,” he said. “But if that’s not okay with you, we could find a motel.”

Wasn’t a motel nearby that wouldn’t look sideways at us asking for a room for the night, when they knew where I lived. We could go down into Lakewood, maybe, but that was farther than I wanted to drive and longer than I wanted to wait. “Where’s your place?”

“It used to be a working ranch. The Circle K.”

“Really?” I took another look at him. He still didn’t look anything like a rancher. “Hasn’t been anyone living there for two, three years. Not since old man Pascal passed away. And he sold off all the stock a few years before. Couldn’t keep it going.”

“My grandfather.”

“Sorry for your loss,” I said automatically.

He shook his head. “I hadn’t seen him in thirty years. He disowned my mother, and she changed her name a couple of times. Which is why it took the lawyers two years to track me down. I was shocked he’d kept me in the will, instead of some distant cousin. And now I own an abandoned ranch in the middle of nowhere.”

“You can probably sell,” I suggested. “Neighbors might want to pick up the acreage.”

“Maybe. But… I’m going to think about this a while.”

Must be nice to have those options. If I owned a ranch… “What do you do in the city, Sylvester?”

“What makes you think I live in the city?”

I reached over and mussed the back of his perfect haircut, and he said, “Hey!”

“City boy,” I told him.

“Cityman, and you’re going to know that good and hard before the night’s out.”

“Promises, promises.” I slouched in my seat and stretched my legs out further.

He slowed and turned onto a gravel road. “I owned and managed a hotel. My establishment was bought out by a high-end chain, which gave me enough money to take a bit of time planning what to do next. And then, just when I was making some decisions, this ranch turned up.”

“So annoying, to be handed a house and a few hundred acres.”

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