Page 37 of The Cowboy's Christmas
Chapter Eight
Tractor cabs weresmall, so when riding shoulder to canvas-covered shoulder with a man who made her nerves hum, who smelledsogood that her pheromone detectors were on the verge of overload, was it any wonder that Savannah almost took out a gate post with the front end of the tractor?
“Easy there,” Quinn said from way too close to her.
“I was distracted,” she said, which was true. Never good when driving a tractor.
“I could—”
The look she gave him stopped the helpful suggestion cold. “I’m capable of driving.”
Even though she’d definitely been in another world, thinking about what her sister had said about Quinn being a guy who might help her move on in life, in a way that friend dates with former classmates could not. And traveling along in the confines of the tractor cab with their shoulders bouncing together, enveloped in the warmth of his nearness, it seemed doable—at least according to her hormones.
Good thing she’d taken that possibility off the table this morning before this tractor ride had weakened her resolve.
No matter how her hormones voted, she wasn’t ready. Granted, she was tempted, and that was a good sign, but until she felt whole again, until she could face a trip to town with her nieces to see the decorations Matt had forged, to be surrounded by Christmas cheer, she was not in any way ready to deal with the added pressure of a quick holiday fling that may or may not end well.
“Gate approaching,” Quinn interrupted her thoughts. She stopped the tractor, resisted the impulse to shoot him a dark look, and popped the gear shift into neutral, allowing him to safely climb down to open the gate.
“I got us here in one piece,” she said as he stepped to the ground.
“You haven’t made it through the gate yet.”
She made a face at him, thankful that he had no idea how big a part he’d played in her head during the drive across the back fields to the Anderson Ranch. A veritable starring role.
Maybe this was good for her? She wasn’t stewing about Matt and the holidays. She wasn’t moving around in a numb haze.
Maybe she’d needed this man to shake her up, ease her into a different way of thinking. Growing pains were never comfortable, and she was growing—or at the very least changing, and Quinn Harding was serving as a catalyst.
After closing the gate, Quinn joined the dogs on the trailer, climbing to the top of the hay bales, and Savannah put the tractor in gear, moving slowly so as not to give her trailer passengers too rough of a ride as they lurched over the frozen tracks from other feedings. Fifty yards from the gate, Quinn began cutting strings and pushing hay off the rear of the trailer while the cattle came running from across the field, where they’d been bedded down next to the waterer and windbreak fence.
Snow began to fall as Quinn unloaded the last of the bales, lazy flakes that weren’t all that threatening, but were damp enough that she had to turn on the windshield wipers.
Despite the snow, when the trailer was empty, Quinn sat on the end with his legs dangling over the edge, for the ride back to the gate. Savannah passed through without threatening the gate posts, then put the tractor in neutral as she waited for Quinn to rejoin her in the cab. She was ready for him.
Or as ready as she would ever be.
She breathed deeply after he closed the door and the heater began to do its work on his damp canvas coat, fogging the windows so that she had to wipe them with the shop rag that rode on the steering column.
“About your brothers,” she said, pulling the subject out of the air. She felt Quinn’s shoulder muscles stiffen. “I’m not asking you to talk about them,” because she certainly didn’t want to talk about that other thing, her thing, “but I wanted to tell you that they’re good guys.”
He gave her a perplexed look before saying, “They seem to be.”
“I didn’t know them that well, but I did follow them through high school.” She shot him a quick look. “They were a lot more popular than I was, so we didn’t socialize. It wasn’t that they were aloof or anything, just—”
“High school?”
“Totally.” And she’d been dating Matt, so she didn’t have eyes for anyone else, but her friends did. Tara, who’d gone on the highway patrol, had been head over heels for Austin, which meant that she might well feel the same about Quinn.
They don’t need to meet.
Savannah shushed her inner voice with a mental eye roll. “I just wanted you to know, from an outsider’s point of view, that Ty and Austin are well thought of here.”
“That’s good to know.” There was a bemused note to his voice, as if he was debating her objective in bringing up his brothers.
She had one. Two, actually. She wanted to not spend time in her head while she drove, removing the potential for close encounters between the cumbersome tractor bucket and any immobile objects, and she wanted him to know that his brothers were good guys.
It tore at her to think of him growing up alone with only his mom, traveling from here to there, never forging any lasting bonds. Brothers could provide bonds—if he wanted them.
