Nowhere Ranch by Heidi Cullinan Read Free Book Online Page A

simple.”
    He raised an eyebrow at me. “Travis. It's not that hard to say.”
    I pursed my lips and looked down at my plate. Damn it, I should have stayed home. “You're my boss. You're Loving or Mr. Loving.”
    “Tory is your boss. I just write the checks and get ulcers over the mortgage.” He motioned to my plate. “Are you done? Because we should head out.”
    “Just hold your horses.” I shoveled country-fried steak and gravy onto my fork. “I couldn't eat because you been talking my damn ears off and making me talk back. And this is too good to waste.”
    This seemed to amuse him, and he settled in to watch me eat. But whatever gabfly had bit him still had its fangs in, because he started in again. “You don't come in to town often, I noticed, and you don't eat out.”
    Whereas he ate out all the damn time, he who had a full kitchen and more than one burner. I finished my bite, wiped my mouth, and said, “Eating out is for special occasions, and I don't have no use for special occasions.”
    Now he out-and-out laughed. “So what is this, what you're doing right now?”
    I stabbed at my food and said nothing.
    He let me finish after that, thank God, and for a good half hour we rode in his truck without talking. I just watched the sunset deepen and felt the wind in my hair, because Loving had put down the windows instead of turning on the AC, which I prefer also.
    “You aren't wearing a hat,” Loving observed eventually.
    I ran a self-conscious hand over my hair. “Don't wear hats when I ain't working.”
    “You wore one that night in Rapid City.”
    “Well, I was working then, wasn't I?”
    I'll admit I said that to make him grin, and he did. He looked really good when he smiled, and it eased something in me.
    “So what about you?” he asked. “You ever done rodeo?”
    “I did a bit when I was nineteen, but I don't care much for having my body beat like that. I'd rather chase the trailers.”
    “Did you go down to Omaha?”
    I shook my head. “We have rodeo in Iowa. And flush toilets too.”
    “I notice you didn't list your home state in the places you worked.”
    I moved my eyes out the window. “No ranches in Iowa. Land's too good. Got to farm it. We do cattle some, but we don't need so much pasture, which means we need less men.”
    I tensed, waiting for him to ask why I left, and I didn't know what I was going to say. But he let it go quiet between us after that.
    Thank God.
    I do really like a rodeo, and it'd been a lot longer than I would have preferred since I had been to one. I love the smell and bustle of the circuit. It's the same smell as a ranch but with more sweat and more ass to ogle. The only trouble with rodeo is that every now and again I attract birds. By which I mean girls, but they are like birds to me, so that's how I think of them. It's one thing for a guy to look at me like I'm meat, but when a woman does it, I don't know how to act. I can deal with the ones who want sex, but the birds that see potential boyfriend material are hard to shake. I don't want to be mean, but I don't do friends of any kind, and especially I don't do it with girls. I do nothing with girls.
    This became a problem as we sat next to Tory and his wife and his two kids, one of which was his nineteen-year-old daughter.
    Tory was stout and short and hairy, but Haley was slim and tall and beautiful. She had blond hair that looked like sunshine, and if breasts had done a thing for me, the pretty rack in her low-cut top would've been tempting. But of course breasts and I aren't much for each other, so after I gave her a polite smile and a “nice to meet you,” I settled down on an empty bench below the family and settled in to watch.
    Haley sat down beside me. “So you're the new guy.”
    She was breathless and beaming, telegraphing not just friendliness but interest. Both sex and friends. This was a full-on red alert, but I couldn't do my usual cut and run, because this was my boss's kid.
    “Yep.” I