Austin extended his hand to help her up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Totally my fault.” Instead of taking his hand, she shoved herself to her feet.

He couldn’t help how his gaze shifted to her wet T-shirt, which was plastered to her breasts.

Ella lifted her hands, palms out. “Didn’t want to get you muddy.” She nodded toward the spigot. “Sorry I used so much water, but I felt like a turkey roasting at Thanksgiving.”

“Don’t give yourself heatstroke.”

She waved away his concern. “Nothing a shower, a load of laundry and the biggest Coke I can find won’t cure.”

Don’t think of her in the shower. Don’t think of her in the shower.

“I’ll be back in the morning, and I’ll bring you that ladder,” she said.

“Okay.” Did his voice sound as dry as his throat felt?

Thankfully, Ella slid into her truck and quickly shut the door, hiding the way her wet shorts were cupping her hips. As she drove away, he let out a slow breath, turned on the spigot and stuck his own head under the cool flow of water.

Home on the Ranch
Trish Milburn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TRISH MILBURN writes contemporary romance for the Mills & Boon Cherish line and paranormal romance for the Mills & Boon Nocturne series. She’s a two-time Golden Heart® Award winner, a fan of walks in the woods and road trips, and a big geek girl, including being a dedicated Whovian and Browncoat. And from her earliest memories, she’s been a fan of Westerns, be they historical or contemporary. There’s nothing quite like a cowboy hero.

Thanks to MJ Fredrick, for introducing me to Junk Gypsies.

To Amie and Jolie Sikes, for being the Junk Gypsies and inspiring the character of Ella Garcia.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

He couldn’t do it. As Austin Bryant stared at the front of the older house where he’d grown up, his breathing grew tight. It was as if what lay beyond the front door was already suffocating him as it had threatened to do during his childhood.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of an engine. The early May sun baked him like it could only in Texas, albeit not with the urban type of heat that came from that same sun beating down on metal and concrete. Even though sweat trickled from his neck toward the middle of his back, his feet refused to move.

He took a deliberate deep breath. It didn’t matter how long he stood in the front yard of his grandparents’ house, the monumental task he faced wasn’t going to magically disappear. With his grandfather’s passing, the time that he’d dreaded for years had come—cleaning out the house so he could sell it.

Austin inhaled another breath that felt as if it might scorch his lungs before he headed toward the front steps. He paused with the key in his hand, wondering if he could just walk away, sell the place as it was, let someone else deal with the cleaning and repairs. But that didn’t feel right. Despite everything, this had been his home when he was young. His earliest memories and dreams were formed here. No matter how hard it was, this was his task and his alone.

He shook his head, telling himself to just get on with things. The sooner he started, the sooner he could put it all behind him and stop thinking about what might have been.

The doorknob squeaked as he turned it, already making itself an item on his to-do list. He stepped across the threshold and into his past, the one he’d fled when he’d gone away to college. All around him, piled to the ceiling, was...stuff. Old magazines sat side by side with clothing that hadn’t been worn in decades. Shelves of ceramic dust-catchers—cats, cowboy boots, ladies in frilly dresses, bells and God only knew what else—competed for space with chairs draped in more quilts and afghans than anyone in Texas should own.

He forced himself to take a few more steps into the house, but the farther he went the more he felt as if the piles of belongings were going to topple over and bury him alive. He’d had that particular nightmare for years, still did on occasion, and his lungs constricted just thinking about it. He spun in a slow circle, so overwhelmed he had no idea where to start. The task of getting rid of years of his grandparents’ hoarding felt like he was facing scooping away Mount Everest with a teaspoon.

His grandparents had never been able to satisfactorily explain why they found it impossible to throw away any of their possessions. Not even when they’d passed the point of being able to know what items resided at the bottom of the piles. The one saving grace was that they hadn’t been the type of hoarders who kept true garbage that attracted rodents or had dozens of cats. Still, it felt as if it was going to take the rest of his life to sort out what they’d left behind. Everything around him seemed to close in on him.

Not ready to face the rest, he turned and hurried back outside. The moment he stepped into the fresh air, the world expanded in size from what it had been only moments before, as if his lungs had received a sudden infusion of oxygen. Out here he was able to remember the good times, how his younger self had wanted so desperately to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps here on this ranch. But the oppressive reality of the hoarding had been too much for Austin to handle, had robbed him of his chance to follow that particular dream.

Current reality hit him square in the chest, knocking thoughts of the past to the back of his brain where they belonged. He needed help, someone to haul all this stuff away. Because there was no way he was going to wade through everything. He didn’t have the time or the inclination.

His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten all day, not since the half sandwich after the funeral the day before. Needing food and distance, he stalked to his car and fled the ranch as if a wildfire were taking up the entirety of his rearview mirror. By the time he rolled into the city limits of Blue Falls, he felt like a fool. He was a grown man. A house full of junk shouldn’t make him damn near hyperventilate.

He parked outside the Primrose Café and headed inside for lunch. Once his stomach was full, he’d make an actual plan that would get him back to Dallas before he was a decade older.

Before he even made it to a table, three people stopped him to express their sympathy over his grandfather’s passing. That was both the blessing and the curse of a small town—no matter how long you’d been gone, people still remembered you.

After he seated himself and placed his order, he looked up to see Nathan Teague walking toward him, a to-go cup of coffee in hand.

“Hey, Austin.” Nathan extended his hand for a shake, which Austin accepted. “Sorry to hear about your grandpa. He was a good man.”

“Yeah, he was.” Just because Austin had gotten out of his grandparents’ house as soon as he could didn’t mean he hadn’t loved them. You could love people and still not understand them, still be at odds.

“How long you in town for?”

“Not sure. Need to get the place ready to sell. I’m actually in need of someone to haul off a bunch of junk. Who does that around here these days?”

“I’d suggest Ella Garcia.” This answer didn’t come from Nathan.

It took Austin a moment to recognize the older woman at the next table, but then he realized it was Verona Charles, the aunt of Elissa Mason, who’d gone to high school with him. “Pardon?”

Verona consulted her phone, then wrote something on a napkin and handed it to him. “Call Ella. She’ll be able to help you out.” With a smile, Verona stood and headed toward the front to pay her bill.

“You ever need to know something in Blue Falls, don’t bother with the phone directory or the paper. Just ask Verona,” Nathan said. “Sorry to run, but I’ve got to go pick up my son for a doctor’s appointment. Little booger broke his arm and it’s cast removal day.”

Austin said goodbye and was left with his just-arrived burger and fries and a napkin with a phone number. It seemed somewhat odd that a woman was running a trash removal business, but he didn’t care if it was a band of little green Martians on the other end of the line as long as they could make quick work of his mounds of garbage.

Not wanting to waste even one moment, he stuck a fry in his mouth and dialed the number.

* * *

ELLA GARCIA STRAIGHTENED from where she’d been bent over her latest creative project and took a deep breath. Not that it was particularly refreshing since the temperature was nearing triple digits. She pulled a bandanna from the pocket of her cargo shorts and wiped the sweat off her forehead for what had to be the hundredth time. She walked over to the edge of her back porch and adjusted the fan she’d placed there to point toward where she was working in the backyard.

Satisfied with the angle of the mechanical breeze, she resumed sanding the rust off an antique tractor wheel that was going to become the main piece of a coffee table for one of her customers. As she scrubbed at a particularly difficult spot, her phone rang. She tossed her sandpaper onto the top of the upturned cable spool she was using as a workbench and pulled the phone from her back pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, so she answered with her professional greeting.

“Restoration Decoration, this is Ella.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, causing her to think it might be a telemarketer. But then a man said, “Um, I’m calling for Ella Garcia.”

“Speaking.” He sure sounded tentative for a telemarketer. Man, that had to be one of the top five suckiest jobs in the world.

“I was given your number,” he said, as if he’d suddenly remembered he should say something. “I need some junk hauled off.”

“How much and what type?”

“A lot and you name it.”

Excitement sparked to life inside Ella, her imagination dancing with her innate ability to turn one person’s trash into another’s treasure. She looked at the tractor wheel, mentally calculating how much work she had left to do in order to deliver the table by the deadline. She could always catch up on sleep after the buyer picked up the table, right? If she wanted to really grow her home decor business, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to acquire some raw materials on the cheap. She could spare a few hours.

“Okay, I’ll come take a look. Can I get your name and address?”

“Austin Bryant, 345 Tumbleweed Road.”

The combination of name and address made her realize he must be a relative of Dale Bryant’s. A chill skated down her spine. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten materials that became available after someone’s death, but never before had she been a witness to the person’s passing.

“Okay, I can meet you there in an hour if that works for you.”

“Sounds good.”

On the drive to the Bryant ranch, Ella fought a queasy stomach as she tried to figure out how she’d greet Austin Bryant. Should she express her sympathy at Dale Bryant’s passing? She didn’t even know how Austin was related to him. Or would it be better to ignore the topic altogether?

As she drove through Blue Falls, she glanced at the hardware store, wondering if she’d ever be able to look at it the same again. She’d just parked on Main Street the week before, headed to the hardware store for a fresh supply of screws and sandpaper, when she’d seen the crowd surrounding someone lying on the sidewalk right outside the store’s front door. She’d still been standing with the rest of the bystanders when the paramedics couldn’t find a pulse and loaded Mr. Bryant into the ambulance. News traveled fast in a town the size of Blue Falls, so it hadn’t been long before she’d heard they hadn’t been able to save him.

But that wasn’t the kind of story you shared with a grieving relative, especially when you’d never met him before. Trusting that she’d figure out the right thing to say when the time came, she turned off Main and headed out Tumbleweed Road.

A few minutes outside town, she started watching the numbers on mailboxes. She knew approximately where the ranch was, but she wasn’t certain where the driveway sat. As she navigated a slight curve, she caught sight of the correct mailbox. The 5 at the end of the address had slipped and was hanging at an angle. Ella turned left onto the dirt and pea gravel drive that led out through scrub vegetation and a few cacti, then a line of live oak trees, their sprawling branches reminding her of octopuses.

After about half a mile, the vegetation gave way to an open area with an older house, barn, scattered outbuildings and rolling pastureland beyond. The spot felt cozy, cut off from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world. Not that Blue Falls was a metropolis, but what she could see of the Bryant ranch seemed homey and probably filled with family history, even if perhaps it needed a little cosmetic TLC. Mr. Bryant had been in his seventies, a widower and not in good health. So it wasn’t surprising that the place looked a little run-down.

She parked next to a shiny black sedan that looked out of place in the rural setting. As she slipped from the driver’s seat, she spotted someone approaching from the house. Ella rounded the front of the truck but dang near tripped over her own feet when she looked up and saw the guy she assumed was Austin. In one glance, she noted his almond brown hair, striking blue eyes and a chiseled jaw that would be right at home on a cowboy in an old Western. She’d bet a considerable stack of cash that if she wiped the edges of her mouth, she’d find spontaneous drool.

“Miss Garcia?”

She continued to stare until her mind smacked the inside of her skull and said, Say something, you goob!

“Uh, yes.” She extended her hand and he shook hers once before pulling back. It was over so quickly that she wanted to whimper. She’d gotten the fleeting notion that his hand was strong and warm. “I’m sorry about Mr. Bryant’s passing. You’re a relative?”

“He was my grandfather.” He motioned for her to follow him toward the house.

Okay, so not a small talk kind of guy. Of course, his mind was probably still occupied by grief at the loss of his grandfather. As she followed him, she had to force herself not to admire the breadth of his shoulders beneath his gray T-shirt.

Austin paused on the porch and shifted his beautiful blue gaze back to her. “I don’t know if you know this, but my grandparents were hoarders. When I said there was a lot of junk, it wasn’t an exaggeration.”

Hoarders? Eek, what had she walked into? She had visions of mile-high refuse and a stench that would fell a skunk.

But when she followed him inside, she wasn’t knocked over by the odor. It was a bit musty with a layer of that old-people smell they couldn’t help, but considering how much stuff was just in the living room her nose was getting off easy.

She scanned the room, already picking out a few items that could be repurposed into eye-catching modern decor. So many people looked at a dated item and thought it had outlived its usefulness. She laid eyes on something such as the old cabinet-style TV and saw the cute shelving unit it could become with a little time, effort and paint.

“You can walk through the house if you like,” Austin said. “But if you already know you’re not interested, I understand.”

She looked at him and would swear he’d stiffened up. The tension was radiating off him like heat rising off a long stretch of Texas highway in July. He did not want to be here. Whether it was because of memories or the monumental task of cleaning out his grandparents’ things, she couldn’t tell.

“I’ll look around.” As she walked from the living area into the kitchen, she tried not to let her excitement start galloping like a runaway horse. But it was difficult considering the wealth of tins, crockery, utensils and even an old percolator-style coffeepot on the stove.

As she moved from one room to another, Austin didn’t leave the living room. It was as if he didn’t want to be out of view of the front door. She didn’t dawdle, but she took enough time to get some idea of what was available before returning to where Austin waited, definitely closer to the open door than when she’d left him.

“So how much to haul this away and how long will it take?” he asked.

Her gaze landed on several mason jars full of buttons behind him but she forced herself to focus on Austin, even if he did make her heart beat faster than normal.

“How much are you keeping?” she asked.

“None of it.” He glanced around as the space between his dark eyebrows scrunched, as if he were perplexed why she would ask that question.

He wasn’t the only one with questions. Had he already retrieved any mementos or heirlooms he wanted to keep? Or did he truly not want anything? She had never encountered a haul this large, and she worried about how she would manage to get it all out in a timely fashion and still meet her other obligations. But she’d have to because she was standing in the midst of a treasure trove of possible income.

Considering the situation, she reined in her giddiness. “I’ll haul it away for free, but it’ll take me several days since I’m a one-woman operation.”

Austin’s confusion deepened as he shifted his attention back to her. Damn, that man’s eyes were enough to turn a woman’s insides to puddles of undiluted desire.

“How can you make a living hauling trash for free?”

“It’s not trash.” She gestured to their surroundings. “I can make a lot of really wonderful home decor items from all this. Upcycling and repurposing are very popular right now, and a good way to keep items that still have use from ending up in landfills.”

He shook his head. “If you say so. I just want it gone as quickly as possible.”

She couldn’t imagine throwing away a legacy as he seemed determined to do. She’d moved around so often as a kid that her belongings had necessarily been kept to a minimum. The only things she had left of her father were a quilt she’d made from his shirts and a small album of photos. Her mom, in grief at his loss, had given everything else away, as if doing so would ease her pain.

Was that what Austin was doing?

“Would you like me to start today?”

“If you can. But you might want to see the rest of it before you start.”

“The rest?”

He motioned for her to follow him outside. This time, not only did she have to avert her eyes from his shoulders but also how nice his long legs looked in his jeans. Honestly, why couldn’t it have been a frumpy niece who’d called her out here?

Austin headed toward the barn, not slowing his stride to accommodate her shorter legs. This dude was in a hurry, and she wondered if he would give her enough time to go through his grandparents’ belongings. Would she have to haul it all away and sift through it later? As she walked, she tried calculating the number of trips that would take, how many hours of work.

When Austin opened the barn door, her preliminary calculations got blasted to smithereens.

He must have seen the surprised look on her face. “I told you it was a lot.”

“You weren’t kidding.”

“And there’s more in the two small outbuildings out back.”

Holy macaroni. She strode into the barn, glancing from side to side. Though it wasn’t as packed as the house, there was indeed a lot of extra stuff lining the alleyway down the middle of the barn and occupying the stalls that didn’t hold the one chestnut-colored horse in residence.

“So people really buy stuff made from junk?”

The way he said “junk” rubbed her the wrong way, as if what she put her heart and soul into was foolish and the people who bought it even more so. But she held her tongue. She wasn’t going to let momentary annoyance prevent her from scoring enough raw materials to keep her hands and imagination busy for months. And with plans in the works for a new arts and crafts trail to lead tourists to the shops of local artisans, this stockpile would help her have plenty of offerings for new customers.

“Yes, and I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me here.”

Austin crossed his arms across his chest, causing her to gulp. Good grief, she hoped that hadn’t been audible. But really, she couldn’t be blamed if it had been. Or for the fact she wondered what it would feel like to be wrapped in those well-defined arms. It wasn’t her fault that the mere sight of him made her hormones jump up and start dancing the jitterbug.

“This is too much for one person to clear out,” he said. “I should call in some more help.”

“No, I can do it.” It was going to be exhausting, but she hated the idea of a sanitation crew hauling everything off to the dump.

Austin let out a long exhale. “You have until I finish up some repairs and get the ranch listed. If it’s not all gone by then, I’m calling in someone who can get everything out of here in a day.”

She hastily agreed to his terms, even though she had no idea how she was going to manage such an undertaking on her own. Especially when she couldn’t afford to hire any help.

“I’ll get started now.”

He gave her what felt like a long look with those gorgeous eyes then nodded once before walking past her out of the barn.

Unable to help herself, she turned and watched him stride away. Fearing he would sense her gaze, she spun back toward the interior of the barn. She’d set herself a near impossible task. She certainly didn’t have time to ogle Austin Bryant, however pleasurable that might be.

Chapter Two

Austin battled the frustration eating at him from the inside as he walked back toward the house. For some reason that escaped him, he’d just agreed to let a woman who barely came up to the midway point on his chest have the time to haul all his grandparents’ belongings away by herself. When she’d said that the piles of stuff could be useful, he’d been jerked back to his childhood, to when his grandmother had explained they couldn’t throw anything out because they might need it someday.

Most of the time he couldn’t remember what her voice sounded like, but he could hear her say that clear as day in his memory.

Even as a little boy, he’d known that there was no use for a black-and-white television that no longer worked or dozens of plastic butter containers that had been washed after the butter was eaten then stashed in the kitchen cabinets. What Ella Garcia saw in a lifetime of hoarding, he had no idea. And he didn’t care as long as she got it out of his sight.

He fought against the urge to haul everything outside and set it on fire. But his rational brain managed to beat down that visceral need. While he might want it all gone now, realistically what did a few more days matter? It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough work around the place to keep him busy while Ella toted away everything.

He stopped at the corner of the house and took a couple of deep breaths, ashamed that he let being here upset him so much. He needed to focus on things other than the past—things like fixing the sagging gutters on the house, checking the fencing around the ranch to see if it needed repairs, doing research to figure out what asking price he should shoot for when he talked to a real estate agent.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. Ella Garcia hurried up the front steps of his grandparents’ house. Now that he had a plan for clearing out the house and surrounding buildings, it was as if a layer of distraction that had been blinding him to her physical appearance had been peeled away.

Damn if he didn’t feel his blood rush a little bit faster in his veins as he watched her fit legs carry her up the steps and toward the front door. As if they had a mind of their own, his eyes made a quick perusal up her legs and over her backside, all the way up to where she’d pulled her dark, curly hair into a pseudo ponytail on the back of her head. And his very male eyes liked what they saw, sending a message south to react accordingly.

Austin cursed under his breath. He already had about a dozen helpings too much on his plate. The last thing he needed was to be attracted to Ella. In a few days, his time in Blue Falls would be up and he’d be back in Dallas, where he wouldn’t feel as if the world was caving in on him.

Needing to fill his mind with anything other than Ella Garcia’s curves, he retraced his steps to the barn. While he didn’t want to walk inside, he needed a ladder if he was going to start work on the gutters. At least the barn wasn’t as bad as the house, he told himself as he stepped into the dim interior.

Luck was finally on his side when he spotted a ladder hanging on the wall about halfway down the alleyway. He started in that direction but paused when he reached Duke, his grandfather’s sorrel stock horse.

“Hey, fella,” he said as he scratched between Duke’s ears. He smiled when he thought about how the horse had gotten his name, after John Wayne.

Austin’s grandfather must have seen each of Wayne’s movies at least a hundred times. The old VCR tapes were likely buried under fifty pounds of other stuff inside the house. Despite the happy memory of watching those movies with his grandfather, he didn’t want the tapes. But he did sometimes find himself flipping channels at home or on a business trip and stopping to watch The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

His heart squeezed at the fact that he’d never again be able to talk to his grandfather, the man who’d been so much more than a grandparent to him. Dale Bryant had been the only father he’d ever known.

As if Duke could read Austin’s thoughts, he lifted his head and bumped it against Austin’s hand.

“You miss him, too, don’t you?”

Duke let out a sad-sounding snort as if to give an affirmative answer.

Austin rubbed his hand along Duke’s neck. “We’ll go out for a ride tomorrow, boy.” He let his hand drop away and made his way down the narrow path between wooden crates and old ranch equipment to reach the ladder.

But when he reached it, the crumbling wooden rungs made it obvious that he wasn’t going to be using it to clean and fix the gutters. “Damn it.”

“Something wrong?”

He spun toward the entrance to see Ella’s petite form backlit by the strong sunlight outside.

“Useless ladder.” He pointed toward where it hung on an old metal hook.

“I have one you can borrow. No need to get another if you’re not keeping the place.”

His instinct was to decline. Though when he stopped to think about it, that didn’t make sense. What did make sense was not buying a ladder that he’d be using for only a few days, one that he couldn’t transport in his car anyway.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“No problem.” She held up something. “I found this and a bunch of other toys. I thought maybe they were yours when you were a kid and, well, you might want to keep them?”

It took him a moment to figure out that she was holding the engine to the wooden train set he’d had as a young boy. He hadn’t even seen that in probably twenty years. For a split second, he thought maybe... He shook his head. “No. Like I said, there’s nothing here I want. If you find things you can’t use, I’m happy to pay you to haul them away. Or leave them and I’ll have a trash crew come in and get the rest.”

She glanced at the toy in her hand, and he’d swear he saw a flicker of sadness in her expression. Maybe she was just one of those people who got attached to things. He wasn’t. Things had to be useful, a means to an end. There was no other reason to have them.

And yet there was some strange part of him that wanted to keep the train engine simply because she evidently wanted him to for some reason. Crazy.

“Okay,” Ella finally said. “I’ll bring the ladder with me tomorrow unless you need it sooner. I could take a small load of stuff home then come back with it.”

“No, that’s not necessary. There are plenty of other things I can do without it.” And he’d rather she make a fast dent in the piles before they decided to multiply when he had his back turned.

She gave a quick nod then headed out of the barn.

He sighed and realized the only thing that was going to give him any sort of relief from his frustration was a ride out across the ranch. He knew that from years of experience.

Well, that’s not all that could give you relief.

Jeez, the woman had been on his property only half an hour at most and he was already having sexual thoughts about her.

You’re only human. A man.

Yeah, but he wasn’t an animal. And Ella Garcia was definitely not the type of woman for him. Her excitement over getting to possess piles of junk, as if she’d won the kid lottery on Christmas morning, told him that much.

Needing a lot of fresh air and wide-open sky, preferably far away from the temptation of the woman currently carrying a big box out to her truck, he moved toward the tack room. Once he retrieved his grandfather’s saddle, he walked over to Duke’s stall. “Change of plans, boy.”

Maybe somewhere out on his grandparents’ acreage he’d find a sense of calm and his common sense.

* * *

ELLA SHOVED A box of vintage lace doilies into the back of her truck, already imagining the beautiful lampshades she could make from them. As she raised her hand to wipe sweat from her forehead for what had to be the thousandth time since she’d arrived at the Bryant ranch, the muscles in her arms screamed at her. She was sweaty, dirty, aching and needed a Coke approximately the size of the Blue Falls water tower, but she was going to cram as much stuff into her truck as possible. The quicker she emptied the house, the better. She didn’t want to risk Austin changing his mind, thinking it was taking her too long. It would be a crime for all these items to end up at the dump.

She just wished she could clone herself a couple of times to make the work go faster. So would having Austin’s help, but then that’s what he’d “hired” her for, right? Plus, he’d disappeared on his grandfather’s horse a few hours ago. The moment she’d seen him astride the horse, riding off across the pasture, she’d nearly tripped over her feet again. That certainly was a dangerous and annoying effect for a guy to have on a girl. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to face-plant in the driveway and not be able to tell him why. She’d have to claim supreme klutziness or something.

If she’d thought he looked like a movie star cowboy earlier, him astride a horse with the wide, blue sky as a backdrop had only increased that impression tenfold. If he’d been wearing a cowboy hat and boots, it was possible she would have just drooled herself into dehydration.

Despite the lack of traditional cowboy attire, there had been something so totally right about the sight of him astride that horse, like he belonged here in this place.

Why she thought that, she had no idea. After all, she didn’t have a lot of experience with deep connections to a place. Growing up in a military family came with a certain rootlessness. Only since moving to Blue Falls had she started to feel a real connection to a slice of the world. According to the friends she’d made here, it was one of those small towns where people enjoyed growing up and many liked to stay.

Except, evidently, Austin Bryant. When he’d shown her around the place and asked about how long it would take her to empty all the buildings, he’d been fighting a barely contained fidgetiness. It was as if he thought the place was going to cause him to break out in a rash if he stayed too long. And though Dale Bryant had been a nice guy, it seemed his grandson couldn’t be rid of anything that reminded him of his grandparents fast enough.

With another swipe at the sweat beading on her forehead, she headed back into the house.

By the time she was wedging the last possible thing—an old sewing box filled with lots of notions—into her truck, she was so tired and hot that if there were a flowing creek nearby she’d just lie down in it, clothes and all.

As if the universe were offering her the next best thing, she spotted a water spigot between the house and the barn. Like a desert traveler heading toward a mirage, she crossed to the spigot and turned it on. She stuck her entire head underneath the flow of water, and it felt so good that she had to resist the urge to stay underneath it until she ran the water source dry.

She did extend the top half of her body under the flow, soaking her T-shirt and bra. Good thing she was heading straight home because she no doubt looked like she’d been dragged behind a boat across Blue Falls Lake. When she got her truck unloaded, she was going to take the longest shower in the history of showers.

Though she didn’t want to, she turned off the spigot and wiped the water from her face as she stood. She opened her eyes to find a man standing a few feet away. An involuntary scream left her mouth before recognition hit. This time, she wasn’t able to prevent the tangled-feet phenomenon from dumping her flat on her butt in the mud she’d just created.

* * *

WHEN AUSTIN HAD headed out to ride the fence line earlier, he’d left behind a woman carrying away his grandparents’ things. As he stared down at Ella now, she looked more like she’d fallen in a stock tank filled with water.

He extended his hand to help her up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

She made a dismissive gesture with a muddy hand. “Totally my fault.” Instead of taking his hand, she shoved herself to her feet.

He couldn’t help how his gaze shifted to her wet T-shirt, which was plastered to her perfectly rounded breasts. He barely managed to lift his eyes toward her face in time to prevent her from noticing his blatant staring.

Ella lifted her hands, palms out. “Didn’t want to get you muddy.” She nodded toward the spigot. “Sorry I used so much water, but I felt like a turkey roasting at Thanksgiving.”

“Don’t give yourself heatstroke.” He certainly didn’t need her passing out in the driveway, burying herself under mounds of clothing or magazines that hadn’t seen the light of day since the ’90s or before.

She waved away his concern. “Nothing a shower, a load of laundry and the biggest Coke I can find won’t cure.”

Don’t think of her in the shower. Don’t think of her in the shower.

He forced himself to look at her truck instead of her. “I can’t believe you got so much stuff in one load.” Not that it would likely look like much had been removed from the mountains the house contained.

“I’m a master at packing lots into a small space.”

His skin itched at the very idea. Were the boxes and bags and miscellaneous items simply relocating to take up residence for years more in some other space too small to adequately contain them?

Not his problem.

“I’ll be back in the morning, and I’ll bring you that ladder,” she said.

He glanced back at Ella to see her already moving toward the driver’s side of her truck.

“Okay.” Did his voice sound as dry as his throat felt?

When she opened the door on the truck, she pulled a plastic bag from behind the seat and placed it where she could sit her muddy bottom on it.

Thankfully, she slid into the truck and quickly shut the door, hiding the way her wet shorts were also cupping her hips. She started the engine then tossed him a wave before she headed down the driveway. He was reminded of the Clampett family’s truck on old reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies, piled high with all their possessions as they headed to California after striking it rich.

Only Ella Garcia hadn’t struck it rich, even if she sort of acted as though she had.

As she disappeared beyond the trees, he let out a slow breath, turned on the spigot and stuck his own head under the cool flow of water.

Chapter Three

Ella moaned as her alarm clock belted out beeps the next morning. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled into her pillow. Hadn’t she fallen asleep about ninety seconds ago?

Honestly, if she had a baseball bat handy, the clock’s remaining seconds would be numbered in single digits.

Since mind control sadly didn’t work on the alarm, she rolled over and slapped it off. She stared up at the ceiling with every muscle in her body staging a coup. But today wasn’t going to be any easier. In fact, instead of a partial day of clearing out the Bryant house, she was going to be at it all day for multiple loads. Not for the first time she allowed herself to fantasize about her business growing so much that she could afford an employee or two to help out with the pickups, deliveries, all the miscellaneous stuff that ate into her design time.

But fantasizing about it wasn’t going to make it come true. Getting her tired butt out of bed just might. Eventually.

After a few minutes in the bathroom, she dressed and headed out to load the ladder in the truck. Once it was secured, she headed toward town. More specifically, the Mehlerhaus Bakery.

Keri Teague, the owner, looked up when Ella walked into the bakery. If heaven smelled any better than this place...well, Ella wasn’t sure that was possible.

“You look as if you could use some coffee.”

“You, my friend, are correct. And one of those cinnamon rolls that’s as big as my head.”

Keri slid the door on the back of the glass display case open and reached for one of the cinnamon rolls that was, no lie, the size of a salad plate.

“Actually, make it two rolls and two large coffees.”

“You really in need of sugar and caffeine or you buying some for Austin Bryant, too?”

“Can’t hurt to come bearing breakfast when I’m hoping to have time to get everything he’s offered.”

Keri lifted a brow. “And just what exactly has he offered?”

“Fine, twist the tired lady’s words.”

Keri laughed as she bagged up the rolls. “I haven’t seen Austin in a long time, but as I remember he wasn’t exactly hard to look at.”

“I’m too busy looking at all the raw materials I’m hauling out of his grandparents’ house.”

“Uh-huh.” Keri gave her a look that said she didn’t buy one word of what Ella had just said.

“Okay, fine. The guy is good-looking. He also couldn’t be more anxious to get the hell out of here and back to wherever he came from.”

“Dallas. He’s got some big job at an energy company, I think.”

Well, that explained the nice car. What it didn’t explain was how at home he looked on that horse, riding out toward a herd of cattle. Of course, that could just be remnants of his childhood still lingering.

Keri placed a couple of to-go coffees on the counter beside the cinnamon rolls. “Oh, and by the way, you might want to know that the person who pointed Austin in your direction was Verona.”

Oh, great. So far Ella had managed to not become the town matchmaker’s target, but she’d guessed it was only a matter of time.

“That woman has entirely too much time on her hands,” Ella said as she passed over the money for her breakfast. “Plus, I think there ought to be a rule that you should have to be a native of Blue Falls to be targeted by her.”

“No, no. You live here, you take the same chances as every other unattached person.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re happily married and don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“Well, there is that.”

Ella laughed and grabbed her purchases. “At least I won’t have to worry about it long. I’m guessing Austin Bryant heads home before the week is over.”

“Oh, that’s plenty of time for Verona to work her magic. Plus, even if he leaves, she’ll just try to find you someone else.”

Ella stuck out her tongue at Keri before heading toward the door, which just made her friend laugh as if she hadn’t had so much fun in ages.

As Ella headed toward her truck, she thought about what Keri had said and tried to figure out who Verona might try to pair her up with should Austin pull a Houdini out of town. She couldn’t think of a single person who interested her.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The fact that she’d bought an extra coffee and monster cinnamon roll proved that, didn’t it?

She shook her head and made a sound of frustration at herself as she started the engine and headed off toward her long day of work. That’s what she needed to focus her attention on, not the long, tall Texan she’d be seeing again in about fifteen minutes.

As she pulled onto the road that led back to the ranch, her nerves started that annoying dancing thing again. Jeez, it was as if she’d never seen a handsome guy before. Heck, there were plenty traipsing through Blue Falls on a daily basis, locals and cowboys in town for the regular rodeos. Why did this particular owner of a Y chromosome set her insides to doing funny, not normal things?

Yes, he was hot as a firecracker, but he was also sort of grumpy. Granted, that could be chalked up to grief and too much to do in too short a time, but still. It wasn’t as if he was going to up and sweep her off her feet. Not that she wanted to be swept. Did she?

Crap, maybe she had suffered a heatstroke the day before.

When she pulled within view of the house, Austin’s car wasn’t there.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.” She glanced at the bag with the two cinnamon rolls and at the extra coffee container riding in her cup holder. “More for me, I guess.”

Not willing to go into the house even if it happened to be unlocked, she unloaded the ladder, leaning it against the side of the house, then retrieved her breakfast. She hopped up on the lowered tailgate and dug in. At the first bite, she closed her eyes and paid attention to nothing but the cinnamon and sugar tangoing across her tongue. No matter how many times she ate something from Keri’s bakery, she never ceased to be amazed at the woman’s magical ways with sweets.

Opening her eyes, she took a drink of coffee and looked out beyond the barn to the field stretching toward the horizon. It really was peaceful out here. She liked her little rental house fine, but it didn’t have this kind of view. One couldn’t call a highway and the back side of Blue Falls’ small industrial park particularly scenic.

The quiet of the morning gave way to the sound of a car engine heading toward her. She almost choked on the bite she’d just taken when she spotted Austin’s car.

Oh, get a grip. You’re here to work, not ogle and daydream.

“You’re here early,” he said as he got out of the car.

“Lots to do.” She lifted the white paper bag that contained the second cinnamon roll in one hand and the extra coffee in the other. “Breakfast?”

He gave her an odd look, as if he didn’t quite understand her one-word question. “You brought me food?”

“I was already at the bakery. Not hard to add an extra cinnamon roll. Plus, I didn’t know if you were staying out here without the kitchen being stocked.”

“I’m not staying on the ranch.” He said it quickly, with the same tone she could imagine him using if she’d accused him of sleeping in a pigsty.

“Okey-dokey,” she said.

Austin ran his hand back over his hair. The movement drew attention to his rather nice arm. She wondered what else was hiding underneath his navy blue T-shirt.

“Sorry,” he said as he closed the distance between them. “Didn’t mean to snap at you. Just got a lot on my mind.” He peeked inside the paper bag and whistled.

“Yeah, it’s big.”

He glanced over to where she’d made her way through about half of hers. “You can eat that whole thing?”

“Every delectable bite.” She smiled, and when he offered a bit of a smile back, she dang near melted and slid off the tailgate.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when he took a bite of his cinnamon roll then licked at some of the icing at the edge of his mouth, she was pretty sure she spontaneously got pregnant.

Before she embarrassed herself so much she’d have to move out of Texas, she hopped down to the ground and wrapped up the rest of her cinnamon roll for later, when Austin Bryant wasn’t standing in front of her making her want to take a bite out of him instead.

As she rounded the back of the truck to put the bag in the cab, she pointed toward the house. “You can now have fun cleaning the gutters.”

Austin glanced toward where she’d propped the ladder and nodded. “Thanks. I think.”

She laughed a little. “Not looking forward to it?”

“Have you ever known anyone who looked forward to cleaning gutters?”

“Excellent point.”

Not knowing what else to say to keep their limited conversation going, she grabbed her tablet from the glove compartment and nodded toward the front porch. “Well, I better get busy, too.”

As she walked toward the house, she thought how it was a good thing Verona Charles wasn’t anywhere nearby. Because one look at Ella’s face would be all the encouragement the older woman needed to go full-on matchmaker, no matter the fact that Austin was clearing out, not moving in.

She took another big swig of her coffee to fight off the fatigue brought on by too little sleep the night before. And, honestly, several nights before that. Tonight wasn’t looking as if it was going to be any different. But sacrifices had to be made if she wanted to build her business, move into a bigger space where she could store her finds, have an area to spread out and work, and eventually have a storefront.

Not wanting to get any more behind on her inventory tracking than she already was thanks to the load from the day before, she set up her tablet on the kitchen table and started listing everything as she went through it. Logging everything before she carried it out to the truck slowed her down, but she knew from experience that if she allowed herself to get too behind she ended up overwhelmed. She probably didn’t have the best tracking system in the world, but it worked for her.

She was in the midst of inputting a box of vintage sewing patterns, already imagining decoupaging them onto tables and chairs and old sewing machine cabinets, when the unholiest racket came from outside. Fearing Austin had fallen off the ladder, she jumped up and ran out the front door.

By the time she rounded the corner of the house, he was halfway down the ladder with his hand to his forehead. The gutter hung by only one end, the opposite end nearly scraping the ground as it swung like a pendulum on a grandfather clock. She spotted the telltale red of blood around the edge of Austin’s fingers.

“It hit you in the head?”

“Yeah.” He growled the response, sounding as if he’d love to add a few choice curses after his single-word answer.

“Here, let me see,” she said, taking a few steps toward him.

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

He glanced up at her, raising the eyebrow on the undamaged side of his face. “Little bossy, aren’t you?”

She waved away his description. “Just practical. Now come on.” She motioned for him to follow her, and was sort of surprised when he actually did.

But when she headed inside, he stopped halfway up the front steps. Not wanting his unwillingness to go inside to prevent her from tending his wound, she motioned for him to sit on the steps. “I’ll be right back.”

She made for the bathroom, which was cluttered but not as crammed full as the rest of the house. After locating a clean washcloth, some hydrogen peroxide and an assortment of other first-aid supplies, she hurried back outside to find Austin with his feet on the second step and lying back on the porch. For a moment, she thought maybe he’d passed out. But he turned his head toward her.

Ella plopped down next to him, sitting cross-legged, and set to work washing away the blood and cleaning the wound. As cuts went, it wasn’t very big. But head lacerations were notorious for bleeding like crazy, making the injured party look like Carrie on prom night.

“I suppose I’ll live?”

The rumble of Austin’s voice so close sent delicious shivers across her skin. Why hadn’t she noticed his voice was so sexy it made her want to hop out of her clothes?

Oh, good grief. All work and no play were making Ella a naughty-minded girl.

“You should be fine as long as you don’t try headbutting any more gutters.”

He sighed and tried to sit up. Not even thinking about her action, she pressed down on his shoulder.

“Hang on. Let the bleeding stop so I can get a bandage on it. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“No clue. Probably when I was in school.”

“I’d suggest getting one.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She sighed in exasperation. Now who was being stubborn? “Tell yourself that when you’re spasming so hard you break your bones.”

He looked like he might respond but then seemed to reconsider.

Ella tried not to think about how close her bare leg was to his bare arm as she leaned forward to apply antibiotic cream to the cut. She wasn’t sure if heat was really coming off his body like he was a furnace, or if she was just flushing from the images traipsing through her mind. Things such as Austin back on that ladder but without a shirt and his jeans hanging low on his hips.

She made a frustrated sound without thinking about it.

“What’s wrong?” Austin asked as she affixed the bandage.

“It’s just blasted hot out here. I feel like I’m going to cook.”

The way he was looking up at her certainly wasn’t helping lower her temperature either.

“You do know you live in Texas, right?”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.”

For what felt like an unnaturally long moment, he stared up at her before finally lifting himself to a sitting position and propping his forearms on his legs, letting his hands dangle between his knees.

“Got to admit I’m not used to this anymore,” he said. “Air-conditioning spoils a person.”

“All that time sitting in an office?” She couldn’t help being curious about this man who did zippy things to her lady parts.

He glanced over at her. “How do you know I work in an office?”

“Well, I didn’t figure you were a highway worker after the AC comment.” She paused. “And Keri at the bakery might have mentioned you worked at an energy company or something.”

He huffed out a little laugh. “I manage to forget how everyone knows everything about everyone here.”

“Trust me, it’s not the only place that’s like that.”

“Where are you from originally?”

She made a circular motion in the air with her index finger. “All over. Army brat.”

“Bet that was interesting.”

She shrugged. “Yes and no. Japan was neat. I still love Japanese food.”

“Not a lot of that in Blue Falls.”

“No, but I like it here.” She glanced out across the land where Austin had grown up. “I used to envy kids who got to stay in one place.”

“We always want what we don’t have.”

“I guess that’s true.” Despite the fact she’d known this man all of a single day, she found herself wondering what Austin wanted that he didn’t have. Other than to get his grandparents’ property cleared out and sold, that was. “Well, if you need more first aid, just yell. I’m going back to work.”

Before she could lift herself to her feet, Austin stood and held out his hand. As she looked at that proffered hand, some heretofore unknown alarm system in her head started clanging as though Blue Falls was about to be bombed by B-52s. Some instinct said if she touched his hand, she was going to have trouble sleeping at night, no matter how exhausted she was.

But then she couldn’t really refuse without appearing rude. Telling herself to think about anything other than Austin—the price of bread, how many elements she could remember from the periodic table, how dandelions grew back so blasted fast—she accepted his hand. Dang if he didn’t pull her up as easily as if she weighed no more than one of those dandelions. And as she feared, sizzles of electricity raced up her arm and proceeded through the rest of her body.

“Thanks,” she said, wincing inwardly at how forced her cheery voice sounded.

Austin released her hand so suddenly it was as if her touch had turned scorching hot. Trying not to be offended, she gave him a quick smile and retreated inside. But when she returned to the area of the kitchen where she’d been logging her finds, she had a hard time focusing on the task. In fact, she found it hard to sit still. Darn her overactive imagination. It was having a field day up in her head, wondering what that large, warm hand would feel like touching her face, his fingers finding their way through her riot of curls to the back of her head.

No, she wouldn’t think about his lips. Nope, nope, nope.

Determined to regain some of her suddenly AWOL sanity, she decided to tackle a closet in the master bedroom. But when she stepped through the doorway, her gaze landed on the bed covered with an old-fashioned chenille bedspread. She knew she was in trouble when instead of wondering what she could do with the chenille, she had a mental flash of crawling beneath it with a very hot and naked Austin Bryant.

Chapter Four

After Ella retreated into the house, Austin let out his breath and ran his fingers back through his hair. When was the last time a woman had taken care of him like Ella just had? His grandmother when he’d been a kid scraping knees and elbows around the ranch? It freaked him out how nice it had felt, her soft hands being gentle with his stupid injury but quick and efficient at the same time.

The moment her small fingers had touched his skin, a wave of heat had raced through him that had nothing to do with the climbing temperature outside.

Damn, of all the women toward whom he could have a powerful attraction.

With a shake of his head, he returned to the ladder and what he should be thinking about—working to get this ranch ready to sell.

But as he wrestled with the gutters, his mind kept wandering back to the woman inside the house. He seemed to always end up on dates with taller, leggy blondes. He’d assumed that was just his type. Even in high school, he’d dated Sophie Bellermine, who’d been a blonde and the center on the basketball team.

So why were his thoughts and hormones latching on to a petite brunette whose curls seemed to be hosting a party on her head?

What was she doing in the house anyway? Yesterday, she’d been like a whirlwind, speeding back and forth to her truck. Today she seemed to disappear inside for longer stretches of time. He just hoped she didn’t fall victim to an avalanche of his grandparents’ myriad possessions.

No, not his grandparents’ stuff, not anymore. Now it all belonged to him—at least until Ella could get it off the property.

As if thinking about her conjured her, Ella strode out to the truck carrying a box of...something. He didn’t even care what it was. Just wanted it gone.

He paused in the midst of attaching another portion of the gutter that had pulled away from the roof to watch her. Her legs might not be as long as a supermodel’s, but they certainly packed a lot of punch. Fit, smooth, tempting. His body stood at attention, making his jeans grow uncomfortable. But he couldn’t stop watching.

He would have been better off if a burly, hairy guy had shown up to do the job, but if someone had to be here for several days, she was a damn sight nicer to look at.

When she turned to walk back to the house, she headed in his direction instead. She shaded her eyes as she looked up at him.

“Glad to see you haven’t bled out.”

No, his blood was too busy rushing to other parts of his body to mess with a measly head wound.

“Despite evidence to the contrary, I’m not normally accident-prone.”

“Good to know, because I start charging for the second injury.”

He laughed, surprising himself. It seemed to release some well of tension within him he hadn’t truly been aware of. His arm and leg muscles relaxed, including the death grip he’d had on the rung of the ladder. He took a deep breath, maybe the first true one he’d taken since getting the call about his grandfather.

“You okay?” Ella asked.

“Yeah.” He nodded once toward the house. “How’s it going?”

“Good. I’m logging as I go so I can at least pretend I have a tracking system for supplies.”

She was taking the time to log piles and piles and piles of stuff that he would have sworn had outlived its usefulness? “Won’t that slow you down?”

He thought he saw a hint of a wince cross her face, but she was too far away to tell for sure.

“Some. I guessed that you still had quite a bit of work to do before you were ready to list the place.”

“I do. But I can’t do anything inside until it’s cleared out.”

Ella slipped her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, probably unaware of the way that movement accentuated her figure and threatened to make him topple off the ladder.

“How much more do you have to do outside?”

Plenty to keep him busy for several more days, but how could he convey that he just needed all the crap gone, out of his sight, out of his life without sounding like he had an irrational hatred for inanimate objects?

“A bit.” Way to be specific, dude.

“Got it, pick up the pace.”

Before he could respond, she spun and disappeared around the corner of the house. Frustrated by his mental hang-up about his grandparents’ stash, he looked up at the cloudless sky and let out a long sigh. He needed to chill, let Ella do her thing. After all, her hauling everything away wasn’t costing him a penny. He needed to appreciate that positive fact instead of letting his past make him want to throw however much it cost at someone to haul everything out of here today.

Calm the hell down.

Despite his “a bit” answer to her question, he had more than enough to keep him busy that didn’t require him stepping foot in the house.

It seemed being away from Blue Falls for several years had made him forget how to cope with things out of his control—concentrating only on the thing directly in front of him and pretending everything else didn’t exist. Movement out of the corner of his eye revealed itself to be Ella striding to the truck, her arms full of several small, teetering boxes.

How the heck was he supposed to pretend Ella Garcia didn’t exist?

* * *

ELLA STALKED BACK into the house, frustration and fatigue gnawing at her. She wasn’t really mad at Austin. After all, he’d been up-front with her about wanting the place cleared out as quickly as possible, and she’d agreed. But she dreaded trying to log everything after she’d shoved it...somewhere. She couldn’t think now about the fact that she didn’t have enough space for everything here, not even close. She’d have to figure that out later, when she had to move everything yet again to log it, then put it back wherever she’d crammed it. She didn’t have time for doubling or tripling her efforts, but it wasn’t as if she was willing to walk away from the current windfall either. Even if the faster she got away from Austin Bryant, the better.

When she’d been tending the cut on his forehead earlier, her fingers could have easily continued exploring if she hadn’t forcefully reined them in. The man was too good-looking for her comfort. She kept having to dissuade herself from making up reasons to go out and talk to him just to hear the sexy rumble of his voice, to see how nicely his jeans fit his backside, to watch the play of the muscles in his arms as he worked.

It sure had been a while since infatuation had hit her this hard and this fast, not since she’d fallen instantly head over heels for Jacob O’Riley when she was a freshman in high school, only to have him and his family move to Ohio. She remembered crying herself to sleep the night she’d found out that he’d moved, convinced it was the end of the world.

Well, she wasn’t going to be crying over Austin Bryant, and it wasn’t going to be the end of the world when he went back to Dallas. Sure, she’d miss the whole sexy-package thing he had going on, but soon enough she’d be buried in her work and too darn busy to wonder about what Austin was doing more than two hundred miles away.

No, she’d enjoy the male scenery while they were here crossing paths, and that would be that.

Several times throughout the day, she came across items that she wanted to ask Austin if he’d like to keep. But he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested, which saddened her. How many times had she wished she had more keepsakes, more tangible items with memories attached? But not everyone was like that. Still, something in her gut told her he wasn’t as unattached as he claimed.

By the time she’d unearthed an old treadle sewing machine, her truck was filling up again. She stood back, eyeing the half of the bedroom where she’d been working for the past couple of hours. She’d made a good-size dent in the contents of the room and was now able to see one whole wall.

Ella looked out the window, estimating the space left in the truck versus the space needed for the sewing machine. After she had time to examine it more thoroughly, she’d figure out what to do with it. For now, it was destined for that rectangle of space left at the back of her truck bed. She hated to do it, but she was going to have to ask Austin for help with this one.

But when she went outside, he was nowhere to be found. She walked around the house, noting that the gutters appeared to all be in their proper spots, but no Austin. She spun in a circle, but she still didn’t see him. Oh well, she wasn’t going to chase him down, wherever he’d gone. It might take some wrestling and grunting, but somehow she’d get the sewing machine in the truck. After all, she was used to doing things by herself, a necessity of single life.

Then she’d go home, unload everything and face-plant in her bed until she had to get up and do it all over again. Maybe she’d be so tired by the time she crawled into bed that she wouldn’t even have the energy to fantasize about Austin Bryant joining her there.

* * *

AUSTIN STOOD IN the tack room of the barn staring at little pieces of the life he’d enjoyed sharing with his grandfather. Unlike the rest of the indoor spaces on the ranch, this one small room was orderly and free of clutter. When he hadn’t been outside, this had been the place where he’d felt able to breathe. Odd since the room was so small compared with everything around it.

He took the couple of steps that brought him within reach of the wooden pegs on the wall where more memories hung. He ran his hand down the rough fabric of his grandfather’s old work jacket he’d used in the winter. How many times had Austin seen his grandfather wearing it as he’d gone out to take care of the cattle or to work on machinery?

Austin had never felt more alone than he did in that moment, when it really hit him that all of his family was gone. Oh, his dad might be out there somewhere, but he wouldn’t know the man if they sat beside each other on a plane.

He grabbed the hat he’d come in here to retrieve and headed back out, wondering when the heavy sadness that seemed to have settled in his chest would dissipate.

When he stepped out into the sunlight, he noticed Ella at the bottom of the front steps, struggling to maneuver his grandmother’s old sewing machine.

Damn fool woman was going to hurt herself. Then wouldn’t they be a pair, unable to get through an entire day without sustaining an injury.

He put on his old hat and ran toward her. Without making a big deal about it, he lifted the heavier end of the machine that was still teetering on the steps and helped her carry it to the truck. Ella did her best to hide how hard it was for her to carry the weight on her end, and he admired her for it. Sure, it could be seen as stubborn, but he liked the fact that she worked hard and did things on her own. Sure, any decent guy had the instinct to take care of a woman, but he couldn’t stand the women who acted helpless to get a man’s attention.

Whatever problems he’d had with the way his grandparents had chosen to live, he could never accuse them of being lazy. They had been the two most hardworking people he’d ever known. He did his best to follow in their footsteps in that regard, if not others.

When they reached the back of the truck, he pointed toward the bit of empty space left in the bed. “Hop up and I’ll lift most of the weight up to you.”

He doubted the wisdom of his direction when Ella’s shorts stretched across her hips as she shoved herself up into the back of the truck. When he forced himself to avert his eyes, they landed on the top of the closed sewing machine. Out of nowhere, a memory of his grandmother sitting at the machine stitching together the top for a patchwork quilt assaulted him. He couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time, but the image was as clear as if he’d watched the scene only yesterday.

“You okay?” Ella asked.

“Yeah. Just remembered a time I saw my grandmother working on this.” He rubbed his hand across the wooden top. Had the quilt she’d been piecing in that memory been the one that ended up on his bed? That part he couldn’t remember.

“So maybe you should keep it?”

For a moment, he even considered it. But only a moment. He shook his head. “I have no use for it, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw it.”

He looked up in time to see Ella press her lips together in a straight line, signaling she didn’t understand him. He guessed that went both ways.

“Let’s get this thing loaded.” He took the brunt of the weight of the sewing machine as they lifted it up into the bed. And it was a good thing because he realized Ella looked on the verge of collapse. As soon as the machine was in the truck, she sank onto the side of the bed.

Had his assertion that he needed things cleared out fast pushed her to work too hard? Guilt twisted inside him, right alongside the hunger. He realized he hadn’t eaten anything since the cinnamon roll, and he didn’t think Ella had either. And it was already late afternoon.

“I think we need a break and some food,” he said.

“I’m okay,” she said with a faint wave of her hand that proved she wasn’t. Not to mention the audible growl of her stomach that she seemed to be hoping he hadn’t heard.

“Well, I’m not. I feel like I could eat half of one of those cows out there.” He pointed toward a few head of his grandfather’s herd huddled under one of the few trees that dotted the pasture.

The edges of her mouth turned up a bit in a tired smile. “Since you put it that way.” She patted a pile of boxes next to where she sat. “Let me get this tied down and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Leave it. Trust me, no one is going to make off with it, and there’s a zero percent chance it’s going to rain.”

The slight widening of her dark brown eyes told him she was just catching on that he meant for them to go eat together. He half couldn’t believe it himself. But it wasn’t a date, just him making sure she ate and drank enough on his watch. The last thing he needed was something to happen to her that would make his stay here even longer.

Sure, tell yourself all kinds of lies. You just want to sit across the table from her.

Okay, maybe that was true. He was a guy, and guys liked to look at pretty women. It was hardwired from day one. Plus, he really was hungry.

“What are you in the mood for?” she asked.

She really didn’t want him to answer that question. Instead, he shrugged. “As long as it’s food, not picky.”

“Pizza?”

“Sounds good.”

She nodded once and got to her feet. Before he could think better of it, he grabbed her at the waist and lifted her to the ground. When she broke contact and took a step back, Ella looked every bit as startled by his action as he was.

“Um, thanks.” She didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“No problem.” Oh, except for how all the nerves in his body had jumped to full attention the moment he’d placed his hands at her small waist. “Don’t want you taking a header into the dirt. One head wound per day is the rule around here.”

She smiled, easing the tension he’d caused. “Hope you’re buying, because I plan to put away a boatload of pizza.”

“It’s the least I can do for your medical services and how hard you’re working to clear everything out around here.”

“I should wait until after you’ve paid for the pizza to say this, but you’re doing me a huge favor, letting me take all this stuff. I’ll put it to good use.”

He couldn’t imagine how, but if it made her happy and it made him happy, he wasn’t going to argue with a win-win situation.

As he drove toward town, Ella visibly relaxed in the passenger seat and pointed both air vents on her side of the car at her face.

“This feels heavenly,” she said. “My plan is to take something I get from your place and make enough profit to fix the stupid AC in my truck.”

“It doesn’t work?”

“Pooped out on me a few weeks ago. I’m running the two-sixty air now—two windows at sixty miles per hour.” She laughed a little at her own bit of humor.

She might be making light of the situation, but no AC in Texas was like no water in the desert—unbearable. Working outside in the heat was one thing, but living without it when you were in your house or car was just cruel and unusual punishment.

He slowed down when they came up behind the mail carrier, then pulled around via the opposite lane. Ella waved at the woman driving the little red pickup.

“So you’re not from here,” he said. “How did you end up in Blue Falls?”

“I visited with a friend and liked it so much I made it a goal to move here. It just sort of fit my personality.”

He glanced over at her. “How so?”

“It’s friendly, eclectic, has small-town charm but isn’t so insular that newcomers are treated like invaders. It just seemed to be a nice place for people who’ve lived here their entire lives to share space with people who choose to relocate here.”

“Never thought of it that way.”

“Probably not at the front of your mind when you live so far away,” she said as she readjusted one of her air vents. “How’d you end up in Dallas anyway?”

“It’s where I got a job after college.”

“So Keri said you work for an energy company. What do you do?”

“Head of logistics.”

“So you tell people where to get stuff when.”

“In a nutshell.” He slowed as they came into the edge of town.

“Sounds...um, very organized.”

“Which in Ella language means boring?”

“You said it, not me.” The way she appeared to be trying not to laugh caused him to snort a little as he made the turn into the parking lot for Gia’s.

When he held open the front door of the pizzeria for her, her smile lit up her entire face. And damn if he didn’t think it was the prettiest thing he’d seen in ages.

“Thanks,” she said. “Nice to see the city hasn’t robbed you of your chivalry.”

“You do know Dallas is still in Texas, right?”

“Really? I hadn’t heard.”

He smiled and shook his head. Ella Garcia had a lot of sass in that little body of hers, and damn if he didn’t like it.

They slid into a booth in the back corner near the entrance to the kitchen. He took off his hat and placed it in the seat beside him.

“Nice hat, by the way,” Ella said. “It suits you.”

Maybe it had at one point in his life. “You barely know me.”

“I’m decent at pegging people quickly. Comes from never staying any one place too long when I was growing up. It was figure out who to make friends with fast or not have any at all.”

“Lot different than going to school with the same people for thirteen years in a row.”

“Yeah, foreign concept to me.”

The waitress, a little blonde teenager about the size of his pinky finger, came and took their order for a large sausage pizza.

“So, back to the hat,” Ella said. “You look at home in it. No interest in becoming a rancher?”

“When I was younger.” Back when he’d held out hope that maybe his grandparents would change, would see how the way they chose to live affected him.

“When I was younger, I thought I’d be a fighter pilot when I grew up.”

That surprised him. “Really?”

“And then I changed my mind and was determined to become an anthropologist. Then a professional figure skater even though I’d been on ice skates exactly twice. But, hey, it was the year the Winter Olympics were in Nagano, and we were living in Japan. Guess you could say I changed career paths as often as we changed addresses.”

“And you settled on making stuff out of other people’s junk?”

She sighed. “People are too eager to label things junk. We’re such a throwaway culture. I like trying to imagine how to give something that’s seemingly outlived its usefulness a new life. And lucky for me, there are buyers.”

“A lot of them?”

“Enough that I need to figure out how to clone myself. And my house.”

His skin itched at the idea that she might be packing her house as full as his grandparents had. “You don’t have a shop?”

She shook her head as the waitress placed their drinks on the table then spun to take the order at the next table.

“A little toolshed and the back porch. One of my long-term goals is to be able to buy a place with a lot of room to spread out with storage and work space separate from my house.”

He tried to imagine her selling enough reclaimed home decor to afford such a place and had a hard time picturing it. But then he wasn’t the most knowledgeable guy about interior decorating or whatever was in style. Somehow he thought his style was probably called minimalist.

“I know a place that will be for sale soon,” he said with a little smile that conveyed he knew that probably wasn’t in the cards for her.

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. Alas, it’s me and the little rental for the foreseeable future. I may see if I can convert the toolshed into a little store if my landlord will let me since they’re working to get the arts and crafts trail up and running.”

He must have given her a questioning look because she went on to explain.

“The local tourist bureau is compiling a list of all the artists and craftspeople in the area and is going to create a trail with a map so tourists can go from one to the next shopping for handmade items and original art.”

“Sounds like a good way to bring in more tourist dollars.”

He tried to picture Ella sitting in a little metal toolshed with the name of her business painted on the outside. For some reason, he didn’t like the image. She seemed like a hard worker, a go-getter, someone who believed wholeheartedly in what she was doing. Someone like that deserved a better public presence than a place you’d normally store garden tools and lawn mowers.

“If you’d like me to look at a business plan or your work flow plan, let me know.”

She stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah. Why do you seem so surprised?”

“Because quite honestly I’m surprised you stopped progress on getting the house ready to sell long enough to come eat, let alone look at the business plan of someone you’ve known barely more than two seconds.”

“It’s something I can do easily when I go back to the hotel at night.” It was certainly a better use of his time than staring at the ceiling imagining Ella lying in bed next to him. At that thought he had to shift in the booth to make himself less uncomfortable. Thank goodness the table hid what those kinds of thoughts did to him.

“I’ll think about it. Thank you for the offer.”

“That wasn’t meant to say you don’t know how to run your business.”

She flipped her hand as if to wave away his concern that he’d insulted her.

“Just a little intimidating. I mean, I’m not exactly running a big corporation here.”

“Every company starts small.” True enough, but a lot of them failed, too. Ella seemed to believe in her business so much, it’d be a shame if hers failed because of lack of proper planning. Sure, he didn’t understand her business, but all businesses came down to numbers. And numbers and logistics he understood.

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