“So what was it like working on a ranch?” she asks curiously, her one hand now fiddling with the bow tie of her bikini bottoms at her hip. I swallow hard and make my eyes slide back to focus on her face, which… fuck… that’s so beautiful, that alone would give me a hard-on.
So I decide to concentrate on the conversation. “It’s hard work… up at dawn, usually done about the time the sun goes down. It’s physically grueling, especially during the calving and branding seasons. And sometimes boring… many days are spent on horseback just riding the perimeter of the property, checking the fence line, and protecting the cattle from wolves and coyotes by our presence out there.”
“Do you love horses or your motorcycle more?” she asks, her blue eyes looking lighter in the overhead sun.
“Hmmmm…” I pause to think because that’s a damn good question. Something I’ve never considered before, and while I don’t miss working the ranch, I do miss riding every day. “I’d have to say horses. I’ve been riding them since I was practically a baby. The motorcycle thing has only happened in the last several years.”
“Alyssa has a horse that she keeps over at The Haven now,” Casey says. She had told me about The Haven, which was Alyssa and Brody’s no-kill animal shelter they ran together. “She said I could bring Zoey over there to do some riding if I wanted.”
“She would love that,” I tell her, completely warmed over her thoughtfulness to give something to Zoey that she loves so much.
“You could ride too if you wanted,” Casey adds on. “I think you’d look really hot on a horse.”
“Hotter than on a motorcycle?” I ask, turning her original comparative question back on her somewhat.
“No way,” Casey says firmly. “The hottest is you lying on my bed naked, on your stomach and sleeping. The way your arms curl around the pillow make your biceps bunch, and I get to see all of your beautiful tattoos. And your ass… damn, boy… it is the hottest, sweetest ass I’ve ever seen. Or licked for that matter.”
I groan and lean my head back against the chair, closing my eyes and wishing I could close my ears. “I need you to stop talking now, Casey. You’re getting a little too good at dirty talk.”
She chuckles, and I can hear the creaking of her chair as she rolls over onto her back.
Chapter 19
Casey
Tenn on a motorcycle? Very hot.
Tenn on a horse? No words in the English language can describe.
I took Alyssa up on her offer to let Tenn and Zoey ride her horse, Sasquatch. He’s an Appaloosa gelding that she rescued a few months ago. After she rehabbed him, she’d grown way too attached and decided to keep him. This necessitated her hiring Gabby to expand the current barn outward to add another stall.
Not knowing much about horses, I kept my distance as Alyssa and Zoey got him saddled. He seems to be a relatively calm horse, but his size intimidates me a bit. Not Zoey, though. She hopped right up and took off after Alyssa pointed her to a riding trail she and Brody had cleared out last year.
While we waited for her, Alyssa put Tenn and me to work helping to bathe some of the dogs. This is, of course, one of my favorite things to do when I volunteer at The Haven. It’s the perfect thing to do on a hot summer day too, and it doesn’t hurt to have a gorgeous man by your side doing it.
We got a grand total of five of the dogs done when Zoey came trotting back up to the back of the kennel, easily swinging her tiny frame off the big horse.
And looking like he’d just won the lottery, Tenn’s eyes shined with excitement as he took the reins and hauled himself up in the saddle. One would think a tall man wearing faded jeans, a Harley t-shirt, and black biker boots would look odd in the saddle, but my damn mouth watered as I looked up at him. He had pulled a beaten-up University of Wyoming ball cap out of his back pocket—courtesy of his brother, Woolf, who he had told me graduated there—stuck it on his head, and cantered off.
It was only when the dog that I was bathing decided to shake the wet soap off, spraying me in the face, did I turn my gaze from Tenn as he rode away on the horse.
“You really like my dad, huh?” Zoey asked as she squatted down beside me at the large, metal tub.
“Yeah,” I say with another glance at his retreating form in the distance. “I really kind of do.”
“He says you have commitment issues but he’s working on fixing that,” Zoey says innocently, now sticking her hands into the soapy water to help scrub down the Springer Spaniel who looks at us with morose eyes.
Shaking my head with a smile on my lips, I can only let Zoey’s words roll over me. Over the last week she’s been here, I’ve learned that fourteen-year-old girls don’t have much of a filter over their mouths. Zoey, in particular, says whatever is on her mind, never with any ill will or malice, but with a brutal honesty. It’s why I give her a pass, because true enough… I do have commitment issues.
“What do you think of my dad moving here?” she asks, and when I cut my eyes to her, I see a little bit of overprotectiveness in her gaze.
And damn… that’s sweet. She’s checking me out on behalf of her dad.
Taking the spaniel by the collar, I help urge him to hop out of the tub so I can rinse him down. He’s only too happy to comply as this dog clearly doesn’t like “bath time”.
“You want my honest thoughts?”
“No sense in lying,” she says with a grin. “I can smell a liar a mile away.”
Laughing, I tell her, “Here… come hold his collar as he’s likely to jet away when I turn the water on.”
When Zoey has the pup in her control, I grab the hose and start running the stream over his back, using my hands to push out the soap as I go along.
“So… your dad is pretty amazing,” I tell her candidly. “He’s made me look at things a bit differently.”
“He’s good at that,” Zoey says with a nod.
“Yeah, well, I can be pretty pigheaded about certain things, so he’s like really good at it,” I say with a chuckle. Continuing to rinse the dog, who intermittently tries to shake out the water of his coat, I tell her, “Without telling you the details, some guy messed up my head a long time ago. Hurt me pretty bad and then I sort of used that as an excuse to close myself off from relationships.”
“Because you didn’t want to get hurt again?”
“Exactly. I was protecting myself,” I confirm as I step away from the dog and turn the water off. He gives a vigorous shake, spraying Zoey down nicely.
She just laughs and turns her face away until he’s done, then looks back over him at me. “Good thing my dad came along and set you straight.”
“I’m sort of a work in progress,” I tell her truthfully. “Still scared but because your dad is so amazing, I’m really trying to push past that.”
She considers that for a moment and then with a voice that borders on almost pleading, she says, “Please don’t hurt him. I think you have the ability to do that.”
Ouch. That hurt.
Letting the hose drop to the concrete, I step over to Zoey and squat down so I’m eye level with her. “I promise you that I will never intentionally hurt him. And I also promise I will continue to work hard at moving past my insecurities. Your dad is extremely good at pushing me nicely but also giving me room to falter. That’s how people learn the best.”
“Good enough,” she says, and then with a completely unfiltered mouth adds on, “because it would be awesome if y’all got married.”
I shake my head at her as I stand up and give her an admonishing smile. “Your dad and I have known each other going on four weeks now. I don’t think marriage is something we should be talking about at this point in our relationship.”
“But he loves you,” Zoey says with innocent candor as she stands up, keeping her hand on the spaniel’s collar.