“They’ll have to be torn down and rebuilt. The list never ends,” he said with a strained chuckle. “If you lived here, you’d never be bored. That’s for sure.”
Reese bit down on her bottom lip, trying not to imagine what that would be like. It was a fantasy she couldn’t entertain. “What’s over there?” She pointed east toward rolling hills of grass.
“A hundred and seventy acres of good grazing land.”
Reese followed a weathered rail fence with her gaze until it disappeared from sight. She was curious how much farther the fence traveled.
“Someday I want a herd of my own,” Hudson said. “But for now, I’d be happy to get some leases locked in.”
“Leases?”
“I’m planning to lease the land to other ranchers and let their cattle graze. There’s already a lease for the hundred-acre wheat field. Since the crop was in before I bought the place, I won’t see any returns on that until next year.” Hudson lifted his cowboy hat and ran a hand over his hair. “If some of the locals had it their way, though, I’d allow hunting on the land.”
“Why don’t you?”
Hudson shrugged. “It’s been that way for decades on this land. Probably longer. I don’t want to change the integrity of this place. It’s too special.”
It was easy to get swept away in Hudson’s passion. To want to be a part of it. Reese was attracted to new challenges above all else, and this ranch offered plenty of them. But it was the idea of tackling them together that made her oddly tingly. She cleared her throat, desperate now more than ever to keep busy. “Mind if we head back to the house? I’d like to start on that fireplace.”
Chapter 7
Hudson
“What happened out there?” Ronnie hissed at Hudson the next morning as she unloaded several paper sacks filled with groceries onto his counter. He refrained from asking if she cleaned out the whole store because he didn’t think she’d find it too funny with that glare in her eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I said to tear off the panels, not build a new fireplace entertainment center!” She carried bottled tea to the fridge, shoveling them in one by one. He didn’t bother mentioning that Reese seemed to prefer his own concoction over the premade brand.
“It’s just the framework. Besides, do you think I could’ve stopped her?”
Ronnie halted halfway between the fridge and counter. “You could’ve told her your circular saw was broken. Or stolen.” She huffed an annoyed sigh as she dug into another sack. “Did you at least use the playlist?”
“What playlist?”
She let out a long groan. “You’re impossible.”
Whatever playlist she was referring to was no doubt spelled out on her itinerary. One he hadn’t skimmed since yesterday morning. So he and Reese had gotten carried away with a fireplace project and spent far more time working than talking or relaxing. Time spent together was no time lost, by his account. “I don’t see what the problem is,” Hudson said as he found a home for half a dozen jars of pizza sauce.
Ronnie pulled out a bottle of white wine, coming at him with it like a weapon. “I sent you a playlist of her favorite songs. Jed was supposed to give you his speaker. All you had to do was accept my playlist and pair to the speaker. Play it in the background, preferably around a fire under the stars. I bet you haven’t done that either, have you?”
He carefully took the wine bottle from his sister and placed it above the fridge. Had Reese not run into town to grab lunch—a plan they made before Hudson had a clue Ronnie would show up with a month’s worth of groceries—he might be worried she’d drop in on this conversation. Some days Ronnie’s hormones were too potent to allow her discretion when it was needed most.
“I’ll play it tomorrow.”
“That puts you at least two days behind. Plus, it won’t be the same. Not with Dane and Ashton around tearing out carpet and smoothing drywall. Kills the mood a bit to have company.”
Hudson bit back the urge to argue with her. He’d learned the hard way when Ronnie was pregnant with Cami how quickly that could all go south. He tried another tactic instead. “Relax, Ronnie. I’ve got this under control.”
“Really? Because it looks like all you’re doing is working on the house.”
“Thatisthe reason you invited her.”
“Ugh!” She slammed the fridge shut and spun at him, stabbing a finger at his chest. “You’re not to lift another finger on the house. Leave the blueprints for your fireplace contraption for my guys to take over. Once Reese gets back, you’re taking her into town.”
Hudson hadn’t even made a quick trip to the stables to check on the horses today, much less tackled anything else on the ranch’s grossly long to-do list. He was banking on the afternoon to join Jed in repairing fence. He had to take advantage of his time off from the Livingston ranch while he had it. “What’s in town?”
“You make me want to staple that itinerary to your sleeve,” Ronnie muttered. “You need to pick out flooring and paint colors, but leave them at Ernie’s. My guys know to pick up what they need tomorrow morning.”
