He led her to his truck and helped her into the seat. Feeling under the wheel arch, he found the magnetic box that housed his keys and climbed into the driver’s seat. Before he put on his own belt, he reached across her, pausing to smile when she jerked from watching the guys hustling to get gear locked down to look at him. “Safety first.”
“I can do it.”
“I know.” He clipped it into the lock. “I like knowing you’re safe.”
“Why?”
“Damned if I know.” He fired the engine. “I just do.”
“Okay.” She was like an excited kid, her eyes wide as she stared at cows and horses in the pastures they drove past. “The boss’s house.” He nodded to where Lina and Dalton’s dog Buddha wooed his head off as they climbed out of their truck.
“Is that a wolf?”
He chuckled. “Nah, it’s an Alaskan Malamute.” He thought it was almost the same damn thing, but he refrained from mentioning it. No matter how many times that dog went through training, he still was a jackass with selective hearing. “Don’t leave anything you don’t want to chase after lying around,” he warned as they pulled to a stop at the team house behind Dalton’s. “Buddha will take off with it, and it might be six months before you find it again if you don’t catch him in time.”
“Noted.”
He tried to see the ranch from her point of view. Their team house looked almost like an apartment block, which wouldn’t be out of place in a European country. Except it had a massive porch, which was awesome for watching the sun rising or setting, depending on which side of the house you were on. “All us unmarried guys have a condo here. We’re separated by team. This is Bravo House. Alpha is that one.” He pointed it out to her. “That’s where the mess—uh—canteen is, too. There’s food on there at all times of the day. But we can ask Kace if there is something you fancy.”
“You don’t have a kitchen in your condo?”
“I do. But unless it’s grilled cheese or canned soup, it’s not gonna be edible. My brother got all the cooking genes in our family.”
“It’s weird to see an apartment building on a ranch.”
“Yup. But it works for us.”
“I mean, I know it’s a ranch as I can see all the animals…” She trailed off, and he glanced in the direction she was looking. A massive black horse gave a loud whinny and galloped up the field to the railing closest to Alpha house with what looked like a tiny, small baby horse, but he knew it wasn’t, hot on its heels.
“Is that a mama and her foal?”
He hated to burst her bubble, but he couldn’t resist the snort. “That’s Logan’s stallion, Baby Girl, and the smaller one is Bison. He’s a mini horse and belongs to Logan’s wife.”
It warmed something deep inside him to see her standing, relaxed, soaking in the views. They didn’t need to rush inside. He settled against the porch railing, happy to allow her as long as she wanted. She leaned against him and sighed. “What are you thinking?”
“I wish I had my camera,” she said wistfully. “The pictures I could take here. It wouldn’t even matter if nobody ever got to see them. They would speak to my soul, and knowing I had captured them would be enough.”
“We’ll make that happen.” He would make it happen. In fact, he’d make it a priority to see that it happened fast. “Once your camera is cleared, I’ll have it shipped here, or I’ll go buy you one to replace it.”
“It can’t be replaced. It was from my grandmother. Her last gift to me. It’s the one thing I have never left behind.”
Now he knew for sure why the asshole had tagged it. He knew she’d never leave it behind. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
“I’d love that, thank you.”
After a few more minutes, he could see the guys’ trucks coming up the ranch road. “Shall we go in? We can come back out later.”
“I’d like that.” She followed him into the house and up the stairs. He came to a stop in front of his place. After scanning his palm, he punched in the code to unlock it. “I’ll ask Trev, our tech guy, about getting your hand scanned,” he said. He didn’t want her trapped in the house if—when he had to do stuff—she wouldn’t have access to it. “That way, you can come and go as you like without getting locked out.”
“Not being locked in would be awesome.”
He shut the door behind them and watched her wander around his living room. It was weird for him to have her here in his space. He’d rarely brought anyone to his place in Riverton, and he’d certainly never brought anyone here, especially not a woman. He wasn’t sure if Dalton had assumed he’d balk when he’d insisted if Caleb was bringing Rose to the ranch; he was responsible for her, and she had to stay with him.
As if that was a hardship.
The corners of his lips curved; Dalton must be losing his touch. He’d underestimated what Rose was coming to mean to him. “Come on. Let me show you around.” He gestured with his arm. “As you can see, this is the living room, and that,” he spun around, “is the kitchen. Small, but it does the job.”
“It’s homey. I like it.”
