I smiled. “I think he’d be perfect for the job.”
Vivianne smiled back at me as the rest of the table broke out into a conversation about which would be the best path to use for Vivianne’s first ride.
There was something so special about sitting around this table, at the holidays, with the woman I loved.
Vivianne
My first day on Ladd’s family ranch was probably one of the best days of my life. After I insisted on helping with the cleanup, Ladd showed me the rest of the house. It was a six-bedroom, five-bathroom house with a smaller bathroom downstairs. Ladd’s parents’ room was also downstairs, leaving five bedrooms upstairs. The house had one large living room, a smaller family room that Gus used as an office, and a sunroom at the back of the house with a stunning view of the mountains. There was also a small pond in the distance that wasn’t part of the river that ran through the ranch. According to Ladd, they’d all learned how to ice skate on that pond.
“This house is so charming, Ladd. I think my favorite thing is the wraparound porch. The porch swings and chairs all look so inviting.”
“Not so much in the dead of winter, but in spring and summertime, you can find my mother out here. Either reading, working on a quilt, or knitting something. She even brings her work out and sits at that table.”
“Does she work for the ranch or does she have another job?”
“She does all the bookkeeping for the ranch. That’s something I plan on doing once I get out of school. She’s been showing me the ropes the last few summers when I’m home.”
“You don’t like doing the manual labor stuff?”
“I love doing it, but running the ranch isn’t my dream, as I mentioned.”
“What about your three brothers?”
Ladd sighed. “David plans on staying and working the ranch alongside my father. Mike and Jason, I’m not sure. They’re still in high school. Jason’s a senior this year and has big dreams of playing football in college. Mike is a mini version of my dad, so I’d honestly be surprised if he went to college. My parents will want him to, but I could see him preferring to dive into working alongside Dad.”
I wrapped my arms around my body and stared out the glass windows of the sunroom at the view in front of me. Snow-covered pastures seemed to go on forever with the mountains in the distance. It was so beautiful it looked fake.
“Did you need to unpack anything in your room?” Ladd asked.
“I do have a couple of dresses I brought for the Christmas Eve church service, and Christmas Day. I should unpack those.”
He took my hand in his and led us back upstairs.
“Do I get to see your bedroom?” I asked, bumping my shoulder into his.
Laughing, he said, “You’re just a couple doors down from me, but this is my room.”
He stopped outside a bedroom door, then opened it. I walked in and smiled. “Why am I not surprised it’s neat, clean, and organized?”
Ladd leaned against the doorframe as I walked around his room.
“You don’t have anything up on your walls.”
“Like what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, a poster of Duran Duran or something.”
He laughed. “Duran Duran? That’s who you think I should have on my walls?”
I chuckled. “It was the first band I thought of.”
“You couldn’t have said Boston or Foreigner.”
Lifting my hands, I rolled my eyes. “My mistake.”
I sat down on his bed and ran my hand over the Christmas quilt. “Did your mother make this?”
“My grandmother. She made one for all of us when we were younger. Mom puts them on our beds on December first every year.”
