“You do it,” she says to Luna, shoving the container to the older woman.
I’m about to interject and warn Luna that Bella’s just going to freak out if the container is empty before she gets brave enough, but I don’t need to.
Like her son, Luna has a good instinct when it comes to my daughter. “How about we do it together? I’ll give them a little, then you can do some next.”
They push some pellets through the fence first, taking turns, then we go inside the fenced enclosure. I hold Bellamy in my arms so she’s well above the chickens, and they scatter more feed for them.
Once the brood is fully occupied with a snack,we go to the coop. Little access doors allow Luna to quickly retrieve six eggs in a variety of colours. She holds the hem of her shirt up, creating a little cradle to tuck five of them into. The last one, a creamy blue egg, she offers to Bellamy.
“Oh, I don’t—” I start to say.
But Luna just winks, and without saying a word, she makes sure I know it’ll be all right if Bellamy drops or crushes the egg.
We have lots to spare, I feel her project.
It’s true. This ranch does have lots of everything to spare. Bedrooms, kale, eggs, and handsome sons.
And maybe it’s because they have plenty, but Bellamy doesn’t break the egg. She carries it all the way up to the house, where Luna takes it from her in the kitchen.
As our hostess puts the eggs in a tray on the counter, I help Bellamy wash the dirt off her hands and face.
Then she wants to play with her frog, which we left upstairs in the spare room. I follow her to find it, and when she starts playing with it on the bedroom floor, I look at our bag of clothes. I think about unpacking, but that feels too much like trusting this to not evaporate beneath us.
I’m grateful, but I’m not trusting anything.
Instead, I go to the window and look toward the outbuilding where we bumped into Zane. As if conjured by my subconscious, I hear tires bite against gravel, and a truck comes into view—but it’s not Zane’s. Wrong colour, too much dirt.
A pulse of something visceral whomps in my belly. A painful mix of relief and disappointment. A big bruiser of a man in a cowboy hat gets out and lifts his hand in the direction of the outbuilding.
Maybe Zane’s brother, waving to him.
I wonder which one this is. I already have a mental picture of their family. Dax is the rodeo cowboy, and he’s on the road. Cash is the mechanic in town, fixing my car.
So this must be the oldest one, Ridge. He looks mean, the way his shoulders hunch up around his ears.
Instinctively, I don't want to meet him. I don’t want to meet any of them.
Except Zane.
I bristle at that unwanted, instinctive exception. No, even Zane. Not because he isn't kind—he is, too kind—but because of the unwanted way my body responds in his presence. The flutter in my stomach when our eyes meet. The heat that races to my cheeks. My awareness of his size, his strength, his kindness. And his thighs.
I'm too aware of his thighs. They were the first thing I noticed when he stopped behind our car yesterday, long denim-clad legs, muscles making themselves known in ayou want me to kick someone’s asskind of way.
They were the last thing I noticed as he distracted Bellamy from her grump. After I looked at every other part of him, pretending I wasn’t aware of his powerful squat, I finally gave in and catalogued this view. The dust on his quads, the faded lines at his hips. The brawn of him, all of him, but those tree-trunk legs are really something else.
A girl could foolishly fantasize about a body that strong. About the breadth of his shoulders and the bunch of his fists. Dream about a man like him handling anything life throws at him without breaking a sweat.
Or just a little sweat, like when he was carrying that feed.
It reminds me too much of how I felt when I first saw Derek. The pull, the attraction, the stupid, foolish belief that someone strong could keep me safe.
I've learned that lesson. I won't make that mistake again.
But the traitorous flutter in my stomach needs reminding of that fact, because it’s foolish and forgetful.
And Zane’s name is the first thing out of Luna’s mouth when we meet in the kitchen to make dinner.
“He keeps a pretty well-stocked kitchen,” she says as she stands in front of the open refrigerator. “But it's usually a fending-for-yourself situation, unless somebody happens to be cooking at the same time. Which is almost never me, so let’s see what we can find.”
