Page 41 of Bailey

“Yeah, near your barns,” he said. “So you can have your tools nearby.”

Bailey grinned at him. “It’s funny how you think I have gardening tools.”

“Well, that barn’s full of stuff,” he said, throwing her a surprised look. “Surely it’s got some gardening tools in it.”

Bailey had been in the barn a time or two since she’d bought the property. “Everything looks like it’s rusted and about one thousand years old,” she said.

A light came into Reeves’s eyes. “Maybe I could do a video on how to restore tools that haven’t been used in a while.”

Bailey grinned at him. “I’m sure you could actually do the video, yes.”

He cleared his throat and nodded down the road. They started walking together, Bailey now carrying the two cups of to-go coffee in one hand, while Reeves brought the pastries with him. He switched them to his other hand and then took hers in his.

“How many videos have you watched now?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, twelve or fifteen,” she said. “Sometimes I put them on while I’m doing my paperwork, because you don’t always have to watch.” She glanced over to him. “And you have a soothing voice, cowboy.”

He chuckled and shook his head, his chin dipping down toward the ground. “You can be in some of the videos with me if you want,” he said. “In the spring, summer, and fall, I obviously don’t do many survival or winter camping videos.”

“Those are your most popular ones, though,” Bailey said, as the one she’d texted him about, where he spent three nights outside in subzero temperatures, during a blizzard, had twenty-four million views on it, with thousands of comments.

“Wyoming is the new Alaska,” he said. “There’s plenty of people making outdoor videos about that state, but not much going on here.”

“That’s about how Wyoming always is,” Bailey said. “Some people don’t even know it’s a state.”

Reeves burst out laughing, and Bailey sure liked the sound of it. Fisher’s Kill Stream came into view, the sound of rushing water meeting her ears.

“Looks like you’ve still got quite a bit of debris down here,” he said, kicking the toe of his boot against an errant tree branch.

“Yeah, when everyone came to help clean up, we didn’t go past the barn,” she said.

“This would be great pasture land,” he said. “For cows or horses.” He cut a look over to her. “Or goats in the summertime. They’d eat all this down and clean it right up for you.”

Bailey knew she’d bought a property with animal rights and room for them, but she’d never had them and had said she didn’t know how to take care of them—but she did, and she could if she wanted to. “I just don’t know if I have time to dedicate to animals,” she said. “Talk about a twenty-four-seven job.”

“Yeah, they need you, rain or shine,” he said thoughtfully.

They approached the water’s edge, where an old metal picnic table had been placed by someone in the past. The end of it nearest the stream sat in the shade, and Bailey went and perched on the end of it. Reeves sat on the other side and slid the pastry box closer to her. She put their coffee on the other side of it, and together they simply existed with the sound of a babbling brook and the Wyoming wind in their ears.

Yes, this was the life Bailey wanted, and as she glanced over to Reeves, she couldn’t help but wonder if the handsome mountain man cowboy could be her forever prince.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

Reeves enjoyed the quiet serenity with Bailey as he sipped his coffee. It had grown too cold for him on the drive back to her place, and he set it down on the table.

He’d actually been to the vet clinic and been told by Marina that she was checking horses at Wade Ingalls’ place. He’d stopped by there, but the man had told him that Bailey had left a half-hour earlier. He’d tried her house on a whim, glad he’d finally found her.

He smiled as Sir ran into the stream, which had returned to its normal state. The deepest part of it went up to the boxer’s chest, and the current certainly wouldn’t sweep him away. He glanced over to Bailey, who watched Sir with a pretty little smile on her face.

“You can go out too, Boots,” she encouraged the black-and-white dog she’d brought home with her. She glanced over to Reeves, and her grin only widened when she saw him looking at her. “OJ named him.”

“How long have you had him?” Reeves asked, as he realized now that bringing animals home to care for them was simply part of Bailey’s job. Even if it wasn’t, she’d do it, and he loved that about her.

“We got him in last night,” she said. “He stayed in our emergency clinic overnight to make sure his wounds were healing up nicely, and I’m going to keep him with me for a little bit.”

Boots came over to Reeves, who set his coffee down and stroked the dog along both sides of his head. “He looks like part Labrador retriever.”