Page 3 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“I think you were just trying to get away with sneaking around here.”

“I wasn’t. I was going to come and seek you out later today. Because I had determined that this was a good place for me to dig.”

“Are you all by yourself?”

“Yes. I prefer to work alone. I don’t like to have whole teams.”

“Got it.”

She was weird, and he had no idea if she was telling the truth. But then, he had no idea what reason she would have to lie. She didn’t look like anything other than what she was claiming to be. She looked, in fact, exactly like she had just stepped off the screen in a Jurassic Park movie.

Except, not as artfully styled.

Which was another indicator that she was probably on the up and up. This wasn’t paleontologist cosplay.

And she was offering him…money?

“How much is this grant?”

“Oh. It’s considerable.” She named a figure which about sent his eyebrows through the brim of his hat.

Well. They could do with an injection of cash. Until things got operational here, they were all investment and no revenue, and they’d spent a lot. A place this remote had to be self-contained to attract guests. Had to be all things to all people.

They were even getting an on-site store up and running through one of the local outfits—it had taken a lot of hard negotiation—but that wouldn’t be ready for another three weeks.

“I don’t want you camping out here,” he said.

They had some facilities that were ready to go, and he wasn’t comfortable leaving a small woman out here in the sun, with snakes and coyotes, cougars and who knew what the hell else. If she was going to pay, and handsomely at that, she might as well stay at the ranch.

Maybe that was him being overprotective in a way he didn’t have any call to be, but that was one reason he preferred a life without too many attachments.

“Come on back with me to the main house. I just need to talk to my partners.”

She blinked. “Oh. Of course.”

He looked her up and down. “Clearly.”

“Oh, I should pack my things up,” she said.

“Yeah. I’ll… I’ll help.”

“Not at all. You don’t have to do that.”

“I insist.”

“Don’t touch any of my equipment. You can help take the tent down.”

She wasn’t even attempting to be nice or to…take whatever olive branch he was trying to offer. She wasn’t effusive or apologetic in any way, and he had a feeling that most people, caught in a similar situation, would attempt to smooth it over at least a tiny bit. She offered him nothing other than a bland and bald explanation and seemed to think that it made perfect sense.

She also didn’t seem to be blown away by his agreement to this.

“If my partners say yes, you can stay in one of our cabins.”

That elicited a small response. Her eyebrows lifted just a fraction. “Oh. Well. That would be nice. I do miss having a shower. I was just thinking I was going to have to bathe using water from my jug and a washcloth. I didn’t exactly relish the idea of having to be naked out here.”

For some reason, that forced him to imagine what her body might look like beneath those ill-fitting clothes. He was a good judge of the female form, having seen, tasted and touched his share. And if he was really critical in the moment, what he assumed was that she was lush and curvy. The clothes she was wearing didn’t show much, making her look a little bit more like a rectangular, nondescript shape. But he had a feeling that was just the effect of everything being a couple of sizes too big.

“Well. No one wants that.”