Page 31 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“Yeah. We have some trails that go through the property, and they’re really scenic.”

“Well, I don’t know how to ride horses.”

“That’s why you’re perfect. Because I can practice working with someone who is inexperienced.”

She caught herself wrinkling her nose. A reflexive move to try to stave off her discomfort. It was too close to what she had been thinking before, when staring in the mirror. Oh no. Oh no oh no.

“Oh. Well. I… Yes. I would appreciate that. It’s always good to add a new skill to your list of things that you do.”

She really did believe that. Especially because as a child she’d been so fixed in her ways it had been difficult for her to learn new things. “I used to be afraid that I could only know a few things at a time,” she said as she got into his truck. “So I was very resistant to learning new things.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I thought that at a certain point I would have to dump a skill in order to acquire a new one.”

“Well, I guess in some ways that’s true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess I just mean time-wise. You can’t do everything. Living out here, I still practice martial arts, but I don’t go to a school anymore. I miss that. But then, doing MMA for all those years I wasn’t really faithfully going to a dojo either. So I guess in that sense, if you do too many things, you lose touch with other things.”

She laughed. “Well, sure. But they don’t fall out of your head.”

“No. I guess not.”

She looked out the window at the passing scenery. It was such an interesting landscape here. Great vast fields of desert. Volcanic rock littering the ground. What she would really like to do was go hunting for sunstones, and any other precious gem that was possible to find in these volcanic-rich environments. She wondered if there was a petrified forest nearby. A lot of places like this had some petrified forest. Her brain was pinging all over the place.

She looked back at him, and her heart jumped. Well, now that reaction to him yesterday made sense. Attraction.

How treacherous.

His profile was strong, and she was fascinated by his throat. His Adam’s apple. One of those fascinating biological differences between men and women that she found both frightening and intriguing.

She looked away from him, back out at the scenery. She was better off thinking about rocks.

Rocks were a secondary passion of hers. Really, muscles, bones and rocks did all go together as hyperfixation. Because you had to know where you were most likely to find bones and fossils. And the types of minerals that you were most likely to find surrounding them.

“What are you thinking about?” She could feel him looking at the side of her head.

“Minerals.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. They’re a big part of my job. And this is an extremely diverse mineral field. Very rich in substance.”

“Is it?”

“Well, yes. Because it’s volcanic.”

“I don’t know that I realized that.”

“Oh yes. Oregon itself is quite volcanic. I think that’s—” She cut herself off, because she was about to stray out of scientific territory.

“You think that’s what?”

“Part of why it has such a specific vibe.”

“There we go again. Vibes.”