Page 36 of The Rancher’s One and Only

His gaze was assessing. “Those are a lot of deep thoughts about me as a person for having spent just a few days in my company.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have any thoughts that aren’t deep. Even if they’re kind of silly. It’s one of my more difficult traits.”

She didn’t expect him to lean in after she said that. Didn’t expect for him to look interested. “Why is it difficult?”

Her lips twitched. “Usually I weird people out. I don’t have a lot of friends.”

“Really? Not even at the museum?”

“The museum is probably the easiest place for me to make friends, yes.” She let out a slow breath. “And there are a couple of people I really enjoy talking to who work there. They love talking about their research, they love talking about my research, they’re just generally interested in everything. We don’t do much outside of that. Work is the easiest thing to talk about.”

“Because you’re interested in it?”

“Yes. I really prefer it when there’s structured conversation. You know? Like when your work is easy to figure out what to talk about. Situations like this it’s a lot harder. Because we don’t have a theme.” She brought her eyebrows together and frowned. It made sense in her head, but she wondered if it was a weird thing to say.

“I can’t say that I ever thought about that before.”

“Really? Like, I’ve been to a couple of fan conventions—comic cons where there’s a lot of different media celebrated but all very in the geek lane—and I like those too, because you can talk about the thing that you’re all there to celebrate. It’s just easy to know how to connect. Outside of that… It’s me asking a ton of questions, and saying things that I wish that I hadn’t said.”

“Well, my experience with friends is trauma bonding. I don’t think that’s any less weird than what you’re describing. But we don’t tend to talk about it. We tend to talk around it. But just knowing that I have friends who understand my background rather than would get freaked out by it, that helps. So I can understand that. Wanting to know who you’re going in and having connections with. I guess that’s what a fan con or working at a museum gets you. I think everybody wants some shared history to an extent. Unless you’re really good at small talk.”

She recoiled. “I hate small talk. I always feel like it’s this layer of rock that I have to dig through to get to the fossil that I’m actually looking for. A necessary evil in most cases. A lot of people like it. Though, I have to say, at the museum I find less of that. Which I appreciate.”

“I’ve never really thought about whether I like it or not. I learned to do it. It’s part of making myself less scary.”

“Less scary?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m a tough-looking guy from a tough background. And especially when I would try to get jobs and things like that when I was a young adult I had to try to figure out how to come across as approachable.”

“You had to change yourself to make yourself more palatable?” she asked. It had never occurred to her that he would have to do that. He was handsome, and charming. She had assumed that sort of thing was second nature to him.

“Oh yeah.”

“It feels like wearing a mask,” she said. “Every time I call my parents. Every time I have to engage in conversation with people who don’t get me. Or people who I’m afraid won’t.”

She didn’t just tell people these things, but then, they didn’t normally take conversations this deep with her. Maybe she would if they seemed as interested as Jax did.

She did have friends at the museum, but they talked about museum things. Sometimes also about movies or TV, but when it got into territory that veered into Ernestine is Weird they usually stopped the conversation.

People were happy to be interested in a show—but they didn’t want all the trivia about everyone who was cast in it, or fun facts about on-set incidents or an in-depth analysis of themes. She had gotten better about knowing when to stop.

Jax didn’t make her feel like she needed to stop.

“But you’ve been asking me questions and saying pretty much whatever you wanted ever since we met. Why does that feel different to you?”

She blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you do such a good job of being disarming. Maybe you’re just that good at it. You felt like a person I could talk to from the beginning. You’re a fascinating man.”

He stopped his horse then, and turned to face her. “That is maybe one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”

Ernestine felt almost flushed with pleasure at that statement. “Well, more people should say nice things to you.”

“More people should say nice things to you too, Ernestine.”

He turned on his horse, and started walking away from her again, and she shimmied her shoulders in a little excited movement, trying to get some of the extra energy out of her body.

He didn’t need her being feral. But it was kind of hard not to be a little bit feral over him. The horses wound on up the trail, and the views were incredible. The round, sandy hills with stripes of different-colored sand on them were incredible. It looked part desert, part surface of the moon. She especially loved the sharp chevron lines painted in a fierce black like a brushstroke across the surface.

“What do those look like up close?”