Page 55 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“She is pretty,” Dakota said. “But I don’t know if I have it in me to pillow talk about pterodactyls.”

“She prefers primordial possums.”

“Oh, that changes everything.”

They let that discussion fall by the wayside, and they began to set out a game plan for getting the tents erected. They had large cots for each one, and they were going to put in some nice rugs, and other things to make them feel a little bit more plush. But first things first.

“You know what would be good?” Rowdy asked when they were halfway through the first tent, sweat dripping down their faces. “Doing a dry run of the trail.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “That would be good.”

“So we should definitely do that. Jessica would want to come. And I bet your little bone scientist would like to come too.”

“My little bone scientist,” he said, his tone dry.

“Call it what you want, but that about sums it up.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re oversimplifying a very complicated job.”

“I’m sure. I’m sure.”

He hadn’t exactly meant to walk himself into this conversation, but it wasn’t a big deal that they knew. Though, Ernestine might feel differently about it. They were midway through the second tent when he decided he couldn’t just sit on that worry. “Don’t say anything to her.”

“Excuse me?” Rowdy asked.

“Don’t tell her that you know. She’ll be embarrassed.”

“We’re not going to say anything to her,” Dakota said. “Razzing you is one thing.”

They were both feral, as was he. They understood each other. Had context for each other. But nobody else really did.

Ernestine seemed to understand better than anyone he’d ever met, though. It was kind of amazing. She was so much more interested—rather than horrified—than anyone else ever had been. Not that he really had relationships. He’d fallen hard into the casual sex scene when he’d been fighting. It was just so easy. And after a fight the testosterone rolled off of him in waves, and it felt like the thing to do.

It really did.

And so he’d gotten right in there. Fucked around and had existed in a really shallow space with all of the women that he slept with. Because there was no point getting into all that. No point to relationships. There was no point to one with Ernestine either, and yet he found himself in the position where she knew more about him than Dakota and Rowdy. Yeah, they knew his whole biography, but they didn’t know what he looked like naked, so that was where he calculated that math.

“You really like her?” Dakota asked.

“I really do. But if you’re asking me if it’s relationship stuff, the answer is no. You know how that goes. I don’t have any room for that.”

“You don’t have any room for that, or you’re too filled up with trauma to have room for that, because that is a slightly different sentence.”

He lifted a brow. “You’re really not one to talk.”

“Yeah, I didn’t say that I was better.”

“That would be nice, though,” Rowdy said. “Getting married. Having a house, a family.”

That word was such a strange and loaded one. The image of a house with a husband, a wife and children was one that he knew unnerved all of them for a variety of reasons. Dakota had lived through hellish neglect, his sister dying because of it. With Rowdy, it was his parents’ mutual destruction. And for Jax it was a toxic, abusive, murderous father. None of them had intended to carry a bloodline on. What Rowdy was saying now was that it would be nice in a world where any of them could believe that fantasy existed.

But they knew better. They knew how bad things could be. They knew that falling in love, having kids, didn’t save you from darkness, and oftentimes the kids became victims of that darkness. The testament to the fact that what didn’t kill you changed you in ways that sometimes couldn’t be repaired. Life just wasn’t that simple. It would be nice if it were.

“She’s interesting. She’s smart. She loves fossils. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like her. And in some ways, she’s more like us than you think. Obsessive, determined and driven. But she’s a really nice woman. She deserves to go on to a nice life, with a nice man.”

“We’ve established that you’re nice.”

“On the surface. But there’s other shit. I mean come on, can you imagine? You take someone who’s not traumatized and bring them into all of this?”