Page 57 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“So we can share a tent.”

“Well, I’m glad you’d like to do it again.”

“I thought about it a lot.”

“You have?”

“We can’t stop after one lesson, Ernestine. And anyway, you’re here for three more weeks.”

“True,” she said, sounding cheerful then. “Although, I might need a little bit more time. I know that you have guests coming, so I’m happy to revert back to camping. But this discovery is significant. I need to do a lot of research, a lot of documenting. I’m going to have to take at least one chunk of rock back with me so that we can do some carbon dating.”

“That’s fine,” he said.

“Truly, it’s amazing. I… I have to think about some things. About the possibilities. And if I wasn’t here I wouldn’t have discovered that I like a kiss.”

He looked at her. “Well, and the sex,” she said.

“That’s okay. It’s okay that you’re more into the fossils.”

“I’m not more into it. Well, broadly speaking, yes, I am more into fossils than I am into sex. Historically. That we can prove.”

She was something else. An absolute original. He would never want to hurt her by bringing her down into his mess. Temporary was just fine.

“As long as you’re staying in the glass cabin, I’m your teacher.”

She seemed to get that. That there had to be a firm end. That it was all right if she needed to come back and do digs, but there was going to have to be an end to this.

At least he hoped she got that.

“I might actually sleep out here tonight,” she said. “Because I’m in a flow. And I just want to…keep doing all this. I can sleep in my car.”

“Ernestine, you’re like two minutes away from the cabin.”

“I know. But this reminds me of being on digs abroad. And this discovery feels big.”

“Well, if you’re sleeping out here, I’m going to sleep out here with you, and I’m going to go get your tent.”

She frowned. “You just said that as long as we were in the glass cabin we would keep having sex.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant that after the month is up it’s probably best if this is up too.” He didn’t like having to be that blunt, but he could see that she needed it.

“Oh. You didn’t mean that we could only literally have sex in the cabin?”

“No. I intended to give you lessons in your tent, in the luxury tent, we’ve got a month.”

She nodded. “Okay. We’ve got the month.”

Chapter Eleven

When Ernestine woke up in the morning, she was warm in spite of the fact that she was sleeping in the tent. Oh. Right.

She rolled over, and there he was. Sleeping. Gorgeous. It had been a weird few days when he hadn’t really spoken to her that much. But then…then he’d said that he was sleeping out here with her. And he’d shown her just how nice it was to share a sleeping bag with another person. It had never occurred to her.

She still hadn’t gotten to explore him in quite the way that she wanted to. Because the tent was so crowded and cramped. But he didn’t seem to mind at all. And he was efficient, even in a small space; for such a large man it was impressive.

She supposed there was some nice freedom in the fact that Rowdy and Dakota were aware that they were sleeping together. Since he didn’t seem to think that he needed to get back right away in order to cover their tracks. They weren’t going to be covering their tracks. Because they were going to be having sex. The end.

It wasn’t like the digs that she’d been on abroad. Even when she’d been in a group she felt very alone. Isolated. She didn’t feel like that with him.