Page 61 of The Rancher’s One and Only

She looked at him like that idea was radical. “I guess because I misunderstood so often I’m always wanting to explain myself. But you never seem to misunderstand me.”

“I don’t find it difficult.”

“Well, I don’t find your past difficult. I think it’s sad.”

“Most people feel so confronted by it when I tell them that—”

“Well, what’s the point of trying to bring it into the present? Doesn’t seem like that’s something you want to do with it.”

“No. It’s really not something I want to do with it.”

“Well, I don’t need to do that with it.”

They did the dishes side by side, and when they were finished, it was Ernestine who took his hand. “I’m going to try to be bold,” she said.

“You’re pretty bold.”

“Yeah, but…this way.”

She stood in the middle of the room, and stripped her T-shirt off. She was wearing a bra that had cats in space on it. And it was just very her. There was a lot to her. A lot more than people could see. This was evidence of that. His heart was pounding fast, anticipation igniting in his blood. What a weird thing. That this woman, this woman who was a virgin until just a few days ago, had the power to do this to him. To make him feel like he was experiencing something entirely new. Like he was maybe the virgin.

He’d let sex become something perfunctory. An appetite that he was trying to satiate, rather than something sacred or intimate. Something that filled him with any kind of deep awe, but she did that to him.

She pushed her shorts down her hips, and revealed that her underwear matched the bra.

“I love the cats,” he said.

“Do you really love the cats?”

“I really do.” He moved toward her, and pressed his thumb over one of the flying cats, which just happened to be placed on her nipple. He dragged his thumb over the top of it, and shuddered. “Girl, you are something else. Yes, I love the cats. I love the cats because they’re not scientific. Cats in space, that doesn’t make any sense. That’s never going to happen. They’re unexpected. Like you. Because you’re all about science, until you’re about fantasy. Until you’re about watching the same show, over and over again. Until you’re about thinking that maybe there are endless dimensions and lives and unexplained things out there in the universe. And I love that. So, yeah. I love it.”

The smile on her face was dreamy, and he wished that he was worthy of it. Damn, he really wished he was. But he was just a guy. Just a guy who had been through so much shit, he didn’t even know what was normal or functional. Just a guy who was never going to make a scientific discovery that was going to change the world. A guy who had made tons of money hitting strangers in the head. A guy who had never felt like he belonged much of anywhere until he met this weird bone scientist.

“Do you have any Jurassic Park underwear?”

She frowned. “You know I don’t.”

“Maybe you should.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“Yeah. I’m kind of ridiculous. But so are you.”

And then her smile lit up the room. It was the stars and the moon, and all the planets they’d looked at through her telescope. It was this broad, expansive world that he had only ever seen with her.

And that was pretty amazing.

She pulled at his shirt, jerked it over his head, her movements inexpert, but wonderful. She moved her hands over his chest, down his stomach, down to his belt. Then she undid it slowly. “You’re not uncovering a fossil,” he said. “I’m not going to break.”

“That’s not why I’m taking my time.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m afraid. I know what I want to do, but I don’t know how to do it. And you can imagine how often I’m not the expert.”

“Probably not very often.”

“No. Not often.”