to each other, even if his big hope of reuniting his estranged sons hadn’t come true just yet.
In the living room, she found the cheeky ranch hand standing over the rocking chair, which he’d set near a stone fireplace. It was right where she’d been thinking of putting it.
“I appreciate your help,” she said, thinking this would be the end of him and she could get back to work.
Yet, he wasn’t leaving. No, he was running a hand over the mahogany wood of the high-backed Victorian rocker, making her wonder what it would feel like to have his long fingers mapping her with such slow deliberation.
“Where’d you find this beauty?” he asked with that lazy drawl.
She cleared her throat… and her head. “It was in the last abandoned cabin on the property.”
“I hear that you and the other Byrd girls have turned all the rest of those cabins upside down and inside out,” he said, looking up at her with a grin. “Then you fancied them up with gift baskets and flowers in vases, just like a hotel.”
“We want people to be comfortable when they stay here.”
God, those dimples. They made her angry for causing such a stir in her. Made her entire body tingle, too.
“It’s true,” she said, ready to go on her way now. “We Byrd girls have been very hard at work.”
“I haven’t been back on the Flying B for long, but I’ve noticed some of the changes you’ve made to the main house, too—the new swing on the porch outside, the flower garden and fountain you put out back for the guests.”
He stood, but he kept a hand on the rocker, his thumb brushing over the carvings of ducks and swans that some man must’ve painstakingly etched for a woman who’d rocked his child to sleep years and years ago. A strange ache in the center of Donna’s chest weighed her down for some reason.
But that was strange, because she’d never planned for children.
No time. Not her, the woman always on the go.
Yet that ache stayed in Donna as she ripped her gaze from the rocking chair and crossed her arms over her chest.
The ranch hand wasn’t going anywhere. What—was he expecting a tip, like a doorman?
He sauntered across the room, his boots thudding on the Navajo rug until he got close enough to extend his hand to her.
“It’s my turn to introduce myself,” he said. “Caleb Granger.”
Even his name sounded so very cowboy. Politely, she took his hand and shook it.
“Thank you for your help, Caleb,” she said.
Most normal people would’ve let go of her by now, but not this guy. He kept a hold of her for an extra second—enough to send a pulse of pure need through her fingers and straight down to…
Well, to a location that twisted her around inside.
She let go of him and stepped aside, making it clear that the room’s exit was all his.
“So what other gems did you dig up in those old cabins?” he asked, as if he had all the livelong day to charm her.
All right. Maybe it would be a good idea to go along with this. Donna knew full well that she came off as prickly to a lot of people, and she’d been trying to remedy that lately. Honestly, her remoteness was something she’d been aware of for a while now, ever since it had emerged after her parents had divorced and her mom had passed on from cancer when she was nine and Jenna was eight.
People left you. Donna had learned that early in life, and she’d only been readying herself for it to happen again and again.
“We’ve pulled out some good furniture from the cabins,” she said, continuing the small talk. “Cherrywood end tables, a couple of handcrafted cedar chests, cute knickknacks that we’ve polished up and used to decorate all the guest rooms, even in the main house.”
“You’re using themes—like the Ace High Saloon Room and Fandango Room.”
“We might as well capitalize on the Old West atmosphere of the area. Buckshot Hills has some colorful history to work with.”
Donna didn’t add that the Flying B had a lot of its own history that wouldn’t make it into any room. When she, Jenna and Tammy had gone through what they’d started calling the “dream cabin,” they had decided to make only mild improvements to it—especially with the so-called “magical” feather bed stored in there.
Too many weird vibes. Too much history for the Byrds.
Family legend had it that when someone slept on that bed, their dreams would come true. Donna hadn’t believed a word until Tammy had experienced it firsthand, which had led to her engagement to “Doc” Mike Sanchez, who’d also had a dream. Then the same thing had happened to Jenna and her fiancé, J.D., bringing them together, too.
Yes, Donna was staying as far away from that mattress as possible, because Savannah Jeffries, the woman who’d started all the trouble between Donna’s father, Sam, and his twin brother, William, had once slept on that bed, and Donna still wasn’t sure what to make of the woman who’d caused all the warring in this family.
The silence between her and this Caleb guy had stretched on for too long, and for the first time, he seemed to be aware of her notorious standoffishness. It’d just taken him a little longer than others to realize it.
“Well then,” he said, “if you need any help hauling around more rocking chairs, just give me a holler.”
“Okay.” Thank goodness, he was finally going to give her some peace.
He tipped his hat to her, and for a moment, she let herself be enthralled with those dimples.
Just one little second.
Then he left the living room, allowing Donna to catch her breath again, once she heard the front door close.
On a whim, she furtively glanced around the room, and since she was quite alone, she wandered over to the window. She peeked around the lace curtains to see Caleb Granger taking his sweet, slow time down the steps, one hand at his waist, his thumb hooked in a belt loop.
She watched until he rounded the corner of the house, no doubt heading toward his side of the ranch, leaving Donna to her side.
It took her a minute to recognize that her heart was throbbing—in her neck, in her chest….
And down lower.
But Caleb Granger? Was absolutely not her type.
So why was her body trying to tell her differently?
She liked men in pressed suits. Men with some city polish who figuratively got their hands dirty behind a desk, not literally in the stables. Men who smelled like cologne, not…
Saddle soap. Musk.
That was what Caleb Granger had smelled like, come
