me?”
“No, on you. That’s a hell of a responsibility.” His smile wasn’t happy. “I have the opposite problem. No one in my family depends on me at all.”
Happy to get off the subject of her complicated relationship with her father, Silver pounced on his admission.
“That’s not what I heard. My dad had to pay through the nose to get you to be my guide for this trip. You’re obviously in demand.”
“Maybe BB Morgan’s just a shrewd negotiator.” Ben set his plate aside, licked the syrup from his lips, and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “It was expensive because it’s calving season and most ranches need all hands on deck.”
“Oh.” Silver took a bite of one of the pancakes and it wasn’t bad at all. “So was your family mad that you took this job?”
“You could say that.” He stood up, dusted down his jeans, and put his mug and plate in the center of the circle near the fire.
“So your family does depend on you,” Silver said triumphantly.
He looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. “I’m here, aren’t I?” He nodded at her plate. “Help yourself to more coffee if you need it. I’m going down to the creek to check on the livestock.”
She finished her pancakes, had another cup of coffee, and felt better than she had for a long while. Her body was aching in weird places, but the rigorous fitness regime her occupation demanded was definitely paying dividends. Ben obviously had a few issues with his family, and she couldn’t say she blamed him. She knew all about being beholden to people yet feeling like they no longer saw you as a person but as a means to an end.
Going back to her tent, she changed out of her jammies and back into her jeans, fleece top, and boots before heading down to the corral.
The horses and mules were eating hay Ben must have put out for them, but there was no sign of him. She turned a slow circle and then walked down toward the edge of the creek where she abruptly stopped.
Her trail guide was just stepping out of his boxers and wading naked into the creek. She took three steps backward until she was in the shadow of the trees, and couldn’t take her eyes off his rather nice ass. She doubted he’d ever been near a gym, but he didn’t have any surplus fat on his well-muscled physique.
He crouched down and splashed water over his face and body all the while cursing up a storm. She guessed it had to be cold in there.
“I’m going to come out in a second, Silver, so if you don’t want to see the rest of me, you might want to get back to camp.”
Silver jumped as he spoke directly to her.
“We’re really going to have to work on your tracking skills.” He started to rise and turned toward the bank. “Last chance to run.”
Silver clapped her hands over her eyes like a scandalized maiden aunt, but still got an eyeful of his lightly haired chest, six pack abs and ...
“I suppose you’re going to say that the water was cold.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
He glanced down past his flat stomach to his groin. “I think everything is perfectly in proportion, thanks.” He advanced slowly toward her without a hint of shame. But why would he be ashamed, Silver thought feverishly, when his body was everything most men aspired to? “Sure you don’t want a dip? I could throw you in, if you like?”
She ran, then, all the way up to the camp, and started packing up her tent. By the time he joined her, she’d managed to stop blushing.
“I’m sorry.” She made herself look at his face, which now that she’d seen the rest of him was harder than she’d thought. “It was incredibly rude and insensitive of me to invade your privacy like that.”
He waved off her apology. “You didn’t know I was bathing when you came down there. I should’ve told you to keep away.”
“But I should’ve known better,” she kept on arguing. “I hate it when people take unauthorized pictures of me when I’m not expecting it.”
“I bet.” He eyed her curiously. “Maybe I should be glad that you didn’t have your phone on you or else I’d be Internet famous right now.”
She met his gaze. “I would never do that to you. I swear it.”
He nodded and turned toward his own tent. “Let’s get packed up.”
* * *
Ben led the way up the slope that looked over the interior of Morgan Valley. There were several ranches out here with land boundaries that met and separated and rejoined like the random outlets of a creek. BB had secured access to most of the valley for the trail rides. In return, Ben, or whoever was leading the ride, would report back on boundary fences, the presence of predators, water issues, or any of the hundreds of problems running a large ranch brought up without having the necessary hands.
Budgets were tight these days even at his own family ranch. If Ben saw a fence that needed mending, he’d get it done with the assistance of his guests who got to support with real-time ranch conservation. He’d even moved a few cows out of a flooded field into a safer one on the Garcia ranch once, which currently needed all the help it could get. If he saw any predators, he also had permission to hunt them. It was an arrangement that had worked well so far.
Somehow, despite not having bathed in the creek or had a proper shower, Silver still looked good. He guessed carting around that Korean skin cream was worth it. He should’ve told her that he was going to wash in the creek, but he hadn’t thought she’d come looking for him for a while. When he’d heard her footsteps, he should’ve kept his boxers on and called out a warning. Had he wanted her to see him naked? If that was true, what was wrong with him?
The last time he’d felt so off-kilter was as a stupid teenager who’d done some stuff so out of character that he still didn’t understand it himself. Mind you, she could’ve walked away, and she hadn’t. He’d noticed the second she’d stopped retreating and stayed to watch.
At least he’d told her that he was turning around and coming out. That had done the trick, but he’d noticed that she’d still gotten an eyeful. He half smiled to himself. And she hadn’t exactly run away screaming; she’d had enough time to make a joke about a certain part of his anatomy. . . .
“Why have we stopped?” Silver asked as she came up alongside him.
“I wanted to show you the valley from up here.” He stood in his stirrups and pointed downward. “We’re going to make our way to the floor and head out to the right of the canyon where the trees are.”
“It doesn’t look that far,” Silver commented as she shaded her eyes against the glare. There were patches of green, but big stretches of dry barren grassland that in the summer months were a real fire hazard. Morgan Creek ran through the top right corner of the valley and meandered its way down to Morgansville, past Morgan Ranch, and disappeared underground just after the town.
“We’re higher than you think, and going down can take twice as long as going up.” He turned to look at her. “You know how to shift your body weight to balance out the horse, right?”
“Yes.”
