In the brilliant sunshine bathing Zach’s ranch, Nadine felt clunky and awkward, an old feeling she’d thought she’d outgrown. With this awful new directive from Lee, any smooth confidence she might have possessed had deserted her this morning. She ran a hand over her twitchy stomach.
From the car, she retrieved the canvas bag that contained the tools of her trade: notepad, laptop, recording device, pencils and pens. The bag was her raison d’être. Her security blanket, its very existence reminded her that, yes indeed, she was a bona fide journalist who deserved to be writing.
She sensed Zach’s presence on his veranda. She couldn’t avoid him any longer, so she turned and walked toward the house.
He stood on his porch steps and watched her approach with his unnerving steady regard. Did the man never blink?
The ranch hadn’t changed since her tour here in high school for a project about local cattle ranching. The sturdy white brick house with blue shutters might be considered by some to be pretty. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn’t to her taste. She liked modern and sleek. Not that she found much of either here in Rodeo, but back in New York City—oh, heavenly, perfect New York—there’d been plenty of it.
Well, the Big Apple was history, wasn’t it? No sense wishing for the unattainable. No sense chasing down a past that hadn’t turned out the way it was supposed to.
Shake it off, Nadine.
Zach still hadn’t moved, but his intensity snagged her attention. What went on in the man’s mind when he gazed about with such deep, earnest interest?
She reached the bottom stair. He stepped down and loomed over her. She was tall. He was taller. He smelled nice, like soap.
“Zach.”
“Nadine.”
She held out one hand to shake. He took it in his, calluses rubbing roughly against her palm, but released it when two kids, a pair of identical twins, came running out of the house.
She guessed them to be about seven years old, but what did she know? She didn’t have a lot of exposure to children. They each carried a single rubber boot. Two different boots.
“I wanted to get just plain black,” one boy shouted, “but Aiden wouldn’t.”
“The lady is pretty,” the other boy said. Oh, sweet. “She might want flowers.”
Zach grasped Nadine by the arms and spun her around.
“Oh!” Whoa.
“Sit,” he said, “and we’ll get you into those boots.”
She sat on a step. He grasped her leg, not quite what she expected.
For a moment, he looked sheepish, as though he’d made a mistake. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be bossy. Can I take off your shoes?”
“Okay,” she said. At her nod, he wrapped long fingers around one of her bare ankles to take off her shoe. Soda pop bubbles fizzed in her bloodstream. The twin who had called her pretty handed him a yellow boot with turquoise flowers on it. When Zach squatted on his haunches in front of Nadine, his face hovered close enough for her to detect flecks of yellow in his hazel eyes.
One of the boys, the flower boot one, distracted her by staring at her pink toenails. He grinned and said, “Nice color.”
Nadine didn’t know how to react. The only children she’d spent any time with were her friends’ kids—the kids they insisted on having as they married and started families.
Zach gripped Nadine’s other ankle in his warm hand and pulled off her second shoe. The soda pop bubbles went electric.
Double whoa. Heat suffused her.
“Can I sit here?” The first boy cuddled close to her on the step. The second boy copied him on her other side. Like a pair of bookends, they nestled against her.
These males overwhelmed her, even the young ones. “Sure you can sit,” she said. “It’s your house. But—”
Zach finished sliding the black boot onto her other foot and stood up. He stepped away with a satisfied smile on his face. Worn jeans hung low on his narrow hips. Biceps filled out his white T-shirt.
“There,” he said. “Now you’re ready for walking on the ranch. Can’t walk it in high heels.”
Nadine stared at the mismatched boots on her feet, the flowered one spotless. Straw and muck clung to the dark one. Oh, God, she hoped it was only muck. The rubber boots mocked all the care she’d taken with her choice of dress and the meticulous application of her makeup this morning.
She might no longer work in New York, but she maintained standards.
Glancing up at Zach, she said, “I brought a pair of boots. They’re in the car.”
He stared at her. “Really? I—” A blush crept up his neck, darkening the tanned skin and spreading into his cheeks. “You did?” Wonder of wonders, the guy looked awkward and not at all his usual assured self. She’d never seen him less than together before.
It kind of charmed her.
She bit back a smile. “Yes. You said we’d be walking so I came prepared.”
“Oh...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought you’d forgotten.”
Was he as shy as he looked? Shy wasn’t a word Nadine had ever applied to Zach Brandt. Intense, quiet, self-contained, certain of his place in the world, yes. But shy? No.
Also, masculine. Let’s not forget that, Nadine.
“Do you want to change into your own boots?” he asked.
“Perhaps after we do the first part of the interview,” she said.
“The first part?”
“Yes. I hoped to see your studio. Maybe take a look at your current work.” She wanted to ease into that other story. Lee’s story. The real one, he’d said. The longer she could put off Lee’s agenda, the better.
Her stomach threatened to send up her breakfast. Wouldn’t that be the epitome of embarrassing?
If she could concentrate on Zach’s paintings first, maybe it would become possible to segue into questions about his family’s past. Her problem lay in how to ask those uncomfortable questions.
“No,” Zach said and he didn’t look happy.
“No?” Immersed in her own troubling thoughts, she’d lost track of the conversation.
“This interview is not about my paintings alone. There are no paintings without the land.”
“Yes, we’ll cover everything. But your painting is a big part of who you are.”
“This ranch—” he flung an arm toward the fields “—is a big part of who I am. That’s what
