CHAPTER 2
Laura
Two days ago I was halfway across the country finding out that my boyfriend had been cheating on me with my best friend for the last six months. And now two days later here I am, in the middle of some town in some part of the country I know absolutely nothing about. It was a crazy, spur of the moment decision to put as much distance as I could between the people I trusted most in life only to find out they weren’t worth trusting any farther than I could throw them.
But that’s in the rearview now. What matters now is what’s standing in front of me.
And that’s six foot three inches of something I’ve never seen before in real life, only on TV and in the movies.
I feel an excitement rush through my veins. Wow, he really is a cowboy. I can’t help but get tingly inside realizing this is going to be just the excitement and change of pace I needed.
Babysitting his baby daughter that is.
But in this part of the country where animals roam free and wolves hunt at night I know things are more primal. No need to conceal the obvious ways of the animal kingdom and my inner beast is immediately filling me with the strongest mating signs I ever remember feeling.
Being with my ex-boyfriend was pretty good, until a couple days ago, but we never consummated our relationship. I thought he was going to propose to me when we graduated last year, but no such luck. As another Texan, Beyoncé, said, “If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it.”
Well there was no ring and he tried to throw the whole lack of sex thing in my face for his “reason” to fill his “need” to hump my best friend.
Jerk.
I don’t need him anyways and something tells me this tall glass of milk standing before me is nothing like the boys I’m used to.
For starters he’s not a twenty-three year old boy like my ex. He’s surely over thirty and might even be pushing forty, but I doubt it. It’s hard to tell because on the one hand he looks young and extremely healthy, probably from all the work he puts in out here. But that work is apparently outside as he has quite the tan, which makes his age a bit harder to guess.
I never considered an older man before, but then again I was never really around men. I mean professors don’t exactly get me going. I do like intelligence, but I’m not exactly a sapiosexual. That and most teachers and professors I’ve had over the years seem to enjoy the ring of the dinner bell a lot more than lifting some heavy barbells.
But this guy looks like he could lift a lot more than a barbell with weights attached on either end, not that he probably ever has. Working out in a gym filled with strange futuristic looking machines surrounded by sweaty guys who often seem to be there for no other reason to pick up girls who are sitting on exercise equipment chatting away, seems ridiculous now.
Why try and bench press two hundred pounds when you can get a lot stronger roping cattle, lifting rocks out of fields, and building a barn from scratch…with trees you may have even cut down yourself.
This is a real man. Now that I think about it it’s the first I’ve ever really seen one in my entire life. This is no meterosexual with a seven-step skincare routine who sits in an office all day under the artificial illumination of fluorescent lights shopping online for sixty dollar bottles of beard oil.
This is a real man who will have a five o’clock shadow this afternoon, gets his light from the sun, and his water from a well. I bet he eats bacon and eggs from a cast iron skillet. With all that iron in his diet and Vitamin D he’s getting from working outside he must be so virile he could probably fill me up with triplets on the first shot.
But I’m not here to be barefoot and pregnant on his ranch, I’m here to watch his baby girl.
His ad said there was no mother, but he didn’t word it like it was some sort of profile on a dating app. It was just to let candidates for the job know there really wasn’t any additional help to be had. They would be responsible for everything.
But I’m not sure if I can be held responsible for what might happen between the two of us.
“Let’s get you up to the house and get you a glass of lemonade,” he says.
“That would be great,” I say.
He helps me onto the back of his four-wheeler and we peel out on the gravel heading back up towards the house.
The gravel is a bit bumpy and he’s not going fast, but I still use it as an excuse to wrap my arms around him…for safety reasons of course.
But when I feel those rock hard abs of his I know being around him is about the least safe place I can be.
The two of us out here on this ranch is going to get really dangerous really fast.