14
JULES FELT BAD that she waited until after Tanner left to pack her suitcases. Most of the furniture in the place had come with it. So she didn’t have to take it with her. Admittedly, he’d wanted her to stay and told her to ignore the Colonel’s orders, but the ranch belonged to his father. And as much as she loved Tanner, she cared about his family and the ranch. She couldn’t continue to be a source of friction between the two men.
For now she should get a place in Durango Point, then look into possibly opening an office there. She still had plenty of other ranch clients, although if word got out that she had been fired by Round Top, it might cost her business elsewhere.
There was a reason she had a rule about dating ranchers. She accepted her own culpability in her current situation. But it didn’t change how heartsick she felt over the matter. She stopped by the barn to check on the horses one last time, particularly Charity, who seemed none the worse for wear after choking, as well as Missy and her frolicking foal.
“You sure you want to do this?” Mateo asked from the entryway.
“How do you know I’m doing anything?”
“Because I’m not blind, and there are suitcases in the back of the Jeep.” He limped slowly along the aisle, his pace deliberate and no less pained than it had ever been; yet, he seemed to have more control.
“I don’t want to go, but I can’t argue with the Colonel. He needs time to heal—he and Tanner both need time to heal. If they’re arguing over me every day, it can’t be good for either one of them.”
“Ma’am, you can tell yourself that all you want. But they’re Marines. They’re going to argue whether you’re here or not. At least with you here, they have someone who cares about both of them. The Colonel will come around. . . .”
“Maybe. I’m a big girl, Mateo. I can take care of myself.”
“Why doesn’t that line ever work for me?” He gave her a side eye and she laughed.
“Because you’re not a big girl,” she joked, to which he grinned. She gave him a quick hug, careful of his back, and then said, “You know, if the horses need me, or if any of you do, just call. I’ll come back. And hopefully the Colonel doesn’t bring in a new vet to be competition, but I’ll manage.”
Mateo gave her a wave and she headed out. Climbing into the Jeep, she felt like she should say good-bye for the last time, and she hated the sensation of it. She might’ve only lived at Round Top for a few months, but it already felt like home. Maybe more like home than anywhere else in her whole life. Still, better to leave while there was a chance for the Colonel and Tanner to make amends and work together than to stay and create an untenable position for both of them.
She made it almost to the end of the drive when Tanner’s truck pulled in.
He took one look at her, slammed on the brakes, and put his truck in park.
The fierce expression on his face worried her, so she climbed out and hurried over to him. “Is your father okay?”
He didn’t answer—he simply scooped her up, slammed his mouth down on hers, and kissed her like a man starving for breath. He set her senses on fire; she would never get enough of him. She answered his kiss with the ferocity of her own. Wrapping her legs and arms around him, she held tight until he finally allowed the both of them to come up for air.
“You’re just the person I wanted to see,” he said. He glanced at her Jeep. “Going somewhere?”
This was not how she wanted to tell him. Since he was still holding her, his hands firm beneath her butt, she took a deep breath and said, “I packed my things and I was heading into town to find a place to rent.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I know you said to ignore him, but . . .” She pressed a finger to his lips when his mouth opened. “I’m still talking.” At his scowl she continued. “Your father fired me. He told me to get out. This is still his ranch and I know you’re here and I know it’s your home and I know what you said. I appreciate all of it. I’m not breaking up with you . . .” The moment she said it, his eyes lightened. By saying she wasn’t breaking up with him, she was admitting they were in a relationship. “Fine, yes, we’re in a relationship, and no, I’m not breaking up with you. But I’m respecting your father’s wishes.”
When she removed her finger, he leaned in and kissed her again, only this time far slower and with a great deal more gentleness. It was a loving kiss, one that gave as much as it took and left her melting in his arms. “I adore you, crazy woman,” he said. “You should also know that Dad said that I had to follow all his orders except for the one about getting rid of you. He admitted he was a damn fool: chances are that what he said was his pride and his illness talking. Long story short, you’re not fired—in fact, not only are you not fired, but I am under orders to treat you like a lady.”
The complete and total one-eighty threw her. “I’m sorry—what?”
Tanner began walking back toward her Jeep, bumping his hips to hers with every step. “You heard me right. He and I have a deal. We’re going to work together on getting your therapy horse program set up, and he’s gonna work on his recovery. Depending on when he can eat bacon will determine when we can launch the program here.”
That sentence made absolutely no sense to her whatsoever. “That’s great. It sounds like you guys had a great talk.”
“We had the best talk. Probably the best one we’ve ever had. Neither one of us took no for an answer. Which means you should also understand that neither one of us is letting you go.”
“Tanner, you know about my rules. . . .”
“I know all about your rules. I know you can’t date a rancher. You’re not going to date one. You’re in a relationship with one. And I’d like you to stay in that relationship for as long as we both live.”
Her stomach bottomed out—was he seriously proposing to her in the middle of the driveway? With absolute care he set her down next to her vehicle. Then, touching two fingers to her cheek, he said, “I want to show you something, so hop in and follow me. Okay?”
Saying no to him was getting more and more difficult. “Where do you want to go?”
“Just trust me.” He pointed his finger. “Don’t disappear on me. Because I will come looking. I told you I wasn’t taking no for an answer.” Mollified when she laughed, he went back to his truck. Watching him, she sighed. Where he went, she would follow.
He led her along the dirt roads of the ranch, winding past the farthest pastures to a green belt of a grotto near the river. It was one of the prettier pieces of the Round Top, utterly unsullied. Occasionally they brought horses out here to graze, mostly to keep the grass down, but they didn’t run cattle on this part of the ranch. In fact, they didn’t keep it heavily fenced at all. Tanner held his hand out to her and took her for a walk. He led her over to the bluff that looked down on the river. It was a stunning view and one she’d never seen before.
“This was my favorite place to ride to when I was a kid,” Tanner admitted. “I’d dream of being a pirate. Or a king on a hill. Sometimes just a soldier lying in wait for the pirates who were coming on the river to get to the king on the hill.”
She laughed at his description. She’d never imagined him indulging in something so fanciful as daydreaming.
“I’m going to build a house here. It won’t be huge, probably only have three bedrooms, but it will be ours. A place where we can sit at night and look at the stars or lie out in our backyard and stare at the river. Where we can dream we’re the king and the queen of the hill. We’ll still be on Round Top, easily accessible to the house for Dad if he needs us. He’ll have Ramon and Maria there, and we’ll be here.”
“You want to build a house?” There were two guesthouses already on the ranch, and he wanted to build a third.
“I want to build our house,” he said. “The ranch house has a lot of history, but it’s the Colonel’s. He needs a place to call his. We didn’t live there together a lot when I was growing up, and I don’t think we’d do it well as adults. Besides, I want the chance to play naked-chase with my wife around the house and not have to worry about startling the old man into another heart attack.”
Wife. Her heart thundered in her ears. “You’re assuming I’m saying yes.”
“No, I’m promising you that I will wait for you as long as you need. Which means I make my plans. Maybe you don’t say yes right now; maybe you don’t say yes in six months. Maybe you don’t say yes for a year. I’m a patient man; I can wait. If you want to take the rest of our lives to say yes to me, Jules, I’m going to be right here, waiting for you. I love you. I never knew what my life was missing until I met you. I want to see what we can be together. I want to be more than just the guy you met in the bar. I want to be the guy you come home to at night, the guy who gets up in the morning and makes you coffee because you’ve been running all night. I want to be the guy who has kids with you. I want to be who you need and who needs you. . . .”
It was damn hard not to cry at that offer, because he said everything. He shattered every wall, drowned every objection, and offered her the world. “Fine, but I have my own conditions.” She sniffed once, then swiped at her tears.
Tanner leaned away from her and folded his arms. “Name them.”
“I still buy my own drinks, because I can. And you know you can get moody, and give orders and tell me all the time that you won’t take no for an answer, but I don’t have to follow your orders, and you do have to listen to a no from me. Maybe you don’t take no from anyone else, but if I say no, then it’s no. You know what, even if you get mad and we argue, or we can’t find a way to agree on something, that doesn’t mean I’m leaving, or you. Nobody gets to leave, nobody gets chased off, and you don’t get to fire me. Ever.”
“Done, done, and done. What else?”
That was way too easy. Jules shook her head slowly, then said, “One more thing. . . .”
“Yes?” Impatience creased the single syllable.
“Once a year—and we get to take turns—we pick a place that we’ve never been together and we go. Just you and me. We have kids, they can go too—when they’re old enough. But I want to see the world with you. And then I want to come home to the world that belongs to us.”
Tanner went down on one knee and held his hand out to her, “Jules Heller, I love you and every condition that you set. Will you marry me?”
Catching his hand, she went down on her own and kissed him. Since he was forever grabbing and kissing her, it was about time she got to do it back. Only when she’d satisfied her need for him did she whisper, “Captain Wilks, it would be my pleasure.”