Cooper looked ridiculous with four suitcases, two of them flung over his shoulders and two in his hands trailing behind him on wheels.

For a moment, I was impressed. This was a man, from what I’d recently read, who had personal assistants and housekeepers. He had an agent and a public relations team as well as a personal shopper on-call for all manner of clothing needs.

I expected him to get out of his car, sneer at the modest home and wrinkle his nose at the scent of ranch life lingering in the air.

I was expecting a diva.

Assuming he wasn’t because he carried his own luggage was stupid. I’d see if he was a diva when I had him muck out the horse stalls. Or gather the eggs from the chicken coop. Or help a struggling heifer birth her first calf.

Suddenly, all the tasks I had to do, all the upcoming, unending work, grew slightly less daunting with this man walking in front of me.

Which meant I had to hurry to get around him to unlock the door.

My boots clip-clopped on the rock path, something Joseph built the summer before he died, and I brushed away the grief that hit whenever I saw something he made.

I moved quickly, my long legs having to hustle double-time to reach the door before Cooper, and I pulled out a key from my back pocket right as we reached the door at the same time.

I unlocked the door, pushed it open and before either of us entered, handed him the key. “This is yours. In all honesty, we rarely lock our doors around here, but I thought you’d like the privacy.”

His light green eyes hit mine as he slid the key out of my grasp. “Thank you. Did Max tell you much about why I’m here?”

He hitched his shoulder, readjusting one of his duffel bags. His eyes seemed to be inspecting mine.

There was no point in lying. I’d already done it once and I hated lying. I also wasn’t very good at it. “He told me you’re going through a divorce, it’s getting ugly, and you needed time to hide out.”

“That it?” His head tilted to the side.

The way he captured my gaze was unnerving and I blinked. I looked over his shoulder. “I don’t really know what Max told you about me,” I said. “But I can tell you that I don’t watch much television, and I have even less time for movies. I know who you are because my uncle told me, but I’ve never seen your movies. Ranch work is hard work and that’s all I care about.”

His eyes moved from mine, finally, and I took the moment of silence to slide past him and into the guesthouse, explaining while I moved. “This isn’t much, but there are two bedrooms. Only one bath. The kitchen area is small, but it should have everything you need.”

His suitcases clattered inside and the wheels moved along the wood floors before the duffel bags dropped to the floor.

I headed in the direction of the kitchen, a small L-shape, with a mahogany dinner table for four to separate the kitchen space from the living space. The entire guesthouse was less than a thousand square feet, and most likely smaller than anything this man had ever spent the night in.

I’d always loved this house. My grandpa and dad built it when I was barely old enough to hold a hammer. That still didn’t stop my dad from handing me the tool and teaching me how to use it.

I opened the fridge and gestured to the food I’d stocked for him. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about going into town while you’re here, or what your plans were, so I stocked your cupboards with snacks and the fridge with some basics. If there’s something you need, you can let me know and I’ll get it when I go back into town next week.”

Town was only ten minutes away, but I limited my trips. Joseph and I used to go all the time, especially on weekends, to the bar or out to eat, but Carlton was small, even if it’d grown in the last decade. People knew me, and the looks they gave me were unsettling.

Brooke, one of my closest friends since high school, kept telling me it was because I’d become a stubborn recluse and if I came out more, people would stop looking at me like I needed a hug all the darn time.

I didn’t believe her. She didn’t know everything and I was intent on keeping it that way. One run-in with the wrong person and all my hidden shame would come to light.

“Is there something you need?” I asked. He hadn’t moved from just inside the front door and his focus on me was unnerving.

“No, but thank you. And since Max tells me I’m supposed to help you while I’m here, perhaps I should be asking you that.”

I hadn’t expected him to want to dive right into work. “I thought you’d want to take the day to relax.”

“I don’t do well with relaxing these days. To be honest with you, being left alone with my thoughts isn’t the best for me.”

He should have stayed in the city then. The quiet nights on the ranch were the worst. There was nothing around except stillness and the music of cows and crickets. I didn’t bother bursting his bubble.

There was a section of fencing I noticed the other day that needed to be repaired out on the far edge of our two-hundred acres, but it wouldn’t take me more than a couple hours to get out there and fix it. I wanted to do it alone, though.

I might have agreed to let him come, but that didn’t mean I wanted him here.

“I have some things to do this afternoon. Why don’t you unpack and get settled and you can come find me in the horse barn when you’re done.”

“The horse barn?”

“Yeah. Big red building. Can’t really miss it.”

His lips lifted, and I’d say it was a grin, but it didn’t reach his eyes or alter his expression in any way. Great. Was he terrified of horses?

“Okay. I’ll meet you at the horse barn later.” His lips lifted again, and this time it was definitely a grin.

I didn’t ask him what was so funny about a barn.

I skedaddled past him and hurried back to the main house—not realizing until I reached the back door of my patio that my stomach started feeling funny when he smiled.

I didn’t like it.

Not one little bit.

---

The strange sensation in my belly evaporated while I re-wrapped wire and hammered in a couple new posts. With the fencing fixed, I did a quick ride on Gray before heading back to the barn. I’d only been gone two hours, the fence not taking as much time as I’d anticipated, and wasn’t nearly as damaged as I saw the other day.

This wasn’t exactly a surprise. Farmers were helpful people and our land edged up a creek, but across the creek was the Whitman place. They grew corn, not cows, but over the last year they’d taken to surprising me with help, whether or not I asked for it.

Seeing the damaged fence line had already been repaired, replaced that warm feeling in my stomach with irritation as I followed the fence, found a different area that hadn’t been fixed and set in handling that one.

It’d be polite to call Gloria Whitman and thank her and her husband, Peter, for helping, but I’d told them time and again I had it handled.

To which she usually replied, “Sweet thing, you accept the help from folk and the Lord when it’s needed so you’ve got the energy and time to give when it’s needed of you. This is just us, you know that.”

The problem was I did, because Gloria and Peter Whitman were close enough to my family to be family, considering her family had worked their land even longer than my family had worked ours. I understood both her words and her implication. Fifteen years ago their original house burned down in a fire from a lightning strike, and it was my family who’d helped them rebuild and harvest their crops that summer and fall. We’d had this conversation so often that now, whenever I found something they mended, I didn’t bother calling.

I didn’t need her Sunday School lessons on graciousness. God had taught me enough on His own by ripping away everything valuable I had.

It wasn’t only their lessons or their help that made my blood boil. It was mostly because it was usually given to me with a look a pity in their eyes as well as the whispered, “That poor little thang,” behind my back. As if no one around actually believed I could manage this place.

Perhaps Brooke was right and I was stubborn, but I was a single woman, a widow, working a two-hundred acre cattle ranch.

I could do it, I knew I could. I just needed more time to prove it.

“Come on, Gray,” I whispered, tugging on his lead and guiding him back to the barn. “Let’s get you some food and a good rub down.”

He snorted, and I ran my hand down his side. I guided him into the barn only to come to an abrupt stop when I saw Cooper.

He was at Stormy’s door, running his hand down the side of her neck, and talking so softly to the girl I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but whatever it was, the girl liked it. She nuzzled Cooper’s hand just like she’d always done to Joseph.

My irritation with the Whitmans dwindled.

I had a new target for my anger.

Freaking Max.