Chapter Six
Kelsi
“Tyler is going to come over tomorrow, so I’ll need you to cover for me,” I said to Hannah as we loaded in the hay for the horses.
“Oh, so you’ve invited the incredibly handsome single billionaire over to visit? Wow, that seems like a fun idea,” she said with a smile. “I mean, I thought you were just trying to get him to notice you, but this must be part of your more advanced plan.”
“Before you get all excited, he’s just an old friend coming over to see the horses. He doesn’t get a chance to ride anymore and wanted to go out. I’m not trying to sleep with him.”
“Sure.”
“Really, Hannah, I’m not. He’s not my type at all.”
“Sure, because you don’t like rich, good-looking guys, right?” Hannah laughed and walked away to finish her chores.
There was too much history between Tyler and me to explain to Hannah. Of course, I liked rich, good-looking guys, but they weren’t really the type of guys I spent too much time around. My lifestyle, my whole life was there on the ranch. I wasn’t going to sleep with Tyler, and that was for sure.
My world was all about being responsible and taking care of my family, Tyler’s world was more about making money and building an empire. I didn’t blame him for going away and working; I didn’t even blame him for what happened as we were dating in high school. It was nice that we had some closure to that and I was really happy we had the time to talk at the reunion. But I was a realist, and as soon as Tyler’s father passed away, Tyler would be going back to his real life. I wasn’t about to get my heart wrapped up in him again.
“Hey, Kendall, did you hear that Kelsi invited Tyler back to the ranch to go horseback riding tomorrow?” Hannah yelled as Kendall and Clyde came into the barn.
“Oh, really? Now that is interesting, and we are definitely going to talk more about it. I’m going to take Clyde to school, and when I get back, I want to hear all the details,” Kendall said as she raised her eyebrows and looked like she was going to explode with excitement. “Go kiss your mom and I’ll get you to school.”
“Mom, who is Tyler?” Clyde asked quizzically.
“Just an old friend of Mommy’s from high school. He lives in the big city now and hasn’t gotten to ride horses in years. I promised to bring him out on the big trail. Do you think I should let him ride Thunder?”
“Oh, he’s so big. I don’t know, it might be hard for him. Maybe you should let him ride Diego?”
“Your horse? You think I should let him ride your horse?”
“Yeah, Diego is the nicest and he will be nice to your friend.”
“Wow, that’s really nice of you. You know how much I love you?” I said as I held my arms out wide.
“Around the world and back.”
“Yep, exactly right,” I said as I wrapped my arms around Clyde and hugged him. “Now you go learn lots of cool stuff at school today and I’ll have a snack waiting for you when you get home.”
“Fruit rollups?”
“Sure, if that’s what you want, but can I add some apples with peanut butter, too?”
“I guess,” he said as he rolled his eyes at my insistence on adding some nutrition to his snack.
“See you two in a few minutes and we are going to talk all about this horseback riding thing,” Kendall said firmly.
As soon as they were gone, I walked straight down to the last stall where Hannah was at and stood there waiting for her to turn around. She didn’t have to bring Tyler up in front of Clyde; he was only five and still didn’t understand why I was raising him alone and why he didn’t have a father around. I didn’t want him being around any men, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring up Tyler around him.
“What?” Hannah said playfully.
“Come on, you know I don’t want Clyde knowing about men in my life.”
“What men in your life?” She laughed.
“Tyler, you shouldn’t have brought him up in front of Clyde.”
“But you said Tyler was just a friend. Aren’t I allowed to talk about your friends in front of Clyde? I mean, it would be really weird if we only talked about females all the time. Don’t you think he’s smart enough to think that’s weird?”
“You know what I mean.”
“That Tyler is more than a friend and that’s why you didn’t want him brought up in front of Clyde? Ohhh, so that’s it?”
“No. I didn’t say that. Come on, just don’t bring him up in front of Clyde, okay? I am your boss, you know. You should actually listen to me.”
“Actually, your parents are the ones who pay me,” she teased. “But I won’t bring Tyler up again in front of Clyde. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t like I was dating Tyler, or anyone else for that matter, but Clyde didn’t need to be confused by having a man around who wasn’t his father. He already struggled with the idea that his father had left and wasn’t interested in staying in contact with us; I absolutely wasn’t going to confuse my son further by bringing some strange man around him.
Kendall was back from dropping Clyde off in less than 30 minutes, and as much as I tried to avoid her, she finally cornered me to talk about Tyler. Of course, the second Kendall and I started talking, Hannah joined the conversation too. They were more curious about Tyler and why I had invited him over than they were about Clyde’s father when I had been dating him.
“Before you two get going, I’m going to say this one time: he’s just a friend, there’s nothing going on.”
“I heard from Cindy that you and Tyler were dirty dancing on the dance floor within minutes of the dance starting,” Kendall said like the little sister she was.
“You talked to Cindy?”
“Yeah, I called her on my way home after I dropped Clyde off.”
“You are insufferable. Why do you care so much about my life?” I said exasperatedly.
“Um, I’m your sister, duh,” Kendall said as if that was all she had to say for her meddling to be all right. “It’s essentially my job to annoy you and get involved in your business. Didn’t you read the sister manual? I swear, some people.” She laughed.
“I know you mean well, but seriously, there’s nothing going on. We made up and I’m not angry with him, that’s all. It was good to have that part of my life closed. I had felt bad and even a little angry about all that had happened in high school, so yes, it’s good that we made up, but that’s it.”
“He is a billionaire, though,” Hannah said as she pretended to swoon. “If there ever was a guy you should make up with, it’s this one.”
“Yeah, totally,” Kendall added. “Good riddance to Clyde’s dad and hello to Mister Billionaire.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of Clyde’s father. I had fallen head over heels in love with Steve when he came to work on our ranch. He was fun, carefree, and hot, which was apparently my only requirements for a guy back then. Looking back on the whole thing, I could see the red flags from the moment I met Steve, but I got Clyde out of the whole deal, so I wasn’t really complaining.
Steve had showed up in town after hitchhiking his way across the southern states, and he wanted a job. He was asking around for any work, and my kind parents offered him our newly opened job at the ranch. I thought I had struck gold with this hot new guy in town, and he was so into me. His flirting started on day one, and I was in just the right frame of mind for it. I didn’t ask why he was a drifter. I didn’t ask why he never talked about his family or had no real job. None of those questions occurred to me until after I was pregnant and Steve took off.
Being a single mom had never been in my plans. I’d always thought I would find a nice guy, get married, and live one of those normal lives I always saw on television. I would have settled for that life with Steve, but once he was gone, I was happy he had left and that I hadn’t settled.
I grew up because of that situation. Not just because I had Clyde to take care of now, but because I knew I didn’t want to waste my time or any other guys’ time if I wasn’t interested in them. I wasn’t going to go on random dates if I didn’t think the guy would be good enough to be around Clyde and that limited my dating pool to zero in recent years.
Dating was so far on the back burner that I actually imagined I would just stay single until Clyde went to college. It was easier to be single than bother with the dating world. Clyde was my number one priority, and no matter how much Hannah and Kendall teased me about Tyler coming over, it wasn’t a date. It could never be anything more than friendship.
The rest of the day was filled with work and the girls occasionally teasing me about Tyler coming over. They were getting a thrill out of the jokes, and I couldn’t help but laugh at a few of them. It was exciting to have something other than work to talk about, and in our small town, a billionaire visit was just what we needed to gossip and distract us from our normal lives. By Tuesday morning, all the jokes were over and the girls had calmed down about the visit, thankfully.
“When is Tyler arriving?” Kendall asked as we ate our oatmeal and waited for Clyde to get his school things together.
“Ten.”
“Maybe you should hook up with him. Nothing serious, just some fun.”
“What? No!” I sneered. “I’m not the type of girl who hooks up with guys.”
“Why not? It doesn’t have to be some big thing. You like him; he’s a decent guy. You need to get laid, end of story.”
“Shh, go take Clyde to school and stop with this crazy talk.”
I hurried outside to finish feeding the horses and get some other chores done before Tyler got there. I didn’t want to leave to much additional work for Hannah to get done that day; I already felt bad for agreeing to take Tyler out for a ride because I knew it meant Hannah and Kendall would have to work to do my jobs.
“You know, it’s not like sleeping with a guy is a horrible thing. Guys do it all the time. You can just have some fun you know,” Kendall said as she joined me in the barn.
“No.”
“Why? Because you’re too good for that sort of thing? Or because you don’t like Tyler?”
“I’m not going to keep talking to you about this. I’m not just going to hook up with the guy. That’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, because a guy like this would be horrible to sleep with,” Hannah added as she flipped her phone around and scrolled through some super sexy photos of Tyler.
I had to admit: he had an amazing body. Even back in high school, I could remember sliding my hands up and down his abs and wondering how on earth he had so many muscles on his stomach. He hadn’t changed much since high school; he might have even gotten more muscular and sexier than I remembered him.
“That is a damn good-looking guy,” Kendall said as she grabbed the phone and started to look through it. “It says he likes working out, extreme sports, and wine tasting.” She laughed.
“How about theater? Does it say anything about that?” I asked. “He used to do theater with me and was the best at it. Always the lead and I really thought someday he’d end up an actor or something like that.”
“No, nothing about theater or horseback riding,” she answered.
“Really?” I grabbed the phone and read through the profile. “This doesn’t even sound like him.”
“It has been 15 years; maybe he doesn’t like that stuff. Plus, what does it matter to you, since he’s just a friend?” Hannah teased.
“Right, he is just a friend. So, nothing to worry about. Let’s get back to work.”
“I mean, maybe he still likes those things, but he just didn’t put them on his profile. Saying you like theater is kind of lame,” Kendall added. “I mean, I’d think it was cool for a guy, but big city girls might not think he was masculine enough.”
“Whatever, I don’t really care. Let’s get back to work, he’s going to be here soon and I don’t need him seeing us looking through his profile like a bunch of teenagers.”
The last thing I wanted was for Tyler to think I had been gawking at his profile. Our evening had been fun at the reunion, but that was all it was: fun. I didn’t expect anything to come of it and I was genuinely just taking him out for a ride because he had asked and seemed to miss horseback riding so much.
“Cindy said she saw the two of you kissing at your car,” Kendall blurted out as I tried to get back to work in the stall at the end of the barn. “Is he a good kisser at least?”
“Oh, my God, Kendall. Stop. I’m not going to talk about his kissing.”
“I mean, if he was a bad kisser, you’d tell us, right? So, he must have been a good kisser. That’s what I’d say. I mean you can tell me if I’m wrong.”
I was desperate to get Kendall to be quiet. She was babbling on and on, and I didn’t want Tyler to arrive and overhear us talking. I knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t stop until I admitted to kissing Tyler, though.
“Fine, yes, he was a good kisser. Now can we please get back to work?” I yelled from my stall.
“I’m a good kisser?” I heard Tyler said as I turned around slowly.
Utter embarrassment flushed through my body and I was sure that my face had just turned the brightest shade of red possible.
“Um, I was just trying to get her to shut up. Um, I’m…” I trailed off without a good enough defense to keep talking.
“You’re a good kisser, too.” He winked.
My whole body tingled at the sight of Tyler. He still made me weak in the knees, no matter how much I tried to deny it. There had always been something about Tyler that connected so deeply with me that I couldn’t describe it, something about the way he looked at me, the way he always seemed to want me. Even in high school he was devoted to me, and his eyes said that from the day we had first met. It was sad that things had turned out so poorly for us. Well, not poorly for him, he was a billionaire, but poorly for our relationship.
“Um, let’s forget you heard me say anything.” I laughed. “How about I show you around the barns and let you meet some of the animals?”
“I’d prefer to practice more of that kissing, but I’ll settle for a tour,” he teased.
His hand slid gently to my back as we walked through the barn and I showed him all the horses we kept in there. He listened intently as I babbled on and on about each of them, the food they liked, their temperaments, and even the amount of poop one of them always had. I wanted to stop talking, but I dreaded the conversation and flirting that I knew was going to happen the second I stopped.
“Should we go to the other barn?” I asked earnestly.
“Sure,” he said easily. “I’ll go anywhere you’d like.”
“I don’t remember you being so complacent with my ideas when we were younger.” I laughed. “Remember that time I wanted to show you around that old abandoned farm?”
“That place was haunted, and you just wanted to hear me scream like a schoolgirl.”
“It wasn’t haunted. It’s just been abandoned for a few years.” I laughed. “Plus, how would a big strong guy like you get scared by a haunted farm anyways?”
“So, you admit it’s haunted!” Tyler said dramatically. “I knew it.”
We both laughed, and a rush of warmth filled my body. I enjoyed Tyler very much. His humor, his flirting, his whole personality was just as it was 15 years before.
“It’s still there; maybe we should take a ride out there?”
“Oh, no, you’re not getting me out there. I didn’t sign up for that,” he said seriously.
“Fine, fine, let’s get the horses saddled up and we will just go for a ride on the big trail out on the back of the property. I wouldn’t want poor little Tyler to get too scared,” I teased.
Tyler’s hand was still on the small of my back and he let his fingers slide around my side as he pulled me closer to him. He wasn’t aggressive in the movement, just firm in his desire to have me closer to him.
“Some things don’t scare me,” he said as I felt his fingers slide under the side of my shirt. “You don’t scare me.”
The touch of his skin against mine sent my whole body into an alternate universe. I flashed back to the night before and what it felt like to kiss him again after so many years. It was getting harder and harder for me to remember why I had broken up with him. We were good together. This, the feeling that was going on between us at that moment, it was good. I started to think that I was the one who had made the mistake in breaking up with Tyler. Maybe I had overreacted? It wasn’t unheard of for a high school girl to overreact.
“I think you’ll need both those hands to get that horse saddled up,” I responded playfully.
“Oh, you’re right, I do need both of these hands,” he said as he grabbed my other side and turned me to face him. “I can’t stop thinking about kissing you. I wasn’t planning on coming here and getting in touch with you at all. I was fine with just coming home and taking care of my family. But I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I’m pretty unforgettable,” I joked as I looked up at him.
“Yes, you are.”
“Let’s get you on that horse. I know how much you were looking forward to it,” I said as I pulled away. “I’ll take this one, and you can have Diego; he’s right over there.”
Tyler looked disappointed as I pulled away from him, but only for a moment before he made his way to the saddle and gathered everything he needed. I watched him out of the corner of my eye to make sure he was doing it right. If he really hadn’t ridden since high school, it wasn’t evident by his saddling skills because he had Diego ready to go before I had finished with my own horse.
“Pretty good for an old guy, right?”
“Yeah, I mean I would hardly have believed you weren’t around horses anymore. Why aren’t you, though?”
“Around horses?” he asked.
“Yeah, I mean you’ve got money, and you’ve got to have a little freedom since you’re the boss and all. If you wanted to go horseback riding, I’d think you could have made that happen.”
“I’m not this guy anymore. I work all the time; I’m not the farm kid I used to be.”
“Or the kind of guy who likes the theater either?” I said before I stopped myself from continuing on. “I mean, you seem like you don’t like the theater anymore.”
“You read my profile, didn’t you?”
“No, what are you talking about?” I lied.
“Oh, so are you on the website? You couldn’t have looked at me if you didn’t have your own profile set up.”
Tyler seemed to be very amused by the idea that I would have joined his dating website. But I hadn’t joined; Kendall had done it and used my information just so she could look at Tyler. There was nothing to talk about here, I wasn’t trying to date rich guys, and I hadn’t joined that website with the idea that I was going to find some rich man to take care of me.
“No, it’s not like that. Kendall wanted to see who you were.”
“Oh, yes, Kendall is dating Robert, I remember. Bryce’s little brother was always a pain in the ass; it’s probably a good match between him and Kendall,” he joked, and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“Yes, they are a good pair. She’s always trying to get him to run off to the city with her, and he’s always agreeing that it’s a great plan. Then the two of them realize that neither has any money and they decide to do it the next year. They are rather funny.”
“I like Kendall. I know she might have been annoying to you growing up, but that creative side of her was always large and in charge. She probably should move to the city so she could explore it a little more. I don’t imagine working on the ranch is doing all that much to build her dreams.”
I hated that Tyler was exactly right about Kendall. She wasn’t happy on the ranch, and I knew it, but she helped me so much with Clyde and around the ranch. Because she worked there with me and Hannah, we didn’t need to hire too many other ranch hands, and that saved our parents a lot of money. But it also meant that Kendall was perpetually poor and couldn’t follow her dreams, and that was unfair.
“Enough about me and my family. Let’s talk about you. How’s your father doing?” I asked as we climbed onto the horses and started down the path toward the back of the property. “I was going to go visit him, but I thought it would be too intrusive.”
“Oh, he would love that. You know he absolutely loves you. I’ll take you out there if you’d like. He had a great day yesterday. Talked all about how much he has done with his life and how ready he is to let go. It was oddly comforting to see him so alert and awake yet sad that he was planning what our life would be like without him.”
“It’s got to be so hard.”
“I don’t think I’ve let it sink in yet. How about we don’t talk about him right now, though? I’d love to just enjoy the ride, like we used to.”
“Sure,” I said as I pulled out in front of him and let my horse speed up a little. “If you can keep up!” I yelled.