Chapter Twelve
Hailey
That Evening
I’d made another successful meal—lasagna from an old family recipe with salad and French bread—that Cash and I had shared along with a solid two hours of conversation, starting with the updates on the farm and going on to travel, books, and our lives growing up on opposite sides of the country. I was really enjoying our nights together, even if he did always have to bow out early to go to bed. It wasn’t even 9:30, and he was already in bed. I had a several more hours’ worth of writing to do tonight—I was a night owl who worked best after the sun went down as long as I had a hot mug of something caffeinated steaming on the desk next to me. But Cash did get up only a short while after I went to bed—some ungodly time like 3:30 or 4; just the thought made me sick to my stomach—so I cut him a little slack about going to bed before the sky was completely dark. I mean, I still gave him a hard time, but it was only meant to be in good fun, which he seemed to understand, as he gave it right back to me about being a creature of the night fueled by coffee and sugar.
I finished making my nightly pot of coffee, poured myself a steaming mug, and wandered back to my bedroom just in time to hear the notification sound going off on my phone, signaling a text message. I set my coffee down on top of the small desk and grabbed my phone from its place in the middle of the messy bed, stepping around piles of clothes, papers, notebooks, and nonperishable food items that had mostly been neglected since I’d started eating with Cash each night. My body was thanking me for getting it off the nonstop stream of junk food.
The message was from Paige, asking me to call her if I wasn’t in the middle of anything too serious. She knew me well enough to know that I would still be awake at just before 10 but that I might be stuck thigh deep in a difficult scene that I needed to reckon with before I did anything else, including sleep.
I plugged the Bluetooth headset into my ear and dialed her number. She answered right away.
“Hey, Hale,” she said. “How’s the wild, wild West?”
I giggled at that. I guess that meant she lived in the civilized West. “It’s great, actually, and getting better.”
“I take it that means work is going well.”
“Oh my God, yes. I’ve never seen any place like this, and that’s really saying something.” I sat down on the bed to make myself more comfortable. “Did you see the pictures I’ve posted on Instagram? This place is amazing. I couldn’t have chosen a better location if I tried. Who knew Wyoming was so damned picturesque?”
“Someone who wasn’t raised in an urban jungle,” Paige fired back.
“Yeah, well, you were raised in the same place.”
“I’ve evolved.”
We both broke up laughing at that, but I had to admit that the more I traveled, the more I felt myself growing and changing as a person. I couldn’t imagine choosing to never leave my home state the way Cash had done—that wasn’t really fair, I supposed, as he’d mentioned one or two trips to Colorado to visit family. But, despite the lack of constant travel, Cash didn’t seem stunted. I chalked that up to all the reading he did, taking hundreds of adventures without the need of stepping one foot outside his house.
“Are things still strained between you and Clint?” Paige asked.
That caught me a little off guard, and it actually took me a second before I realized who she meant. Since getting to know Cash a little more each night over dinner, I’d ceased thinking of him as my young, green-eyed Clint Eastwood and started just thinking of him as plain old Cash Ogden.
“Things between Cash and me have gotten a lot better,” I said. “I thought him a boring stick in the mud at first, but he’s softened up into a really decent guy.”
“Softened up? What does that mean?” She paused, but not long enough for me to actually come up with an answer. “Are things starting to happen between the two of you? I still haven’t seen a picture of this guy. That’s what needs to be on your Instagram, not tired old pictures of the landscape.”
Leave it to Paige to cut right to the chase. I’d been pushing back pretty hard on the rising attraction I was feeling every time I was around Cash. He seemed straightforward about our business relationship and didn’t appear to be interested at all in taking things further than the budding friendship we were working on. I was here to do a job, not fall into the tanned, muscly arms of some local cowboy. I had to keep that at the forefront of my mind, or I might get into some trouble out here on the ranch that would be difficult to get out of again.
“It’s nothing like that,” I replied and was glad Paige couldn’t see how red my cheeks had gotten or how badly my hands were twisting together in my lap. “We’re just friends.”
Paige made a disappointed noise on her end of the line, and I could see her face pressed into her signature scowl, her thin brows pulled down and blue eyes flashing. “I don’t see why you can’t enjoy the full range of what that man has to offer. I’m glad he’s there to share all the knowledge about riding, roping, and living out in the middle of nowhere, but haven’t you ever wanted to ride a cowboy?”
Now my whole face was beet red and tingling. I bit my lip to keep from protesting too quickly, which would let Paige know she was right on the money about how much I’d love to find out just how great it would be to ride this particular cowboy. I glanced up at the door, half expecting Cash to be standing there listening to our conversation, an amused smile on his face as he witnessed my complete mortification, but the door was closed, and he was probably busy working on gathering his 40 winks before his alarm went off at some obscenely early hour in the day.
“Oh my God, Paige. Things aren’t like that. He’s a nice guy who’s been patient enough to walk me through a lot of what goes on here at his ranch. That’s all.”
“Boring.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just here to do research.”
“You are such a nerd. There’s no rule that says you can’t do your job and pursue a quickie relationship with some hot local cowboy at the same time. As much as you used to crush on Clint Eastwood in all those dull movies about the old West that you used to watch with Dad, I can’t believe you aren’t jumping at the chance to get your hands and lips all over a guy who looks just like him.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. The more time I spent with Cash, the harder it was to keep from imagining how great it would be to feel his lips on mine and his strong, callused hands running all over my body. I routinely had to shove those thoughts all the way into the unused, dark, and dusty parts of my mind so I could keep sitting across from him at dinner every night, but I found myself watching his every move and facial expression, committing it all to memory so I’d be able to take as much of him as possible back to my lonely, cluttered apartment in the city at the end of this adventure out West. I didn’t like to think about that—returning to my ho-hum existence in the city—but I had my life out there, and Cash had his here.
“And how long has it been since you last dated a guy?” Paige asked, continuing just fine without me. She rarely needed anyone else’s input once she got going. “At least a year, right?”
I made a grunting noise to indicate that she was correct. Well, close to correct. It had actually been closer to 18 months. I was a busy woman, or so I told myself on lonely nights spent in front of the computer picking through the latest order of takeout.
“Then what’s stopping you from jumping into this with both feet? You find him attractive, don’t you?”
“It’s not that I don’t find him good-looking, it’s just that this isn’t that kind of arrangement. I’m paying to live in the man’s house and am here to do research. Shouldn’t I keep it professional?”
“It’s not like he’s a coworker, Hailey. Or your boss. He’s some cute piece of eye candy that just happens to own the ranch you’re living on. I call that a bonus, not a hindrance.”
“You know how I am, Paige. I’m not going to go after a guy. I’m just not that aggressive. Right now, I’m happy with the way things are.” That was a lie, but she had no way of knowing how hard it was to keep my hands off of Cash the more I was around him. I’d been sending him signals too, but they were either too subtle for him to notice or he just wasn’t interested. “We started having dinner together every night and talking until he goes to bed. He’s an early to bed, early to rise guy.”
“Is he cooking? Because, if so, you need to lock that man down now!”
I laughed at her misplaced excitement. “No, I’m cooking for him. I made him Marie-Laure’s famous bouillabaisse the first night.”
“Wait, you’re cooking for him?” She squealed excitedly into the phone. “You are definitely going to lock him down, then. No man could resist what you can do in the kitchen. Should I mark off some time in the spring for your wedding?”
We both busted up laughing again, and it took some time for the giggles to subside. I wasn’t quite ready to commit to being Mrs. Ogden, but I definitely wouldn’t turn down a kiss. I didn’t see why I was hesitating on coming clean with Paige about my feelings for Cash. If anyone would understand and not judge me, it was her.
“Look, I like him, okay? He’s sweet and handsome, and he loves books as much as I do. But despite the fact that I grew up in the middle of one of the fastest towns in America, I’m still just an old-fashioned girl at heart. That means I’m going to let him make the first move. He might not even be interested in me. I haven’t seen any signs that he wants to turn our friendship into something more. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
“That’s ridiculous, Hale. Remember the feminist revolution? I know we’re too young to have burned our bras and marched for the ERA, but women don’t have to sit back twiddling their thumbs anymore while they wait for men to come to them. If you like this guy, let him know it. What if he’s sitting back and waiting on you?”
I hadn’t considered that possibility. Every relationship I’d ever been in had been the result of a guy approaching me. And none of them had gone very well, had they? Maybe I needed to try something new. I just wish I knew ahead of time if Cash was interested in me. I really couldn’t imagine putting myself out there without knowing that.
“I think you should go for it,” Paige said like it was just that easy. Maybe it was for her, but I just couldn’t slip out of a lifelong habit that quickly. I was open to deepening the burgeoning friendship between Cash and me, but he’d need to make the first move. I could send more focused hints if I could manage to get it together enough to not simply stare at him with my tongue lolling out of my mouth. He was just so ruggedly handsome, though. And those goddamned freckles made me a little crazy to look at. And his eyes? Forget about it.
“I’ll see how things go,” I said.
“That sounds like you aren’t going to do a damned thing.”
Paige was right. I wasn’t. I couldn’t risk making such a colossal misstep. If he didn’t like me the way I liked him, I’d be so embarrassed I wouldn’t have a choice but to pack my bags and scurry back to New York with my tail between my legs. I had a perfect setup here, and I was glad for the friendship I was forming with Cash. There was no way I’d put that in jeopardy over a stupid crush. Paige didn’t have to agree. It was my life, not hers.
“It sounds like we’re done beating this dead horse,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on in your life.”
She sighed but began to talk about the life she was living in California, steering well clear of whatever the hell was going on up here between Cash and me. I had to admit; I was relieved to be discussing something else. Whatever ended up happening with Cash, I just didn’t want to make a fool of myself, even if it meant never going after something that interested me.