Lost & Found

“I’ve been around long enough to know no man or God can get a woman to open up if she doesn’t want to.” Jesse rolled his window down, too. “I’d like to know, but I don’t need to know. We have a right to keep our secrets.”

My brow quirked. “Spoken like a person who knows what it’s like to keep some.”

Not a second passed before he replied. “We all have secrets, Rowen. Every last person on the planet. And you know what else? We all experience the same kinds of things. We just go through them at different times and to different degrees.” Jesse paused as he rolled up to a stop sign. Checking both ways, he turned down a dirt road that looked like it went on for a hundred miles. “If we were to just accept we’re not so different from each other, we wouldn’t feel so alone.”

There was only about an entire world more to Jesse than a pair of tight jeans. “What are you doing digging fence posts when you can arrive at those kinds of ideas and put them into easy-to-understand words?” I asked, peering over at Jesse. He peered over at me. “Get yourself a few certifications to frame and put up on the wall, and you could make a killing preaching this kind of stuff to all the head-cases out there. The money my mom alone spent on her shrink last year could keep a person living upper-middle class.”

Jesse shook his head once. “I think I’ll stick with what I’m doing. I’d rather dig fence posts than dig too far inside of some people’s heads, you know?”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” I replied, looking at the landscape passing by. Other than a house or a farm dotted throughout, there was a whole lot of nothing.

Nothing except for blue sky and green grass. So much color. I almost wished I’d picked up some watercolor paints before coming out here. I usually worked with charcoal or pencil since it was easy to take with me and, back in Portland, most of the landscape was some shade of graphite. Here, though . . . I could put some watercolors to good use.

“So what about you, Jesse? What’s your life story? What’s your Bible-sized biography?” I asked, utilizing my favorite conversation weapon: dodging the topic and turning it around.

“I’ll give you more than the one-word reply I got from you, but I’m not going to give you everything because then what kind of incentive would you have for opening up to me?”

My brows came together. “Why would you holding back stuff about yourself be an incentive for me to tell you more about myself?”

“Because what I do tell you, and what you learn about me, will be so darn intriguing you’re going to want more. You’re going to need more.” I could tell from his tone he was teasing, but I rolled my eyes anyways. “You won’t be able to settle with just knowing eighty percent of me. You’ll want the whole one hundred and ten percent.”

“Cocky much?” I muttered, hanging my arm out the window like Jesse was. I opened my hand and splayed my fingers to feel the wind rushing through them.

“Only when a pretty girl is sitting next to me and trying her hardest to pretend I’m the most irritating thing in the world,” he replied, staring at the road and smiling.

That statement confirmed it: Jesse had a screw loose. I wasn’t pretty, not by any definition of the word. Edgy, yes. Mysterious, maybe. But pretty? Fuck, no.

“So you open up to me if I open up to you?” I said, trying to sum it up.

Jesse gave a shrug. “Pretty much.”

“Sorry to break it to you, Cowboy, but there’s a serious flaw in your little plan there.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jesse replied, turning down another dirt road that looked like it went on forever. “What serious flaw?”

“Assuming I want to open up to you.” That was one giant-sized beast of a flaw.

He slid his hat off and dropped it on the dashboard. That mop of blond hair fell back into its perfectly imperfect style. “We all want to open up to someone, Rowen. The hard part is finding someone we trust enough to open up to. That person we’re not afraid to let into the darkest parts of our world.”

By that point in the conversation, I wasn’t as shocked when that little gem came from his mouth. He seemed full of them.

“And you think you’re the person I’ll trust enough to open up to?” I said, pulling my arm back inside the truck to cross my arms.

Jesse lifted his shoulder. “Only time will tell.”

I’d been in some strange situations in my eighteen years of life, seen some crazy shit, but that. . . having the deepest kind of deep conversation with a Montana cowboy I’d met fifteen minutes earlier at a Greyhound station had to rate in the top ten.

“Do you ever just do casual conversation?” I asked, hoping he answered with a yes or that Willow Springs was less than a minute away.

“Once in a blue moon,” he replied.

I pursed my lips to keep from smirking. I’d never heard the blue moon reference come out of the mouth of someone who didn’t qualify for the senior citizen discount.

“Since it’s still light out, let’s just assume that tonight, the moon’s going to be blue,” I said. “It’s casual conversation time for the rest of the ride.”

“Fair enough. What do you want to talk casually about?”

I rolled my eyes. “If it’s easier, we could just not talk.”

“Nah, that’s definitely not easier for me. I like to talk. I like to talk so much, sometimes I find myself carrying on one-sided conversations with the cattle,” he said, as Old Bessie hit a pot hole that made me bounce a good foot in the air. Apparently modern conveniences like paved and maintained roads were not so “modern” or “convenient” out here. “I’m a pretty good listener, too. You know, if you ever have anything you want to open up about.”

I groaned and contemplated shoving his arm. I didn’t though because, judging from the size of his arms and knowing those arms could lift my bag like it was a two-pound dumbbell, my weakling shove wouldn’t even register.

“How about a little harmless Q and A?” Jesse suggested. “You ask me a question. I ask you one. Round and round we go until we get to Willow Springs.”

I was opening my mouth when Jesse cut back in.

“Don’t worry. We’ll keep the questions as impersonal as possible.” Studying my face for a moment, he quirked a brow. “That work for you, Miss Very Complicated?”

Only because I was already exhausted from going back and forth with him did I nod.

Jesse smiled like he’d just pulled off a solid victory. “Ladies first.”

I rolled my fingers over my arm. I wanted to ask Jesse a bunch of questions; at least a dozen fired off in my mind. But only one made its way through my vocal chords. “Why in the hell do you wear such tight jeans?”

Jesse’s face flattened for a second before it lined from the laugh bursting from his mouth. “I thought we said nothing personal,” he managed to get out around his laughter.

“Eh . . . is that a personal question?” It didn’t seem like one to me.

“Yes,” he said, his laughter dimming. “And no. But I’ll answer it anyways.”

“How very open of you,” I tossed back.

“Ignoring that wiseass comment . . .” he said, giving me a look. “I wear tight jeans because I’m on a horse at least a few hours every day. Tighter jeans mean less chaffing. Your first lesson in Ranch Survival 101? Avoid any and all forms of chaffing.”

“Noted.” I nodded once and tapped my head. “Your turn.”

“I wasn’t done answering your question yet.” He gave me a look that suggested that should have been obvious.

“Carry on,” I said with a wave of my hand.

“I wear tight jeans because when I’m out in the fields, I don’t want anything crawling or slithering past my knees. I knew a guy who wore a baggy pair of jeans one day when he was setting a fence, and let’s just say his wife has been a very unsatisfied woman for the past six years.”

“Yikes.” Just the thought of a snake, a spider, or some other creepy-crawler heading up my leg was enough to make me want to invest in a pair of tight-as-tight-could-be jeans.

“And last but nowhere near least, I wear tight jeans because I like the way the girls’ heads turn when I walk by.” His eyes twinkled. They goddamned twinkled.

Groaning again, that time I did lean over and give him a half-hearted shove. “They’re only looking because they’ve been taking bets on when those things are going to bust a seam.”

“Ah, please,” he said, pursing his lips. “Don’t pretend you weren’t checking my butt out when I walked by you earlier. I felt like my ass was about to catch on fire from your unblinking, laser eyes.”

I wasn’t much of a blusher, but I might have just felt the heat of one surfacing. I wasn’t sure if it had more to do with being caught or the image of Jesse’s backside flashing through my mind again.

“Are you going to ask your question, or are you going to go on and on about your love affair with your backside?” I tried to glare at him. It wasn’t working.

He raised a hand in surrender, but those dimples of his stayed drilled deep into his cheeks. “Sticking with the whole personal attire thing . . .” he said, glancing at me. “Do you have a thing against color or do you just really love black?”

It was clear from Jesse’s tone and expression that there was nothing antagonistic about his question. Just genuine curiosity.

“No,” I answered, moving in my seat. “Color has a thing against me.”

I felt Jesse’s eyes on me, waiting for me to say something else,—explain just what the hell I meant—but he could wait for the rest of eternity before he’d get any more out of me.

“And you said I’m the philosophical one?” he said after a while.

“Yep, that’s what I said.” I sat up and stared out the window. “Now that was two questions, so I get two before you get to ask me another.”

“Wha . . .?” he said before it registered. Jesse sighed. “Just for future reference, rhetorical questions don’t count in this little question game.”

“A question’s a question,” I stated, all matter-of-fact.

Jesse sighed again. Louder that time. “I didn’t take you for the question rule police.”

“And I didn’t take you as the question rule corrupt.” I continued to stare out the side window so he wouldn’t see the smile twitching at my lips.

Jesse chuckled. “Fine. You win. Besides, I learned years ago that to start an argument with a woman is to lose an argument.” Before I could praise him with a Smart Man comment, he continued. “We’re getting close to Willow Springs. You better hurry and ask your two questions.”

Looking at him, I took a guess before asking, “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

Not bad. I’d guessed twenty, so I’d been pretty darn close.

“Next,” he prompted, turning down yet another dirt road. It had two tall logs on either side of the road with a rusted metal sign hanging from the top that read Willow Springs Ranch.