April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) Read online

“Anything you say, boss.”

  She laughed and kissed him again.

  Chapter Four

  Three miles further down the gravel road, they drove up to the line of trailers strung together, set out in the middle of the open prairie. Raven’s trailer was in the middle, and two other smaller ones were parked up tightly to its side.

  At first sight, the trailer yard didn’t look like much to Raven. The gravel road leading there was covered with weeds, and the yard itself was also infested with weeds. Did those damn weeds grow everywhere on this ranch?

  The trailers looked small and cramped, and at least from the outside, did not look impressive.

  Three of the other ranch hands were present and lined up, waiting to meet their new boss. From Connor’s description of them earlier, Raven easily recognized them. However, what he had not told her was that they were all gorgeous. Every one of them had some male quality that called out sexuality to her, and made her heart do flip-flops as if she had just discovered men for the first time.

  “I’m really happy to finally meet you guys,” she told them, and realized that she was not lying.

  She shook hands with the most aggressive of the group, Roy. He was a gritty, unshaven man, well over six feet tall, built tight all over his body, wearing a sexy, tight-fitting T-shirt, boots, and a hat. His blue eyes were so intense, they forced Raven to look away as they bored a hole through her. He was looking her up and down like she was a Christmas present come early, and though she might have been the new boss, he made no pretense of staring at her with uncovered lust in his eyes. This was the bad boy Connor had told her about, and Raven could see he was going to be trouble, maybe a good and fun kind of trouble, but very definitely trouble.

  “You’re the cutest little ranch boss any cowboy ever dreamed of having,” he told her, his intense stare never once leaving her.

  “Is that a compliment, Roy?” Raven asked.

  “Turn around, darling, and let me get a look at your cute little butt,” he said, his stare roaming her body. “I am in lust, guys.”

  “Do they have sexual harassment laws out here in the middle of nowhere, Roy?” She wasn’t exactly for sure if she should be serious or not because she couldn’t tell if he was. “Because if they do, I think you just gave me cause for a suit.”

  Roy laughed, and when he did, his laughter was loud and deep. “I might have to end up suing you, baby,” he told her. “I am your employee after all, and I think you want me.”

  Connor came over to break them up before they really got into it. “Don’t take this ornery ranch hand too seriously, Raven,” he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the back. “He’s an old hound dog, and his bark is definitely a lot worse than his bite.”

  “Are we friends, Roy?” Raven asked him.

  “Yeah, we’re friends,” Roy said, and seemed to mean it as a smile crossed his rough unshaven face.

  Next in line was Bran, the giant from the pro wrestling circuit. Raven could not have missed him anywhere, nor could anyone else on the planet. He towered above her at almost seven feet in height and nearly three hundred pounds of pure muscle. It looked like he still worked out every day and his biceps were enormous, three times the size of the normal man’s. He was a bodybuilding muscleman who probably still could have won Mr. World contests if he had competed in them. His chest and his shoulders positively bulged out of his shirt, and his neck was like a tree trunk, it was so wide and strong.

  “Were you ever on TV, Bran?” Raven looked up at the giant. “I might have seen one of your matches?”

  “Possibly, but it would have been real late at night,” he answered her, in a deep baritone that almost shook the prairie when he spoke. “We weren’t exactly main event type of athletes.”

  “I’d like to start working out. Perhaps you can help give me some pointers,” Raven said, feeling like she was a stick figure next to the giant.

  “I’d like that,” Bran answered. “There’s a gym over in Masterson. I work out there once a week, and I’m in pretty good with the owner. I’d be happy to show you around and help you get started on a routine. If you don’t mind me saying so, your body looks just fine to me, tight in all the right places. I don’t know if you need to do anything to it.”

  Raven blushed at his comment. “A girl always likes to look her best,” she told him, and hated herself for how he made her feel. She wanted to tear his clothes off him and see that wonderful body free of any impediment. She was an adult woman, she reminded herself. She was a businesswoman now and had responsibilities. This was not how she should be feeling. But oh man…

  The young guy standing at the end of the line was Chip. Raven shook hands with him as Connor introduced them. He had an easy grip and nodded to her, his eyes emerald green, a strange contrast to his blond hair, which he wore short. He was tall and hard from working on the range like the others, but he had softness in those eyes that spoke of a different experience. His hairless skin was tanned and so very smooth, and his strong chin, high cheekbones, and strong brow gave him Hollywood good looks.

  Raven found herself wondering what he was even doing out here on this ranch. He should be off somewhere making great art, reciting Shakespeare, or writing music. When she shook hands with him, he held her hand just a second too long, and his fingers grazed her wrist, caressing her skin with a quick touch that communicated a need for intimacy.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Chip.”

  “N–n–nice t–to m–meet you, Miss White.”

  He had a bad stutter, and was painfully unsure of himself when he spoke. Well, he would never make it as a pop singer. As Raven thought about it, she realized he was probably nervous because she was female, and this fact brought out his stutter and his lack of self-confidence more than was usual. The poor kid probably hadn’t seen a woman since he started to work on the ranch, and according to Connor, that had been years ago when he was just a teenager.

  “Please call me Raven,” she told him, and tried giving him a smile.

  “Raven,” he said, and returned her smile, and it was the most beautiful smile she had ever seen.

  “And don’t feel nervous around me,” she told him.

  “That’ll be hard,” he said, and hesitated. “I mean because you’re so pretty…”

  That made Raven feel good. Sometimes she didn’t think of herself as pretty at all. She felt like Chip was honest and not just trying to flatter her.

  “I might be the owner and the boss of the ranch,” she said, taking his big hand back into hers, marveling at how long his fingers were as they ran across her palm, “but that’s just what some piece of paper says at the bank. What I really want is just to be one of you guys.”

  “Thank you, Raven.” His voice was very certain this time, though he still had the lingering stutter. “I think you’re nice.”

  “Thanks, Chip. I think you are nice, too.”

  Raven turned back to Connor, who had been at her side for all of the introductions.

  “Where’s Tyler?” she asked about her fifth ranch hand that seemed to be missing at the moment. “He’s the only one I knew from my past and now he’s not even here.”

  “Tyler keeps to himself,” Connor told her. “It’s late. He’s probably already gone to sleep.”

  “The sun hasn’t even set yet.”

  “It’s late for Tyler. Don’t worry, you’ll see him tomorrow.”

  Raven felt good about meeting her ranch hands and looked up at Connor and felt good about him too. When she saw him in the dim light of the setting sun on the prairie, she thought again about the L-word in association with her relationship with him.

  Connor walked her to her trailer, and they got a moment of privacy from the others. She wanted to take him to bed with her so badly that night. She didn’t even care what the bed or the room looked like. She just wanted to make love to him, to move against him again and feel him hard and inside of her.

  Somehow she knew that if she did, it would totally destroy any b
ond that she was starting to build with the others, and she knew as difficult as it might be, she would have to curb her lust for a while.

  “You did great with them,” he told her. She could see he almost leaned in to kiss her, and she badly wanted to reach up and put her mouth over his. But the other ranch hands were still out in the yard, and the moment didn’t afford them any intimacy.

  “I’m going to sleep alone tonight,” she told him. “Will you be okay?”

  “I’ve spent my whole life sleeping alone. I reckon I’ll be all right by myself for another few nights,” Connor said, laughing with her.

  “Good night, cowboy,” she whispered to him. “Oh, and by the way, I love my new family.”

  That night, Raven was too tired to worry overly much about her sleeping accommodations at the ranch. Her trailer was larger than her studio apartment had been, and it was private. There was a large flat-screen TV inside and it got satellite service, as well as a stereo and a pair of pretty decent speakers, although she could find no CDs to play on the stereo, so apparently her grandfather had not been a music fan. Of course as she had expected there was no computer and no Internet. Her grandfather had not caught up with the twenty-first century.

  The trailer was heavily insulated and had a strong AC unit and what looked like a pretty good heater for the cold Montana winters. In fact, the insulation was so thick that you couldn’t hear outside sound unless you opened one of the windows.

  The bed was small, but as Raven lay down to test it, she found that it was very comfortable. Now if she could only find a way to sneak Connor in there with her someday.

  The two little closets were empty. Apparently one of the ranch hands had already cleared out her grandfather’s things to make room for her, but the closets were going to be a problem. They were even smaller than her closets back in the studio had been, and though she was too tired to unpack her things that night, she realized that she was not going to have enough room and would have to keep some of her clothes inside her bags, and living out of her luggage was definitely something Raven did not want to do.

  The refrigerator was stocked. Again it looked as if one of her loyal ranch hands had been at work making ready for her arrival. The little kitchenette had a microwave and tiny cupboards full of plates and bowls and cups and glasses. Checking one of the drawers in the kitchen, she found her silverware was also equally as plentiful. There was a small table moored to the wall of the trailer built for two that obviously served as her dining room, although it was actually a part of the kitchenette itself.

  Lastly, Raven walked to the back of the trailer and found her bathroom. She wrinkled her nose at this. It was clean and had a toilet and lavatory but no shower, and the cabinet space over the lavatory would only be big enough to hold a toothbrush and little more. Also, there was no shower. Where was the shower? Certainly the ranch hands had to take showers. After all, spending a day working on the range must have left them sweaty and in need of a little soap and water.

  Returning to the front of the trailer, Raven saw a desk, and on top of it was all the business accounts and ledgers, contracts and live stock prices at the market. This was obviously the CEO’s desk of the Lazy L. This would have been the sensible place for a PC or laptop to be housed, but no such luck. Raven still had her iPad with her, so she wasn’t completely disconnected from the rest of the world, but a computer for this desk was something she made a mental note of to look into.

  She flipped through the business documents on top of the desk and found them to be in disarray. Raven was a very orderly person by nature and knew that she could straighten out the files in a few hours, but was too tired on her first night to think about even starting the task and realized it could wait for the following day.

  She would have liked to take a shower before crawling into the little bunk bed in back and falling to sleep, but she guessed she couldn’t expect everything on her first night at the new place. On the whole she thought the trailer was livable, and that was the important thing.

  The AC unit was turned off, and it was kind of stuffy inside the trailer, but the night was cool enough that she didn’t think it called for turning on the AC, so she opened the window next to her bunk bed to let in the fresh night air from the range.

  She stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and crawled into bed in nothing but her panties, covering herself with the light blanket over the bed. Not able to sleep immediately, her head still swirling from all that had happened to her in the last few days, she lay there and looked up at the ceiling, which was just a few feet over her head.

  Outside she heard someone playing the guitar. She knew this must have been Chip. It was a lonely prairie melody that soothed her to her very soul. Soon she drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Five

  When Raven awoke the next morning, it was well past sunrise, and if there was anything she remembered from her life before on the ranch, she knew that everyone got up about an hour before sunrise and started to work. She made a note to set up her alarm by her bunk bed so that she would not be tardy in waking up again. She wanted to make a good first impression on her ranch hands, and sleeping late on her first day was probably a bad start, but if that was the only bad thing that happened she felt she could probably recover.

  She got up and shrugged into a long T-shirt that fell to her knees. Then she checked the refrigerator. There were the makings for a nice bacon and eggs breakfast, and in a cabinet over the refrigerator she found instant coffee. However, she didn’t like to eat breakfast before clearing her head with a shower first.

  She unpacked a couple of towels from her luggage, threw one around her neck, and then went outside to find someone to tell her where the shower facilities were.

  The yard outside was deserted. The ranch hands must have already left to start their day. The sun was bright and warm overhead, and the sky was blue and cloudless. A wind blew off the prairie with an eerie whistle that made Raven feel like she was the last person on the face of the earth.

  Raven decided to be brave. She was standing on her own land after all, and so she took off walking down the yard. As she did so, a big pile of tumbleweed blew past her naked legs. She was barefoot, and the gravel from the yard bit into the soles of her feet. The wind blew her hair wildly, and she had to scoop it out of her eyes and squint as dust blew into her face.

  She didn’t find anything that looked like a shower. There were no buildings around, just the trailers. She noted that all the hands had left their trailer doors open, and none of them had curtains in the windows. They obviously cared little about privacy. That wasn’t going to be her, however. She liked to walk around in her underwear too much. She would need curtains on her windows, and it would also be nice if her door locked. The night before when she was looking through her trailer, she hadn’t even thought about the lack of curtains or blinds in the windows, and she guessed that she had probably slept all night with her door unlocked. She wondered if there was even a way to lock her door.

  When she got to the end of the yard she came to a long fence. Stopping by the fence, she stared out at the vast prairie land ranging before her. It was a staggering sight. The land was clear as far as the eye could see, and then the foothills peered up above the horizon, but she knew they must have been ten miles away. Then above the foothills, even further away, the mountains loomed, watching majestically over her land, their tops still covered with snow even though it was now the middle of summer.

  Raven stood there and got lost in the sight of all that land for a while. This was the first time she had realized—really come to grips with—what a huge thing the Lazy L really was and how big a responsibility was now on her shoulders. All of that empty land, all hers. She doubted that even her grandfather had ever walked over every mile of it, even though he had spent his entire life there.

  She also got some inkling as to how people living out here in the country could become more spiritual than those in the city. Raven herself had never been a sp
iritual person and had kicked and screamed, playing the role of the tomboy, when her mother had tried taking her to church as a girl. Those outings to church were the only times when her mother would force her to wear a dress. But now, standing here up against the rickety, old wooden fence, the cool mountain wind sailing past her face, she started to understand what it was to be spiritual, not religious, that was a different ball game, but just spiritual with knowledge of how tiny each person really was in the world. It was impossible not to have a healthy respect for nature, even a fear of it when standing here from this vantage point, alone and looking at the miles of emptiness.

  Raven turned about and walked back through the yard. She passed her trailer and then headed off in the opposite direction, still on a mission to find someone or find a building that had a shower inside.

  She saw a friendly sight parked to the south end of the trailer yard. Her motorbike. Connor must have unloaded it for her that morning. When she came up to it, she found he had even shined it for her. It was proudly standing on its kickstand and waiting for her to come and ride it. God, what a wonderful land this would be to ride her bike through, she thought as she touched the handles. She determined that as soon as she took a shower, ate breakfast, and perhaps had a chance to talk with some of the guys about the daily routine, she would take her bike out for a long ride across the plains.

  Leaving her bike behind, she kept walking, her feet becoming sore from the little pebbles hitting her bare soles as she stepped along on tiptoes.

  Up ahead about twenty yards farther on, she saw a small building. Actually it was not a building so much as it was a lean-to, a few poles stuck in the ground holding up a heavy tarp that served as both walls and roof for the structure. She saw that the cement base the structure had been set up on was recently wet, and this attracted her to walk up to it, having to traipse through a weed-infested yard as she went, the gravel path ending before it made its way that far.