Once we were finished eating, Miller stood, gave me a kiss in front of everyone, and said, “I have some work to catch up on and a house to clean. What time are you coming for dinner?”
“What time do you want me there?”
“I guess that depends. Are we going into the city or just grabbing a pizza at Pete's?”
“Why don't we stay in tonight? We still have leftovers in your fridge my mom sent.”
“We do unless I eat them all for lunch.”
“She sent enough for the two of us to last for days. I don't think you can eat it all for lunch.”
“No, but I can try,” he said with a wink. “Why don't you come around five.”
I watched him go, and when I turned back to the table, everyone was watching me. “What?”
“Nothing, that was just…weird,” Ripley said with a grin. “Miller looked almost…happy.”
“I think spending time with my family was good for him.”
“Yeah,” Ripley said, his smile fading. “Miller's family won't be anywhere near as pleasant. Not because of you,” he added quickly. “Miller was raised a lot like I was. His aren't bad people, but they are formal and distant. And with Miller anyway, it's almost like the way they show they care is by pointing out all the things he should be doing differently.”
I spent the rest of the day with the horses. Obviously, I wasn't the only one on the ranch who could take care of them, but I was still glad to see they were in good shape and had been well tended to. I enjoyed training the horses, and for the most part, didn't even mind letting them go. Bindy was going to be a different story. After I sufficiently apologized for leaving for a few days, I got her saddled up and took her out for a ride. I'd thought about asking Reed about keeping her, but raising these horses was his business, and he wasn't likely to want to keep one around just because I didn't want to let her go.
Honestly, what to do about Bindy when she wasn't even close to being ready to be sold was the least of my worries. What to do about my incredibly sexy boyfriend was my most pressing matter. It would be so easy to let Miller get under my skin. He’s been so sweet, and the sex was off the charts amazing. I didn't think I'd ever felt so cherished, like I was the most important thing to the guy I was with. But I'd felt like that this whole trip. I only wished it was real.
19
Miller
It had been almost a week since we got back from Oklahoma. We'd texted on and off all week and met for coffee twice at Caps, but he’d been playing catch up from being gone from work for four days, so other than dinner at my place the night after we returned, we hadn't spent much time together. But this weekend was the River Gorge Christmas festival and tree lighting, so I was looking forward to spending the weekend with him. Most years, I only went to the festival for PR reasons. The real estate office usually sponsored one of the Christmas floats for the parade, and I spent the day shaking hands and kissing asses. But not this year. This year I was taking Landon, and we were going to enjoy the festival, not work it.
However, that was tomorrow. Today, work called. I was going to look at a piece of property that was going to be put up for sale. Over the last year, I'd been listing the larger properties myself and passing on the smaller ones to Sherrie, but this one belonged to the aunt of an old school friend of mine, and he’d asked me to go look at it. As Mrs. Hanson got older, taking care of the property herself had become too much for her, especially after her husband’s extended illness. She’d been paying someone to do it for her for years, but it was eating into her retirement money, and now that he’d passed away, she was ready to make some changes. A friend of hers bought a home in a retirement community in Arizona and asked her to go, so she packed up and went. Now she was hoping to sell the property to supplement her retirement.
It wasn't far from the Bluebird Ranch, and I wondered on my drive out if they knew of anyone who might be interested. I knew many of Reed's rodeo friends were looking to retire so maybe he would have a lead for me. I pulled through the gate and drove down a long dirt driveway to the house. Before I left the office, I'd looked the house up on the county website to get all the details. It sat on just a little over twenty-five acres that were all fenced. My friend, Beau, had said it was an old rock house, and based on that, I was expecting a house that was in disrepair, but that wasn't what I found at all. It was a beautiful home that you could tell had been built by someone highly skilled in masonry work. With a covered porch that wrapped around the side and a rock walkway leading from the driveway to a gorgeous oversized wooden front door, the house would be an easy sell as long as the inside matched the outside.
Beau had given me permission to go in. He said his aunt left a key and told me where she’d hidden it, but I wanted to finish looking at the outside first. Most properties like this were sold because of the land, not the house anyway. Although from what I'd seen so far, the condition of this one was a bonus. I walked around to the back to find that the covered porch area went all the way around and was wide enough on the back to cover a stone patio area with an outdoor oven.
I walked across the backyard to a smaller stone building that matched the house and pushed open the door. It looked like it had been a potter or painters’ studio, but it would make a perfect guest house. This was a seriously fantastic property, and it only got better when I went on out to look at the other outbuildings. There was a large workshop that was as big and open inside as Cody's shop and a barn with an attached stable with four horse stalls. The fencing around the stables needed a little work, but it wasn't in horrible condition.
I headed back up to the house to look inside. Houses had a feel to them. It was hard to explain. But I believed that feeling was the reason why some perfectly good houses sat while others sold quickly. And this house felt good, welcoming even, like it had truly been a home. The stonework from the outside had been carried through into the house. There was an open floor plan, which was unusual for a house this old, so I assumed it had been remodeled. I shot Beau a text to ask, and he responded immediately. He said his uncle had had a stroke about fifteen years ago and was in a wheelchair. They had the house remodeled to make it accessible for him, which made sense and explained the extra-wide doorways.
I’d bought my house in town last year, but from looking at this one, I wished I’d waited. Landon and I could sit out on that back patio in the morning watching the sunrise, and this property was perfect for him to be able to have a horse of his own. As I stood there in the sunroom looking out over the patio, I could see it plain as day. I never really gave much thought to the future, and when I did, I sure never pictured myself settled down with any particular man, but to my shock, the image of a life with Landon didn't scare me. On the contrary, I liked the idea.
I'd never been overly impulsive about major life decisions, but maybe that was changing. I offered to pretend I was Landon's boyfriend for Thanksgiving, then I told everyone here we were dating, but that didn't hold a candle to what I was about to do. I pulled out my phone and dialed Beau's number.
“Lo,” he answered.
“Hey. I'm still out at your aunt's house.”