Page 61 of A Rancher's Heart

The party was over, and the day came to a conclusion. Happily, two tired little girls headed to bed without any trouble, but Tamara was far too wound up to sleep. Caleb had gone back out to the barns immediately after dinner, leaving Tamara restless with nothing to distract her.

She wandered the house for a while before giving up. She might as well make some long-term plans.

She slipped into Caleb’s office to grab some paper—

One of the precarious stacks fell over.

“Dammit.”

Tamara bent to scoop them up, moving too quickly, and her butt nudged over another pile. Now she had twice the paper on the floor, and twice the frustration.

No getting around it now. She had to clean up the mess.

Tamara ended up on the floor, gathering the papers around her into piles. She avoided the details, peeking quickly to discover whether it was a bill or an invoice as she slowly created new stacks.

There was a kind of peacefulness in the task, though. In fact, when she had one corner of the room straightened, it was tempting to continue, but she decided a little trouble was all she was willing to borrow this time around.

If she had a chance, though, and Caleb approved, she’d be back. Finishing the task would be Zen-making to her brain.

For now, she lay the completed filing neatly on the top of the credenza she’d dusted while it had been empty.

She took one of the newly discovered sticky notes and left him a message.

Caleb.

I knocked over some of your paperwork, so I had to straighten up a bit. Sorry if I overstepped my boundaries.

T.

It wasn’t a great excuse, but maybe he wouldn’t mind.

Maybe he would…

Another rush of frustration hit. She was accomplishing good things in this nanny position job, but it—it wasn’t enough, and at the same time it was far, far too much.

Not the work, but all the other sensations that struck out of the blue. The sweet moments when Sasha forgot to be aggressive. The heart-rending touch every time Emma treated her as if she belonged.

The confusing-in-every-way-possible moments with Caleb. Sensual tension and laughter and body-aching need and mind-tangling frustration.

Too many longings tugged Tamara in new directions, and she wasn’t ready to look them square in the eye, and that alone was the most frightening fact she’d faced.

More than losing her job. More than leaving what had been her home for nearly thirty years.

She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, what she had begun to long for…

Tamara ran from her own thoughts, escaping into the kitchen to mindlessly scrub the already clean countertop until it was late enough she too could take herself off and fall into a restless sleep.

Caleb struggled with the bolt he was trying to remove, swearing as the wrench slipped from his fingers for the twentieth time. Dustin was helping brace the gate, and the wrench bounced off his arm and slammed back into Caleb’s knuckles as it fell.

A rush of pain chastened him for being distracted. Maybe it was punishment for avoiding his office for a week, choosing instead to torment himself by sitting on the veranda each morning with Tamara in the quiet time before she’d rise to finish getting breakfast ready.

It was peaceful and relaxing, but tempting, which set him into feeling guilty and now, distracted. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself from making the same stupid mistake. He was stuck on repeat.

When something hit him in the side of the head not even two seconds later, Caleb was sure the world was trying to make a point. What exactly, he wasn’t sure.

“Now I understand why you were all growly.” Josiah marched up and slapped Caleb on the back. “Why you didn’t you just say something?”

Caleb stared at him in confusion. “What the hell are you going on about?”