Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 43870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 219(@200wpm)___ 175(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 219(@200wpm)___ 175(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
My heart had swelled with pride. I’d made more wrong turns and poor decisions in my life than I’d ever want to admit, but Phoebe was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
She was my reason to be, my reason to keep going.
Trust me, there were days I could have happily burrowed under covers, willing a dreamless sleep to knock me out and give me a break from ugly old memories. But anytime I thought I might sink under the weight of sorrow, her little face would pop up at the side of my bed and sunshine would cascade over me like warm syrup on a pancake.
“Daddy, are you up? I dreamed about rainbows and a frog who was wearing boots. So funny. I don’t know what color his boots were. I think purple, ’cause purple is my favorite color now. I changed it. I still like pink, but purple is pretty too. Do you like purple?”
Hell, yes…I loved purple. I loved rainbows and frogs that wore boots, and I loved this little girl so much, it physically hurt sometimes. I wanted to give her the world…not just the bare basics. And lately, I’d been able to do that, thanks to Tanner Spade. I was grateful to him for taking a chance on me. And to Kitty for insisting I grow a pair and ask for a job at Oak Ridge.
Sure, it was temporary. There was yet another move on the horizon—the final one. And while I wasn’t exactly eager for it, I knew it would be good for us. In the meantime, Phee was happy right here.
And I was too.
Okay, happy was a stretch. Let’s just say…I was content.
Nope. I didn’t do “happy” the way some folks did.
Take Tanner, for example. That man was always smiling, always joking, always finding a silver lining on a cloudy day. Lovesick animals followed him around the ranch. Nelly the goat adored him, and Milly the horse lit up when Tanner waltzed into the barn with two or three dogs at his heels. Even Hazel seemed to brighten at the sight of him.
Me? I kept my distance…or tried, anyway.
Oak Ridge was huge—over seventy-five thousand acres—and yet, Tanner’s presence was ubiquitous. I spotted him in the stable while I was cleaning the horses’ teeth three days ago, ran into him the next morning grabbing a cup of coffee in the kitchen in the main office and again in the parking lot by the barn.
And now, he was with Lou, the primary vet for the ranch, leaning on the fence, deep in conversation while Hudson explained his plan to move the cattle to a new pasture.
Quick note: Since I was a new hire, I spent a lot of time shadowing Lou and Hudson.
Lou was a chatty man in his sixties who rambled on about anything from his grandson’s college tuition to the fender bender he’d seen in Goleta last weekend to his handicap on the golf course. He took my grunts and hums for what they were and didn’t seem offended that I rarely reciprocated. Nor did he seem to mind that I’d been foisted into his domain. I had a feeling Lou was anxious to retire and spend his days on the driving range. I’d never heard anyone get so animated about a damn five iron, but I was no golfer.
Hudson, on the other hand, was an easygoing guy in his thirties with a ton of ranching experience. Unlike Dennis, Hudson knew what the hell he was doing and he caught on early that I did too. We were friendly without having deep-dive personal discussions. I knew he was married to a man and that his husband owned a bookstore. He knew I had a daughter. Anything else about me, he’d learned on the job.
There were quite a few others who handled feeding, exercise, or small jobs for specific animals. Some were part-timers like me; some were full-time. They were all friendly, however…no one was as effusive as Tanner.
I didn’t like it.
See, every time our paths crossed, my heart flipped in my chest and my knees went weak. And our paths crossed often. It wasn’t smart to lean in for a sniff of Tanner’s cologne. It wasn’t smart to crack a smile at his goofy jokes. And it definitely wasn’t smart to wonder what it would feel like to touch his pecs, his abs, his ass.
Tanner Spade was a sexy motherfucker with sandy brown hair, green eyes, broad shoulders, and a tapered waist. His square jaw was always a little scruffy, and his eyes were always twinkling. Long story short, he was…hot.
The odd part was that I hadn’t looked twice at another man in over twenty years. Christ, that had been another lifetime.
Once upon a time, my bisexuality had been a well-guarded secret, necessary for survival in a small conservative town. The diligent son, the high school athlete who dreamed of being a pro football player like every other kid in Texas, the gifted student with a scholarship to a fancy college in Boston—that guy couldn’t have been queer. No chance.