places.
“Guess I’m staying for at least another day,” Dot said.
“Guess so,” Ward said, realizing the call with Ace was still ticking along. “This is surreal.”
His phone continued to chime, but Ward couldn’t tear his eyes from the landslide that stretched from north to south, as far as he could see.
“Bear’s called an emergency family meeting,” Ace said, his voice on the haunted side. “Guess I’ll see you there in ten.”
“Yeah,” Ward said, and he didn’t bother to hang up. He shoved his phone in his back pocket and reached for Dot’s hand. “I have lots of food. You can stay for as long as you want.”
“Good,” she said. “It took you six months to build a road out to Cactus’s house, if I recall correctly.”
She did, but that was hardly his fault. He smiled slowly at her. “Yeah, because I couldn’t get a certain someone to call me back about some very important gravel.”
Dot grinned up at him, and Ward did like the sparkles and sunshine that ran between them. She released his hand and reached up with both hands to grip the collar of his denim jacket in her fists.
She pulled him down to kiss her, and Ward was more than happy to oblige. So many things had irritated him that morning, but they all washed away the moment he touched his lips to Dot’s.
A growl with the same ferocity of the landslide he’d just heard came from his throat, and he threaded his fingers through the hair he’d been dreaming of touching since the moment he’d asked Dot to dinner, months ago.
Urgency existed on the ranch. It hovered in the air, driving Ward to get as much done as possible. His leg bounced as he listened to Bear and Ranger talk. It didn’t matter what they said. Everyone could see the landslide. No one could see the road. At least a twenty-foot drop now separated Shiloh Ridge from the rest of the world. They truly did exist on their own up in the foothills south of Three Rivers.
Ward wanted to shout when Ace stood up. They needed to stop talking. He had fourteen cowboys out there waiting for him to tell them what to do. In Ward’s opinion, they needed to rustle up as many shovels as they could find and start digging.
Dot was here; she could help them know how to grade down the drop-off. Or they could go down the road from the Ranch House and start to clear that road.
In the back of his mind, a voice told Ward that it didn’t matter if they cleared that road. It connected to the main road leading from the ranch to the highway, and a new intersection would need to be made. The current one was under tons of dirt and rocks.
“I’ve got Huey Howard on the line,” Ace said, placing his phone on the edge of the conference room table. Ward had attended dozens of meetings in this room, but he’d never been here with this many people. Men, women, babies, kids. Every Glover on the ranch had packed themselves in the room, and it seemed like ninety percent of them had an opinion as to what the family should do.
“He’s the road engineer for Three Rivers,” Ace said. “Tell everyone what you told me, Huey.”
“Hi everyone,” Huey said, and he had no idea what he was getting into.
“You’re on with the whole family,” Ace said. He smiled as if this were a friendly chat. “Thanks for doing this for us.”
Ward wanted to roll his eyes. He needed to retreat to Bull House and find something to eat. Take a shower. Then a deep breath. Then he could get back to work in a better mood so he didn’t turn into Bear and start roaring and snapping his teeth at everyone he came in contact with.
Dot sat next to him, her knee practically touching Ward’s. He wanted to pull the woman onto his lap and kiss her again, but he knew that would only alleviate his anxiety for a few minutes. The moment she pulled away, his stomach would knot again.
He wasn’t sure if that meant he’d started to fall in love with her or he simply had way too much work to do around the ranch.
You’ve definitely started to fall in love with her, he thought, glancing at her. She reached over and squeezed his knee, something surely half the people in the room saw. Ward didn’t care. He put his hand over hers and