Page 19 of Serious Cowboy

“I’m so glad we didn’t wind up between her and her babies by accident.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been bad.”

“It would’ve beenterrible,” Callie laughed, that nervous tittering that came out when her emotions ran high. It didn’t happen all that frequently, but it did happen. Luckily, she had the patience and common sense to play those emotions down when that family of moose had been nearby.

“They were beautiful, though.” Zeke could hear the awe in his own voice. He’d seen plenty of deer, elk, and moose before. But he’d never seen such a massive moose without having the safety of a vehicle between him and them. And never as close as they were today.

“They were. Even though my pulse was ricocheting through my veins, I thought so, too. Dangerous animals, but so beautiful.”

As if her phrase triggered some invisible cue, they quit speaking. She unfastened her seatbelt, and he came around to the passenger side and opened her door. They ambled side by side up her sidewalk, and the trill of anticipation filled him. She’d hug him soon, and he couldn’t wait. But something felt a little different tonight.

Maybe it was how their blood pressure had gone through the roof or the actual possibility of being in harm’s way, but rather embracing him like she perpetually did, she raised her arms instead. Wrapping them around his neck, she stood on her tiptoes, bringing her mouth closer and closer to his.

Zeke could’ve stopped her. He could’ve brought everything to a halt before her lips ever made contact with his. He could have.

But he didn’t.

And the heat of her breath, the silkiness of her skin, the warmth of her meeting with the warmth of him locked together and stayed that way. It’d been forever since Zeke had kissed anyone or been kissed by anyone, and while this had never occurred with anyone else, with Callie that contact emptied everything else right out of his head.

For those brief seconds, he wasn’t Zeke Knight. He didn’t know who he was, where he was, or even who he used to be. Instead, he was simply a being whose only link to reality existed only through Callie. It was like he saw with her eyes, heard with her ears, smelled through her nose, and tasted with her lips.

It was perfection.

Until it ended.

Zeke took a pace backward in a daze, almost taking a header off her porch.

“Don’t fall,” Callie chastised him as she drew him back toward her doorway, her voice full of humor. She was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen. He’d thought that before, but never with so much clarity. So much certainty.

“It’s your fault,” he teased her. “You made me lightheaded.”

“Maybe next time I’ll grab you by the lapels and shove you up against my door. That way I’ll have you right where I want you.” During those last few words, she’d poked him in the chest to emphasize each one.

Zeke’s blood stilled even as he shivered from head to foot. He yearned to kiss her again. And the fact that he yearned for it so desperately had him turning around. Then, rather than meandering off without saying anything else, he twisted so that he was walking backwards.

“Goodnight, Callie.”

“Goodnight, Zeke,” she said, smiling at him.

From that point on,every one of their dates ended with a similar lip lock. Zeke looked forward to it. He relived the ones he’d already shared with her and daydreamed about having more. He quit pretending that he and Callie were merely hanging out as he familiarized her with Rocky Ridge. She was plenty familiar already, with the town and with him.

Maybe that’s why the notion of her coming over entered his brain.

“I’ll make us a picnic lunch, and I’ll show you the property.”

“The property?” she repeated, her grin wide. “You’ve never mentioned your property before. Do you own a lot of it?”

“Some,” he hedged, oddly hesitant.

He wasn’t embarrassed or anything, but he didn’t have people over with the notable exception of Tim or the members of his family. And even then, that was occasional and short lived. He didn’t invite them to stay. Usually, they only came to drop off something they needed him to work on or repair for them. He’d like for it to be more—like having family and friends over for dinner or even lemonade on a hot afternoon. That wasn’t where he was, though. Maybe one day he could get there.

Zeke made up a simple spread of turkey and ham sandwiches cut into quarters, made lemonade from some frozen concentrate, brought some carrots and celery with ranch dressing—that was all for Callie since he rarely ate vegetables—as well as some black forest brownies he’d secretly bought.

They traipsed together out to the furthest reaches of his fifteen acres, a modest amount for around that neck of the woods. But it had a unique feature he couldn’t wait to show her.

“From here, you can see so far,” she exclaimed, and she was right.

He’d chosen to share this view with her because the land edged upwards in a manner that allowed the observer to see the nearby mountain range, a creek that ribboned through a valley next to it, and his neighbor’s herd of not cattle but…