The Bull Rider's Twin Trouble

Brock listened, nodding occasionally. When she finished, he stretched, his arms raised to the ceiling. Cassie tried not to stare at him, but it wasn’t easy. “Let’s get started, then,” he said, moving farther into the room.

Soon they were grappling with the bookcases—heavy bulky things that, thankfully, took all her attention. With some difficulty, they managed to get the three large shelving units on their sides and slide each one out the door until they were lying in a row on the living room floor.

With those out, the room seemed much larger and brighter, and Cassie’s heart lifted. She knew she could make it into everything she wanted. Then she realized there was one big problem that prevented her from doing more.

Brock seemed to sense her sudden change of mood. “You don’t have paint yet, do you?”

Cassie shook her head, trying not to feel too disappointed.

“Then we’ll need to get some. We can do that tomorrow morning, if you like. For now, on to the next thing,” Brock announced, sidling out of the room.

Cassie could tell he wasn’t going to let her sulk, and it made her smile. He was right, anyhow. There was too much to do to sit around just because she didn’t have paint.

Back in the living room, they both looked at the shelves taking up most of the floor space. “I guess we could put two of these in my room and the other in Zach and Carter’s,” she said at last.

Brock moved into place to pick up one of the units and waited for her. Cassie couldn’t believe how willing he was to haul them all over her house, without a word of protest. She silently thanked Brock’s mother for having such a helpful son.

Soon all her thoughts and energy were once again absorbed by the task of lifting the heavy pieces of furniture, which they lugged down the hall.

Maneuvering the first one into her bedroom was a bit of a challenge, but finally the shelf stood against the wall opposite her bed. If the room wasn’t large, it might have looked hefty, but Cassie felt it fit nicely. She turned to Brock to see if he was ready to move the second one, and found him standing awkwardly near the doorway.

Then she realized that they were in her bedroom and she felt a flush creep up her neck at the memory of what lay at the bottom of her box of pajamas, only a couple of feet from where she was standing.

Brock cleared his throat and looked at her, but didn’t quite meet her eyes, for which she was thankful. Now was not the time to get lost in those ocean-colored depths. “Let’s go grab the next one,” he said, leaving for the hallway.

Cassie followed, hoping the heat in her cheeks would go away before they looked at each other again.

* * *

BROCK WAS GLAD to return to the open air of the living room. Even though the master bedroom in the Wilson house was large, the presence of Cassie and her bed made him feel short of breath and a little claustrophobic.

But that wasn’t the way his thoughts should be turning, he knew.

They made quick work of the second shelf, and without pausing in Cassie’s room, for which Brock was grateful, moved onto the third. As Brock picked up his end, he could feel the strain in his back, a holdover from an old rodeo injury. If he was tired, he imagined Cassie must be exhausted. He almost set down the shelf again to propose they take a break, but before he could, Cassie had lifted her end and begun moving toward the hallway with dogged determination on her face.

Brock couldn’t help but be impressed. She didn’t shirk the work it was going to take to get this place running, that was for sure. They carried the thing into the boys’ room, where they set it up against the wall as the two boys watched from where they’d been playing on the floor. When it was in place, Cassie leaned against it to catch her breath. Brock took the chance to stretch his back.

“Did you boys finish putting all your clothes away before playing?” Cassie asked after a few moments.

The children nodded, but Brock noticed they seemed a little hesitant. He glanced over at the chest of drawers. From the look of the bursting bottom drawer, Cassie’s earlier prediction seemed to have come true. She noticed, too, and she opened it wider. “I don’t think you’ll be able to find anything in here,” she told them, with an impressive amount of patience. “How about we work on this together?”

Brock could see this might take a while, so he left Cassie with her kids and went back to the library. This woman just kept getting more and more attractive. A beautiful, hardworking doctor with the patience of a saint. He shook his head in amazement.

He wanted to ask her out. What harm could a date do? He imagined she could use an evening being pampered.

There was one big flaw with that idea, though: What if she said no? He didn’t want the next couple of weeks to be awkward as they worked on her house and ranch together. Or worse, she felt so uncomfortable that she insisted on doing it all by herself, even though it was clearly too big a job for just one person.

So he wouldn’t ask her out yet, then. Not until he was sure she’d say yes, or until enough work was finished that he wouldn’t feel guilty if he got turned down and was asked to never see her again.

He hoped to God that wouldn’t happen.

What about her kids? A small voice inside him piped up.

Well, it would just be a date. Nothing serious. He wasn’t going to turn everything in his life upside down because of a passing attraction. They’d go on a few dates, have a nice time and then he’d leave. If they both agreed to nothing permanent, neither of them could get hurt, right?

Brock felt a twinge of uncertainty but dismissed it. If he had to choose between a temporary relationship with Cassie or no relationship at all, he knew which side he fell on. The thought lifted his spirits, and he looked around eagerly for something to accomplish.

Near the library, leaning against a wall, were some boxes with pictures of small white shelves on them. They were clearly pieces of furniture for her future doctor’s office, and would need to be assembled before she could start seeing patients.

He immediately set to work on the first one.

The task went quickly, and by the time Cassie appeared, he was halfway through the second, with instructions and pieces surrounding where he sat on the floor. Seeing her made his heart beat harder, and he found it difficult to remember what it was he’d been doing. She caressed the top of the completed piece in such a way that it took every bit of his self-control to not ask her out right then and there.

“Thank you for your help,” she said, so sincerely that it squeezed at his heart. It was clear from her tone that she’d desperately needed an extra pair of hands.

“I imagine it’s hard to get much done with two young boys around,” he commented.

She let out a sigh of agreement and nodded. “They’re putting things on their new shelf now, so that should give them something to do for a little while, at least,” she said, sitting down beside him and leaning close to look at the instructions.

For a moment, she was too close, and he wanted more than ever to do something about the feelings crowding in him. As he opened his mouth to say something stupid, she moved away again, and his mind cleared enough to keep quiet. She didn’t seem to notice, and before he could get out of his daze enough to get back to the task at hand, she was grabbing pieces and fitting them together with nimble, quick movements.

With some effort, Brock turned back to his own work, and they flew through the rest of the low-lying shelves, two cabinets and several small drawers. He imagined them holding cotton swabs, latex gloves and myriad other items that a doctor would need in order to care for the people who came to her. From the way Cassie was smiling as she touched each completed piece, she could, too.

When they were finished with the last drawer, Cassie sat back and looked around her at all they’d done. Brock could only stare at her. She was endlessly fascinating. They had worked almost entirely without speaking, anticipating each other’s motions in a way he couldn’t describe. They had been assembling a few inexpensive pieces of furniture, but it had felt more like a dance where they moved in harmony together.

He stood and started placing the completed items against the wall, out of the way until they could be placed into the new office. The silence that had been comfortable a few minutes before became thick, and he grasped for something to talk about. “What’s the next big task on your to-do list?” he said, hoping she didn’t notice the strained sound of his voice.

“Until I have paint, we’ve done about as much on the office as we can. I guess the next big part—”

He hoped she wouldn’t say her bedroom. He’d noticed the boxes and incomplete bedframe, but boy howdy, an hour in her bedroom seemed much more dangerous than jumping out of an airplane or climbing on the back of a bull right now.

“—would be the fence, or maybe the barn,” she finished.

Brock exhaled with relief.

“Well,” he started, considering the best plan of action, “we should probably take a walk along the perimeter, see where the fence needs to be fixed or replaced.”

Brock wasn’t sure if he really thought the entire fence needed to be checked or if he was just torturing himself with a long, private stroll with Cassie. He didn’t need to worry about the latter, though, because Cassie immediately stood and said, “I’ll go get Zach and Carter. They’ll be happy to get out of the house,” before disappearing down the hall toward the boys’ room.

* * *

CASSIE WAS GLAD FOR the twins’ company as they all walked out into the late-morning sun. The hours she had spent with Brock already that day made her very aware that she needed chaperones, if only to keep herself from doing something stupid like kissing him.

Luckily, her children were excellent distractions.

As soon as they were out of the house, the boys were tearing around like two tiny dust storms, creating havoc wherever they went and only stopping occasionally to ask Brock questions about life as a cowboy.

Through his answers, she learned that he was visiting his parents for two weeks and that he worked on the circuit—though she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. The boys were thrilled to discover that he owned a truck and a motorcycle. And that he liked horses and owned lots of cowboy hats and boots.

From the way he answered each question without a sign of irritation, she also realized that Brock was patient, good-natured and kind. She wished he was just a little bit worse of a human being, so she’d have something to grasp to that might help her get over her overwhelming attraction to him.

Finally, she cut into the questions, both because she wanted to save Brock from the unending list the boys seemed to have, and because she was curious what he was doing as he examined a fence post.

“Boys, why don’t you race each other to that tree?” she suggested, pointing out a small oak a hundred yards or so in the distance. Zach and Carter ran off, their excess energy seeming to burst out of every seam.

Cassie turned to Brock. “What are you checking for?” she asked, wondering if she sounded like the young boys.

“To see if the wood is rotten or not. If you have rot, you’ll need to replace those sections, or they might come down not long from now. It’ll be a lot of extra work, though.”

“And money, I’m sure,” Cassie said, biting her lip.

She would need to get her doctor’s office going, and soon, or at this rate she and the boys would be living off peanut butter sandwiches for the foreseeable future.

Brock nodded. “But the fence can wait, if you aren’t planning on keeping animals out here, in which case we could just fix the paddock and barn.”

Cassie gazed across the land covered in tall grass the color of gold. What would she do with the crops? She had just wanted a ranch with some horses, but it was becoming more and more obvious that she didn’t know the first thing about ranching...

Maybe her mother was right: she was getting in way over her head. She was just a city girl playing rancher, and she didn’t know the game.

“Everything okay?” Brock asked, pulling her out of her reverie.

She started to nod but couldn’t bring herself to pretend. “There’s just so much I need to figure out,” she answered, looking at him.

The sympathy in his dark blue eyes made her heart thump heavily, and she had difficulty keeping control of herself.

He looked out over her ranch and she took the chance to catch her breath. After a few moments, he nodded. “It’ll be a lot of work, but it’s a good piece of land. Do you have a buyer for the hay you won’t use?”

She shook her head, feeling stupid. She didn’t even have any idea how to turn the grass waving in front of her into hay bales, let alone what to do with it. “I don’t—”

Cassie stopped talking, her voice catching in her throat. She had been told that the farm was growing grass to turn into hay, but she hadn’t thought about what to do with it until she’d actually gotten here and seen it.

The enormity of the tasks before her threatened to overwhelm her. She could only imagine what Brock must think about her, purchasing this whole place without knowing how to do a single thing.

“This is my lucky day,” Brock replied.

Cassie looked at Brock, surprised at the enthusiasm in his voice. Was he being sarcastic?

Brock hitched his thumb back toward his parents’ ranch. “Pop could use a good chunk for their horses, and my brothers would be happy to buy the rest, I’m sure. And they’ll pay to get the baling machine out here, too, if you don’t already have one lined up. It’s my lucky day because this means almost my entire family will owe me, which can be useful in the McNeal house.”

Cassie laughed, more out of astonishment than anything. “Do you really think your brothers would do all that?” she asked, trying not to get her hopes up too high, but unable to suppress the grin that came to her lips.

Brock nodded, smiling back. “They just started a business working with rodeo stock, and I’m sure they could use it. They’ll give you a fair price.”

A weight lifted off Cassie, and she felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease. She would be able to sell the hay. If she could do that, start seeing patients, mend the fence and make the barn livable for her horses, maybe everything would be all right. It was a big if, but it was something.

“You’ll want to keep a bit of it for your own horses, right? I know the Wilsons had a couple.”

She nodded, picturing Rosalind and Diamond, the two mares that had come with the property. “If I can get the barn and fencing in shape enough to keep them here, yes. For now, they’re being kept at a place a few miles away.”

“Well, we can figure out what lumber you need for the fence and paddock, but mend the paddock first. That way, you can move the horses here sooner. They don’t need a perfect barn in this weather, so those little fixes can wait.”

She didn’t say anything about the boarding costs, yet another worry on her plate. Cassie suddenly felt embarrassed, as if every shortcoming and difficulty of hers was being laid bare in front of this man she’d known less than twenty-four hours.

Despite how much she appreciated his help, she also felt slightly uncomfortable with how much she needed it. She’d always been self-sufficient, smart and able to do whatever she put her mind to. This whole thing wasn’t great for her ego, that was for sure.

Still, she’d gotten herself into this mess, and right now she just needed to worry about surviving it with as much of her dignity intact as she could manage. As long as nothing else landed on her plate, she would be able to handle it.

She hoped.

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