Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

They'd stabled the horses, with Nate showing Jay the reverse procedure to getting a horse saddled. He'd done okay, then waited for Nate to pull in the other horses. Jay decided there and then that he needed to know more about why the horses under Nate's care weren't running about the open fields like he'd seen in the movies. He filed it away as a later question.

"How much will my butt ache after this?" Jay asked.

Nate simply looked at him and raised his eyebrows. That didn't bode well. Jay supposed it was like any new exercise—forty-eight hours later and he'd probably be crippled. He didn't push for an answer because right then Nate was showing him his office, and Jay felt excited to see where he would be working. He'd only ever had a cubicle, never an entire room that would be just his.

The building sat squarely next to Branches and the small on-site shop that looked empty inside. At first glance, Jay's new office seemed to be a temporary structure that someone had added as an afterthought. It was squat and square and Jay could see two front-facing windows. He'd always had a rat hole in a maze of similar desks, and the thought of having his own space outweighed the obvious ramshackle exterior of his new place.

Nate pushed open the door with a flourish and indicated Jay should enter first. Jay did so with trepidation. What he saw inside pretty much echoed the outside. The interior rocked the "wood on the walls and floor" effect, and it was warm enough, with two small oil heaters.

"We're looking to connect it into the restaurant heating and to tidy up the outside before opening. But the inside isn't high on priority at the moment, I'm afraid. We'll probably get to it after we open and when we have the time."

Jay did a three-sixty, then nodded in agreement. "The inside is fine, I'll work with it. But the outside is another untidy reminder that investment in the place has dipped. Imagine someone comes to the restaurant, which at first glance looks kind of cool, and they spot this. We should paint the outside, dig over the ground, and maybe put some gravel down to make it more welcoming. You could change it into an information center after I've gone. Don't worry about labor. I'll get Kirsten, Josh, and Ashley on it."

"Okay." Nate sounded doubtful, but at least he didn't look pissed at Jay's frank assessment of one of the ranch's current problems.

"I need to go to the nearest stationery and office furniture place, if you could give me an address."

"Missoula. It's an hour from here. I can take you now."

"Don't you have other things you need to do?"

"Nope, my day is yours, all penciled in on the schedule and everything."

Jay's gaze flicked to the sexy cowboy, who stood with his thumbs in his pockets and stared around the small office, assessing the interior as much as Jay had done. The way the other man stood screamed alpha male, hot and heavy, and Jay forced himself not to concentrate on that. Nate had given no clear indication he was gay, apart from the no kids thing and the fact he wanted to talk about Jay's ass. But Jay had noticed Nate's gaze wandering south. Jay was not going to waste precious time lusting after the tall, muscled, green-eyed, dark-haired, sex-on-legs cowboy, though.

Using his five-ten height as a gauge, Jay mentally figured out the kind of space he had to work with—looking to be eight-by-ten-foot square at its base and about eight foot high. Finally he left the room and waited for Nate to follow him out.

They walked to a large black Jeep, and Nate clicked the key fob to open the doors. The Wrangler was far from new and more than a little beat-up. Not only that, but it wasn't what Jay had been expecting Nate to drive.

"I thought cowboys drove trucks," Jay commented dryly as he buckled himself in.

"Maybe I'm the exception to the rule," Nate drawled. "What do you drive? Doesn't everyone in the city drive Porsches and Ferraris?"

Jay chuckled. "Touché. I don't own a car. You don't need one in New York, but if I had one, then of course it would be a silver Porsche—wouldn't want to step too far away from the stereotype."

They drove off Crooked Tree and joined the main road, and there was no more talking. Nate turned on the radio to a local station that was mostly talking and ads, and Jay stared out the window at the passing landscape. He was thinking hard about what he'd seen this morning. Potential. Yes, the cabins were a little dilapidated, but the beauty of this place was staggering. Pastures white with snow led to the base of mountains that created a stunning backdrop for the ranch. The trees clustered around the cabins gave privacy, and as for the river…. The Blackfoot was beautiful—a tumbling, hissing mess of white water at one end of the cabins and a smooth, shallow path of clear beauty at the other.

The horses were like they were supposed to be—pretty, sturdy, and Nate clearly had a handle on what he was doing. Jay hadn't talked to Marcus yet, not properly, but he would make time to do that, and also to Luke and Gabe. Which only left the silent partners in the ranch, some guy called Strachan who, according to Marcus, had little say in how Crooked Tree ran. He guessed there was drama there in the way Marcus's lips thinned when he mentioned Strachan's name. Jay would find out one way or another what had happened, and if it would impact on any suggestions he might come up with as part of the plan.

They reached Missoula in under the hour and stopped outside a huge Staples. Anticipation rose inside Jay. He would never admit it to anyone else, but he loved places that sold stationery.

"You can stay here if you want," Jay said. "I won't be long."

"I need to pay," Nate said.

"You could meet me at the end."

"Nope." He was in the middle of taking his seat belt off, and he didn't stop. He appeared intent on following Jay around. That meant Jay couldn't spend time admiring notebooks, which was a bit of a disappointment, but at least he'd have Nate helping him to carry things. He focused on the desk and chair and decided on ones they could take home. Nate went off to load the car, and that gave Jay time to collect up noticeboards and everything else he wanted. He had a definite vision of what his new space was going to look like.

Next, they stopped at a DIY store and bought paint for the outside of the office, a sage green shade that Jay thought would help the building merge into the background. They left Missoula for Crooked Tree.

They got home just after lunch and agreed to meet at the office half an hour later. Nate strode up the hill toward where Jay imagined Nate's home was, and for a short while, Jay watched the easy stride of a man who knew exactly where he was going. Every flex of thick thighs was enough to have Jay nearly salivating. Shaking himself free of the infatuation with the way Nate walked, he let himself into his house and found Ashley in the kitchen, singing and baking. His heart filled with love for his sister, happy that she was relaxed enough to sing where just about anyone could see her.

"Hey you." Jay kissed her neck and stole a muffin when she was distracted. She smacked at him with a spoon but missed.

"How did it go?" she asked. "I saw you driving off with the big brother."

"We went shopping for stuff for my office."

Very deliberately she turned from the bowl of pink frosting she was carefully adding to the top of a tray of small cakes and faced him. "You have an office?"

Jay grinned. "It's more of a shed, really," he admitted, "and I could do with volunteers to help me paint the outside."

"Count me out for that one," Kirsten grumbled from behind them.

She helped herself to a muffin, and Jay was amazed to see streaks of orange next to the pink in her hair. Fashion statements he could handle, but he was pretty certain there was nothing written anywhere that said fire orange and cerise pink matched. His single gay fashion gene was offended.

"When I said ‘volunteer,' I actually meant all three of you will be helping me. Tomorrow."

"I have stuff to do tomorrow," Kirsten said abruptly.

"Like what?" Jay asked just as quickly.

Ashley glanced at him, and the warning in her eyes was clear. Don't poke the ant's nest .

Well, fuck it, Kirsten was sixteen in the summer and Jay was getting a bit tired of the affected misery that enveloped her in a cloud.

"Stuff," she answered.

There was a challenge in Kirsten's eyes. She wanted an argument because they always ended up with Jay shouting and Kirsten slamming into her room. The upshot was that Kirsten got out of the things Jay wanted her to do, like studying or helping her mom, and Jay just got a headache. She played on him coming home from work and being tired. This time, that wasn't happening. Jay inhaled and exhaled deeply.

"I'm not arguing," he stated as simply as he could. "Nine sharp and I want you up and in your old clothes at the shed."

"But—"

"Enough," Jay warned. Mutiny was in her expression again and her thick-lined brown eyes started to glisten with tears. He knew she was frustrated—hell, he'd been a teenager himself once—but he had a responsibility to be the father she didn't have.

"You're not my dad. You can't order me around!" she shouted before turning to Ashley. The tears were for real then and tracked black down her face. This was normal as well—the moment Ashley backed down and Jay was left twisting in the wind.

Instead, Ashley turned back to her frosting, and in a few simple words Jay was shocked to hear, Ashley closed the whole thing down. "Wear the black jeans with the holes and the Kasabian T-shirt," she said. "It's too small for you anyway."

Kirsten stood for a few seconds, spun on her heel and walked out of the kitchen—but not before issuing a parting shot. "I hate you both, and I hate this place."

"I love you," Ashley called out. It was what she always did.

When the slam of the door indicated Kirsten was locked in her room, she glanced out of the window. There was a wistful smile on her face, "and I love this place."

Nate waited outside the shack-shed thing for Jay, and not for the first time questioned the science behind suggesting this would make a good office. Originally a storage shed, Marcus had proposed the new use when they'd received Jay's "yes" to the job offer. It was strong and sturdy but not exactly the prettiest place on earth for a man to get ideas on how to sell Crooked Tree to the public.

Nate heard footsteps and watched from under the brim of his hat as Jay joined him at the office. Jay had a wide grin and looked like the cat who'd swallowed the cream. He was still smiling when he pushed his way inside the shed and stood for a few seconds with his hands on his hips. Nate had brought in the desk and an extension lead that he'd rigged to give temporary electricity to the two old lamps Sophie had dug out of Marcus's junk room.

"Desk first, if that's okay," Jay suggested.

Together the two of them affixed the legs and set it up the correct way. After a few false starts, they positioned it so Jay had a clear, if small, view of the far mountains. They placed all the stationery on the desk, which left the noticeboards. Nate counted ten of them, and he considered the amount of wall space they had available was maybe not enough to hold all the boards.

"Okay…." Jay began.

Nate turned to look at him and did a double take. Jay was peering at instructions for the hanging of the noticeboards, and he was wearing glasses. Add to that he was fussing at his hair with his spare hand—carding his fingers through the short length and creating an image of a confused and delightfully rumpled mess. Was that Jay's bed hair? A mess of cowlicks and crazy angles? Did he wear his glasses to read? Why hadn't Nate seen him in them before?

"You wear glasses," he blurted out. What the fuck is wrong with me?

"Only for reading," Jay replied before looking back down at the instructions.

Glasses. Scruffy-sleep bed head hair. Slim. Brown eyes. Who the fuck was messing with him by dumping Jay in his lap? Shit.

Don't think of laps or Jay sitting on you.

Too late…

…fuck! Inappropriate erection.

"So, if I measure and mark, will you bang the nail in? Then we need to thread the wire."

I can probably bang it in with my freaking dick.

Jay pulled on his lower lip with his teeth as he read, and that was it, Nate was done. He grabbed the first board and held it in front of his groin. Jeez, he needed another trip to Carter's pretty damn soon. Nate imagined anything he could think of to get his head away from where it was at and actually help fix the inside of this place. By the time they had the boards hung in a ring around the entirety of the room, they'd exhausted football, politics, and ranching. Seemed like Jay knew a lot about politics and football, and it was Nate who covered ranching. Between them, the afternoon went quickly, and they stood to admire the work for a few minutes.

"I'll plan on that one"—Jay pointed to the board closest to the door—"then work my way around with ideas. I need some photos of the ranch."

"Luke is a really good photographer," Nate said proudly. "He has photos from all around the ranch, and he'd also be your best guide to the small areas others might miss."

Jay smiled up at him from the piles of stationery he was sorting through. "Like you? Do you see all the small stuff as well?"

"I know every inch of Crooked Tree," Nate said softly.

"Maybe you could show me sometime?"

Nate was startled. There was a definite edge of flirting in Jay's voice and warmth in his eyes.

"If I get time," Nate replied gruffly.

"Thank you for helping."

Nate suddenly felt very uncomfortable with Jay's scrutiny, he really needed to leave before he got yet another erection from the glasses and the hair and the smart-assed, crooked smile.

He left with a wave and didn't stop walking until he was in the barn leaning on Juno's gate, looking in at her.

"Jeez, Nate, didn't you hear me calling?" Gabe asked from behind him. "You walked up that hill like your pants were on fire."

This was the perfect moment for Nate to share with Gabe that he'd met Jay only yesterday but had passed directly into lust with an attached inappropriate-erection phase. He looked sideways at his brother, who appeared grumpy and sweaty. Maybe now wasn't the time for a heart-to-heart. "What's up?" he asked instead.

"Rotting fence up at the Nine," Gabe reported. "I fixed it up as good as I could, but it'll need us hauling some wood up there."

"Okay, we'll get up there tomorrow morning," Nate answered easily. The Nine was at the eastern point of Crooked Tree, and as such it wasn't a huge priority to go there now. He calculated that was a morning gone and there were only three more weeks to the first day of March and opening. "How many bookings in for the first?"

Gabe knew what he was asking and rolled out the statistics in a list. "Four, all in the River Cabins. The next week we have five, again all in River. We only get Forest from the end of April."

"That gives us another month." As he considered, Nate bowed his head to stare at the toe of his boot on the bottom support of the gate. "We'll prioritize working on River, and we'll be absolutely fine."

"Henry was causing trouble this morning."

Nate sighed. Henry, in one way or another, was always causing trouble. Just him breathing caused an issue among the staff. To be honest, Nate and his brothers were sheltered from most of his crap, but Nate was nearing the end of his tether with the guy.

"What now?"

"He told Amy she should think on, and I quote, ‘Pushing babies out and leaving men to look after her.'"

Nate felt like banging his head on the fence. The damn dinosaur was going to be the death of him. One more year—that was all they had to put up with him. Marcus refused to get rid of the one person who had been a constant at Crooked Tree for the last thirty years. Something about continuity or some such shit. Personally, Nate thought Marcus was fishing for any excuse that meant he didn't need to deal with Henry.

"One more season," he said softly.