Chance shook his head slowly. “And now he wishes he had.”
Clayton’s serious blue eyes and handsome smile flitted through her mind. She could understand him feeling that way, but the downside was that she simply didn’t know him as well. She wished she could give him the same assurance she had about her attraction to Chance, but it was just going to take time.
“It worries me that it could fall through, then where would you and I be?” It didn’t bear contemplating.
Chance squeezed her hand and said, “It’ll be okay, baby. You’ll see.”
Lydia hoped he was right. Reclining the seat a bit, she curled up with her book and read for a while. She was pulled in by the slow, sensual buildup of heat and sexual tension in the story and wondered, not for the first time, if Caressa MacFarland wrote ménage romance from experience.
She closed the book after the first love scene, needing to cool down a bit. The last thing she needed to do right now was arrive at the ranch in a heightened state. Because the descriptions of the heroes in the story fit Chance and Clayton so closely, she’d found it easy to envision Chance and Clayton in their roles.
Rolling hills and oak trees flew past her window, and she sighed thankfully as they entered the Texas Hill Country.
“Good book?”
Lydia smiled at Chance and nodded but pointed out the window. “It’s nice to see that. I never minded the landscape around Fort Stockton that much. It’s wide and flat but the mountains in the distance were gorgeous. I grew up in San Angelo so I equate that landscape with home. But it sure is nice to see more trees and greenery.”
“I love it here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” Chance looked over at her briefly, and his smile reached his eyes. He seemed as though he wanted to say more but left it at that. Excitement filled her heart at the possibilities for a new life this day would bring. She was feeling more and more hopeful that Divine might be the place she could call home and thought about calling her brothers. She decided against it, at least for now. What would she tell them? Hey, Ace. I’m thinking about joining a ménage. Yeah, you heard right. She could just imagine his reaction and pictured the mushroom cloud hovering over Divine.
Until she knew where things were headed with Clayton she’d hold off on that particular grilling. Then again, it might be that all she had to tell him was that she was in town and living with Chance. That wouldn’t go over much better. Definitely better to put that call off.
“How far?”
“About another forty-five minutes or so.”
* * * *
Chance glanced at Lydia’s face as they slowed for the turn under the steel pipe entryway to the Rockin’ C Ranch. He’d pointed it out to her, and she’d repositioned the seat and sat forward as it came into view. Now her pink lips were parted as she gaped at it and the gorgeous spread beyond it that he called home.
“Oh, my word.”
Pleasure rippled through Chance at her awed declaration. “Like it?”
She turned her round-eyed gaze on him and said, “I knew it was big, but I’ve seen plenty of big ranches. This is…”
They crested the top of the first hill so she could see beyond it. The full view couldn’t be appreciated from the entry or the highway until a vehicle came to the top of the first rise. He took great delight in rolling to a stop so she could get her first clear view of the Rockin’ C Ranch. She laid both her hands on the dashboard and leaned forward to look through the windshield. Her expression was nothing short of awe.
The ranch house was about a mile away in the distance. Gentle hills rolled out between, with the long drive winding through. Big round hay bales dotted the landscape on one side of the drive where they’d recently mowed the field, and part of the cattle herd occupied the cross-fenced sections on the other side.
Beyond the large, stone-faced house sat the barns, outbuildings and the large, older ranch house that the ranch hands used as their residence. The older house had been the original residence, built and occupied by his grandparents. His parents had built the newer, bigger house which Chance and Clayton now lived in by themselves, since their parents and grandparents had all passed on.
Beyond the group of buildings towered a stand of ancient oak trees and the greenbelt that grew on either side of Divine Creek. Their ranch extended into the rolling Hill Country quite a distance beyond the creek.
Across the creek, to the east a few miles distance, was the Divine Creek Ranch, owned by Jack Warner, Ethan Grant, and Adam Davis, and their beautiful wife Grace. Neighboring the Rockin’ C Ranch was the MWTD Ranch, owned by Jack’s first cousins, Kendall, Boone, and Richard Warner and their lovely bride-to-be Maya Daire.