The Longest Ride(38)

And Luke hadn’t helped matters. He’d walked up to her car in that soft chambray work shirt and jeans, his brown curls trying to escape his hat. He’d barely raised those long-lashed blue eyes, surprising her with his shyness, when she felt her stomach do a little flip. She liked him… really liked him. But more than that, for whatever reason, she trusted him. She had the impression that his world was ordered by a sense of right and wrong, that he had integrity. He wasn’t preoccupied with pretending to be something he wasn’t, and his face was an open book. When she surprised him, she could see it instantly; when she teased him, he laughed easily at himself. By the time he finally mentioned the barn… well, she just couldn’t help herself.



Although she thought she detected something that resembled a blush, he just ducked his head and popped inside to grab another hat. When he returned, they set off side by side, falling into an easy rhythm. Dog ran ahead and then came rushing back to them before darting off in yet another direction, a moving bundle of energy. Little by little, she felt her anxiety dissipate. They skirted the grove of trees that surrounded his house, angling toward the main drive. As the vista opened before her, she took in the main house, with its big covered porch and black shutters, backed by a copse of towering trees. Beyond it stood the aging barn and lush pastures nestled amid green rolling hills. In the distance, the banks of a small lake were dotted with cattle, smoky blue-tipped mountains near the horizon framing the landscape like a postcard. On the opposite side of the drive stood a grove of Christmas trees, planted in neat, straight rows. A breeze moved through the grove, making a soft fluting sound that resembled music.



“I can’t believe you grew up here,” she breathed, taking it all in. She motioned toward the house. “Is that where your mom lives?”



“I was actually born in that farmhouse.”



“What? No horses fast enough to get to the hospital?”



He laughed, seemingly more relaxed since they’d left his house. “A lady on the next ranch over used to be a midwife. She’s a good friend of my mom’s, and it was a way to save some money. She’s like that – my mom, I mean. She’s kind of a hawk when it comes to expenses.”



“Even for childbirth?”



“I’m not sure she was fazed by childbirth. Living on a farm, she’d been around a lot of births. Besides, she was born in the house, too, so she was probably thinking, What’s the big deal?”



Sophia felt the gravel crunching beneath her boots. “How long has your family owned the ranch?” she asked.



“A long time. My great-grandfather bought most of it in the 1920s, and then, when the Depression hit, he was able to add to it. He was a pretty good businessman. From there, it became my grandfather’s, and then my mom’s. She took over when she was twenty-two.”



As he answered, she looked around, amazed at how remote it felt despite its proximity to the highway. They passed the farmhouse, and on the far side there were smaller weather-beaten wooden structures surrounded by fencing. When the wind shifted, Sophia caught the scent of conifer and oak. Everything about the ranch was a refreshing change from the campus where she spent most of her time. Just like Luke, she thought, but she tried not to dwell on the observation. “What are those buildings?” she asked, pointing.



“The closest one is the henhouse, where we keep the chickens. And behind that is where we keep the hogs. Not many, only three or four at a time. Like I mentioned last night, we mainly do cattle here.”



“How many do you have?”



“More than two hundred pair,” he said. “We also have nine bulls.”



She furrowed her brow. “Pair?”



“A mature cow and her calf.”



“Then why don’t you just say you have four hundred?”



“That’s just the way they’re counted, I guess. So you know the size of the herd you can offer for sale that year. We don’t sell the calves. Others do – that’s veal – but we’re known for our grass-fed, organic beef. Our customers are mainly high-end restaurants.”



They followed the fence line, approaching an ancient live oak with massed limbs that spread in all directions like a spider. As they passed beneath the canopy of its limbs, they were greeted with a shrill assortment of bird cries, sounding their warnings. Sophia lifted her gaze to the barn as they neared it, realizing that Luke hadn’t been kidding. It looked abandoned, the entire structure listing slightly and held together by rotting boards. Ivy and kudzu crawled up the sides, and a section of the roof appeared entirely stripped of shingles.