Ryan was grappling with a similar issue as he rode out to the southwest pasture to check on the cattle. Only he didn’t have a group of friends handy to talk it out—if men did that sort of thing. He only had the cows, and he didn’t think he’d get any sound relationship advice there.
No, he hadn’t been toying with Gen. He hadn’t been using her just for pleasure. He had feelings for her. Real feelings. Why else would he have put a damned skylight in the barn? He sure as hell hadn’t done it for Kendrick.
But Gen had been straight with him that she didn’t plan to stay in Cambria. She’d made no secret of that. The whole reason she’d brought Kendrick out here was to drum up the money and the clout she needed to relocate to New York.
He’d be a fool to think she’d change her mind about staying just because of him. And he couldn’t kid himself that going to New York with her would be a simple thing. His family had been on the ranch for generations. His brothers had left to pursue other things. His parents were counting on him to run the operation here. What would happen if he left? Who would his parents turn to? Breanna would be the only one of his siblings still here, and she had never had much of an interest in ranching. If she suddenly decided to take on a big role working the ranch—which seemed unlikely—she’d have a lot to learn before she could take Ryan’s place.
That was the practical side. The emotional side—which, to him, was just as compelling—was that the Delaney Ranch was so much a part of who he was as a person, so much a key element in his soul, that he doubted he could successfully make the adjustment to a life elsewhere. And that was assuming she would even want him to come.
What about a long-distance relationship? He pondered that as he dismounted Annie and went to check on a calf and its mother near the northwest corner of the pasture. The grass swished between his legs as he walked.
Ryan approached the cow and her calf slowly, speaking soothing words to them. When the calf had been born, the mother had initially rejected him. It happened sometimes. After a few days of forced nursing—Ryan had enclosed the mother in a pen and immobilized her to allow the newborn to feed—she’d warmed up to the calf some, but Ryan was still keeping an eye on them to make sure everything was going smoothly.
He examined the calf, looking for signs of weight loss and checking its abdomen for indications that it hadn’t been eating and drinking properly. He observed its breathing, and checked its face for discharge from the nose or eyes. That done, he simply stood back and observed the calf for a while to see how it was eating and moving. When the calf raised its tail and released a steaming pile of manure, Ryan ambled over and took a look at the pile. That was one of his least favorite parts of the job, but you could tell a lot about an animal’s health from the look of its manure. He drew the line at sifting through it, though. A man had to have some boundaries.
“He looks pretty good,” Ryan said to no one.
Ryan wondered if Gen liked animals.
There she was, in his head again: Gen. He sighed.
Ryan didn’t do casual hookups, he didn’t look at sex as simple recreation, and he didn’t hold his heart in check when he cared about someone.
When he was in, he was all in.
But he also knew that the ranch was his home—always had been, always would be. And he didn’t hold any illusions about the idea of persuading Gen to stay. If he tried that, and it worked, she’d resent him—maybe not right away, but eventually. He couldn’t live that way.
He briefly wondered whether he should sabotage the whole Kendrick deal so she couldn’t go, but then laughed at himself, knowing that he’d never do such a thing.
The calf looked at him like he was an idiot. The calf was probably right.
“Well, shit,” he said.
Chapter Twenty
If he were a different kind of guy, he probably would have gone ahead and sabotaged the Kendrick deal to get Gen to stay. But he was Ryan—for better or for worse—and so he checked on Kendrick later that day to make sure he was doing okay.
It was around midmorning by the time he finished with the calf, met with some of the ranch hands to assign tasks for the day, and rode Annie to the guest cottage. When he got there, he knocked on the door, but Kendrick didn’t answer. Had Kendrick fled after all? And what would that mean to Gen? But then he remembered the old barn—the site of such happy recent memories—and found Kendrick there, bathed in the illumination of the skylight, doing something unidentifiable to a big, rectangular canvas.
“Mr. Kendrick,” Ryan said in greeting.
Kendrick looked up suddenly and blinked, as though waking from a sound sleep. “Oh. Hello.” His tone was not unfriendly, but he went right back to doing whatever it was he’d been doing with the paint.
“You’re working,” Ryan observed.
“I’m … Well, yes. I had an idea,” Kendrick said. He didn’t expand on the thought. He just went back to mixing paint on a palette and flinging it onto the canvas with the tip of his brush.
Ryan went outside, and when he judged that he was far enough away to be out of Kendrick’s earshot, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Gen.
“Ryan,” she said. She sounded pleased to hear from him, and that made him happier than he would have expected. A little bloom of warmth spread across his chest.
“Kendrick’s painting,” he said.
“He’s what?”
“I’m out here at the old barn. Thought I’d better check and see whether he took his crap and ran away during the night. And there he was, painting. At least, I think you’d call that painting. Didn’t look like anything but blobs of color to me.”
“Oh, thank God,” Gen said, the relief in her voice almost palpable. “Did he seem drunk?”
“No. Now that you mention it, he didn’t.”
“Okay. Okay, that’s really good news. I was going to come out there anyway, because I thought I’d have to talk him down again. As soon as Alex gets here to take over at the gallery, I’m on my way. I want to talk to Kendrick … see the lay of the land, so to speak.”
The thought that Gen was coming to the ranch—and coming soon—made Ryan stupidly happy. He chided himself. He had things to do—a lot of things. The ranch wasn’t going to run itself. He had a full day ahead of him, and would have had a full day, in fact, even if that day were far longer than twenty-four hours. And yet, here he was pondering how he could wait around for her without it seeming like he was waiting around for her.
His mother would laugh at him if she knew.
He considered his options. He could find something to work on at the guest cottage, so he’d be there when she arrived. Or he could find something to work on at the old barn. Or there were the various areas of the ranch within sight of the road she would use to drive in—he could just happen to be replacing a fence post near the gate that led to Kendrick’s place.
Then he realized that was stupid. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Gen again. When she picked up, he said, “Call me when you get here. I want to see you.”
“I will,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.