Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(3)

The herd had been under attack for months now. Wolves were back in the area, and she couldn’t protect the cattle. Lord knew, she’d tried. How many days and nights had she been waiting out there with a rifle? Still, they came in relentless numbers to take her animals. The losses had stacked up, and each cow eaten hurt the herd, frightened them, and took money out of her pocket.

With this life, there were good and bad years. This year, for Maris, had been brutal.

She didn’t know what she would do next. All she knew was that a ranch without cattle wasn’t a ranch at all, and her identity as a person, a woman, and a rancher was dissolving with this sale.

“Ma’am?” a deep voice asked from behind her. “Are you okay?”

Maris turned around, expecting to find one of the auction workers, but found the cowboy version of Paul Bunyan instead. “Holy shit,” she uttered before she could swallow the words back down. Being alone so much made her really terrible at social gatherings. She was too practiced in talking to herself to keep her thoughts inside anymore.

The cowboy was tall, well over six foot, and wide in the shoulders like the broadside of a barn. A deep brown cowboy hat hung over dark eyebrows and brown eyes. His dark beard was thick and nearly hid the thin line of the man’s lips. In the chill of the morning, he looked warm with a black long-sleeved shirt buttoned up most of the way. The top one was undone, though, and she could make out light tattoos on his neck and throat. His boots were scuffed, covered in speckles of cow shit and mud, and his wranglers were worn.

She recognized the man; she just hadn’t seen him in a few years.

“You… You’re Bryson Locke,” she murmured. “You work over at the Kaid Brother’s Ranch.” She searched her memory for the tidbits of gossip that always swirled around in a small town, especially in a small ranching community. “Ranch manager?”

The man leaned on the railing to the cattle pen next to her and dragged his eyes from her to her herd restlessly milling around inside. “That ain’t my job, but yeah. Bryson.” He scratched the corner of his lip with his thumbnail. “And you are?”

“Oh. I’m Maris.”

“I thought so, but I’ve never actually seen you before. I recognized the brand,” he said, gesturing to her cows. “You’re the little ranch on our border.”

This giant was intimidating to stand next to. He felt so much bigger than even his gigantic physical body. “Yeah, the Kaids talk to me from time to time if they’re near my fence and I happen to be there.”

“Your fence?” he asked, his eyebrows arching up under his hat as he looked her up and down. Surprise was swirling in his eyes.

She gritted her teeth and gave her attention back to the cows. “Typical. You just had the same reaction every man around here does. A woman rancher, no help, no man, she’ll definitely fail. Well, you’re all being proved right today. I’m folding.”

“That ain’t what I meant.”

“It is, and you know it is. I don’t like sugar-coating shit much anymore. Honesty will keep me in a conversation. You have a good day, Mr. Locke.”

“Oh, I’m dismissed, huh?” Why was he smiling like that? “Put your quills away, lady. I was surprised you didn’t list your man with you when you claimed that fence is all. I thought Dallas Farrel owned that property.”

“No. Willow Switch Ranch is about the only thing that’s mine.”

His eyes were narrowed again, and he faced her, shoulder leaning up against the fence still. “Why are you selling breeding cows and their calves at this time of year?”

“For money.” If he wasn’t going to leave, she would.

It had been raining for a week straight and the mud was up to her ankles, so she mucked carefully through it toward the auction doors, but he called after her, “I’m the same, you know.”

“You work for a big, successful ranch that brings in more income in a single sale day than I make in a decade. We aren’t the same.”

“Not what I meant.”

With a sigh, she turned back around and took the bait. “Then what did you mean?”

“I don’t like liars either. You just told one.” He tapped his temple. “I got a sense for that stuff. You ain’t selling for money. Or not only for money. Now we’re even. A lie for a lie. Now let’s play a truth for a truth. You go first.”

Huh. Maris swallowed hard. Why was he so tempting to talk to? She’d had a plan. Stay bitter and angry at men the rest of her life and live alone as a prickly little grumpy cactus on her little slice of heaven-property for the rest of her days. But here was this giant man with tattoos all over his neck and hands, cow shit on his boots, eyes that were trained on her and much too interested, and she wanted to unload on him. She wanted to tell one person about her failures just so she wasn’t the only one in the world who shouldered them. And what could it hurt? She would probably never see him again.

No one understood the failures of a rancher like other ranchers.

“Predators are carving out my herd.” She twitched her head toward the cattle in the pen, still making a ruckus with their bawling. “They’re all I got left. And I know I’m not supposed to be attached. They’re business, right? Fuck.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed so she wouldn’t cry in front of this stranger. “You caught me on a bad day, at the end of a bad month, at the tail of a bad fuckin’ year. Every one of those cows has names. They’re a good herd. I love them. Every time I lose one to a predator, it eats at me, and not just because I’m bleeding money, but because their lives are being wasted.”