Off to the Races: A Small Town Enemies to Lovers Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 1)

After settling DD into the paddock just outside my back door and tossing him some fresh hay, I make my way back out front to find Vaughn sitting on the porch swing. He looks almost too big to be sitting on it, too broad, too tall, too much.

I’ve always thought he looked edible in a suit, if a little ridiculous on the farm in the middle of nowhere. But this jeans and a t-shirt look definitely tops the office candy one he usually has going.

A heathered grey V-neck leaves a lot less to the imagination than a dress shirt. I can almost see the lines beneath the fabric that I traced the other night with my finger. The outline of his pectorals is square and stands out over his flat stomach and tapered waist. I wonder if he’d lift it up just a few inches so I could actually see what’s under there? My working hypothesis is that there’s a six pack. Eight pack is also possible. Those last two abs might just pop out because he’s so uptight he’s constantly clenching.

I breeze up the steps. “Come on in, Boss Man,” I say, holding the door open for him.

He looks at me like I’m a grenade that could go off at any moment, but follows anyway. Smart man.

I chuckle to myself. It makes sense Mr. Uptight would be nervous around me. I haven’t exactly proven myself as cool and collected where he’s concerned. But it’s like he knows where my secret switchboard is and knows exactly which switch to flip to make me fly off the handle.

Waltzing into the kitchen, I open the fridge and grab two frosty glass bottles before turning back to face him across the island.

“Lager or pale ale?” I ask, holding up both options.

“Lager,” he replies, pointing at the amber bottle.

I turn towards the cupboards. “Excellent. Bottle, glass, or sippy cup?”

I don’t even need to look behind myself to know he is shaking his head since I seem to provoke that response from him frequently.

“Sippy cup it is.” I wink over my shoulder with a sly smile.

“Bottle is good.” He sighs. And sure enough, shakes his head.

I twist the cap off and slide the beer across to him before leaning against the opposite counter and taking a swig of my beer.

He looks tired. Like, exhausted. Hot, always stupid hot, but honestly a little haggard with disheveled hair, and a tense set to his mouth. He sits on the bar stool, shoulders slumped over the island. Guilt niggles at me, and I press my palm just above my breasts to push it away. With a dark lock flopped over his forehead, he looks like a lost little boy.

He stares at his beer bottle, silently picking at the label. I don’t know what to say to him, so I let my typical instinct take over. I’m going to feed him.

“Do you have any food allergies?”

Dark chocolate eyes shoot up to mine. “No.”

“Are you a picky bitch about eating anything?”

“No.” He focuses back on his bottle again, but quirks up one side of his sinful mouth.

I’ve been up close and personal with that mouth, so it’s hard to forget. Some nights, when I’m alone in bed, I relive our interaction against the fence that night and kick myself for not just kissing the colossal idiot. My mind plays out what it would have been like, where we would have ended up. And then I usually flash to the hundreds of pictures of him on the internet with some new and expensive looking woman draped on his arm and give my head a shake. No distractions and no rich playboys. Nope. No siree. Not for this gal. Career goals and nice normal dudes are the winning ticket.

Without a word to him, I pull out a couple steaks from the fridge and walk out the back door to fire up the barbecue. I check in on DD. He looks happy in his new special digs, and I like knowing he’s out there. The weekends have been lonely at the house all by myself, so I cleaned the pen up specifically hoping I could get him over here at some point. We’d been having a nice leisurely walk over until the man-child had to burn in here and ruin it. The good news is DD rebounded quickly; he didn’t stay worked up. The little chicken pulled himself together. He’s trusting me.

When I rejoin Vaughn in the kitchen, he hasn’t really moved, except now he’s tearing up the label and leaving little torn pieces in a pile.

I season the steaks and wash and chop the vegetables for skewers right in front of him, but he says nothing. His pile continues to grow until I can’t take it anymore. “Are you building a baby bonfire there, Boss Man?”

He stops.

“Sorry. I kind of zoned out. I didn’t really even realize what I was doing.” He sighs and leans back.

“Something on your mind?” I probe, not looking up from cutting the zucchini into perfect coins.

“Too much,” he responds on an audible exhale, piercing me with his dark eyes.

He’s looking more and more like a storm cloud. It’s easy to forget he’s really my boss when we’re being so combative with each other. My filter falls to the wayside and I say regrettable things, often just for the sake of riling him up. Super mature, I know. But now his silence and contemplative looks are getting me worried. I chance another look up at him as I move on to boiling the potatoes. He’s still staring at me.

“Look, I’m sorry. I owe you an apology. Maybe over one apology, actually. I haven’t been my most professional around you. I’ll be the first to admit that you have a super special ability to just completely set me off. And I know I have a temper, it’s not my best character trait,” I ramble on, “but I love working here. The staff, the horses.” I sigh wistfully. “The whole place is a dream.”

He says nothing.

“And look,” I exclaim, pointing out the back wall of windows, “I’m even riding your devil horse with a modicum of success. He’ll be ready to race this season! I promise you.”

“Billie,” he cuts me off, “stop rambling.”

“You just looked like… I don’t know. Like you were coming up with ways to fire me or something.”

Vaughn blinks slowly and massages his temples. “Some days you’re a lot of work. But no. I was trying to come up with a way to apologize to you,” he grumbles out.

Oh. Well, that’s a relief.

“Is that why you looked so constipated?”

God, Billie, really? Yup. That’s what I come up with. Even I impress myself sometimes.

He holds both hands up in front of himself, and drops his mouth open, as if to say, “seriously?”

“Where did you learn your manners?”

“Private school. Where rich kids get away with behaving badly.” I turn to get our steaks going on the barbecue.

“And here I could have sworn wolves raised you,” he says to my back.

To be fair, he’s not far off.

“Just call me Mowgli,” I toss over my shoulder as I head out the door.

The rest of our dinner passes in peace. We sit at the antique dining table and make polite small talk as the evening sun slowly descends behind the mountains. He compliments me on dinner and even takes seconds. At one point, I tell him I accept his non-apology apology which earns me a dramatic eye-roll.

When I offer him another beer, he merely grunts and shoos me away while he takes over clean up. While he does the dishes, I perch on the kitchen counter, enjoying the way his corded forearms flex and ripple as he scrubs the dishes. Has any man ever made doing domestic chores look this good?

Vaughn’s frame is so large that even though I try to move away from the sink, we’re not that far apart. Maybe a foot separates my thigh from his waist. And yeah, I’m looking. No man with a face like his should also be able to fill out a pair of jeans the way he does. It’s almost criminal. All sharp masculine planes and dark brooding eyes paired with these powerful toned legs.

It’s not fair. At least I can take comfort in the fact that his personality sucks. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

“I think we should try to be friends,” I blurt out.

He snorts and continues scrubbing the plate in his hand.

“I’m serious. I’m tired of being combative. I don’t want to walk on eggshells around you anymore. Water under the bridge and all that,” I say, waving my hand dismissively. “Sitting here with you is better than sitting here alone all the time.”

Okay, maybe that was taking it a bit far. But deep down, I know that even in his weird mood and with his sucky personality, having some human company is a pleasant change of pace.

“Okay, Mowgli,” he replies with a faint smirk, still avoiding eye contact.

I swat his chest playfully and then dramatically pull it back to myself, as though I’m cradling an injury. “Are you wearing a bullet-proof vest under there?” I tease.

He finally graces me with a wry, but forced, smile. “Gotta be ready for anything around you, Billie.”

We sink back into silence. He’s unusually contemplative tonight. I haven’t been able to find a single trace of smugness. And trust me, I’ve spent all night looking. I just gave him a perfect opening to lay a cocky remark down on me and he let it sail right past his head.

After a few beats of total quiet, I sneak a peek at him out of the corner of my eye. He looks very serious. I can’t help but wonder what’s going through his mind. I lean closer, like I’ll be able to see his thoughts floating around somewhere down in his ear canal. (I can’t.)

I drink him in from this proximity. Dark stubble peppers his cheeks and neck, and a dusting of chest hair peeks at me from the lowest dip of his v-neck. The fresh smell of laundry detergent is a new addition to his sweet almond scent. He’s intoxicating, and I breathe him in against my better judgement.

“Do friends sniff each other?” he asks.

Fuck. Busted.

I clear my throat and shift back away from him. “No, but they check in with each other when they can tell something is wrong,” I reply, picking at something on my sweater that isn’t there.

I think I’ve struck a nerve because he leans forward, gripping the counter, and drops his head.

I sigh. “Vaughn, are you okay?”

A strangled “no” escapes his full lips. Like it physically pains him to even respond to me at all.

My heart cracks a little at his broken tone, his defeated posture. I might not like him very much, but he sounds borderline distraught. He’s been strength and confidence since I met him, and it feels just wrong to see him like this.

A tight lump forms in my throat and I can’t help but reach out to him. I pause when my hand gets close to his face. He shows no signs of distress at my proximity, so I push my hand closer, stroking a loose lock of his hair between my thumb and middle finger, before reverently combing it back into place, dragging a few tips of my fingers against the scalp of his bowed head.

He doesn’t move, and I’m emboldened to repeat the motion a couple of times. His eyelids flutter shut. The shadows from the porch light play across his profile and I lick my lips. This brooding schtick is dangerous.

Get your shit together, Billie.

“Want to talk about it?” He shakes his head.

My hand rests softly on the back of his neck when I whisper, “Do you need a hug?”

The silence in the house is deafening, and I shift awkwardly on the counter, already regretting my offer. I’m mentally chastising myself so hard that I almost miss his quiet, “Yes.”

Vaughn rises and with one large side-step moves between my legs. When he almost instantly wraps his steely arms around my waist, I can’t hold back the sigh that escapes my lips. He feels so warm and solid pressed up against me—soft and vulnerable.

I snake both my arms around his neck and we melt into each other. I’ve never hugged a person who needed to be held so badly. It should feel strange, hugging your boss like this, but wrapping myself around Vaughn Harding in the middle of my kitchen feels like the most natural thing in the world.

The air thrums between us as he burrows his face in my neck. My skin prickles with awareness at the feel of his stubble. I wish I could pry him open and figure out what’s wrong, but I also know we only talk about our darkest thoughts when we’re good and ready. God knows I have enough of my own secrets lurking beneath the surface.

Sometimes silence is what a person really needs.

I don’t know how long we stand there holding each other, I’m zoned out until I feel Vaughn’s thumb draw soft circles on the small of my back, just beneath the hemline of my sweater. Skin on skin. Arousal races up my spine, and my relaxed heartbeat crescendos. I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I also can’t help the way my body reacts to his touch. It’s something deep and undeniable, a chemical reaction. Like pouring vinegar over baking soda.

I sigh and arch into his chest, feeling the hardness of his body rasp across my erect nipples.

“Billie.” His voice is raw when he whispers my name against the shell of my ear. When he draws back to look at me, his eyes are hazy, more lidded than usual. Apparently, our embrace wasn’t only wreaking havoc on my will.

I know I shouldn’t, but I reach up and drag one hand through his dark hair. Vaughn’s chest rumbles, and he drops his forehead against mine. My inner thighs clench his hips as I press myself closer. This is altogether too intimate, and I know it. He knows it too. But neither of us seem able to stop ourselves.

When he gently feathers the tips of his fingers up the side of my neck, goosebumps pour down between my shoulder blades. He strokes the bottom of my chin, and I tip my face up to bask in the heat of his gaze. My body follows the lead of his, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

And when his warm lips descend onto mine, I sigh, like we’ve done this a million times before.

The kiss is chaste. Reverent.

But my body doesn’t care, it reacts like this is the most passionate kiss in the history of mankind. My breath stutters in my lungs, my stomach drops, the arches of my feet ache, and my core goes damp all at once.

This might be the best kiss of my life.

I pull away on a gasp. What the fuck am I thinking?

Vaughn steps back instantly, holding his hands up like I’m a scared animal. “I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

I press the tips of my fingers onto my lips, trying to erase the feeling of his imprinted on mine. We’d been yelling at each other not two hours ago—what is wrong with us? I slip off the counter, needing some space from his body—from him. Like space is what will somehow dull the intense tug I feel towards him now.

“Water. Want some water?” I offer as I round the island to grab a glass.

“Fuck, Billie. That was so out of line. I’m all fucked up. The hug was…” He combs his hands through his hair. His chest rises to full height and then falls on a whoosh of air, almost vibrating with tension. “I needed the hug. Thank you. But I took advantage.” Dark, sincere eyes dart to mine. “I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again.”

I stare straight back at him. “It can’t happen again. But you did not take advantage. We can chalk the whole thing up to temporary insanity.”

The corner of his mouth tips up, but he looks melancholy as I move to sit at the kitchen table.

“Why don’t you sit down?” I point to the opposite end of the rectangular table. “At that end, so there’s no funny business, and tell me what’s going on.”

He groans and shakes his head. Apparently too fucking macho to talk about his feelings.

I hold one hand across my heart. “Vaughn Harding, I solemnly swear that I will go back to relentlessly taunting you effective Monday morning. No one keeps a secret better than me.” I look up at the ceiling momentarily. If he only knew. “Trust me.”

His dark eyes dart around the house before landing on me. He looks like DD, avoiding eye contact. Scared of making a connection.

He sits across from me, hands flat on the table, and says, “I don’t know where to start.”

Less is more in a situation like this, so I say nothing. I know I won’t be able to solve whatever is eating at him, but I also know that being able to tell someone, anyone, is cathartic—for me, that someone is horses.

His fingers trace the grain of the wood tabletop, swirling around every knot, gliding down every line. It’s almost hypnotic.

“First, I was angry.” Vaughn’s voice is so soft that I barely hear him. “Now…” He looks away, out the dark window. “Now, I just feel overwhelmingly sad. Helpless. And I don’t know how to get out from underneath it. I don’t know how to stop.”

Sounds familiar to me.

“Everyone keeps telling me how I should feel. What the proper stages of grief are,” he scoffs, “or whatever. But it’s not a fit, you know?”

I nod—I do know.

“I was only ten when my dad died. Of course, I was devastated, but it just didn’t hit me the same. I didn’t understand it the same. My brother up and left, my mom struggled, and my grandfather stepped in to fill that void through the most memorable years of my life. And now, I’m just…” his voice cracks and he clears his throat to bat it away, “really fucking sad. I keep hoping that I can prove him innocent, clear his reputation, but I don’t think I can.”

I trail my finger down the outside of my glass, watching the condensation trickle in its wake. “Maybe he’s not innocent.” Vaughn’s head shoots up to look at me. “Maybe he’s not, and, you know, that’s okay. People aren’t black and white; they’re just shades of gray. Maybe he did some bad things, made some bad choices, but that doesn’t make him bad. It doesn’t negate all the wonderful things he did for you or the important role he played in your life. He can be both.”

I huff out a breath. This is a conversation I’ve had many a time. Except with a horse. Best listeners in the world. Telling another human is new, but I forge ahead. “You can feel disappointed, and angry, and sad, and whatever the fuck else you want to feel. You can feel whatever you want. There is no right order or right way. You’re entitled to it all. Because at the end of the day, he’s not here to explain things to you, so it all just comes down to how much you can forgive. How much you can accept. And there’s not a single other person in the world who can tell you what that threshold is.” I look up at him now. “But you need to keep searching for it, no matter how much it hurts, because otherwise it will eat you alive.”

“Jesus.” Vaughn drops his head into his hands and mumbles, “Never thought I’d be getting good advice from crazy Billie Black. How do you know all this?”

“Because I’m still looking for that threshold.”