April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) by Dani April Page B

dawn.”
    He was still just as handsome as she remembered him. He was ten years older than she was but still had the young and rugged face of a cowboy, and his body was lean and hard. He had a full head of curly black hair, thick eyebrows, and a firm jaw, plus a self-confidence that told you he could do anything he set his mind to doing.
    “It’s so good to see you again, Tyler,” she told him.
    She walked with him as he worked. He was carrying some boxes of some kind of equipment from the side of his trailer and loading up the bed of his truck.
    “Let me help you with that?” she asked him.
    “No, you’re the ranch boss now. I’m your hand. Anyway you’ve got too many other things to think about on your first day out here than wire for the south forty fences.”
    “Tyler,” Raven said seriously, not knowing how to begin with him. “Connor told me about what happened to your wife. I want to tell you how sorry I am…”
    “Thanks, Raven,” he told her, but she could see a dark cloud pass over his face when she mentioned the death of his wife to him, and she remembered Connor told her that he wasn’t really over it yet, even after three years. “That’s in the past,” he said, “best to forget about it and move on.”
    “I want you to know how happy I was when I found out you were one of my ranch hands.” She smiled at him and tried changing the subject. “I remember you from when I was young. You had your own ranch back then.”
    “Yeah,” he said and stopped to wipe sweat off his brow, tilting his hat back on his head. “I was the youngest rancher in the county back then, probably about your age when I started.”
    “You were always so sure and confident. I know my grandfather thought the world of you, and I thought you could do anything.” Raven laughed and decided to come clean with him. “To tell you the truth I always had a little bit of a schoolgirl crush on you. I guess that sounds pretty silly, huh?”
    He nodded but didn’t laugh. “Raven, we have to talk,” he told her. He had just finished loading up the last of the boxes into his truck.
    “Sure, Tyler.” She wondered what on earth he could have for her on her first day.
    “Is that little dirt bike parked down there yours?” he asked, nodding back down the road to her trailer.
    “Yes, that’s mine. It really isn’t a dirt bike. It’s a Kawasaki. I used that to get around the city, and Connor packed it in the bed of his truck for me when he brought me out here. That’s the only item I had in the city that I couldn’t have parted with.”
    “Why don’t we take a walk down there and you show it to me. I’d like to see it, and we can have a talk.”
    “Okay.”
    He put his hand on the small of her back and escorted her down the long gravel driveway, heading back toward her trailer.
    “What on earth do you think you’re doing out here, Raven?” he asked.
    “What do you mean, Tyler?” She looked up at him and had to fight to keep the hurt out of her eyes.
    “Just what I said.” His voice was firm and hard. “What is a young and beautiful girl like you, and from the city no less, doing out here on this dirty, old ranch?”
    “My grandfather left me the Lazy L in his will.” Raven swallowed and felt she had just been struck by him.
    “Raven, this ranch is dying,” he told her, and she looked up into his face to see his honest but hard eyes staring back at her. “Hell, the Lazy L has been dead for years. Now that George Spencer is dead she’s not going to last the rest of the summer.”
    “Connor showed me the main house yesterday. I know it’s in bad need of repair, but…”
    “That isn’t what I’m talking about,” he interrupted her, his voice hard and sure. “The entire ranch is in up to its eyeballs in debt to the bank. We’re going to be foreclosed on unless we can send a record herd to market in the fall and get top dollar for each and every head.”
    “Connor told me there were a few problems, but