Page 27 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“A lot of times people perceive my curiosity as being insensitive. That’s kind of a lifelong pattern for me.”

“I don’t think I would ever see it that way. Interest strikes me as sensitivity in a way.”

“Oh. I guess… I guess I can understand that.”

“Makes sense to me.”

“You have plans tonight?”

“Well, I was thinking that I would probably do a little bit of writing on my discovery so far, and a little bit of writing on my…” She wrinkled her nose. He was beginning to notice that she did that when she was a little bit uncomfortable. “My manuscript.”

“You’re writing a book?”

“Yes. Though, I fear this is where I’m not very original. And I do know that. Because it’s a fantasy novel, and I feel like a Tolkien-derived fantasy is a relatively unoriginal bit of text.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I mean, probably you doing it is what’s going to make it unique.”

“I don’t need to be unique. I also don’t really need anybody to read it, so it’s okay if it is unoriginal. It’s mainly for me. Just something to let my imagination run wild with.”

She was such an interesting person. Because in all honesty, he wasn’t sure he had much of an imagination left. Not after so many years of abuse and neglect. He had discipline. Focus. But this little scientist had all of this whimsy contained in her head. Whole worlds, and it was hard not to be completely fascinated by that.

“Do you dig every day?”

“I probably won’t dig tomorrow. There’s a point where I have to give my body a rest. If I don’t, I’m just going to pay for it.”

It was funny the way she didn’t think of this work, her work, as being physical, because he was sure it was the kind of thing that would take an immense toll on your body if you did it uninterrupted for a long time. “You’re kind of an athlete,” he said.

She laughed. “I am the furthest thing from an athlete.”

“Well, I think you are. It takes a lot of stamina to be out here in the sun like this. Coordination to climb around on the rocks. A lot of muscle.”

She snorted. “Hardly.”

“Well,” he said. “My actual point in saying all this is that I was wondering if you would want to do a little bit of a ride along with me tomorrow. If you’re not working.”

“A ride along?”

“Yeah. I was wondering if you would be interested in seeing the way the ranch works.”

Her eyes lit up. He had never made someone so happy doing so little.

“I… I would love that. I would love to get a window into how the ranch works. It sounds great.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I just think that would be the coolest thing. I… Thank you.”

“No problem.”

He felt good, having had the conversation with her. And then as he was driving away from the site, his phone rang.

It was the county, and at this point, when he saw that number on his phone he got a little bit sick.

“This is Jax.”

“Hi, Mr. Noble. We want to come out and do an inspection on the floodplain early next week. Are you going to be there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be there.”