She saw him tying his horse to the trunk of a dogwood tree and she that just watching him wouldn't be enough.
His buckskin gelding nuzzled his shoulder before scrounging around for tufts of burnt out grass for lunch. Dusty had pulled his own meal out of his saddlebag and had taken it to a grassy mound near the stream that snaked through the valley. The water supply nurtured it to a healthier shade of green like lima beans and she knew from experience, it made a soft cushion for any cowboy hoping to rest his heels for a spell.
But Dusty wasn't just any cowboy, he was what she called eye candy because she had watched him grow up from a scraggly teenage kids with attitude to a leanly muscled adult male who filled out nicely even as he grew up. His face appeared carved out of granite having lost its baby fat and his eye matched his wardrobe of faded jeans and a workshirt.
He could tote haybales one after the other from the truck to the barn, all afternoon if necessary and his body had known riding horses since before he walked. After finishing high school, he had split his time between working the livestock over his daddy's spread and attending business school two towns away at night. That didn't leave him much time for anything else at least until the weekends but Dusty had always been the focused type ever since his mother died. She'd taken sick one night and had died three days later, leaving him without her guidance most of her life.
Now she on the other hand had parents she had chosen to leave when she turned 15 and got herself emancipated. She had been hired to work the ranch the next day and bunked in the cabin which she had managed to fix up quite nicely with Dusty's help. He'd been like the big brother she had never had or wanted, in fact because what she wanted from the brawny man...
She bit her lip and rode her chestnut mare up to the clearing so she could tie it up next to Dusty's horse. The mare nickered when she saw her friend, the gelding and even though it made no sense, the two horses had always gotten along like family. She dismounted and pulled her own lunch out of her saddlebag including a bottle of water which slid down her throat nicely removing the coating of dust that had left it parched.
The weather proved to be arid most of the time in the valley and on spring afternoons like this, could get quite warm, pushing the envelope on the arrival of summer. That season never failed to produce an insufferable blanket of heat and humidity that could choke those who worked the land.
"Caroline..."
Damn he had seen her and sure enough he sat there looking at her having just finished his sandwich.
She walked over to him, feeling comfortable enough in her worn jeans that molded nicely to her lithe figure and her cotton shirt protecting her from the heat. He smiled and patted the spot next to him.
"Come sit a spell."
She looked at him warily.
"I remember what happened in the barn."
His mouth quirked.
"You mean when I kissed you."
She nodded.
"Yeah that and then you took off on your horse like you were challenging me," she said, "and now I'm here."
