He laughed as they traveled down the road, dirt flying behind them. He was in his element; he loved this. He loved showing off his land. And they were going to see cattle in a minute that he loved showing off. But he loved a good night sky. “I’ll tell you, on that, you and I are alike. I could lay out under the stars and just look at them for the longest time. I’m going to take you up on that and I know just where to take you so you can see them. Here on the ranch you can see them good, but there’s still a little bit of light twinkling in, if you know what I mean. And when the little bit of light comes in, it diminishes them some. Because it’s so dark out here, you think you’re seeing all of it but I’ll show you one night—we’ll go to the cliff and I’ll show you.”
She stared at him, a serious look on her face. “You’re just scaring me, Levi Tanner. You and I have a lot in common, it seems like.”
He cocked his head to the side, hung his hand over the steering wheel, and gave her a little grin. “I guess. Is that a bad thing?”
Her pretty eyes dug into him, made his stomach wobble and his toes curl up. It was a good feeling.
“No, I believe it’s actually a really nice thing. Means we’re going to be friends. Which is kind of unbelievable, seeing the way that we first got to know each other, don’t you think?”
He laughed and threw his head back. Then he grinned at her. “I think we’re not supposed to talk about that first night because we definitely didn’t have that in common—you taking those photos and me tackling you like a football player, if I had to, running your car into the water and having to pull you out. Yup…bad, bad situation. But me and wedding crashers do not get along. I am surely glad you weren’t a real one.”
She chuckled a little bit herself. “Me too. I felt so sleazy that night. I’m just so glad to have that off my conscience. And again, I’m so grateful for this opportunity that you’re giving me. It’s just almost unbelievable. I was telling my mom a little bit ago and she couldn’t believe it either, so I’m thanking my lucky stars that I met you. Well, I’m thanking my lucky stars that you chased me down and pretty much demanded you get that photo disk from me. Otherwise none of this would have happened—you would have just gone on hating me and we would have never known what we were missing out on.”
Boy, she had that right. He had a stubborn streak in him and today he was very thankful for that. If it hadn’t been for that stubborn streak and determination to take care of business and get that photo disk from her, he’d have just been sitting around angry about it instead of riding with her around his ranch, thinking about getting to know her better. Yeah, sometimes a stubborn streak could be a guy’s best friend.
Chapter Six
“That is one big bull.” Rita stared across the pasture at the biggest, most massive, red bull. He had said what kind it was, but she had missed that; she had been in such shock, looking at the big monster. It glared at her from across the twenty feet that separated them. Her hand gripped the chicken handle—the handle on the ATV that she could use to get in or out of the vehicle. Right now, she was hanging onto it just in case Levi had to gun the gas pedal and get them out of the way of that thing. He was a leviathan.
“Oh, that’s just Tiny. He’s not mean. And we’re not selling him. That there little fella makes this ranch a whole lot of money. He’s got babies running around all across the country.”
“How?”
He stared at her, apparently realizing that not everyone was a rancher. “Well, um, we do a lot of artificial insemination. It’s all about the genetics and he’s got the best.”
Her eyebrows dipped and her mouth fell open slightly.
He laughed. “A little too much information?”
She chuckled. “I’m getting an education.”
“So here is the deal. I don’t talk a lot about that black gold that runs wild under this ground and pumps cash into our bank accounts and makes all those paparats want to chase us around and get into our business. But that big boy right there, little Tiny, he’s worth almost as much as that black gold is. Well, not really, but in my eyes, there’s nothing better than a great herd and he’s a champion herd builder. If I had to choose between the oil or Tiny, I’d pick Tiny any day.”
Rita took in what he said. She truly believed after getting to know him that he could walk away from the billions the family had. She studied the animal. He was huge and she understood now, that as long as he could produce—and obviously, he could produce a lot of offspring—that people must pay a lot for the privilege of having a calf from him. Still, she made a note to herself that whether they told her he was harmless or not, Toby was not going to get near that animal or any of the others that they had seen. This ranch life took some getting used to. Tiny might make great offspring but he wasn’t getting the chance to hurt her offspring. He was just too big.
And he wasn’t the only one. There were a lot of cattle to photograph. From what he said, they had just scratched the surface of the animals she was going to be taking pictures of.
“So, really, were you serious when you said you want me to take a picture of their good side, like you want them smiling or something?”
His grin was big. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say we want them smiling. But just say for instance, if you were taking a picture of Tiny—not that he likes getting his picture taken; he gets a little irritated like me when it comes to getting our photos taken. But using him as an example, if you were taking his picture, you’d want to make sure that you show off his good parts, like how solid he is from his hips to his shoulders. You show that he’s strong-looking. And you’d want all those muscles showing in the shot. And like on some of the heifers—they’ve never had a baby but people are buying them to carry babies, and the pictures need to show a good side view of their midsection.”
“So what’s bad and what’s good?”
“Oh, okay, remember I showed you earlier how the cow was nice and wide, had depth, giving her a lot of space for carrying the calf? That’s all important stuff, so sometimes if you take a picture from a bad angle, it doesn’t show all the good stuff. By the time this job is done, you’ll be a professional cattle photographer. You might not want to take wedding photos of bridezillas.”
She grinned at the guy. He made her grin a lot. “Well, you could be right. I have taken on a few bridezillas before and they aren’t fun to photograph nor their bridesmaidzillas. And I’ve had some groomzillas, too. But, for the most part, everyone has been great. Media just exaggerates the worst.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“Well, I think that’s because, Levi Tanner, you’re a very smart man. I honestly don’t know why anybody would marry somebody who wanted to act ugly like that. But then again, you know, there’s always two sides to a story—like you and me. We definitely had our sides of the story.”
“And there you go again, bringing up that night. You know we weren’t going to talk about that and you keep bringing it up.”
She could not help herself. She reached out and thumped his shoulder with her finger. “Just because I like to see you get all riled up. It’s cute.”