“I can’t promise that, but I’ll see. I think Clancy has a farm already in mind and almost under contract, so we might be okay.” She didn’t want to mess up Hawk and Dawn’s relationship, although from what she’d noticed, Hawk adored the woman. If Dawn wanted to film at his farm, he’d say yes.
“What farm?” Adam asked.
Bianca stretched, slow and indulgent. “The Willoughbys’ Farm, wherever that is.” Clancy did a great job finding locals, although that wasn’t his primary job.
“Interesting. All right. I’m meeting Hawk early tomorrow to mend some fences, and I’m sure it’ll still be raining. My day is packed. Do you want to join me for a later dinner, maybe at Paul’s Pizza Joint?”
Another date. With Adam. The thought warmed her clear through. “I would,” she murmured, pausing just long enough to make him wait. “How did you get my phone number, anyway?”
“You gave it to the city clerk at the meeting tonight. Everyone has it, darlin’.”
Just wonderful.
CHAPTER 5
Rain came down in sheets, the kind that soaked through denim and turned every step into a negotiation with mud. Adam killed his truck engine and sat for a moment, wipers thudding back and forth, watching Hawk wrestle a fence post upright one-handed. Hawk leaned into it with his shoulder, boots sliding, jaw set, as if stubbornness alone might count as leverage.
The sky hung low and bruised, clouds dragging themselves across the hills. The pasture beyond the fence had turned dark and slick, puddles forming in every shallow dip. Thunder rolled somewhere far off, slow and heavy, followed by a silence that pressed down hard enough to feel personal.
Adam climbed out, glad he’d chosen to drive instead of ride his horse. Cold rain slapped his face and ran down the back of his neck. The ground sucked at his boots as he slogged toward the fence line.
Hawk looked over. Rain streaked down his face, collecting in the lines at the corners of his mouth. His cast was wrapped in a garbage bag and duct tape, swollen and ugly, already sagging with water. “Mornin’.”
“You’re supposed to be healing,” Adam said. “Not auditioning for Man vs. Weather.”
Hawk grinned. “Dawn tried that argument.”
“And?”
“Lost.”
Adam shook his head. “She should’ve tried harder.”
“She did,” Hawk said. “Then she figured you’d be out here alone fixing the fence line, so I might as well come out.”
Adam snorted. He’d never intended to buy one of the ranches in the area, but when in Rome and all of that. So long as he combined his cattle with Hawk’s, he was fine being a cowboy when he wasn’t at the bar. He glanced at the fence line. “This is a mess.”
The fence was wrecked with posts snapped low and wire pulled loose and sagging. A cottonwood had come down hard in the night, roots torn clean out of the earth, leaving a raw crater filled with brown water and churned mud. Branches lay tangled across the line, dragging wire down with them.
“Yep. Spring in Montana,” Hawk said easily.
Adam stepped into the muck and got to work, because that was what he did. He took the heavy end, hauling posts upright while Hawk steadied them and tied wire where he could. The rhythm came back fast—pull, brace, pound. The mud tried to steal his footing every time he shifted. “Tell me again why I decided to ranch?”
“It’s fun and good money, plus a way of life, I guess.” Hawk moved slower than usual, careful of the cast, but he stayed at it. Sitting still had never been one of his strengths.
They worked in silence for a bit, the only sounds the rain, the thud of the post driver, wire rasping, and horses shifting uneasily in the far field.
Hawk tied off an end. “How was dinner last night?”
“Fine.” Adam drove the post harder than necessary.
Hawk’s mouth twitched. “Fine?”
“Don’t start,” Adam said.
“I’m not starting,” Hawk said. “I’m asking.”
Adam bent and pulled the wire taut, forearms burning. “It was dinner. That’s it.”