Heat radiated from him despite the layers of clothing between them. This close, she caught his scent, leather and sage and something distinctly male that made her head spin. Cole and Tucker mounted their own horses with the same easy confidence. Cole tied her trunk to his saddle while Tucker took the lead.
They moved out of town at an easy pace, and Eleanor tried desperately to calm her racing thoughts. She was pressed against a stranger, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist, riding toward a ranch with three identical brothers who apparently all lived together. What had seemed like a simple escape from poverty now felt impossibly complicated. But there was no going back.
She had spent her last dollar on the clothes she wore. The boarding house had already rented her tiny room to someone else. Everything she owned was tied to Cole's saddle. This was her life now, for better or worse.
The landscape changed as they rode, the scrubby desert giving way to rolling hills dotted with cattle. The sun began its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink. Despite her anxiety, Eleanor could not help but notice the stark beauty of this wild place. Nothing like the crowded, dirty streets of Boston.
Here the sky stretched endlessly, and the air tasted clean and fresh. Jake's voice rumbled close to her ear. "The ranch has been in our family for 15 years. Our parents started it, but they both passed five years ago. Winter fever took them both within a week of each other."
"It has just been the three of us since then." Eleanor felt a pang of sympathy. "I lost my parents young, too. Yellow fever when I was 12." His arm tightened slightly around her waist.
"Then you understand what it means to be alone in the world." She did. That understanding, that shared loss, created an unexpected connection between them. They rode in silence for a while, and Eleanor found herself relaxing slightly into Jake's embrace.
His body was solid, warm, reassuring. She felt safer than she had in years. Finally, they crested a hill and she saw it. The Triple Bar Ranch spread out in the valley below.
A large main house, weathered but well maintained, with a wide porch wrapping around the front. Behind it stood a barn, corrals, and several smaller outbuildings. Cattle dotted the hillsides, and she could see horses moving in a fenced pasture. It was bigger than she had imagined, more substantial.
This was not some hardscrabble homestead barely scratching by. This was a real working ranch. As they rode down the hill, Eleanor noticed something else. There was not a single woman anywhere.
No wash hanging on lines, no garden plot, no curtains in the windows. Just three men living rough. Jake seemed to read her thoughts. "We have been managing on our own, but it has been hard."
"None of us can cook worth a damn. The house is in rough shape. We spend all our time working the cattle and the horses. There is no time for anything else." They came to a stop in front of the house.
Jake dismounted first, then reached up for Eleanor. His hand spanned her waist easily as he lifted her down. For just a moment they stood close, his hand still on her waist, her palms resting on his forearms for balance. Their eyes met and held.
Eleanor felt something shift inside her chest, a warmth spreading that had nothing to do with the desert heat. Then Tucker cleared his throat loudly and the moment broke. Jake stepped back, releasing her. His brothers had already dismounted, and now all three of them stood there, watching her, waiting.
Eleanor felt the weight of that attention like a physical touch. These were not boys. They were men, hard-working, powerful men who had carved a life out of this harsh land, and somehow, impossibly, she was supposed to fit into their world. Jake gestured toward the house.