He walked around, looked around. “It looks good. I saw a couple of stages when they were changing it up. It really looks good.”

So did he, she thought.

Obviously he didn’t always wear a hat in the sun—wide-brimmed or otherwise—as that sun had spent plenty of time streaking through his dense brown hair and gifting it with a million highlights. It spilled around his face somewhere between a curl and a wave—an interesting medium she suspected would take her hours to perfect on her own rain-straight hair.

He’d fined down, too, looked honed, she decided, so his face was all planes, angles, shadows with an outdoorsman tan that added even more depth and color to his green eyes.

He had a body that seemed to have been made for jeans, work boots, work shirts. Tough and lean.

He moved, as he wandered her space, with the rangy kind of ease of a man who strode around fields and pastures.

She let out a half laugh. “It’s central casting.”

“What’s that?”

He glanced back, and well, Jesus, the sun slanted over him like a damn key light.

She pointed at him. “Rancher. You nail the look.”

He grinned, and of course, it was lightning quick and just the right amount of crooked. “I am what I am. And you’re a—Hugh calls it—voice actor.”

“That’s right. They built me a studio in here.”

“Yeah, they talked about it.”

She gestured for him to follow her, led the way.

He stopped at the doorway, hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “Well, wow, that’s a lot of equipment. How’d you learn how to work it all?”

“Trial and error—a lot of both. It’s not really as complicated as it looks. I worked out of my bedroom closet when I first started. This is a big step up.”

“I’ll say. I saw—heard—you in Secret Identity. You looked good as a superhero, and as her alter ego, the quiet, lonely scientist. The voices worked. Soft, like hesitant for Lauren Long, fierce and sexy for Whirlwind.”

“Thanks.”

“I figured you’d have to go into a studio, with a director, crew, all that stuff.”

“For some things, yeah. For others? The bedroom closet works.”

“This is some closet you’ve got here. Maybe sometime you can show me how all this works. But I have to get going.”

“I can do that when we both have time. Let me get the soda bread.”

She moved by him, realized he even smelled like a rancher: leather and fresh grass.

“Soda bread?”

“I made it this morning. I’d claim it as an old family recipe, which is true—just not my family. A neighbor when I lived in Ireland.”

“You bake bread?”

“I do. It helps me clear out cobwebs, work on voices.”

She got a cloth, took one of the loaves from the cooling rack, wrapped it. “I wanted to give your family something from me.” She offered it.

He stood a moment, the wrapped bread in his hands, the dogs at his feet sniffing the air. His eyes held hers the way they had that night so long ago.

Direct, curious.

“Appreciate it. Come by. My ladies would really like to see you.”

“I will.”

He started for the door, the dogs at his heels. “We never had that ride. You still ride?”

It took her a minute. “Oh, sure. It’s been awhile.”

“Come by. We’ll see if you remember how.”

He started out, that easy, ground-eating stride, looked back. “You look good as Cate, too.”

When he continued on, she stepped back, closed the door.

“Well,” she said to herself. “Well, well, well.”

Dillon did his rounds. Delivered to the co-op, hauled an order of hay and oats to a local woman who kept two horses, dropped off a half gallon of goat’s milk to a neighbor who couldn’t pick it up herself because her car was in the shop.

He got a couple of cookies as thanks, considered it a good deal.

Back at home, he parked the truck, let the dogs out to run as he went over his mental list of what he still had to do. The first? Deliver the bread and mooch some lunch.

He noted Red’s truck, which meant he wouldn’t be the only one mooching lunch. But when he went inside, he found only his mother and grandmother in the dairy kitchen.

His grandmother hung a cheesecloth bundle of goat’s milk curds, the big bowl beneath it to catch the whey that would separate from the curds. His mother filtered another—and it looked like the last batch of milk.

The investment they’d made expanding their goat herd, adding a few milk cows—and adding the dairy kitchen—continued to pay off.

“Took you long enough,” Maggie said.

“There were conversations.” Opening the fridge in the main kitchen, he took out a Coke. “I took some orders—I’ll get them up after the lunch I’m hoping for.” He twisted off the top, gulped some down. “Where’s Red?”

“She kicked him out.” Julia nodded toward her mother. “He’s out tinkering with the little tractor.”

Dillon crossed one of the items off his list, as he’d planned to tinker after lunch.

“He was underfoot.” Maggie, her hair in a burnt-orange-colored braid, walked down the row, checking the separation progress. “Just like you.”

“But I come bearing gifts.” He unwrapped the bread, sniffed it. “Smells good, too. It’s from Caitlyn Sullivan. She baked it.”

Lips pursed, Maggie crooked her finger while Julia worked on the last bundle. Like Dillon, she sniffed. “Irish soda bread? Lily said the girl could cook some.”

“How’s she doing, Dillon?”

Dillon gave his mother a winsome smile. “Maybe I could tell you over lunch.”

Maggie flicked a finger at him. “Go tell Red to stop tinkering and clean up. We’ll feed you.”

Happy to oblige, Dillon went out. He needed to spend some time that afternoon working with a couple of the yearlings, and wanted to check on the pregnant mares. Then there were the fall crops to look over. And the stock.

His mother handled the afternoon milking of their three dairy cows.

And thanks to Red—who’d turned out to be a damn good mechanic—he might not have to spend any time on tractor repair.

He heard the engine turn over, run smooth, and smiled. Yeah, cross that one off.

He found Red sitting on the tractor, head cocked as he listened to the engine. His hair, stone gray, wound in a braid to just below the collar of his ancient denim jacket. He had an equally ancient ball cap over it.

He still surfed every chance he got, stayed trim and agile. Proved that as he cut the engine and hopped down, planting his feet in the peacock feather boots Maggie had given him for his birthday.

Because, she’d said, he thought he was the cock of the walk.

“Got her going?”

“Yep.” Red swiped his hands over his jeans. “Timing was off mostly.”

“Yours isn’t. You finished up in time for lunch.”

“That was my plan.”

They walked away from the barn together. “I dropped by the Sullivans’ on my travels this morning. Caitlyn’s moved in.”

Red nodded, paused by the old pump well to wash his hands. Considering those travels, Dillon did the same.