Snowed in with the Rancher

Recently dumped by her boyfriend, Triss Young accepts the unexpected offer from her best friend to travel to Colorado and spend Christmas with Hannah and her uncles. But when Triss’s plane lands in Denver and Hannah’s is rerouted because of snow, Triss heads to the ranch alone and is surprised when a blue-eyed, sexy rancher with dog tags answers the door.Grumpy rancher Asher Harris doesn’t know what to make of the beauty who showed up on his doorstep at midnight, covered in snow and hell-bent on snuggling goats. He’s got a lot of work to do on the ranch and doesn’t have time to entertain, even though he can think of a few ways he and Triss could stay warm.However, this Christmas seems to be full of surprises for everyone, as Triss proves herself to not only be a natural with the horses, but she’s up for anything—even mucking stalls. Is she also the breath of fresh air and happiness Asher didn’t know he needed?

“Well that fucking sucks,” Hannah said through the phone after Triss spent the last twenty minutes telling her friend how her boyfriend of three years had just dumped her out of the blue. “I’ll certainly be leaving a scathing Yelp review at Lorne’s restaurant now.”

“Don’t waste your time,” Triss said with a sigh, flopping into her desk chair in her office. “The worst of it all is that I still live with the guy.”

Hannah made a cringing sound. “Riiiight. How long did you sign your lease for?”

“Just a year, but we’ve only been there three months.”

“Ugh. Awkward.”

“And we were supposed to go spend Christmas with his family in New Hampshire, but he’s taking Echo now.”

“Wait, hold up—who the fuck is Echo?” Triss could just picture her raven-haired friend with the piercing blue eyes holding up her hand like she was a cop directing traffic and wrinkling her naturally thick brows in utter confusion.

“Oh, did I leave that part out? Echo is Lorne’s culinary school girlfriend. They reconnected on social media a couple of months ago and that’s why he dumped me. To get back together with her.” Triss made sure her office door was closed before putting Hannah on speakerphone so that she could massage her temples with both hands. “And he’d like to move Echo into our apartment.”

“So in other words, he wants you to move out?”

“Yeppers.”

“Fuck almighty. Now I’m going to go and slash the motherfucker’s tires, screw the Yelp review. Cut his brake lines, put his number on the wall in a men’s bathroom at a biker bar for those looking for a good time.”

“You’d never step foot into a biker bar.” That brought a smile to Triss’s otherwise perpetually scowling face. At least it felt like she’d been perpetually scowling since Lorne dropped the breakup bomb on her yesterday. But the thought of Triss’s princess-esc friend with her designer everything going into the men’s room of a sketchy biker bar was hilarious in its absurdity and gave Triss’s lips the much-need lift at the corners they needed.

Hannah made a dismissive noise. “I would for you, babe. You know that.”

Yeah, she did know that. Hannah was one of her closest friends. They met in grad school and although Hannah now worked in Manhattan as a speech pathologist, and Triss in Connecticut as a speech path, they spoke several times a week and made a point of getting together at least once a month for drinks, dinner, and more drinks.

“So now what are you going to do?” Hannah asked, the echo of other voices around her filtered through the phone. She had to be on the subway getting ready to head home for the day.

“For what? A house? A boyfriend? Christmas? Choose one. Their answer will be the same. I have no freaking clue.” It was times like these where Triss really wished she had a bottle of something stronger than sparkling water in the bottom drawer of her desk. Even a beer would be better than room-temperature sparkling water.

“Well, yeah, but I was going to say Christmas.”

“No idea. I have no desire to go home and be the only kid at home with my parents. Besides, I think they’re going to visit my mom’s sister in Florida. Mieka is on a cruise ship doing her dancing thing, Oona is still in Montreal going to school. And then of course there is my oldest and youngest sister in Victoria, happy and blissfully in love. Gag. No thanks. As much as I love my niece and nephew, I don’t feel like watching Pasha and Heath make googly fuck me eyes at each other. And Rayma has zero filter, so I’m sure she’d have no problem literally straddling her boyfriend and making out with him right in front of me.”

“Yeah … Rayma’s a handful.”

“Understatement of the century.” It was also really funny coming from Hannah, since she and Rayma were a lot alike. Particularly in the lack of a filter department.

“Spend Christmas with me,” Hannah said.

“Which is going to be where this year? Your family is spread out more than mine.”

“I’m going to see my uncles in Colorado at their dude ranch and stud farm. They’re grumpy, crotchety old buggers. Were in the Navy for a while, then bought a ranch when they retired from fighting bad guys.”

“And why are you going there?”

“Because I can’t stand to spend Christmas with my mother and her new husband, or my dad and his wife, who is five years older than me. And they can always use the extra help at the ranch during the winter. Plus, I love cuddling goats and baby horses.”

“They have goats?”

“Dude ranch, stud farm, and petting farm, I should have said. They have it all. And I think they have a couple of mares that are getting ready to foal soon, so we might get lucky and get to cuddle some fresh babies.”

“And these are your uncles?”

“Yeah.”

Nibbling on her lip, Triss brought up a new window on her computer and punched in the website for her favorite discount airline. A flight to Denver wasn’t that expensive.

And it wasn’t like she couldn’t deal with the Lorne and Echo stuff after Christmas when she got back. She’d been working crazy hours and long days for months since a lot of people had their therapy funding renewed in January, but the funding didn’t roll over into the next year, so they were scrambling to try to use up their funds. Which meant that they were asking her to work extra sessions. It was good money, but it was exhausting.

“Go to your apartment tonight. Box up everything and I’ll send my friend’s moving company to go and grab it all,” Hannah said.

“And take it where?”

“A storage locker for now? We’ll spend the week in Colorado applying for new apartments. Worst-case scenario, you live in an Airbnb for a month. But it’s not the end of the world.”

No. It wasn’t. But it still sucked.

“Fine,” Triss said, glancing out the window at the snow-covered trees and ground. It was beautiful, and she’d always loved the snow, but she wasn’t looking forward to having to move to a new apartment in it.

“I’m leaving Manhattan on the twenty-first, so plan to arrive in Colorado on the same day. I’ll send you my flight itinerary and we can coordinate.”

“I’m thinking maybe I should go see my parents for a night first, so I’ll fly out of Baltimore. But I’ll try to be there on the twenty-first, too.” She found a flight that worked with Hannah’s flight, since her very organized friend had already texted her the details, then before she could back out of the plan, she put in her credit card details and booked it. “You’re sure your uncles will be okay with another person showing up?” Triss asked.

“They hate everyone, so it will make no difference.”

Oh lovely. But that sentiment didn’t actually bother Triss that much. She was in a pretty crappy, people-hating mood, too, and misery did love company.

“There! Done. Flight booked.”

“Yay!” Hannah cheered. “This will be awesome. We’ll get hammered, pot is legal in Colorado and I’m pretty sure my uncles smoke a ton of it, so we’ll also get high as fuck. We can just forget our worries and get fat because we’ll constantly have the munchies. Then we’ll go out to the barn and snuggle goats.”

“I am due for a good goat snuggle,” Triss mused with a smile.

“I haven’t met a person who isn’t,” Hannah quipped. “All right, babe,” Hannah whooped, “You, me and the goats in three days. Go home and pack and feel free to steal all of Lorne’s shoelaces and dump out his favorite cologne. You have my permission to be petty and vindictive. It’s allowed.”

“I just want to get the hell out of there,” Triss said, closing her computer, getting up from her desk, and shoving her arms into her coat.

“And you will. We will find you something way better. I promise. I mean, if we’re being honest, Lorne was only an okay chef. There’s a reason the guy doesn’t have any Michelin stars or James Beard awards, let’s just leave it at that.”

“I’ll see you in three days.”

“Three days, baby. You, me, the goats and my crazy high uncles.”

“Sounds like a Christmas to remember.”

They disconnected the call and as Triss locked up her office, she caught herself smiling in the reflection of her colleague’s door window. Maren’s lights were off, so it turned the window into more of a mirror. Triss was smiling, and those lines around her eyes since Lorne dropped his bomb yesterday weren’t nearly as deep.

Maybe a week in Colorado with a couple of old cowboys, her best friend, and some goats was exactly what she needed to find some perspective and sort things out.

And if she didn’t find perspective or get anything sorted, at least she’d get in some goat snuggles.

***

“Good afternoon, folks, this is your captain speaking, we apologize for the delay, but the runway is finally clear and we are going to be landing in roughly thirty minutes. If you have any connecting flights, please know that most of the flights out and into Denver have been canceled due to weather. We apologize for the inconvenience, but your safety is our number one priority.”

Crap.