Falling Softly: Compass Girls, Book 4 by Mari Carr & Jayne Rylon

Author:Mari Carr & Jayne Rylon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: native American;baby;Wyoming;one night stand;age difference;older man younger woman;interracial;alpha male;tattoo
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2014-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

After several hours tossing and turning in his bunk, Viho gave up all pretense of sleep.

“Settle down, Chief. If you don’t want to get some shuteye, would you mind leaving the rest of us to it? We gotta be up before dawn,” one of the hands grumbled from the other side of the room.

At first, it’d irritated him that they called him the one thing he’d never wanted to be. Bad enough the elders on the reservation had insisted on it. It’d bugged him for about two seconds… Until he realized it was a sign of respect not a generalization, or worse, a slur. The guys around the ranch had come to him, asking him for advice when they realized he was a decent listener, with a calm mind, who’d keep his mouth shut. Either that or because he was twice as old as some of them. Maybe they figured that made him wiser. Either way, he’d kind of come to like it. For the first time, he felt measured on his own merit. A guy they looked to as a leader. Plus, it was a hell of a lot better than some of the nicknames the rest of the guys ended up with—Stumpy, Pony, Slicker or Deadwood to name a few.

“Sorry.” Viho swung over the edge and dropped to the floor with a surprising amount of stealth given his size. He didn’t bother to put his boots on before he wandered outside. Cold smacked him in his chest, making him curl inward against the fall night air. He ambled across the lawn to his truck, which he hadn’t gotten rid of yet.

It might be a piece of shit, but it was all he had.

So he yanked open the door and climbed inside. He splayed, as much as he could, across the bench seat, flinging one arm over his face. The other dangled into the foot well, where it knocked against his duffle.

He’d kept some of his more personal stuff out here. Mostly because he didn’t need it on a daily basis and the quarters were pretty cramped with the ranch hands’ gear, but also because he didn’t care to think of anyone poking around in his shit.

Hell, even he hadn’t gone through all of his mom’s stuff after she passed away.

Most of it he’d donated to charity. Clothes, dishes, utilitarian stuff like that.

But he’d kept the rare pictures she’d had. And her diary.

If ever there was a day he wished he could talk to her, it’d be this one. She’d have been thrilled to hear of a grandchild on the way, considering how often she’d nagged him about his loner tendencies and finding a decent girl to settle down with. She might not have picked Sterling from the crowd given her fierce independent streak, but she would have liked her once she’d gotten to know her.

Viho smiled in the darkness, then rummaged in the bag for the leather-bound book. In the process, a miniature turquoise figurine of a tortoise tumbled onto the plastic floor mat.

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