The next morning he was up early, as always, but this time he woke me too.
"Hey, sleepy butt, come on," he said, tugging on my arm.
Now I'm not a morning person so I grumbled and tried to stay in bed, but he literally dragged me out.
"WHAT!?" I grumbled, working on my first cup of coffee.
"You've asked a few times what a cowboy does," I said, "I thought I'd show you."
He was busy cooking and I was busy trying to get my heart beating.
"Cowboy breakfast," he said, putting a plate in front of me.
"Jesus," I said, looking at the pile of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice, "trying to fatten me up?"
"It wouldn't hurt," he said, chuckling, and sitting opposite me.
"So," I said between bites, "why do you have me up at this hour?"
"You need to get out," he said, "and it's my day to ride fence so you'll see some truly beautiful places."
"I don't ride," I said.
"You'll do fine," he said with a mysterious smile.
I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and said, "Okay, Sherpa guide, show me."
I hadn't been to the ranch where he worked, and it was beautiful on its own. Fortunately, it wasn't horses we were to ride. Rather, he went into a barn and came out riding an all-terrain vehicle, something the decals told me was a Honda Pioneer. It was surprisingly comfortable, the suspension making it sort of push up on my butt rather than rattle my teeth.
And it turned out, "riding fence" was actually, well, riding the fence.
"The K-Bar-T is about 7,500 acres," he explained, as we rode along, "dating back to a land grant in the 1700s."
And it was beautiful. We had been riding for an hour, so we were miles from any road when he stopped. There was a place in the fence where the barbed wire was hanging loose. I watched, smiling, as he opened the little trunk on the machine and got out a tool, painted bright yellow, and started working to mend the fence. I had no idea what he was doing, but in about 15 minutes the wire was taut again.
"And this," he said, grinning as he started the engine and we continued along the fence, "is what a cowboy does in the 21st century."
He patched another three spots and as we were riding along he said, "close your eyes."
"Seriously?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, so I did.
We went along, the ride almost soporific with nothing to watch, for about a minute, and then he stopped.
"Okay, Susan," he said, "open them."
I couldn't help but gasp.
Spread across in front of me was one of those beautiful alpine valleys that artists only dream of. The whole thing was a riot of color, from pastel shades of blue, barely not-quite-white, to the deepest, brightest red, the red that set the standard for all other reds. And in the background was the classic sawtooth alpine mountain scene that made you realize where the phrase "purple mountains majesty" came from.
I just stared.
I heard him chuckle and turned to look at him.
He was smiling.
"My favorite place, Susan," he said, "and so you know, you are the first woman I ever brought here."
I didn't say anything while he restarted the vehicle and we went ahead another few hundred yards across the valley.
He turned off the engine and said, "wait."
So I waited, watching as he opened the little trunk again and got out an actual, honest-to-God, woven wood strip picnic basket. He moved a few yards and opened the basket, pulling out a red checkerboard patterned blanket and spreading it. Then he set out a picnic. He had a couple of loaves of bread, a half dozen kinds of cheese, three big sausages, apples, oranges, a big Hershey bar, and a wineskin.
"Come along, dear," he said, offering his hand, and I let him lead me.
At the blanket, he undressed me. It wasn't foreplay or anything, but it was slow and sensual with a lot of compliments.