Rugged Cowboy

by Elana Johnson

  “Let’s look that up,” she said with a perky smile, and Dallas supposed someone should be glad to be in that school office. “I’ve got it right here,” she said a moment later. She read it off for him, and he wrote it on the form. He didn’t add the number of the cabin, though a big one had been nailed to the door. He could get his mail from someone in the West Wing, and his mind automatically went to Jess.

  She’d definitely been frustrated or annoyed with him that morning, though he had no idea why.

  He finished the forms, half of his mind on them and the other half on Jess. He turned them all in, and the blonde secretary said she’d get everything put into the system, and the children would have teachers ready for them in the morning.

  Dallas nodded at her, put one arm around each of his children, and left the school. “Okay,” he said, breathing out a big sigh as they approached his car. “That’s done. What else do we need to do?”

  Neither of the kids said anything, and Dallas looked at Thomas. “What’s wrong?”

  Thomas shrugged and went around to the passenger door. Dallas opened the back door for Remmy and waited for her to climb in and begin buckling her seatbelt. He got behind the wheel and started the engine so the air conditioning would start.

  “Come on, guys,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just that….” Thomas started. He turned toward the window. “It’s nothing.”

  “Remmy?” Dallas asked, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Tommy thought we’d be going back to Aunt Amy’s,” she said. “I’m just scared I won’t like my new teacher.”

  Surprise shot through Dallas. “Why would we go back to Aunt Amy’s?”

  “Because she has a house,” Thomas said.

  “We have a house too,” Dallas said, his defenses flying into place. “I need to sell the one in Houston, and then maybe we can get a real house here in town.”

  “Why can’t we go to Houston?” Thomas asked.

  The answer to that was far too much for a ten-year-old to handle, so Dallas just said, “We can’t, that’s all.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and backed out of the parking space. “And Remmy, I’m sure you’ll love your new teacher.”

  “I hope so,” she said, and Dallas wished for simpler days, when he’d been six years old. All he’d thought about was going fishing, something his father had taken him to do every weekend and whenever they needed to de-stress and get away from the busyness of the world.

  His heart beat in a strange way as he thought about his dad. He’d been so angry when Dallas had been indicted, tried, and convicted. Mad at the legal system. Mad at Dallas. Mad at the world. He’d never once visited Dallas at River Bay, nor had he ever taken one of Dallas’s phone calls.

  His mother had, and Dallas vowed to figure out how long it would take to get from Sweet Water Falls to Temple, where his parents lived. Where he’d grown up, and where two of his siblings still lived. Greg had called Dallas at Amy’s the first night he’d been free. His sisters had texted, and he’d called his mom.

  They hadn’t made plans to get together, and Dallas now viewed that as a mistake. He needed to speak to his parents, especially his father, and start to repair what had broken. Wasn’t that what he did for a living now? Make run-down and broken things come alive again?

  “I’m sorry we can’t go to Houston,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry we can’t go back to Aunt Amy’s. But it’s just the three of us now, you guys. Okay? And I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got a job, and I’m going to get you to school and back, and it’s all going to work out.”

  Thomas looked at him, such hope in his eyes, and Dallas’s heart bled for him. He had no idea what it would be like to have his mother drop him off somewhere while she left, never to return. He didn’t know what Thomas had gone through when Dallas had gone to prison. He hadn’t been the one on the outside, and he knew nothing had been easy for Martha, Thomas, or Remmy.

  “Okay, Daddy,” Remmy chirped, and Thomas nodded.

  “Okay, Dad,” he said.

  Dallas managed to put a smile on his face, though his inner organs felt one breath away from collapse. His determination doubled though, and he nodded too. “Okay.”

  Now, if getting things back on track with his father could be as easy.

  Or Jess, he thought, and he determined he’d call her the moment he could. With that new determination and drive inside him, Dallas headed back to Hope Eternal Ranch, suddenly realizing the significance of the name.

  Chapter Six

  Jess tsked her tongue at Diamond Valley, the black and white horse she was training that morning. The mare didn’t want to get close to the rail, despite Jess’s assurances that it wouldn’t hurt her. She’d get the equine there too, because Jessica Morales hadn’t met a horse she hadn’t been able to train.

  She bonded with the animals easily, some deeper than others. She too tried to be present at every birth, and while she didn’t have the final say on the horse’s name, she definitely had input. She and Ginger had been working together at Hope Eternal for twelve years now, after Jess had left the wild world of horses up in Calgary.

  She’d worked with the rodeo horses at The Calgary Stampede Ranch for five years before making the move south to Texas. And she’d gone to Calgary after a particularly observant cowboy had watched her work with a horse at a riding facility in her hometown of Bozeman, Montana.

  Jess loved horses with her whole soul. She’d started at the riding facility when she was just twelve, mucking out stalls and sitting with pregnant mares to make sure they didn’t get cast in the middle of the night. She’d heard horses scream when they got stuck when they rolled over and got their hooves against the wall. When they couldn’t get up like that, the panic from a horse could curdle her blood.

  She’d been riding since the age of four, when her father put her on her first horse and tethered the reins to his. He’d been a born-and-bred cowboy, and she’d loved spending time with him outside, on the small family ranch he ran all by himself.

  She helped as she got older; all three of the Morales girls did. Jess was the oldest, and while she could’ve had the ranch in Bozeman, she found she didn’t really want it.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. She couldn’t focus on a conversation and training Diamond Valley at the same time. While in the ring with a horse, especially an agitated one, she had to keep her concentration on what was most important. The horse. Herself.

  She tsked at Diamond again, pressing her further toward the rails with the long pole in her hand. Around and around the horse went, and after another ten minutes, she settled against the rail in a nice, even trot.

  “There you go, girl,” Jess said, smiling at her. She made the mare go around three more times, and then she pulled the pole in and lifted it straight up until it was vertical at her side. Diamond Valley stopped almost immediately, giving Jess and that pole the side-eye.

  Rich knocked on the fence behind her, and Jess walked over and handed him the pole. “She did great today,” she said.

  “Seventeen minutes,” Rich said. He only worked the ranch in the morning for about three hours. He drove a school bus the rest of the time, but Jess did like his quick smile and happy-to-help attitude. He worked with her and three other horses every morning, and Jess liked the routine.

  Horses did too. Their brains were only the size of a baseball, and they were creatures of habit. They liked to be fed and exercised at the same time every day, and Jess found she did too.

  “How’s the rest of the string?” Rich asked as she climbed over the fence and they started around it together.

  “Good,” Jess said. “Bumblebee gave me attitude this morning about the saddle, but I’m wearing him down. All the temps came back normal. Noah’s Ark won’t leave his leg wrappings alone.” She looked at Rich and rolled her eyes. “So good. Normal.”

  “I’ll paint more of that cayenne pepper on them.”

  “I t
hink he actually likes it,” Jess said with a smile. She and Rich chuckled together, and she gathered the lead line for Diamond Valley from a hook on the wall, climbed back into the ring with the horse, and got the rope around her head. “Come on, sweetheart. You did so great today. Before you know it, you’re going to be showing a little boy or girl how amazing the ranch is.”

  “She’s going back to her stall?” Rich asked, taking the line from Jess as she left the ring.

  “Bath today,” Jess said. “Bill should have the stalls in our string done by then with fresh wood chips. Then yes, back in the stall.”

  “We need to work on that pasture rotation,” Rich said.

  “Yeah.” Jess sighed, because there was always more tasks to do than hours in the day. “I’ll pull up the one we’ve been using and get it started.”

  He nodded and veered left to take Diamond Valley down to the wash bays while Jess went right to go check on her men. They each worked with a string of horses, most of them much bigger than the one she oversaw. With over seventy horses at Hope Eternal, Jess had a lot of conversations each day, and the paperwork involved in their care could make the gruffest man cry.

  Her phone buzzed again, and this time, Jess removed it from her pocket. Dallas’s name sat on the screen, which caused a frown to pull at her eyebrows. She wasn’t even sure why. She’d enjoyed texting with him last night. But this morning, when he’d shown up at the barn early, then barked at her and Nick that he really only had an hour for the tour, her annoyance with him had blossomed.

  The call ended before she could decide to answer it or not, and she checked the other missed calls. She had three, and they were all from Dallas. Her heartbeat shot into a faster pitter, and she looked up as if someone would be able to hear it.

  There was always activity in the stables, and today was no different. Men and women walked horses around. They fed them. They checked on them. They wrote on clipboards and left those by doorways. The riding lessons would begin in two hours, and most of the horses should be back in their stalls for a bit of rest before then.

  Almost everyone in the stables only worked on the ranch part-time, and on weekends, Jess ran a skeleton crew to feed and water the horses, monitor their health, and rotate them out to pastures. Everyone took a break from training on Sundays, and Jess sometimes found an hour to go sit in church and listen to a pastor.

  “Bootstrap is showing some signs of a cough,” Giselle said as she went by Jess with a different horse in tow. “Tony said he’s looking for you.”

  “Okay,” Jess said absently. She didn’t go find Tony though. She looked around again, as if she were trying to make an escape from the stable without anyone seeing her. She ducked down a small hallway between two stalls and pulled out her phone.

  With a slightly shaking finger, she tapped to return Dallas’s call.

  “There you are,” he said instead of hello.

  Jess couldn’t decide if he sounded frustrated or not. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry. I can’t really answer the phone when I’m in the ring with a horse.”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  Jess leaned against the wall and pressed her eyes closed. “What’s up?” She infused as much false brightness into her tone as she possibly could.

  “Something’s a bit off with you,” he said, his voice lowering in volume and pitch. “I just wondered if I’d said or did something to upset you.”

  “No,” Jess said, hating how two letters could be a lie.

  “You sure?”

  She shifted her feet, not sure what kind of game this was. How had he known she was slightly annoyed with him? And had he actually called to clear the air between them? Who did that?

  “I mean, you were just a little…rude this morning.”

  “I was?”

  “Yeah, you sort of snapped at me and Nick when we got to the barn, like we were holding you up or something. You work here now, Dallas. We did you the favor.” She hated the words as they came out of her mouth. “That’s not what I meant. I—”

  “You did me a favor?” he asked. “Wow, I didn’t know that. Thanks.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. “I suppose I’ll send you a bill for fixing the air conditioner in the stable then.”

  “Dallas.” She sighed, because this conversation wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would. She honestly hadn’t known why he’d called three times, and for him to simply find out how she was feeling didn’t make sense to her.

  “What?” he asked. “You offered me the job last night. I signed the paperwork this morning. I didn’t know I was on the clock today. I have things I have to get done for my kids, and you said we’d start with a quick tour—which Jess, two hours is not quick in any definition I’ve found of the word—and I’d really start tomorrow.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “So I get to be annoyed when you and Nick show up ten minutes late and then proceed to show me the most unorganized mechanical shed I’ve ever seen.”

  Jess toed the ground, her eyes trained on the dirt there though she could barely see it in the dim lighting down this hallway. Utility closets lined both sides of it, and they kept medical supplies, blankets, and other odds and ends in the cupboards.

  Silence draped the two of them, and Jess felt like they were worlds apart. For some reason she couldn’t name, she wanted to build a bridge to where he was and make things right.

  “I’m sorry,” Dallas said, plenty of resignation in his voice. “I guess we just need to communicate better.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Jess said. “I didn’t realize we’d—I’d—kept you from more important things.” She wasn’t a mother and never had been. She couldn’t fathom what it took to keep children fed and well and happy, though she did help out with Connor from time to time. Now that the boy was in school, Nate didn’t need as much help during the day, and there were plenty of people around the ranch in the evenings.

  “It’s okay,” Dallas said. “I didn’t mean to snap at anyone. I suppose I need to call Nick and apologize?”

  “Oh, I doubt he noticed,” Jess said, finally looking up as the conversation improved. “He’s like a duck. Stuff just rolls off his back.”

  “Hmm,” Dallas said. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, tonight. Say after dinner?”

  “I don’t usually do much after dinner unless there’s an emergency in the stables.”

  “Maybe we could meet in that tiny room you guys called an office. I have some things I’d like to go over with you about the job.”

  Her heartbeat crashed against her ribcage. “You’re not quitting, are you?”

  Dallas laughed, and the sound of it lifted Jess’s spirits even more. He had a deep, beautiful laugh, and she wondered if he’d had occasion to use it very often behind bars. She knew he’d just gotten out of prison, but she’d also worked with enough other men to know the ones from River Bay usually weren’t too big of a threat.

  Ginger wouldn’t let them come to Hope Eternal if they were.

  “No,” he said between his chuckles. “But I need to do some things in the morning, and I was thinking maybe we could meet tonight, and then I could take care of that stuff.”

  Jess noticed the vague nature of his statement, and while her curiosity skyrocketed about what “things” and what “stuff” he needed to take care of, she managed to keep her questions dormant. “Okay,” she said. “What time tonight?”

  “Seven?”

  “Sure, see you then.” The call ended, but Jess stayed in the narrow hallway, thinking. She sometimes got too wrapped up in her thoughts, and she finally forced herself to stop imagining what that night would hold. She’d find out when she showed up in the office in the equipment building at seven o’clock.

  She made sure she was early that evening, but she still didn’t beat Dallas to the office. He stood with his back to the doorway as she approached, turning before she c
ould say anything. A smile crossed his face, but it didn’t light up his eyes.

  “Hey,” he said, moving one paper behind another in a stack he held in his hand. “Why is none of this on a computer?”

  “I have no idea,” Jess said. “I’m not over mechanical or equipment.”

  “Who is?”

  “Ginger.”

  “And she’s not here,” Dallas muttered, frowning at the file folder in his hand. He exhaled heavily as he set it on the desk. “Okay, so this is a huge mess. My guess is she hasn’t had anyone over mechanical or equipment in a long time.” He raised his chin. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Jess couldn’t tell him that, so she lifted her own chin, her defenses kicking into gear. Ginger wasn’t perfect, but she ran a good ranch the best she could. “You’re not wrong.”

  He nodded and folded his arms, and wow, Jess could appreciate muscles like that. At the same time, his good looks and tall, muscular body was a huge distraction. She barely heard him as he said, “I’m going to need a computer. And all the manuals for every vehicle and machine on this ranch. Anything you’ve got.” He indicated the filing cabinet behind him. “That’s full of useless files we don’t even need anymore. I need an inventory of parts, and contacts for ranch supply stores.”

  The list went on and on, and Jess finally started typing notes into her phone. She hadn’t shown up with a notebook or anything, because Dallas hadn’t given her any idea what to expect from this evening meeting.

  Twenty minutes later, she had a comprehensive list of the things he needed, and she had no idea how to get him any of them. “Hannah’s over the accounting,” she said. “She might know some of this, because she’ll have to have paid for the parts.”