And then he’d left, and everything had changed.
Shouts, barks and the sounds of a scuffle came from the barn. “Reese!” Tammy called. “Help!”
Reese was up and jogging past Gabby before Tammy finished speaking. “Be right back,” he called over his shoulder.
In the middle of the barn, two of his more complicated charges were squared off and circling, both faces twisted in anger. The problem was, David was tiny, and Wolf, as he liked to be called, was huge. Between them sat a Doberman, looking back and forth while they shouted at each other.
“I can’t handle these kids,” Tammy said. “If nobody has raised them right...”
And that was exactly why he didn’t want to hire Tammy in a permanent capacity. She had such a negative attitude toward the kids.
He waded in, putting a hand on Wolf’s shoulder because he was the big one, holding up his other arm to keep David back.
“Get that thing away from me!” David reared back from Reese’s hook-hand prosthetic.
Reese couldn’t help the flush that came up his face. He was getting used to the amputation, a little bit, but to a kid it had to be pretty horrific.
“Dude, he’s, like, a war hero, shut up!” one of the other boys said, and that made Reese flush even more.
“Yeah!”
“What’s wrong with you—aren’t you an American?”
More boys chimed in and a couple of them advanced on David. This was why Reese needed an assistant; Wolf was straining toward David now, too, and it took most of Reese’s strength to hold him back.
Tammy stood, back pressed against the side of the barn, arms crossed protectively over herself. No help there.
“Okay, everyone.” Gabby’s brisk, matter-of-fact tone stopped the boys whose arms were raised to attack David. “Pretty sure Reese is going to give you some hard homework if you get into a fight. Break it up.”
She was five-two and couldn’t have weighed much more than one hundred pounds, but she had calm authority in her voice, and she walked right in between David and the other boys.
Even Wolf stopped pushing at Reese and tilted his head to one side, watching her.
“Anybody willing to give me a tour of the facilities?” she asked. “I’d like to see the dogs.”
There was a moment’s silence. Gabby maintained eye contact with first one boy, then another, until she’d worked her way around the hostile circle without saying another word.
All of a sudden, several of the boys volunteered to show her around, and the rest of them trooped along, leaving Reese free to settle Wolf on one side of the barn and David on the other. He found out what the dispute had been about and gave them both chores.
Then he watched morosely as Gabby talked and laughed with the boys, seeming completely comfortable as she knelt to look at each dog, asked questions and really listened to the answers.
Tammy pulled herself together and set out breakfast rolls, fruit and juice at the long table at one end of the barn, and that drew all of the boys to focus. She turned on the inspirational podcast they always listened to as they ate, and Reese gestured Gabby back into his office.
It didn’t seem right to be angry about what she’d done, now that his cousin was gone. It was just that seeing her had brought back all the memories of what he’d hoped for, back when he’d been young and naive, thinking the world was basically a good place and that things would get better once he was grown up and free from his aunt and uncle’s house.
“Nice kids,” she said, her hand on the back of the chair in front of his desk. “But I assume you don’t want me to work for you.”
“You were good with the boys,” he said.
“I like kids.” She shrugged. “Plus, I get what it’s like to be the one who gets in trouble.”
“I’m sure you do.” When Gabby had arrived in Bethlehem Springs in the fifth grade, the word was that she’d gotten sent to the principal’s office most days.
She’d settled down by the time he’d arrived in middle school. He’d acted out some, too—you could hardly help it when you’d lost your parents suddenly and moved into a new school and a family who didn’t much want you.
That was why he’d latched on to the job with this grant-funded program as soon as he’d been cleared to work. He felt like he understood boys who were struggling. The fact that the grant funding was running out was currently his biggest worry. “Listen,” he said, “it’s probably not a good idea long term, but I need help pulling this Christmas Camp together. Starting next week, all the boys will be here full days, and like you just saw, I can’t handle them alone. If you’re willing, I’d like to offer you a temporary contract, through Christmas.”
“Really?” She stared at him. “You can work with me?”
It might kill him, but for the sake of the boys, he could do it. “Think about it,” he said. “I know you have to watch out for your grandmother. If you need to run over here and there, it’s fine.”
She bit her lip, opened her mouth and then closed it again.
“If you could decide in the next day or two, that would be great.”
She shook her head rapidly. “I don’t need a day or two. I already know I want the job.”
“Then I’ll draw up a contract.”
“Reese...”
He looked up from his desk. “Yeah?”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I’m sure. You can start on Monday.”
“Okay, then.” She reached across the desk, offering a handshake.
He’d already encountered that awkward move before, so he knew how to deflect it by extending his left hand. He gripped hers, and the sensation of touching her travelled straight to his heart.
She must have felt it, too, because she pulled her hand away, thanked him and hurried out of his office.
Leaving him to remember that it had always been like that with them: electric, dangerous as an exposed wire.
Now it felt more dangerous than ever.
Copyright © 2019 by Lee Tobin McClain
ISBN-13: 9781488043246
The Rancher’s Holiday Hope
Copyright © 2019 by Brenda Minton
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