by Dixie Cash
“Uh-oh,” Judi with an i said and rose to her feet. “I can’t be collecting money. My parole won’t let me.”
“You’re on parole?” Spur asked, his voice losing tenor.
“Yeah. It’s a bitch. Knocked me out of a good job at Sonic, too. Don’t guess you could come up front and take the money?”
“No, that wouldn’t be possible.” Spur shook his head emphatically.
“My parole officer comes by and checks on me. Unannounced. If he saw me handling cash he’d have a cat.”
“Well, he’d be in the right place,” Spur said, standing, too. “Thanks for coming in, Judi. I wish you luck.”
Judi pulled several pieces of bubble gum from her jeans pocket and popped one into her mouth. At the door she stopped and turned back, laughing. “Have a cat. Be in the right place. I get it now. That’s funny.” She walked out still laughing.
Spur rolled her application into a ball and tossed a lofty pass into the arms of the waiting trash can receiver.
In just a few days, he had accumulated a stack of two dozen applications, had interviewed no fewer than ten women. Obviously jobs were few and far between in Salt Lick.
He propped his elbows on the receptionist desk, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. He couldn’t afford a staff of employees. He needed one good reliable woman capable of doing a variety of clerical tasks, plus having the stomach and ability to help him with his patients if need be. Where would he find such an employee?
Then he had a lightbulb moment. He knew just the person. He picked up the phone.
twelve
Before Paige was ready, 5:00 A.M. on Monday morning arrived. The past few days had gone by in a blur as she feverishly worked at putting her new little cottage in order. Little cottage. She loved the sound of that.
Her kitchen was stocked with the basics she had brought from her bar and pantry in Fort Worth—a fifth of Jose Cuervo, a bucket of On the Border margarita mix. Brie and cocktail crackers, Milano cookies, and an assortment of organic cereals. She would have to wait for payday to add more.
Her bathroom and bedroom furnishings belied her current financial situation but spoke volumes about her previous one. A dozen thick ringspun Egyptian cotton towels that had cost fifty dollars apiece from Horchow’s catalog filled a small linen closet shelf. In the luxury condo Daddy had leased for her in Fort Worth, the cushy towels had seemed at home in the master bath suite. In her Salt Lick rental, they looked as if they could be draperies for the living room.
In the bedroom, an Ann Gish two-thousand-dollar comforter and pillow cover set, in the cooling color combination of aqua and sand, swallowed her bed. Her love for the beautiful colors almost overcame the fact that the comforter, sized to fit a queen-size, was too large for the regular-size bed.
Studying how to remedy the problem of the too-large comforter took her mind off the living room furnishings, which consisted of three webbed aluminum folding chairs. Paige wasn’t long on patience when it came to something she wanted. The only waiting period that had existed in her prior life had been the time it took to dig her credit card from her purse. But she was learning. Perhaps the satisfaction of someday buying a sofa with her own hard-earned money would make up for the current spartan living.
She picked up her purse and keys but stopped in the tiny front entry for one last survey of the house. She had done the best she could with what she had. On a sigh, she left.
Despite the early hour a healthy show of activity hummed in Salt Lick. The horseshoe-shaped parking area at Hogg’s Drive-in looked like a truck dealer’s sales lot. She scanned the vehicles, looking for Spur’s battered Chevy.
He had dominated her thoughts since dinner at Debbie Sue and Buddy’s house, but even if she saw his truck, she wouldn’t go into Hogg’s. How pathetic would she be, making her attraction to him so obvious? She had her pride, after all. If he had really been a football star at Texas A&M, a trail of groupies followed him, everything from waitresses to heiresses, and she didn’t want to be just another one of the group.
She continued to think of him as she left the city limits, heading for the Flying C. The mental image of being with him in that way, rising to heights beyond her experience with men, wouldn’t leave her, and she didn’t understand those thoughts. She had never been obsessed with sex, and in truth, other than knowing Tab A fit Slot B, she didn’t know much about the finer points.
Oh, sure, she’d had her share of making-out sessions, even a couple of disappointing experiences with Judd Stephens that went further than making out. After one particularly embarrassing episode, they both concluded they should be “just friends.” A few days later, after two too many margaritas, Paige confided to Sunny that she didn’t think she had ever had an orgasm. Sunny assured her that if she didn’t think she had, she could bank on it that she hadn’t.
So if she was a sexual neophyte, which she was, what was it about Spur Atwater that directed her mind to sex and Spur in the same sentence? His physique? True, it was right out of a bodybuilder’s magazine, but then, there was no shortage of great bodies. His ruggedness? Nah. She had grown up with masculine ruggedness. What man could be more rough and tough than her daddy? Pheromones? She had taken chemistry, but couldn’t remember studying human pheromones. What she had learned about the alluring, hypnotic reproductive aid provided by nature came from studying a perfume ad in Cosmopolitan. The notion of the body releasing sexually arousing odors like a subtle laser had been laughable to her at the time. Now, looking back over the past couple of weeks, she had to acquiesce to the notion that something was at work here. Something that made her unable to stop her imagination when it came to the new vet.
Arriving at the Flying C halted that degree of deep thinking. She rumbled across the Flying C’s cattle guard, reminding herself of the responsible role Harley had given her.
She parked the Escalade alongside other pickups near the main barn’s entrance, as captivated today by the Carruthers horse facility as she had been the first time she saw it. Styled like a hacienda, the expansive two-story barn was not only nicer than what most humans called home, but it was also nicer than anything many might ever get the chance to visit.
Entering the front part of the big barn, Paige saw no activity but could smell coffee. On her left was a door with a sign that said OFFICE. She opened the heavy wooden door a crack and saw Lester tilted back in a desk chair, his ankles crossed on the desktop, a phone receiver pressed to his ear.
He motioned for her to come in and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Make yourself at home,” he mouthed, then turned back to his phone conversation. His intimate tone told Paige he must be talking to a woman.
She took the opportunity to look around. The perfunctory needs of an office were all in place—desk, two chairs, fax machine, a couple of four-drawer steel filing cabinets, a computer and printer.
Two refrigerators, one larger than the other, stood side by side. Hoping to find orange juice, she opened the larger unit’s door and found it filled to capacity with cans of Coors beer. Yep, all you need right at hand.
Spying the coffeepot, she walked over, lifted a mug from an assortment that was turned upside down on a towel. After checking it for cleanliness, she poured it to the brim with the black brew from the pot. She was looking for a sugar substitute when she heard thumping noises. She glanced across her shoulder toward Lester and saw him tapping his finger on the desktop to get her attention. Pointing to his own cup, he indicated he wanted a refill.
It was an innocent enough gesture, and normally, Paige wouldn’t hesitate to oblige. But after hearing Harley say Lester felt superior to women, Paige made a snap decision. Harley had hired her to be Lester’s assistant, not his servant. She smiled brightly, lifted her own cup, and pointed to it. “Thanks,” she said in a stage whisper, “I found the cups.”
She ducked out of the office and made for the barn area. The company of the horses was preferable to that of the horse’s ass on the phone.
As she strolle
d through the wide dirt aisles, sipping her coffee and taking in her surroundings, the smell of hay, dirt, and manure played with her senses. Funny that so many precious memories were associated with them.
She found the interior of Harley’s barn to be as impressive as the exterior. Even a novice could see no expense had been spared. There was a fly-mist system, a horse shower and grooming area with a concrete floor, a huge tack room, medical treatment slot, video surveillance cameras. She couldn’t guess what was housed on the second floor.
She strolled to the stalls where on the outside of each a hanging placard bore the occupant’s name, some part of which went back to its sire. Paige didn’t have to see the registration papers to know she was seeing horses bred from two cutting champions that consistently sired winners, the legendary stallions Travalena and Peptoboonsmal.
She was awestruck. To the unknowledgeable eye they looked like any other well-kept horses, but these were the equine equivalents of the Michael Jordans, the Joe Montanas, or the Nolan Ryans. As she studied them, they stared back from huge soft brown eyes with bored detachment, as if they didn’t care that the blood of champions coursed through their veins.
Through an immense doorway leading out to a sunbaked pasture, she saw a circular ring with a four-horse walker setup and a circular trench furrowed into the grass around it. Throwing the remainder of her coffee on the ground, she walked toward it. Horse walkers had always reminded her of merry-go-rounds.
Lester caught up with her and gave her a grin she classified somewhere between cocky and insulting. “That’s a horse walker,” he said.
Well, as distasteful as she found him, she had to get along with him, so she smiled. “I know that.”
“Ready to get to work?”
“Absolutely. I’ve been looking forward to it.”
“Then let’s go on back to the barn and get started.” They walked side by side toward the barn. “You do know, dollbaby, that there’s a lot of hard work to be done? It’s not all riding into an arena with all eyes on you.”
Paige bit her tongue and replied sweetly, “I know. I remember.”
He looked her up and down and back again. “You mean your daddy didn’t hire someone to do it all for you?”
Paige bit her tongue harder. “You don’t know Daddy. He’s a firm believer that hard work never hurt anybody. He believes work builds character.”
Lester sneered. “It also breaks backs. I know about your daddy, how he became the richest man in Texas the hard way, but I’ll bet his hands ain’t been dirty in a while.” His face broke into a big grin. “That’s what I’m gonna be one day. A man that don’t get his hands dirty. I don’t intend to be another man’s lackey all my life. I got plans.”
“The admirable thing about my daddy is he might no longer need to get his hands dirty, but he still does and he doesn’t mind it a bit.”
They walked into the barn and stopped in front of a stall where a beautiful bay mare waited for them. Paige was grateful to direct the conversation to the horses. “Uhm…does Harley come out and work with the horses much?”
Lester opened the stall gate, entered, and slid a halter on the bay. “Now there’s a man that don’t know the first thing about getting his hands dirty. Had everything handed to him his whole life. Rides around in big trucks, big cars, attending big meetings. He’s what I call a windshield cowboy.”
Lester hooked a lead rope onto the halter and led the bay out of the stall. He placed the lead rope into Paige’s hand. She almost shuddered at the thrill of being allowed to ride this magnificent horse.
“My sister’s the one that started up this cutting operation,” Lester went on. “Harley never gave two hoots in hell about the horses ’til they started making him money.” Lester leaned toward her menacingly, tapping a thumb against his chest. “’Til, I started making him money.”
Paige suppressed a gasp at what she had just learned. Lester disliked Harley! His facial expression, his words, his body language left no doubt. Did Harley know? Being aware of this new information left her thoughts in a jumble. “Oh. Well, he must think you’re doing a good job, then. I, uh, hope to learn about cutting from you. I’ve seen you ride several times. You always appear so cool and calm. It amazes me you can stay in the saddle under all that pressure.” She made a nervous titter. “I’d probably land on my butt the first real cut.”
Lester reached out, grasped her shoulders, and turned her in a half circle. “I’d say you got the perfect ass for a cutting saddle.”
Wrenching from his grip, Paige spun and faced him. He gave her a leering grin and pushed his hat back with his thumb. “Yessir, a heart-shaped ass is made for riding…Or being ridden.”
Paige felt her face flame. She was willing to kiss up to him to get her job done, but she had her limits. “Lester. I don’t know how I might have given you the wrong impression, but let’s clear up one thing early. Our relationship is purely professional. I’ll work hard and do everything I can to help you, but I don’t sleep around.”
Lester threw his head back and laughed. “You think I’m asking you? With me? Honey, you sure think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
Paige gripped the lead rope tighter in her fist. “I assume you want me to exercise this horse this morning. Which one do you want me to ride first?”
Lester continued to grin like a monkey. “Okay, I know when I’m whipped. Let’s put this little girl on the walker for some exercise, then we’ll do a walk-around. I need to show you where everything is. Does that meet with your approval, Miz McBride?”
“That sounds great,” Paige snapped, anger leaving her with an unsettled feeling in her stomach.
Together they led the mare to the walker, then began the tour of the barns. While they walked Lester told her there were ten horses in training. Each had to be fed, watered, exercised, and groomed, preferably daily. The workday would start at 6:00 A.M. and end when everything was done.
It crossed Paige’s mind that so many tasks had to have been daunting for one person to do with no help, especially when training was essential for prospects as promising as these horses. It was credible, she supposed, that Lester had been keeping up with these duties alone thus far, but she hadn’t forgotten his display of cruelty to a colt.
Having satisfied all of her questions like “Where is this?” and “What are those?” Lester concluded the tour.
“What about the office?” Paige asked, mindful that Harley had mentioned her doing the bookkeeping. “We didn’t go over anything in there.”
Lester pulled a tin of snoose from his back pocket and shoved a pinch between his cheek and gums. “That’s none o’ your business. None o’ anybody’s business. I take care of all the paperwork.”
“There’s paperwork?” Paige said, batting her lashes.
Lester sighed and shook his head as if she were too stupid to live. “Sure is, sweet thing, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t know the first thing about paying bills. There’s dues and fees, registration papers, farrier bills, feed and supplies bills, vet bills—”
“Vet bills?” Paige’s ears perked up.
Lester walked to another stall, opened the gate, and went inside, talking as he slipped a halter on a strawberry roan. “Well, yah Paige, vet bills. I ain’t no hands-on healer or no horse whisperer, neither.”
“Well, uh, it’s just that—well, I heard the vet was leaving town.”
Lester led the roan out of the stall. “You can start out riding this baby. You do know how to ride, right?”
The horse came close to Paige and snorted and nuzzled her. A burst of sheer joy rose in her chest. “Yes, Lester. I do know how to ride.”
“Yep, ol’ Doc Miller’s leaving,” Lester said, “and it’s too damn bad. He’s a helluva guy. We’ll miss him around here, that’s for damn sure.”
“Is someone replacing him?”
“You bet there is. Harley saw to that. He put the vet clinic together. Bought a lot of the equipment. Got Doc Miller anything he needed.
Harley could’ve hired a vet to work right here at the ranch, but he thought the town needed a vet’s services. Says the Carruthers clan believes in supporting the community.”
Lester made a cynical heh-heh-heh. “What Harley believes in is having only the best at his beck and call to take care of his animals. Yessir, Salt Lick ain’t got no doctor or no hospital, but we got a world-class veterinary clinic. Since his new wife’s pregnant, some folks wonder if maybe he’ll think about building a hospital.”
They reached the tack room and Lester pointed out a saddle she could use. “Some smart-ass football hero out of A&M bought Doc’s practice. Being an Aggie himself, Harley checked the dude out a little, made some phone calls to a banker in Fort Worth, and just like magic, the new guy’s loan got approved. Those Aggies all stick together, you know.”
“Oh,” Paige said, thinking about Spur and his pride. “I wonder if the new person knows that?”
Lester looked at her quizzically. “What difference does it make? You got an interest in football players?”
“Uh, no. Of course not. I don’t know one football player from another.”
thirteen
Paige’s first day of gainful employment ended on a whisper almost undetectable by human ears. Actually, it was a half groan, half whimper. She couldn’t remember ever being dirtier or more exhausted. Or more content. Since the day her daddy had married Margaret Ann, before Paige became a teenager, the joy of doing almost anything she loved had been denied her. Oh sure, walking into her favorite store in the mall and finding a tremendous sale was a rush, but it paled in comparison to today’s feeling of high spirits. She wasn’t even upset over several broken nails.
She had discovered early in the day that a couple of the hired hands did many of the dirtiest jobs, like cleaning stalls and pitching hay. That explained how Lester had managed to work without a real assistant for so long.
The chores left were still enough to tax Paige’s body. She didn’t mind though, recognizing the physical benefit from the bending, pulling, lifting, and pushing. Still, what she wouldn’t give to sink into the whirlpool bath at Panache or lie down for a full-body massage.