by Claire Adams
“How’s the job searching?” she asked, her light green eyes extra shiny in the sunlight. It had cooled off some after five, but not enough. It was still hot as hell out here.
“Not as well as I’d hoped,” I admitted. “I went to one farm yesterday and two today. No one’s paying enough, and the farm I just came from looked like it’d been completely neglected for more than ten years.” I put some food on my plate while Daddy watched me, his blue eyes steady and thoughtful. He didn’t often say much, but you could always tell there was a lot going on behind those eyes.
“You should just come work in Austin with me,” Kasey said. “The bar is so much fun some nights. And, we could carpool!”
I shook my head. I’d tried food service once in high school, and it hadn’t gone well. “I have to be outside. I don’t feel comfortable anywhere else. And, I want to be around animals.”
“Oh, there are animals at Murdock’s!” She brayed a girlish, high pitched laugh, covering her pink mouth, her eyes sparkling.
“Not those kinds of animals,” I countered with a smile.
“It’s a lot of fun, Em. And, you meet so many people. It can get wild, but that’s the good thing about it. No one day is ever like another.”
“Working in a bar isn’t for me,” I replied. “I like animals. Horses, cows, chickens, whatever. It doesn’t matter. As long as it doesn’t talk.”
Kasey giggled again and flipped her wavy locks over her shoulder. Her hair wasn’t quite as curly as it’d been the other day.
Daddy cleared his throat, drawing my eyes back to his side of the table. “I found an ad in the Register this morning. A local rancher’s looking for a farmhand to manage the stables and care for his horses.”
I tilted my head, my brow furrowing as I considered this. I pictured some old farmer around Mr. Myers’s age — late sixties creeping into early seventies and ornery as hell — dropping by the office of the Register to give them a handwritten job notice. It was what Daddy did any time he had an old piece of farm machinery to sell. This used to be a full-service farm when Mama was still living. There was a lot he could still get rid of, but he liked to keep a large garden and pasture land for our horses.
“I cut out the ad,” Daddy said. “It’s in your room.”
My old room, but it still had all my old furniture in it. I’d bought a queen-sized bed for my new bedroom. “Thanks, Daddy.”
I wasn’t sure about the job. Another old farmer who didn’t know how to advertise for positions on the internet — even Mr. Myers had figured out how to do that, and his farm was falling down around his ears — but I needed something to start paying the bills before my savings ran out. I didn’t need much, but I needed something. “I’ll call tomorrow.”
He nodded, but didn’t answer, just let his eyes stay pinned to mine for a few seconds before going back to his plate of grilled chicken and fixings.
The silence didn’t stretch on for very long before Kasey jumped in to fill it with animated stories from her crazy shift at the bar last night.
“I’m pretty sure I met my future husband last night, Em,” she announced and didn’t wait for me to even ask her to go on before she jumped into a tale of some tall, blond, tattooed stranger who’d wandered into Murdock’s. I smiled at all the right places and laughed at the end, like I always did, but I kept my gaze wandering back to Daddy so we could share those meaningful glances, the words passing between us in silent flashes that calmed me after such a disappointing day. Who knew? I thought. If things panned out, I might have a job come this time tomorrow evening.
Chapter Five
Pete
Wednesday
After I filled my belly in town at the Texan, I drove home and rested my feet on the porch, my paper in one hand and coffee in the other. Riley was curled up next to me, snoring peacefully. I looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle, expecting Lacey, who came in anytime between eight and ten, depending on how late she stayed the night before.
But it wasn’t Lacey. I didn’t recognize this car.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Riley, who didn’t even lift his scruffy head or twitch an ear. So much for a guard dog. Somebody could run up on the farm with a gun, and he wouldn’t even open his damned eyes.
I set my paper aside and stood, leaning onto the porch railing to watch the sporty, bright-blue sedan approach. It looked mighty out of place here. The brightest thing was usually Lacey’s fire engine red truck. The car came to a stop, and a woman got out. She saw me watching from the porch and started my way.
She was young, maybe twenty, twenty-two, with long brown hair worn loose down her back that swung when she walked. As she got closer, I could see the bottom few inches had a reddish tint to them that looked natural. She was dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but the jeans hugged her curves, and I found myself staring hard at the sway of those hips as she walked up to the house. She moved with an easy, confident grace that was hypnotic to watch.
“Can I help you?” I called out.
She stopped right in front of me, looking up to stare me in the face while I looked down to stare into hers. She had blazing green eyes and clear, tanned skin.
“I came about the job,” she said, her voice firm and as confident as her walk. “The one posted in the Register.”
I grinned. I’d just won that bet with Lacey. She’d put up five dollars, betting me that no one under seventy would answer that ad in the paper.
“Can I speak to whomever placed the ad?” she asked.
My grin got wider. I must’ve been the only person under thirty who had no use whatsoever for technology. I didn’t have a computer, a web page, or any social media accounts. The only reason I had a cell phone was because Lacey’d forced me into it. But I didn’t do a thing with it besides make and receive calls.
“You’re looking at him,” I said.
Her dark eyebrows scrunched together slightly before smoothing out again. I couldn’t read her expression. It was serene and pleasant enough to look at, but it didn’t tell me anything. This girl was a mystery. I liked mysteries.
I stepped down off the porch to shake her hand. “My name’s Pete Gains.”
She shook my hand with a firm grip, her face not giving me one damned hint as to what she was thinking. “I’m Emma Flowers.”
“Nice to meet you, Emma. Can I show you around?”
“Sure,” she said, nicely enough, though she didn’t smile. She handed me a single sheet of paper. “Here’s my resume.”
I folded it up and stuck it in my back pocket without giving it a glance. “Thanks.” I directed her to the barn first, and we walked the few hundred yards from the main house to the stables.
“I have ten horses on the property right now, one I just brought home last weekend. Do you have experience with horses?”
She nodded once, still exuding that easy confidence, her green eyes meeting mine without blinking. “My daddy raised us with horses. I’ve been riding since before I could read.” She didn’t say any of this in a prideful way. It was what it was. I liked that, too.
I took her inside the barn. It smelled like fresh hay in here, which was my favorite thing about it. The horses stuck their heads out of the stalls as we approached, as curious as I was about the new arrival. Emma Flowers. I liked the sound of that name nearly as much as I liked the look of the woman walking beside me.
“Two of these are mine, but the rest I raise, train for racing or riding, and sell,” I said as we walked down the alleyway between the stalls. The horses watched us, keen for treats, whinnying and stamping their feet. They were due to be fed in about thirty minutes, whether Lacey was here or not.
“We turn over more than a dozen horses a year. That and hay sales keep the ranch going. We’re doing better than alright, actually, but I’d like to expand. The trainer and I can’t keep caring for the horses and the stable ourselves. It’s too much work.”
Emma’s pretty eyes wandered over the tidy interior of
the barn, the clean stalls, fresh buckets of water, the clear run from one entrance of the barn to the other. Lacey and I busted our asses to keep this place clean, scrubbing out stalls and surfaces in between caring for the horses and baling hay. It was hard work, but rewarding. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. But I couldn’t keep ignoring how much help we needed now that we were planning to expand the operation.
I took Emma to the tack room next and watched from the corner of my eye as she took in the saddles, bridles, blankets, and gear for our horses, all neatly arranged and organized. Her expression didn’t change much, but I could see she appreciated the display, the whole room smelling of rich, worn leather.
We went to the feed room next. I showed off the bags of grain and the fresh hay kept free of mold and dust.
She nodded her head a single time at the sight of the room and turned to look at me, her appraising green eyes seeming to like what they saw. “Very nice.”
“We can go out to the paddock next.” I led her out to the small fenced-off corral just beyond the barn where Lacey liked to do the better part of her training with a new horse. But even older horses were exercised in here. It just depended on what she had planned for the day.
Emma listened to everything I had to say without saying much herself. I kept waiting for her to laugh at one of the many jokes I cracked, but her face never changed. I hadn’t even seen the woman smile once. I pointed out the far pasture at the western border of the land where we put the horses out to graze and the field beyond where we grew most of the hay for our horses, stacking the bales in another, smaller barn past the one with the horses.
At the end of the tour, we ended up back where we started, close to Emma’s blue sedan.
“You aren’t at all what I expected after seeing your ad in the paper,” she said, staring me right in the face, her brown hair blowing over her shoulders in a hot burst of wind.
I gave a smile that she didn’t return. She hadn’t really changed her expression since she arrived. “I get that a lot. Technology and me just don’t get along.”
She still didn’t smile. Damn. It was starting to feel like a challenge.
“I’d like the job, if you’re offering it.” She was blunt. Direct.
“Give me a day or two. I’ll call you by Friday to let you know what I decide once I talk to the trainer. But you seem like a great fit.”
Emma nodded, again just once. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Gains.” She shook my hand, leaving me so stunned by her confidence, that I just watched her get into her car and drive away without saying another word.
As she was pulling out, Lacey was pulling in, steering her big red truck to the left to avoid plowing right into Emma Flowers. Lacey jumped out of her truck and walked over to where I was standing in the middle of the driveway. She was dressed to work, in a flannel shirt, jeans, and boots with her hair braided and tucked under her hat.
“Who was that?” she asked, motioning to the blue car driving away from us in a traveling cloud of dust.
“You owe me five bucks for one,” I said, grinning and holding out my hand.
She slapped it away. “The hell I do.”
“That was Emma Flowers. She came about the job I posted in the Register.” I put my hand out again.
“Shit,” she spat. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills. She separated out a wrinkled five and stuffed the rest of the money back into her pocket. She wouldn’t be caught dead carrying a purse. She wadded the bill up and threw it, so I had to catch it before it fell in the dirt.
“I told her I’d call on Friday to let her know if she got the job.” I whistled and shook my head. “She’s cute as a button. You should’ve seen her.” I didn’t know if I wanted that kind of distraction on the ranch. But Emma seemed so self-possessed and confident. The few questions she asked made it clear she knew her shit. I liked the idea of her being able to jump right in without needing any training.
Lacey rolled her brown eyes, a devilish grin spreading across her face. “I feel sorry for the poor girl if you decide to hire her.”
“Why?”
“She’ll have to deal with your dumb ass!”
I pushed Lacey, not hard, just enough to knock her off balance. “Oh, shut up.”
“You realize you’ll be outnumbered if you hire another girl?”
Now it was my turn to curse. “Shit,” I said, but I busted up laughing when Lacey did.
Chapter Six
Emma
Wednesday
I passed a big red truck as I was leaving my interview with Pete Gains — the decidedly not sixty-year-old rancher who put the ad in the paper that Daddy found. As I drove past the pickup, I saw a woman behind the wheel, though I couldn’t see much of her face past her hat. I clicked my tongue at that.
I hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on Mr. Gains’s finger. He seemed pretty young to be married already, but he could definitely have a girlfriend. He was a great looking guy — tall and muscled from so much time spent working hard in the sun, with steel-blue eyes, a few days’ worth of dark stubble coloring a strong jaw, and an easy smile that he flashed at every opportunity. A guy like that could even have two or three girlfriends if he played his cards right. Not that his dating life was really any of my business.
But I was impressed by the look of his property, especially after my interview at Myers. Mr. Gains had a several hundred well-maintained acres from what I’d glimpsed during my tour. Ten well fed, healthy horses kept in one of the tidiest barns — outside of the one on Daddy’s land — I’d ever seen. A fully stocked tack and feed room. The paddock and fenced off land for grazing. He even grew and baled his own hay. He couldn’t be older than thirty, if that. I didn’t know how he’d managed to be so successful at such a young age.
I drove over to Daddy’s, wanting to tell him about how well the interview had gone. If Mr. Gains called on Friday — and I was pretty sure he would, I just had that feeling — I was going to accept the job.
I found Daddy in the living room reading the Register. It reminded me of Mr. Gains, how he had been sitting on his porch reading the paper when I drove up. Only Daddy always read it at the end of a busy day, not at the beginning.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, and sank into the couch across from him.
He looked up from his paper and gave me a small smile. His glasses were perched near the bridge of his nose. He only wore them when he was reading. He’d had perfect vision until he was fifty. Then, as he was fond of saying, it all went straight to hell.
“How was your interview?”
“It went well. I really like the ranch. They have nearly a dozen horses with more coming in the future and lots of open land. It’s one of the bigger ranches in the area.”
“Is he farming it?”
“Just enough to feed his horses. I glimpsed the field from far off. He might bale extra hay to sell. I’d have to walk out there to see.” I sat back in my chair, watching Daddy staring thoughtfully down at the paper resting on his lap. He was a small, compact man, not standing taller than five foot seven, but with solid, muscled limbs from spending the last sixty years of his life roping cattle and riding horses. His skin was worn and chapped like old leather, which made his blue eyes striking in comparison. He was a real looker, or so the ladies around town said, but Daddy’d never been interested in dating after Mama died.
“He said he’d call me by Friday to let me know.” I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling like some fool, but Daddy would know how pleased I was just by looking me in the face. “I’m pretty sure I’ll get the job.”
He nodded once. “I’m glad to hear you found a place you like, Em.” He shook his paper straight and picked up where he left off before I strolled in.
“Kasey in her room?” I asked.
He nodded.
I headed that way, walking down the hall to her closed door. I knocked and walked in a second later without waiting for her to tell me to come in. She was lying back on a stack
of pillows on her bed, tapping away at something or other on her cell phone. She never left the damned thing alone, even bringing it with her into the bathroom.
“Hey, Kase,” I said.
“Hey, Em.” She thumped the mattress next to her, and I went to sit down. She grinned over at me. “So? Did you get the job?”
“I think so. The property’s much nicer than anything I’ve seen so far. And the guy who owns it, Pete Gains, is about thirty years younger than I expected. He has ten fine-looking horses on the-”
Kasey held up her hands, the nails painted bubblegum pink, to stop my rambling. Around Daddy, I didn’t say more than was necessary, but she would draw the chattiness out of a damned mute.
“Wait. Go back to talking about this Pete guy. About how young is he?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Thirty maybe?”
Her green eyes got wide, the sparkle in them telling me she’d just heard something she liked. “What does he look like? Is he cute?”
I couldn’t help the smile that sprang to my lips. “He’s cute enough. I couldn’t see his hair under his cowboy hat, but he had dark stubble on his chin and bright blue eyes. He smiled a lot, too, and kept telling these jokes that weren’t even a little bit funny.” I giggled now to think about it, though I hadn’t even smiled at the time. “He seems nice, though. Like he’d be a fair boss.”
She looked even more interested now. She sat up from her nest of pillows, shiny hair bouncing over her shoulders when she it flipped back and out of the way. “Is he single?”
I scrunched my face. “I don’t see how any of that’s my concern. I was paying more attention to his ranch. He has hundreds of acres of land, Kase. And, it’s well maintained, unlike some of the other ranches I’ve seen around here. It’s just on the other side of Round Rock.”
Kasey’s face had fallen a little more with every sentence I’d said that wasn’t about Pete Gains and his tan, muscled arms, and heart-stopping smile. “I don’t give a shit about his farm. I mean, I’m happy for you if you’re excited to work there with his horses and all his land. But none of that is interesting. I want to hear more about Pete!” She clasped her hands together over her chest as she said his name and batted long eyelashes that were black and sticky with mascara.