by Claire Adams
“I thought you weren’t interested? Hmmm?”
“I’m not. But Dad wants me to teach him about the horses so I was just wondering if you knew anything about him.”
“You probably know more than I do. I’ve only had a couple conversations with him. He seems like a good kid, from Wyoming, I think. Not sure how your father found him or how he ended up working here. I can see you took care of his blistered hands for him.”
“Oh, yeah, they were the worst I have ever seen. But the strange thing was that he wasn’t even complaining about them. He was going to just keep working. It actually was pretty impressive. Remember that one guy who got blisters and stopped working by noon each day? Oh man, that was hilarious.”
My mother stopped to think for a moment as she looked up into the air. My mother was a beautiful and kind woman. Over the years, we had taken in many men who just weren’t cut out for working on a ranch. But she was always kind to them and always did her best to help them out. Even my father would pull the men aside and work with them to teach them what they needed to know to get by. It had always been strange to me that some men would just show up at our ranch and think that the work was going to be easy. Within a day or two, they were obviously in over their heads; it was quite funny to watch.
“Oh, yes, that poor guy. I remember father ended up teaching him how to use the tractor mower and having him mow for us and feed the animals.”
“That guy certainly didn’t earn his paycheck. I remember he’d always be reading books before anyone else had even finished their jobs. Why did father let him stay for so long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he felt bad for the guy. You know your father; he’s always trying to help people out.”
“Yeah, he needs to start being a little more selfish.”
As the men started to line up for their plates, I noticed Garrett as he walked into the building. Damn he was a good-looking guy. His chiseled jaw and brilliant, blue eyes were embedded into my mind and I couldn’t get them out of it. Garrett Reynolds was much too good-looking to be a ranch hand.
I could see Garrett as a model or business man, certainly not a ranch hand. I was going to have to work hard to get his story out of him though, because he wasn’t willingly going to share it.
“He is handsome, I’ll give him that,” my mother said as she noticed me looking at Garrett. “But you need to stay away from him. Let him do his job and you do yours. You said you wanted to come home to get your mind straight, I don’t think anything about that man will help you plan for your future.”
“I know.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes, mother. I’ll stay away from him.”
“Your father said one of the guys he’s hired just got out of prison. I don’t know which one it is, but you need to keep your wits about you. A handsome man can still be a bad one.”
My mother cracked me up. She was so kind to everyone who came through our doors yet she was trying to warn me away from Garrett. I knew that she wasn’t afraid of him anymore than I was. She had a good eye for people just like my father did, even the ones who recently got out of prison.
That was a big lesson I had learned at a young age; just because people did something bad in their past didn’t mean they were bad people. And just because they didn’t have a criminal record didn’t mean people were automatically good either. People were complicated characters and I felt like I was constantly learning and trying to understand them.
“Mom, I seriously doubt Garrett is a killer. The man looks like a fraternity boy who got lost on a camping trip.”
We both laughed as Garrett stood in front of us with his plate held out for his breakfast. He grinned and looked between my mother and me before moving down the line. I swear I held my breath every moment he was standing there.
Garrett had charisma and I liked that. His thick muscles made him a joy to look at and that was all I planned on doing. Like the fancy merchandise in the stores, I was going to look and not touch. Well, I might touch a little, but I wasn’t going to fall in love with the guy. A quick, summer fling before he took off on the road, that’s the most I would do: nothing more. I had to think about my own future and the plans I wanted to start working on for Garrett and myself would certainly distract me from those plans.
“You know, you two could be sisters,” he as he walked back past us and just before heading to his table.
“Mr. Reynolds, it’s nice to see that you were able to wake up this morning and eat some breakfast. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow morning,” my mother said.
She was horrible at taking a compliment and Garrett was a little too cheesy with his. Although, I had heard people say my mother and I looked a lot alike and some had even tried the sisters line before. But my mother had aged a lot over the last few years. The sun, work, and money stressors were taking their toll on her.
“I will be here tomorrow morning,” Garrett responded confidently as he sat down next to Forest.
“Do you think Forest has told him how everyone manages to wake up in the mornings?” I asked my mother.
“Well, he was up this morning, so maybe.”
I wasn’t about to tell my mother that I had woken Garrett up on my own. She certainly wouldn’t have been happy with me and I liked when my mother was happy. My mom could get pretty wild when she was angry. There had only been a few times in my life that I had witness her truly upset with me and I didn’t plan on repeating that experience anytime soon.
“Yeah, he must have told him.”
Chapter 5
Garrett
I knew I liked Forest. After telling him that I couldn’t go into town, he still brought me back a wristwatch with an alarm on it. I instantly noticed it was the same one all the other guys were wearing.
Luckily for me, Forest had taken a liking to me because Sid had been very clear that I wasn’t to go into town. Agent Walker threatened to place me on a fishing boat in Alaska if he found out I was causing any trouble. So, when Forest handed me the wristwatch, I was extremely grateful.
“It’s got a vibrate function on it, you can set alarms for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and the watch will vibrate to notify you.”
His broken, toothy smile was smug yet playful and I knew their little game with me was finally over. It had only taken me a couple of weeks to figure it out, but I was grateful to finally have a way of making it to breakfast in the morning. I couldn’t exactly expect Sarah to sneak into the bunkhouse and wake me up, although I certainly would appreciate it if she wanted to.
I had gone to college and been through the horror of hazing as I joined my fraternity; my theory of holding out and not complaining had finally paid off. It was a huge relief and I finally felt like I was one of the guys.
It was odd to be placed at the ranch through the witness protection program. I had seen the movie and television shows about the program and always assumed people were hidden away in cabins where no one could find them. It was a bit of a relief that I did get to work on the ranch and interact with people each day because I was sure I would have gone crazy if I had been stuck in a cabin all alone.
Free-time had never been something I liked. From the time I was in high school up to my current work, I always packed my days as full as possible. If I wasn’t at the gym or at the office, I was likely out with friends or visiting potential clients. I couldn’t sit still very well and that had served me greatly as I grew my business. I strongly believed that anyone who was willing to work hard and hustle would make something of themselves eventually. Although, it was hard for me to meet quality women when I was always hustling around.
Sarah was the kind of woman I had never really met up close. In the business world, she was aloof and not really the sort of woman I was looking for when I was out with my friends at a bar. To be honest, I figured a woman like Sarah probably didn’t go out to the bars much. She was serious about life and I could see that. Even at home at her family farm, Sarah kept a serious natu
re about her that could drive men away. But the more I talked to her and the closer I got to her, I was realizing that her serious nature was just her armor to make it in this man’s world. Sarah was actually very sweet and kind and tried to hide it behind everything else that she portrayed.
The touch of her hands on mine wasn’t something I could forget though. Even though for the next several weeks she seemed to be avoiding getting close enough to touch me. Something about our interaction during that morning of making breakfast had scared her, or perhaps her parents had told her to stay away; Sarah was very obviously avoiding me.
She had promised to teach me more about the horses and yet had totally avoided me since that morning we made breakfast. There were some quick glances as we worked, a smile and nod, or even a quick hello as I walked by, but Sarah was avoiding me.
At first I thought she was just trying to play hard to get. Or maybe she was proving her point that she was the supervisor and I was an employee. But the way her eyes lit up when we did look at each other, I felt like she was for sure interested in me. I understood she didn’t want her parents to think something was going on between the two of us — hell, I didn’t want that either. But there was no use in totally ignoring each other if we were going to work together; we could certainly decide to do that and just be friends if that was what she wanted.
“Can you show me how to saddle the horse?” I asked one late afternoon after I had finished all my other jobs.
She looked around nervously as she stood at the end of the barn. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly making her so nervous, but as a man I knew not to move forward until she allowed it. As men, we had to be in tuned to thing like the way a woman felt when alone with us; there were too many shady men in the world and they had ruined it for all the good guys.
Even thought I was clearly a good guy and I knew it, I wasn’t sure that Sarah was one hundred percent convinced of my good guy status. She wanted to like me, I could see that in her eyes; but she had some trepidation about giving in to her gut feeling about me.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I would trust the guy I was at that moment in my life. The story I had been given when I was placed at the ranch seemed a little shady to me and I probably hadn’t done it justice with my unconvincing lying. A guy traveling to Wyoming to Washington for a job opportunity wouldn’t actually stop to work at a ranch. If he had a job opportunity, he would want to get to that damn job and not sit for weeks on a ranch. But I tried to avoid the realities of the story I had been telling about my past and move forward. I just had to make the best of it and hope that Sarah could see through the lies and see that I was a decent guy.
“Um, actually I was just heading into town to get a saddle for Buckjoy. You could come with me if you’d like.”
The agent who had dropped me off at the ranch had told me very clearly never to leave the ranch. If I went into town, it was more likely someone would see me and if Frank Gordano sent people looking for me, it was more likely they could find me. I knew the rules; I had avoided going to get my own watch because of these rules. Everything in my mind told me to refuse this offer of Sarah’s… but my mind wasn’t really in control at that moment.
Lust can do wondrous things to a man’s psyche though. Justification and logic seem to swim together and make sense of situations and excuses to forgo all that a man knows is true. And in that moment, lust took control of my mind and I agreed to put myself in danger and go with this beautiful woman whom I had been distant from for weeks and desperately wanted to be alone with again.
“Sure,” I said as I took off my gloves and followed Sarah to the truck.
Adrenaline pulsed through my body at the decision I just made. As we pulled out of the driveway, I looked around in expectation. I felt as if someone might be just outside the gates waiting to kill me. But as the truck moved further away from the ranch, I began to relax just a little bit. How likely was it there would be anyone even remotely close to our little Montana city? How would they have even found me? No, I told myself I was being paranoid and that was all there was to it.
“How are your hands?” she asked.
I held them out for her to see and showed off my proud calluses on them. They were the hands of a true working man and I was actually proud of them. The rough nature of my hands now showed that I was physically able to work the ranch and I wasn’t that weak gym rat that I had been when I first arrived.
Rough callus-ridden hands weren’t something I ever imagined I would be proud of. Yet I really was. My life on the ranch had been such a growing experience up to that point and I was happy to stay a few weeks longer and continue to learn. I still had the feeling as if I were away at summer camp and having Sarah there made things even better.
My body had started adjusting to the long hours, although I was still very tired and ready for bed each night. Since getting my watch, I was getting up with everyone else and didn’t seem to be the butt of jokes anymore. Plus, there were a couple new ranch hands that were doing more of the grunt work as I started to take on additional responsibilities. Life was good for me and I didn’t feel afraid for my life like I had when I first arrived.
“They healed up real nice. Thanks again for taking such good care of me.”
I wasn’t specifically trying to flirt with Sarah, but I honestly couldn’t help myself. The way her big, brown eyes looked at me, she had every nerve in my body standing at attention. For weeks, she had avoided eye contact and hurried out of the barn whenever I was in there. But there she was, right next to me in the truck, the two of us alone as we made our way into town. I didn’t regret my decision one bit – I would have agreed to go anywhere with her.
Sarah kept her hands on the wheel and concentrated on the road as she drove. It felt like she was trying to avoid talking to me, yet she had been the one who invited me to come with her into town. I couldn’t help but stare at her as she held onto the large truck steering wheel. Her long, brown hair was pulled to either side in braids and she looked like a college girl. Sarah was half smiling and I thought she would say something flirty to me, but just as she started to talk she would bite her bottom lip and then stop.
“It’s just part of my job. You’re our employee; I can’t have you bleeding all over the place or being in so much pain you can’t work,” she finally said.
She looked at me and then her eyes turned back to the road as she sat coldly ignoring me for the rest of the drive into town. She was trying her best to put distance between us and I understood. I wasn’t going to let it happen, but I understood why she was doing it. In the six weeks that I had been on the ranch, I had already seen four men leave and three more take their places. It wasn’t a place where men came and lived for a long time and I couldn’t promise her I was going to stay much longer either. Who was I to try and build a friendship with this woman? I could literally be gone at any moment. The agent who dropped me off just had to show up at the front door of Mr. Miller’s home and I would leave with him without a question being asked.
I couldn’t offer Sarah anything and I was selfish for wanting anything from her. But I still wanted it. I still wanted her. Even if I was only there one more day, I wanted to feel the gentle touch of Sarah’s lips against mine. I longed for a moment when we could sneak away and she would let me explore her naked body with my lips and hands. I’d take anything she was willing to give, anything except the silence she was giving me as we drove into town.
“How am I doing with my jobs?” I asked in an effort to get her to talk to me.
“Good. I mean, it was pretty hilarious watching you try to catch that pig the other day though.”
That damn pig. I knew she had seen me struggling with that thing and everyone else on the ranch as well. It was emasculating to have a little pig cause so much chaos. I had never in my life spent so much time trying to grab an animal and my frustration at the event had grown so high that I would have started throwing a tantrum if others hadn’t of been watching. It was like the
pig actually had a vendetta against me.
“I don’t understand how your father did it. He basically used some sort of witch-power and the damn thing totally stopped running and let your dad pick him up.”
Sarah laughed at my description of her father, but it was totally true. I had chased after the damn pig for half an hour and when Sid walked up, the pig just succumbed to him and let him pick the damn thing up. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been me that had been tortured by the damn pig.
With Sarah, I had done what I had intended to do and broke her armor for the slightest of moments. My heart filled with potential and I quickly tried to figure out how I could prolong this moment with her and keep her armor down long enough to get to know her. She was a tough woman and I accepted that. Hell, I loved that she was so damn tough, but it meant I was going to have to work a little harder than I was used to around a woman. I was all right with that though; I was all right with whatever I had to do to keep Sarah’s attention.
“My father is a big of a pig whisperer,” Sarah continued to laugh.
“I have to admit, working on the ranch is so much harder than I imagined it would be and I don’t think I’m very good at it either. Your father has been very generous to let me work with him.”
“My father wouldn’t keep you around if you weren’t a hard worker. I think you’re doing all right.”
I pulled up my pants leg and exposed a huge bite mark on my leg. I had actually been a little worried about it, but Mrs. Miller convinced me it happened all the time and as long as I kept it clean, I would be fine. Meredith Miller was a pretty amazing woman; she was up for breakfast and still up when we all went to bed. I could see where Sarah got her strength both physically and mentally.
“What the hell happened to you?” Sarah yelled at me as she stopped the car in the parking lot of the store.