by Parker, Ali
“I didn’t get to see that bull rider. I do wish I could ride, though,” I said, taking the last bite of my sandwich.
“You would darn well get yourself killed,” Tanner said. “You can’t just hop back on the saddle like that. It takes a lot of training, and Father would never let you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. All of you tell me that over and over. But I’m restless, I miss riding.”
“It’s just too dangerous,” Abi said.
“Too dangerous for your brother, but not too dangerous for a boyfriend?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“That’s different,” she said.
We all gave her a look. We didn’t like the idea of her being with a ruffian like a bull rider. It was one thing for me to want to be one, but I didn’t want my little sister dating one. They were a hard group of men living life on the edge, as though they could die any night, and with that came a lot of recklessness. No, definitely not the kind of cowboy we wanted with our sister. We couldn’t help to be overprotective of her, it was just part of our roles as her brothers.
Abi was the only girl in the family, since Mom passed when we were just kids. That made it all the more important to protect her. I had been around rodeos and I didn’t want her involved with that tough type of cowboys.
For a moment I thought about the mean-looking cowboy that had tried to start shit with me at the pavilion. He was wearing a bull riding championship buckle and was just the kind we wanted to keep away from our baby sister.
But looking at Abi, I knew that it would be hard to keep her from doing what she wanted. She was a strong woman with a mind of her own and did her own thing. It hadn’t easy being the only girl in a family of five men and she was a tomboy cowgirl because of it. But I knew there was a lot of me in her as well. She was into the bull riding cowboy she was gushing about because she sought some adrenaline and some change, just like me.
“I’m feeling restless though. In fact, I’ve been thinking about going out of town for my weeks off. Especially since I’m not allowed to go back to the rodeo,” I said.
“Yeah? Where to? You going to go to Houston, get some city life in you?” Connor teased me.
“Or go to Corpus Christi? Hit the beaches?” Tanner added.
“No, to the Texas Hill Country. I think I’m going to go work at the dude ranch for a while, just like I used to in high school,”
The table grew silent as everyone stared at me.
“What?” I said.
“You’re going to take time off of the ranch you work on like crazy, to go work at another ranch? Shouldn’t you spend your time off doing something different? That’s the whole point of our vacation time and why we hire ranch hands and put them out in the bungalows. So that we can all take turns getting time off here and there. So we don’t get burned out. So you want to take your free time, and go work doing the exact same thing you do here day in and day out? Have you lost your mind?” Wyatt was agitated.
“So? I used to do it all the time in the summers during high school?”
“That was different. You were doing it as a summer job in order to learn the value of a dollar, and get experience working at a different ranch,” he said. “Just like Father had the rest of us do.”
“You want to go to the Larson Dude Ranch?” Tanner gave me a look. He was the only one that knew I had run into Helen that weekend. He was the only one that knew that I had been saying some dirty things about her before I realized it was her. He could see right through me, dang it.
“Yeah, just like I used to. It’s no big deal,” I said.
Tanner cocked his brow at me. He knew I was lying. Tanner could always read me. But I had to respect him for keeping his trap shut in the moment. He looked like he was about to tease me and tell everyone why I really wanted to go, cause I was smitten over Helen or something, but he didn’t. He just gave me a look. I think it was because we had all given him shit when he was dating Madison, and he knew what it was like to deal with that from the family. So he said nothing. But Wyatt, on the other hand, had a lot to say.
“I think it’s a bad idea,” Wyatt said. He was always the negative one, but really he was just looking out for us all the time and that tended to come off as negative.
“Why?”
“Cause you’ll get burned out. I need you here fresh when you return. Not burned out from ranching somewhere else. Go to the beach, be lazy and meet girls. Don’t go ranching,” he said.
“Yeah alright whatever, it was just a thought,” I shrugged it off. But I already knew that I had made up my mind.
4
Helen
“And if y’all decide that you want to treat yourself and stay three nights instead of two, we can definitely accommodate you for that. Take a really long nice weekend,” I said over the phone trying not to sound too pushy.
“Just Friday night and Saturday night for now,” the customer said on the phone.
“Great, you’re all booked up for that weekend. So, have a nice ride on out here and we will be waiting for you at the Larson Dude Ranch,” I said.
I hung up the phone. A soft sigh escaped my mouth. I was always trying to convince the guests to stay at least one more night. It was part of my job. One more night meant more money, and the ranch definitely needed it. But I always hated to push it on them. I had decided there was nothing wrong with putting the idea in their head. Sometimes guests did decide to stay an extra night after they had been out living the ranch and cowboy lifestyle for two nights and didn’t want to leave.
Pulling up the spreadsheet on my laptop, I looked over the accounts. We definitely had enough guests coming and going, but not as many as we used to. We used to be sold out solid, almost every single week. But things had changed, and it wasn’t because Steve wasn’t here anymore. It was because a new ranch nearby was stealing our business.
The guests that we had coming and going these days were barely enough to keep the ranch paying for itself, and my employees. I already had to let some go during the early springtime. There just wasn’t enough profit to pay for them. It was a hard decision to make since my employees were like family, but if I didn’t do it the entire ranch wouldn’t be operating as a dude ranch bed and breakfast, it would just be a regular ranch. I guess that wasn’t too bad either. I was a country girl at heart, had always been, but this was a business that I loved, and I didn’t want to see it run into the ground. Still, if I needed to let the business go one day and run it as a regular ranch, I knew that I could live with that, too.
I finished my work typing in the accounts on the spreadsheet and then turned off my laptop. I took a sip of my coffee and looked at the clock, it was 8:45. The guest check out time was noon, but most would be getting up for the 9 a.m. breakfast. I took my coffee cup with me and walked out of my office which was located inside my house on the dude ranch.
Stopping at the kitchen, I poured myself a refill. Walking out on the porch I stretched and looked at the Texas sky. Morning was always a beautiful time and the sky was a bright blue with only a few clouds here and there. I took another drink of the hot black liquid before stepping off the porch. Heading out behind the house, I went through the gate that separated the main house from the business areas of the ranch. It was time to make my way to the guest breakfast area.
“Good morning, Eddie, it smells good,” I said to my cook as I walked to the outdoor kitchen. He turned and looked at me with a smile, his tanned face had definitely been worn by the sun. He was in his 60s, and the best outdoor kitchen cook in the Texas Hill Country, or at least I thought so.
“Good morning Helen, it’s that Texas Hill Country sausage. Smells good, don’t it?” he said with a smile as he rolled a couple of sausages over. They were simmering on the grill and slightly blackened. Just the way I liked them. My stomach grumbled as I realized I had skipped breakfast once the phone started ringing with people calling in to book a few nights.
“Yes, it sure does.” I grabbed a towel and plung
ed it into a bucket of soapy water and began to wipe down the outdoor picnic tables. I was very proud of this area. We had 10 picnic tables all lined up on top of a cement slab. The outdoor kitchen was to one side of the tables where Eddie would serve the cowboy breakfast of sausage, eggs, beans, toast, and biscuits and gravy. There were stringed lights hanging overhead in the trees that provided shade. It was nice at dinner time too with the lights on.
“Eddie, I’ve looked over the schedule, and looks like I won’t need you again until Thursday to come back here and get the kitchen and the meals ready for the weekend folks coming on Friday,” I said, wiping down the tables.
“All right Helen,” he said, and looked over my shoulder. “Looks like we have the first early birds coming our way.”
I turned to see some of the guests coming out of their bungalows, following the smell of sausage and coffee to the breakfast area. I smiled at them. The weather was nice, and not humid. It was only starting to be summer, so it was not yet 100 degrees like our typical August weather. Today was perfect.
“Good morning y’all, come on and help yourselves. It smells real good doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” they smiled.
“There’s fresh coffee, lemon water, and iced sweet tea for y’all,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
I continued to greet the guests as they came out of their bungalows. Making my rounds, I tried to speak with each guest, especially since they were all leaving later that day. I wanted to make sure they felt welcome right up to the last minute and would hopefully spread the word to their friends that a good time could be had at the Larson Dude Ranch.
After breakfast, most of the guests lounged around, since their weekend visit was coming to an end. Others did their packing and completed their check-out process with me. Then they all started to depart around noon with suggestions from me on the best spots to stop for dinner as they headed home.
Around 2 o’clock, it was time for one of my usual routines. I carried the cleaning supplies to the first bungalow. Having to cut expenses, I let my cleaning lady go three months before, so now I was the one cleaning the bungalows after the guests checked out, and before they checked in. I didn’t mind the work, it was good to stay busy, and of course, I cleaned my own house. But I did miss the time that this was taking from my usual work.
I grabbed the sheets off of the bed and threw them in the laundry basket. As I cleaned, I thought about the guests that had been in this particular bungalow. They had been at the Livestock Show and Rodeo and got the information for the ranch from one of the many flyers I had passed out. I guess I did a good job because not two weeks later they were here. Smiling to myself, I thought maybe I was a good and savvy businesswoman after all. But as soon as I thought about the Livestock Show and Rodeo, the image of Dylan Dawson popped into my mind. Just as it had several times over the last two weeks.
For some reason, I hadn’t been able to shake him from my thoughts. I would see him grinning at me with that white smile—a confident sideways grin. I felt my body get heated—another thing that kept happening when I thought about him. It was very strange.
I continued my work, going from one bungalow to the next, cleaning and pulling off the sheets and towels to be laundered.
When I was done with the last bungalow, I rolled the laundry basket to the shed and began to do the laundry. I’d had a washer and dryer installed out on the ranch in the maintenance area, since it was inconvenient and seemed strange to do it up at the main house.
After I loaded the wash, I went back out to the picnic area and wiped everything down. Eddie took care of keeping the grill and kitchen area clean, so that was already done.
Next, I made my rounds out on the grounds picking up any stray trash. Then I took inventory of items I kept stocked for use in the guest bungalows, such as water bottles, coffee, toilet tissue, travel size toiletries and so on. I was running a hotel, and this is what it took, continuous hard work. I tried to coordinate and balance my supply orders so I could purchase in large enough quantities to get good pricing, but not have so much stock on hand it was a nuisance to store or tied up too much money.
When I was done, I went into the main house and took a long shower, washing the day off of me. Most of the ranch workers would be wrapping up their day and heading off. Most were only on the ranch Thursday through Monday, except for one could would come by and feed the animals daily and do a few other things here and there, but only for about two hours a day.
I did all the evening chores, feeding the animals and other tasks on the ranch. These were all things that Steve had done, though at that time the ranch was booming, and we had a lot more ranch workers. Things had definitely changed.
Wrapping a towel around me, I looked out the window of my bedroom. One truck was leaving while another was still parked. Things following the normal routine as usual. I dried off and ran the towel through my long black hair.
Pulling on a summer dress, I wrapped myself in a white shawl for the evening. Sometimes it felt good to be in a flowing dress and soft fabric after being in dusty boots and hard stiff jeans all day. I went downstairs to the kitchen where I made myself a nice hot pot of tea.
This was one of my favorite parts of the day on a Monday. I would get to enjoy the sunset and relax. During the weeks, I was usually herding the horses in from the pasture at sunset, but one of my workers did that Thursday through Monday.
Walking out onto my wrap-around porch, I was just in time to catch the sun setting on the horizon. It was creating a beautiful orange and pink glow, a classic Texas sunset. But as I looked at it and saw the trucks of the ranch workers leaving the property, one truck was driving toward it. It was a black shiny double cab truck that I had never seen before. I quickly racked my brain, wondering if I had forgotten about a guest coming for a Monday night stay. It would be very unusual if I forgot something like that since I was always on top of these things, and a guest checking in on a Monday was very rare. So, if not a guest, who could it be?
The black truck pulled up at the end of the driveway next to my truck. The door opened and my eyes grew big as Dylan Dawson himself stepped out.
He had that big grin on his face, the same one I had been thinking about earlier in the day—a white sideways smile, confident and a bit cocky. Dylan tipped his brown straw hat at me and I immediately noticed the fitted white button-down western shirt hugging his body, along with his fitted Wrangler jeans. I shook my head at him and walk down the steps of my porch. But he didn’t walk toward me. Instead, he opened the back door of his double-cab truck. When he closed it, he had a large duffel bag in his hand. He had obviously come to stay, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. Or the fact that my heart was suddenly racing.
5
Dylan
It was a long six-hour drive from East Texas to the Texas Hill Country. It was a good drive for thinking, but all I could think about was Helen. Her and the fact that I didn’t tell my family where I was going. I had eluded to the fact that I was just going to take a nice road trip and maybe go down to Houston and then down the Texas Gulf Coast. They all seemed to buy it. All of them except Tanner, who just gave me a look like he knew better.
The drive was just what I needed though. As soon as I hit the open road, I felt the restless spirit in me start to abate. It had been hungry for quite some time. Feeling free and heading toward the Hill Country was just the medicine I needed.
But I wasn’t nearly ready for what I saw when I pulled up to the Larson Dude Ranch. Pure beauty—and her name was Helen.
Seeing her nearly took my breath away as I drove up to her house. She was wearing a sundress, with a nice white shawl over it and she was barefoot. Her dark black raven hair was loose and looked damp, as though she was fresh out of the shower, also something that I noticed. There was a smile in her piercing gray eyes, but also disbelief. That look made me smile. I liked catching her off guard and giving her a good-natured shock.
I hadn’t bothered letting he
r know that I was coming out, because I knew that she would try to convince me not to. She was a strong woman and didn’t want to ask for help. I admired that. I admired the strength in it, the Dawson family was strong as well. I knew that she would try to convince me not to drive all the way out to Birny, Texas. Her ranch was located a few miles from that town.
“Dylan Dawson, what in God’s holy name are you doing here, anyway?” she asked, coming toward me with a perplexed expression on her face.
“I just came to visit. Am I unwanted?” I asked.
She stood directly in front of me, looking even more beautiful than I remembered. “No, you are not unwanted, that is not the issue and you darn well know it.” She put a hand on her hip.
“I just couldn’t stay away, and I want to help out,” I said.
“I can’t accept your help. It’s not right. This is my business and it needs to be on me. You are very gracious, but I am not going to take advantage of you,” she said.
“But I want you to take advantage of me.” As soon as I said it, I realized that it came out in a very sexual way. Her mouth opened slightly and there was an awkward silence between us, and I couldn’t take back what I said.
She cleared her throat, “Well you drove all the way out here, and it’s already dark. Come on inside, I was just about to start dinner, but that doesn’t mean you’re staying on the ranch to help.”
“Why are you being so darn stubborn? Let me help. I know this ranch,” I said, dropping my duffel bag on the ground.
“Dylan Dawson, I’m not stubborn. I just like things the way I like them,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“That is the very definition of stubborn,” I raised my brow at her.