by Claire Adams
“I told you all I know,” I said.
“You left out the most important thing!” she said, her eyebrows pressing together, her disappointment in me abundantly clear.
I lifted my own eyebrows in response.
“Is he single?” She gave me a long look, her eyes narrowing into green slits. “Don’t act like you didn’t notice whether or not he was wearing a wedding ring.”
That didn’t always tell you what you wanted to know. Daddy still wore his ring. Although, it did what he meant it to do — keep interested middle-aged women from sniffing around or getting their hopes up.
“He wasn’t wearing a ring,” I admitted.
She whooped triumphantly, a smile breaking over her face and hair flying around as she lifted her arms in a mini celebration. It had been a while since I’d dated anyone, but damn, it hadn’t been that long. She made it sound like I’d been trapped in a convent.
“Don’t get too excited. I think he has a girlfriend. She was pulling up as I was pulling out. The way he looks, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had three girlfriends — one in Round Rock and two in Austin.”
Kasey didn’t let this news deter her for a second. If anything, she looked more determined. “Girlfriends don’t mean shit. No ring means he ain’t married. Which means he’s fair game.”
I pressed my lips together to give her a withering look that didn’t do a thing to wipe the grin off her face. “That’s terrible, Kasey. Is that how you’re living your life in Austin? Chasing after other girls’ boyfriends?”
She laughed her high, sweet laugh. “I don’t have to chase after anyone. And, neither do you.” She leaned back onto her pillows again. “But, I’m just saying, having a girlfriend isn’t the same thing as having a wife. That’s just a fact.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t help smiling at my little sister’s logic.
“The first thing you need to find out is if he’s actually single,” she said.
I thought about the woman I saw driving onto the ranch as I was driving off. She could’ve been a friend or another person applying for the job minding the horses. He could be single, after all.
Not that it mattered. Once I started working, I wouldn’t have a spare minute to date. And, anyway, if I got the position on Pete Gains’s ranch, he’d be my boss, which would make him off limits, single or not.
Chapter Seven
Pete
Friday
I put halters on all the horses and led them one at a time out to the paddock for their morning feeding. I was breaking up hay bales for them when Lacey appeared around the other side of the barn. She leaned onto the wooden fence around the corral with both arms, watching me spread out the hay for our animals. Technically, everything on the farm belonged to me, but these horses were as much Lacey’s as they were mine. They probably liked her more, too.
As soon as I filled up the trough with cool, fresh water, I strode over to where she was resting her elbows on the fence. I tipped my hat back and wiped my sweaty forehead with my handkerchief. It was early, but getting hot fast. I had to make sure to keep the horses watered today, and both doors open on the barn to keep it ventilated.
“I think I’m going to hire that girl who came out a few days ago. Emma Flowers.” I liked saying her name for some reason. I mentioned her at the Texan this morning at breakfast, and the old timers all knew her father, John, said he was from a long line of ranchers going way back. He’d worked on farms his whole life and owned his own small chunk of land that he worked with his daughters.
Lacey dipped her head into a nod, her smile sharp, so I knew I was about to get a lecture. “Sounds good. Just make sure you keep it in your pants, cowboy. We need the help with the horses. You can’t be trying to date her.”
“She’s more than qualified, Lace,” I said, frowning.
“I know she is. But she’s cute as a button, too. You said so yourself. If you chase her off, I’m not picking up the slack. You’ll be the one taking on her duties.” She was still smiling, but her dark eyes were serious.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I grumbled. “Like I have time to date. The rodeo’ll be here in a few weeks. We have serious shit to do before then.”
“Alright, then,” she agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced.
I hopped over the fence and walked up to the house. I’d actually wanted to call Emma this morning after breakfast, but it’d only been seven o’clock. My mama taught me a decent person didn’t call anybody before nine. It was just past that right now.
I leaned against the wall next to the phone in my sunny kitchen and dialed her number.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Emma Flowers?” I recognized her voice but asked anyway, just to be sure. She did have a sister, after all.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Hi, Emma, it’s Pete from the ranch. Pete Gains.”
“Hi, Mr. Gains.”
My cheeks tingled red for no good reason. “Call me Pete. I’m too young to be Mr. Gains!” I laughed, but she didn’t. I cleared my throat, suddenly nervous. “I was calling to offer you the job with my horses, if you still want it.”
She didn’t answer right away. I half expected her to tell me she’d accepted a position someplace else, though I could tell she’d liked what the ranch had to offer.
“That would be great,” she said, not really sounding excited about it. She was harder to read over the phone than she’d been in person, and she’d been pretty damned hard to read in person.
“You can come out to the barn on Monday morning,” I said. “I’m usually up before the sun is.” I tittered a little at that. There was nothing but silence on her end. I wondered if she had a sense of humor. It wasn’t a requirement for doing the job, but it sure did help the day go by. I’d have to see if I could get her to come around. We worked hard on the ranch, but we liked to have fun, too.
“I’ll see you then. Thanks, Mr. Ga…Pete.”
I hung up the phone and wandered back outside again and got back to working. There was always so much to do on the ranch and only two people to do it. It would be nice to have someone else on the property full time.
At the end of a long day, once all the horses were fed and put away for the night and Lacey had left for her place, I sank onto my favorite spot on the porch to watch the sun set over the ranch while I picked through what I knew about Emma Flowers. She was a locked safe. But that only made me more interested about what might be hidden inside. Hopefully, a sense of humor. Or at least a smile. Damn.
I looked over at Riley, who was lying flat in front of the steps down to the yard, his skinny legs sticking out.
“We got a new girl starting on Monday, Riley,” I said to him.
He took a deep breath and let it out again, his side rising and falling, but he didn’t lift his head.
“Lacey’s right, I can’t get involved with her. No matter how pretty she is. Not that she seems the least bit interested. But that’s a good thing, too. She really knows what she’s doing. It would be bad for the farm if something happened between us. You know?”
Now he lifted his head, staring over at me with his black eyes, his mouth opening and pink tongue lolling out. He wagged his tail once, thumping it on the porch.
I nodded and he put his head down again. “Glad we agree, old boy.” I sat back in my seat, content to watch the sunset paint the sky pink, purple, and blue.
Chapter Eight
Emma
Monday
I’d set my alarm for four thirty in the morning, not wanting to be late to my first day on the Gains Ranch, though I hadn’t actually been given an exact time to turn up. I was showered, dressed, and out in the car by five thirty, with a full belly and plenty of nerves running through me about the new position.
Not the job itself. I knew I was capable of taking care of anything on the farm, having done it for years on Daddy’s property. It was everything else that got me jittery as a new foal.
I drove up the lon
g driveway from the country road that ran along one side of Pete’s property as the sun was rising on the far end of the farm, a blinding ball of light slung low on the horizon. Pete was on the porch reading the paper, as seemed to be his way in the morning. I parked my car and walked up to the house, but he didn’t get out of his seat like he had last time.
“Morning,” he said.
“Morning,” I said back.
“Come on up and take a seat.” He motioned to the empty chair on the other side of his wiry-haired dog, who hadn’t lifted his head yet.
I hesitated, unsure of why we weren’t getting right to work. Surely, there was plenty to do. But maybe he had a few things to tell me about the running of the farm and figured this was the best way to do it. After that, we’d get to it.
I sat down but didn’t relax, my back straight and fingers twitching over the jeans I was wearing. Pete wasn’t wearing his hat yet today — it was sitting next to him on the ground — so I could see his thick shock of shiny black hair, which he wore clipped short to show his ears and pushed back away from his forehead. He’d shaved this morning, his strong jawline glistening and smooth.
“Tell me about yourself, Emma,” he said with an easy smile.
I didn’t see what this had to do with my place on the farm, but he was the boss. “Not much to tell. I was born and raised here, went to school in Austin, and came back after graduation.”
“John Flowers is your daddy?” he asked.
My eyebrows twitched, but I kept them from pulling together. Had he been asking around town about me? “Yeah.”
He looked at me, waiting on something. Maybe for me to ask him about himself. I was interested to know something about him, but I was more interested to get started with my duties on the farm. That was what I was being paid to do. I imagined I’d do most of my work throughout the day without seeing him much. I might see the trainer more, whose name I still didn’t know.
“I grew up on this ranch,” Pete said, staring out at our view of the front end of the property. From here, it was nothing but rolling green land and the country road far out in the distance. “My daddy raised heads of cattle part of the time, but he really loved horses.”
I snuck a glance at him from the corner of my eye while his gaze was elsewhere. His straight nose led to lips that were used to smiling and a chin that was strong and square. He ran a hand over his dark hair, flattening it before setting his brown cowboy hat onto his head.
“He passed after I finished high school. I took over from there. It was hard, mostly because I was used to goofing off more than I was used to working, but I’d been on the farm since before I could walk. And, I had help. My best friend works on the farm right beside me.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never met a cowboy who talked as much as Pete did. And he never stopped smiling, even when he was talking about his daddy passing away. I was getting more uncomfortable as the conversation went on. It would be good to get to my duties, but I couldn’t really insist on that. This was his ranch. If he wanted to jibber jabber, that was just what we’d do.
After another twenty minutes of him talking nonstop while I watched and dropped the occasional nod or single word response, we finally got started with the day. I hung a step behind him as he led me to the barn so I could check my watch without him seeing me do it.
We’d wasted nearly an hour on the porch, letting the sun get higher and the horses hungrier. We’d always fed our animals before school on Daddy’s farm and again before we sat down to dinner. Stables needed mucking out before we did anything else. Even chatty Kasey had known to knuckle down to get her chores done while keeping her lips buttoned. I hoped this morning’s conversation wouldn’t be as regular with Pete as reading the Register.
He slid open the alleyway doors to the barn, and we stepped inside. I loved the smell of this place: the closeness of the animals and the deep, sweet scent of hay. I liked how clean the stables were kept. I could smell the tang of manure. too, but that was just fine. It would only take me a few hours to get the horses fed, watered, and out to pasture so I could clean their stalls thoroughly.
Pete stopped at the first stall, grinning like he’d just heard something particularly funny. “This is Elroy.” He smiled wider at my confused look. What kind of name was that for a horse? “He’s the new colt. We’re still trying to figure out a name for him. If we don’t come up with something quick, I think we’ll be stuck with what he came with.”
Elroy stuck his long face out of the stall, and I rubbed his soft neck.
“I’m sure you know what needs to be done in a barn each day, but I’ll go over it anyway.” He was a little more serious now, but his clean-shaven jaw and sparkling eyes — the mischief in them reminding me of my own giggly sister — made him look much younger than he was, like he was still that boy fresh from high school and struggling to run his daddy’s ranch.
“The horses need fed and watered each morning. We like to put them out in the paddock first thing. The trainer will choose the ones to work with each day, but the others will be up to you to exercise and keep watered. The stalls get cleaned in the morning. You can spray them out. The floors are cement under the mats.” A grin broke over his face, like he just couldn’t contain it anymore. “We have a stereo hookup too, so go ahead and play music if you want. The horses are used to it. Just don’t blast it!” He laughed, slapping his knee while I watched, one eyebrow raised and jaw clenched to keep my face neutral.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” he asked, blue eyes as wide as his smile.
I shook my head a single time. “Not unless I have something of import to say.” I’d heard Daddy say that in response to the same question when I was about ten years old and never forgot it.
“Well, I talk enough for the two of us, so I think we’ll get along just fine. You could laugh at a joke or two now and then.” The power went up on his smile, but I didn’t change my serene expression. I didn’t smile or laugh just because someone wanted me to.
It was important to set up boundaries between Pete and me. But, I had to admit, the way he went through the things he wanted, even if he was as giggly as Kasey, was attractive in its way. He didn’t worry about not matching the idea of the average cowboy: reserved, serious, with a rough, well-worn demeanor. He acted just the way he wanted and was letting me know exactly what he expected from me. I could respect that, even if it didn’t match with the way I thought a ranch should be run. By the look of the property, what he was doing was clearly working for him.
We went to the tack and feed rooms again so he could point out everything I’d need to complete my daily tasks.
“I like the horses groomed at the end of the day, so they’re clean when we put them in their stalls.” He showed me the collection of curry brushes, dandy brushes, main combs, and body brushes, all neatly organized on a pegboard hung up on the rear wall of the tack room.
“The last thing you’ll do before leaving at the end of each day is make sure each horse has fresh water in their stalls.”
I nodded once. I’d loosened up after our long tour of the barn. Pete wasn’t just a good-looking jokester playing rancher. He actually knew what he was doing. I could be happy here, caring for these horses. I’d have to figure out a way around the drawn-out morning conversation, or at the very least keep it under ten minutes of small talking and jokes that fell so flat I almost felt sorry for him. Even if I had to suffer through the full hour, at least he wasn’t bad to look at.
He took me out of the stable the way we’d come in, stopping at each stall so he could introduce me to the horses one by one. He had mostly quarter horses, but there was a spotted Appaloosa, and a pinto, too. I spent a little extra time rubbing the pinto’s nose. I’d grown up with my own pinto and had a special spot in my heart for them.
“They like you,” Pete said, glancing over at me as we walked out of the barn and into the sun. “That says a lot.”
I didn’t respond, just followed him out to the
corral, where he leaned on the fence, his arms hanging into the empty space. I was itching to get started with the horses. They were hungry and ready to run around. But I leaned onto the fence, too, and stared out at the pasture land in the distance. The fields were beyond there. I planned to saddle up a horse later this afternoon once my other duties were done and take a good long tour of the property.
“How do you feel about the job?” he asked. I could see him looking over at me from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t turn to meet his sparkling baby blues.
“I like it just fine,” I said. “I can’t wait to get to work.”
He smiled when I turned to stare up at him. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Should I get started with the horses?” I asked. I needed to get them used to me. And fed. And watered. And out in the sunlight where they could stretch their long, lovely legs. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten started already. I’d been there for nearly three hours. Those horses had to be getting as anxious as I was.
“Just one more thing,” he said, stopping me from walking off just yet. “There’s another woman who’ll be on the farm most days. Her name’s Lacey. You’ll get to meet her later in the week. She’s got other business to attend to for the next couple days.” He watched me, his light eyes as blue and open as the sky above our heads.
I nodded once. Lacey must’ve been the woman in the red pickup. The way his face softened up when he mentioned her name told me all I needed to know about their relationship. It was a relief, really, because once she got back, Pete would start pointing all his conversation and jokes her way, leaving me free to start my work as soon as I got in. And, unlike Kasey, I considered men with girlfriends completely off limits.
“I’ll let you get to it then,” he said and turned to strike off in the direction of the house. I watched him go, unable to keep my eyes from drifting down to the fine shape of his ass in those jeans. I should’ve looked away, but I didn’t. There was nothing wrong with appreciating the way those jeans hugged his muscly legs and butt, was there? Not like I was ever going to do anything about it.