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.
“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.