Chapter Twelve
Emma
Thursday
I waved to Pete on the porch before getting in my car and driving away at the end of the day. I couldn’t get my mind to sit still around him anymore. Part of it was from going to breakfast with him the other day and listening to him talk about his daddy. But that wasn’t all of it.
I couldn’t stop watching him walk around the ranch like he was putting on some lurid show for my eyes only. Lacey sure didn’t seem to notice how sexy he was in his fitted jeans that were tight in all the best places. And those blue eyes. Goddamn. I could hardly stand to have him staring at me anymore. Not after he asked me out to dinner.
I could pretend breakfast hadn’t been a date. But dinner would’ve been. And, I’d wanted to go something terrible. But I couldn’t let my feelings for Pete interfere with this job, not now that I was enjoying it so much and making good money, too.
Daddy’d asked me over to dinner a few days earlier, so I drove straight there. I stepped into the house and Kasey hollered my name from all the way in the dining room.
“We’re back here!”
I went to the rear of the house and sat down at my place at the table.
“I cooked tonight!” Kasey exclaimed, still shouting though I was right in front of her. When she left to get whatever mess she’d made and bring it to the table, Daddy and I shared a long, flat look that seemed to say Lord help us, our lips twitching into tight lines to keep from lifting into matching smiles.
Kasey brought out her latest concoction, which actually wasn’t half bad — meatloaf, lumpy mashed potatoes, and string beans. We served ourselves as the conversation bounced between her and me, with Daddy playing the part of spectator, as usual.
“You still liking that job?” she asked, lifting eyebrows that were much darker than they should be. She had on a full face of makeup just to eat dinner with the two of us. I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel honored.
I had to chew up a mouthful of spongey meatloaf to answer. She’d put too much cracker crumbs in there, but I wasn’t about to tell her. This was one of the best meals she’d ever made. “I love it, actually. I get to do all the things I like. And, you know how I feel about horses.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically and answered in a droning voice. “You like them better than people.”
“Smart girl,” Daddy said, not even the hint of a smile on his face. I cracked a big enough smile for the both of us.
“The trainer’s great, too. Her name’s Lacey. She does barrel racing in the rodeos.”
“I’d never do that,” Kasey said, wrinkling her stub nose. “I wouldn’t want to risk getting hurt.”
“You can ride just fine, Kase,” Daddy said.
“I know I can ride. I just wouldn’t want to race.” She made a face down at her meatloaf. Her fingernails were painted light blue today. She redid them constantly, sometimes twice a week. Her toenails, too. I didn’t know when she found the time. Or the energy. But if part of her wasn’t painted or sparkly, she just couldn’t sit still. It was kind of like me wanting to be dirty, sweaty, and tired at the end of every day. If I wasn’t at least two of those things, I didn’t feel right at the end of the day. If I was all three, I could sleep like a baby for seven hours straight, no problem.
“What do you have planned this weekend, Daddy?” I asked.
He lifted his pale blue eyes long enough to meet mine. “I got some work needs doing in the barn if you want to come over Saturday morning.”
“Sure,” I said. I liked having plans that would keep me busy outdoors for hours at a time.
“Gross,” Kasey said, screwing up her heart-shaped face as she scrunched her tiny nose again. “Y’all have fun with that.”
“What’ll you be doing?” I asked her.
She brightened immediately, trading the overdone ugly face for one of her glittery, gorgeous smiles, all teeth and flashing eyes. “I have to work on Saturday, but Amanda and I are going out after that. You should come!”
I shared another quick look with Daddy. He was swallowing back a grin, probably at the thought of me out partying like some dumb kid. I had to look away from him to keep from busting out laughing.
“No thanks, Kase. I’m gonna help Daddy around here this weekend.”
“Booooring!” she burst out, eyes rolling again before settling back on mine. “But I’ll have enough fun for the both of us.”
I didn’t doubt that.
I cleared the dishes after dinner. The person who cooked never had to take care of the dishes, so Kasey bopped outside while I stacked everything by the sink. I shooed Daddy off to read the paper in the living room while I washed, rinsed, dried, and put the dishes away. I hung up the damp kitchen towel when the job was done and went to find Kasey out back. I needed to talk to someone about what was going on at work, and I couldn’t think of anyone to turn to besides my surprisingly experienced little sister.
She was on the wooden swing, moving lazily while she checked her phone for whatever gossip she’d missed while we were eating dinner. Daddy didn’t allow electronics at the table. We hadn’t even gotten cell phones until after high school. I plopped down next to her on the swing, wrecking the rhythm she had going. I pushed off with my heels, rocking us back so hard, Kasey squealed and grabbed for the arm rest.
“Em!”
“I need to talk to you,” I said, letting us relax into a less choppy rhythm, our legs moving in tandem to keep the swing going smoothly.
She looked over at me, her green eyes wide. “What is it?”
I drew a deep breath and let it out again, considering how to best put all of this — my feelings for Pete, blooming like stubborn weeds no matter how much I’d tried to chop them off at the root, the little thrill I felt in the mornings at getting to the farm, and spending the morning sneaking looks at him while we sipped our coffee.
“Pete took me out to breakfast last week,” I said, speaking in a hot gush of exhaled air. “It wasn’t supposed to be a date. Just a boss taking out his employee. But it sure felt like a date.”
She dropped her phone into her lap, its glowing face forgotten. She leaned closer to me, her eyes so wide I expected them to pop out of her head. “You didn’t tell me about going to breakfast!”
“I’m telling you now,” I said, giggling a little. “After we got back to the farm, he asked me to dinner.”
“Oh my God, Emma! That’s so great!”
“I told him no.”
Her face fell along with her shoulders. She sank back onto the swing, making a disappointed noise as she shook her head, her hair bouncing all over her shoulders. “What? Why would you do something like that? You like him!”
“I have to work with this man, Kase. And, I love the ranch.”
“Who the hell cares about the ranch?” Her voice had dropped to a deadly whisper, the way it always did when she was being serious. This was Daddy’s mark on her — getting quieter the madder she got. Her wide eyes searched my face, but it was dark out here, so she couldn’t see much. “If you like him, you should go out with him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It sounds pretty simple to me. You like him. He likes you.” She smiled, maybe to demonstrate just how simple it was.
I shook my head. But I couldn’t find the right way to argue. Because I did want to go out with Pete. I’d seen something different in him that morning at breakfast. He became more than a set of mile-wide shoulders and a bottomless pool of bad jokes. I’d gotten to see something else: a soft, serious part behind the show he put on nonstop when he was around anyone else. The silliness was part of who he was just as much as the piercing blue eyes were, but he used it to keep attention away from that other, more vulnerable part, the part I was desperate to get to know.
Kasey seized on my hesitation. “What do you have to lose, Em? Maybe things get uncomfortable and you have to quit, or you’re fired. You’ll just be in the same place you were before you started working there. You’re smart and hardworking. You’ll find somewhere else. But there isn’t another guy like Pete just waiting for you around the corner. If you like him, you have to take a risk.”
I chewed on my lip, thinking hard. I wanted to go out with him. No matter how silly he was. I was actually coming around to liking that silliness quite a bit. Getting away from the ranch had made a difference that morning at the Texan. I was desperate to see that softer, gentler, less comical side of him. That wouldn’t happen at the ranch. It wouldn’t happen around Lacey.
Kasey was right. I had to take a risk.