Chapter 4

Lauralee

I tucked the quilt Ted's mother had handed me under my arm and started toward the door.

"Thank you, again," I said. "Granny will be excited to have it back."

"It was no problem at all. I was happy to do it for her. It’s one thing I can do sitting down, so that makes Mr. Dawson happy. He’s quite the doting husband these days. I imagine once I fully recover, he’ll get back to normal.” She rested her hand on her chin and gave me a sideways glance. “I remember when she taught me to quilt. It's sad that she can't do it herself anymore."

"I know. Her eyes aren't strong enough anymore to see the tiny little stitches."

I patted the quilt that I remembered being in my grandmother's bedroom from the time I was a little child. It was covered in patches and repairs now, including the section Mrs. Dawson had stitched back together.

I was almost past the barn when I heard Ted in the office.

"He would be perfect."

"Have you talked to him about it?" his father asked.

"Not yet. I only now found out he’s available."

"So what are you planning? Walking over there to his working farm and asking him if he’s looking for work?"

"Bailey and I were buddies in school. That should break the ice a little."

I stopped still at the mention of my brother. It irked me a bit that Ted had cited his friendship with Bailey as the reason that my brother would be willing to help him rather than the fact that he and I had dated, but considering the fact that our awkward little encounter out in the yard had been our first conversation that didn’t end in a fight, I guessed their friendship was more applicable.

Ted suddenly burst out of the office and found me standing there. He gave me a strange look, and I patted the quilt under my arm.

"Quilt," I said.

"Uh-huh," he said back.

This deeply meaningful and heartwarming moment over, Ted turned and started toward my gate.

"What are you going to ask Bailey?" I called after him.

He didn't answer me so I followed him. This seemed to be the basic theme of our interactions for the day, so I figured I would go along with it.

"You said that he just came home, right?" he finally said when we had gotten to the gate.

"Yeah."

"And your father has already hired new hands to take care of the ranch?"

I fought down a little bit of bitterness and nodded.

"Yes."

"So Bailey is probably looking for work, right?"

"Why do you ask?"

"With David gone, there is more work to be done around here than the three of us can handle on our own. If Bailey is looking for work, he would be perfect to come help out here. It would keep him busy and pay a good wage. Do you think he would be interested?"

"If you want work done, why don't you hire someone else?"

Bailey wasn’t going to be any more use for the Dawson ranch than he was for our own.

"Isn't that what I said I wanted to do just two seconds ago?"

"I meant someone other than Bailey."

"Bailey is a good worker, and he is right on the next ranch over."

I let out a frustrated breath and watched him walk ahead of me, heading toward my family's ranch. I wasn’t going to let him know that Bailey hadn’t made it back home. He could figure that out for himself.

The next morning I walked the path between our houses again, fully anticipating hearing obscenities spewed at me in the very near future. Bailey was too busy soothing his aching heart with moonshine and bad music to even think about taking up a ranch hand position, much less could he comprehend me when I’d mentioned it to him in his drunken fog. It was up to me to break the news to Ted and make him another offer. I only hoped he’d take me seriously so I didn’t have to pull a Mulan and dress up as a man and fill out an application myself.

I mostly dressed like a man anyway, and I wasn't really defending anything more than my own sanity by picking up where my brother had stumbled off and taking the position at Ted's ranch. If my father wasn't going to let me work on my own family's ranch, at least I could do what I loved somewhere and make a little bit of money doing it to put toward starting my own someday.

I closed the gate behind me and turned around in time to see Ted coming out of the barn leading his horse. My breath caught in my throat in spite of myself. Damn it all to hell, he still got to me.

I had tried for years to get Ted out of my mind and forget how he made me feel every time I looked at him. Seeing him in the early morning partial sunlight, his jeans fitting every inch of him and his button-down shirt showing off a body that had more than grown up since the last time we played tag in the fields out behind the house, however, was not doing good things for my determination. Ted had gone from the adorable teenage boy that wouldn't take me to prom to the man who had never even apologized for punching my date.

I’d begged him for months about prom. We’d been going steady for a year before, and my dream was to wear my mother’s teal blue prom dress. It was so glamorous, and when I wore it, I felt like a movie star. I had begged Ted to take me until I was blue in the face, but he refused, telling me he wouldn’t be caught dead in a suit, much less dancing at some lame ass prom. He’d offered up a steak dinner instead, but I’d refused. When Bailey set me up with his friend, who hadn’t found a date, Ted seemed to understand, though I should have noticed how unusually quiet he had been about it.

Poor Andy looked so uncomfortable in his tux when he arrived to take me out, and I was sure it matched my awkward attempt at walking in heels. The fantasy of it had been so much better that disappointment settled in when we arrived at the gym. Before we could make it to the sidewalk, Ted came out of the parking lot and didn’t waste any time attacking Andy. One punch had the boy off his feet, and I stood screaming as Ted pounced. I tried pulling him away, but he pushed me off, knocking me on my ass, and splitting my mother’s dress clear up to my hip. I’d never been so embarrassed. He tried to get me to leave with him, but I refused. Luckily, Bailey had stood up for me and managed to calm Ted down long enough to get me out of there and back home.

My face reddened thinking about it and how it was never resolved. I was either making a huge mistake or about to give Ted the chance to make it all up to me.