“Thank you,” he says simply.
I can suddenly feel Mom’s eyes on me, and I look at her. She’s got this little smile on her face that makes me uneasy.
I realize it’s because I’ve been staring and watching Lake’s every move since he came in.
“We’ll, uh, let you get settled in,” I say awkwardly. “I’ll be down in the barn when you’re ready and then I’ll show you around.”
Lake just gives a little nod, and Mom and I clear out.
I wait for her to say something as we haul our cleaning supplies back to the house. For her to tease me or to make some kind of romantic suggestion. My stomach sinks from the dread of it. But my mom knows me. And she doesn’t say anything.
Once I’ve finished helping her put things away, I head back out to the barn. Most of the horses were put in the pasture this morning. I walk to the last stall—to Sir Devil.
His dark coat is dull with dirt and his mane is tangled and frizzy. This is a champion horse that should be ridden in big fancy shows and has the potential to make his owners some good, solid money.
But he won’t let anyone touch him.
I grabbed a saddle on my way in here and I take it, some leather soap, and a stool into his stall. He backs into the far corner when I come inside and stomps his hooves and snorts.
“Yeah,” I say as I set the stool in the furthest corner from him. “I know you don’t like me. Or anyone.”
I sit on the stool and set the saddle across my lap. I start working it over, cleaning it deep and hard. It’s Mom’s saddle. She doesn’t ride more than once or twice a month, but I still keep it in top shape for her.
“You know, someday, I’m going to ride you,” I say without looking up at him. “I’m going to get a saddle on your back, and you’re going to listen to me. You’re going to realize that I am not your enemy, and we’re going to be friends.”
Sir Devil throws his head and whinnies loud.
“You can throw all the fits you like, but that’s the way it’s going to be,” I say with the shake of my own head.
The horse snorts again, almost as if he’s mocking or challenging me.
“Do they listen when you talk to them?”
I turn to see Lake through the panels. He stands just outside the stall, his hands in his pockets.
His feet are wickedly silent. His pose should seem relaxed, but there’s tension in his shoulders, like he’s always ready for something. It’s easy to see how he would have been a good soldier.
“Always,” I say, turning back to the saddle. “Might not happen right away, but I haven’t met a horse I couldn’t ride yet.”
“You must be good at your job.”
“That’s why I do it,” I respond as I finish up the cleaning job.
“Is it really?” he asks.
I look over at him, my brows furrowed together.
“Seems to me you don’t talk to horses and work twelve hour days unless you do it because you love it. Not just cause you’re good at it.”
I stand, slinging the saddle across my shoulder and letting myself out the gate. “So you’re an insightful, deep kind of guy.” I walk past him toward the tack room.
“Not really,” he says. I don’t hear his feet following me, but his voice doesn’t grow distant. “I’m a pretty simple kind of guy.”
“Hmm,” is all I respond as I open the door and step inside. The smell of leather is strong and comforting. I slide Mom’s saddle back onto its rack. I check the rat trap Mom set last night and find it empty.
“Well, how about I show you where everything is and explain what we need you to do?” I face Lake, my hands braced in the doorframe.
“Sounds good.” He gives a small little nod of his head.
“As I’m sure you already guessed, this is the tack room,” I say, turning and waving my hand in its direction. “You shouldn’t ever have to do too much in here. I’m kind of guessing you don’t ride.”
He shakes his head. “Never been on the back of a horse before.”
I’d guessed. I close the door and walk over to the next one. Pull it open. “This’ll be one of your main jobs. The stalls need to be mucked out five days a week. Manure goes in Mom’s compost pile. You can have Sundays and Wednesdays off. Wheelbarrow here, shovel there, straw there, as you can see.”
I point everything out as I list it off.
I close that door and start walking down the aisle of stalls again. “I rotate the horses out twice a day, so you’ll muck the morning stalls of the morning horses while they’re out the pasture, and then the afternoon ones.”
Just then, Chico and Bear dart into the barn and Chico is instantly jumping up on Lake and Bear sniffs his boots.
Lake smiles his first real smile I’ve ever seen on his face.
It’s still lopsided, pulling up higher on the right side than the other. But his eyes brighten, and his entire face looks younger. And something squeezes in my chest.
He squats down, rubbing Chico’s ears and then scratching Bear’s back. Chico’s butt wags back and forth furiously, and Bear’s huge bushy tail fans me, even from five feet away.
“Looks like they like you,” I say, giving the smallest of my own smiles.
“Looks like it,” Lake says, not looking up from the dogs. “What are their names?”
“Chico and Bear. I’m sure you can guess who’s who.”
“Hey, Chico,” he says quietly as Chico jumps up into Lake’s lap, nearly knocking him over since he’s squatting. “Hey, Bear.” Bear’s tongue is hanging out, drool dripping onto Lake’s pants.
He doesn’t seem to mind one bit.
“Do you have very much experience with animals?” I ask. I shift my weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. This would be one difference between Cal and Lake. Cal didn’t like dogs. More specifically, he didn’t like their hair. Or their drool.
Lake shakes his head. “Not really. But I was good friends with Hank, the German Shepard bomb detection dog in our platoon. Thought I might get a dog of my own when I got back.”
“You can borrow these two rascals for now,” I say. “They’re always happy to have extra company.” I turn and walk out the barn.
I show Lake the chickens; show him where their feed is. Show him where the hay is stored and where he can get water for the animals.
The sun shines brilliantly overhead. The air is chilly, spring still upon us. I checked the forecast this morning. The rain that’s coming in a few days looks worse than originally predicted.
We cross to the garage, and I flip the light on.
Both Mom’s and my trucks sit inside. Beside that is the 1967 Shelby GT500 Dad always planned to restore before he died. It was his pride and joy, the fact that he’d gotten his hands on such a rare gem. But it sits there, unfinished.
In the next bay over is the tractor.
“Have you had any experience with tractors?” I ask when Lake stands at my side.
“I think I can handle it,” he says. There’s a bit of a smile pulling in one corner of his mouth.
“You drove tanks or something over in Iraq, didn’t you?” I say, trying hard not to roll my eyes.
“Something like that,” he says simply. He walks into the garage, over to Dad’s car. Lake runs his fingers over the hood, and peeks inside the window.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” I say. My hands rest on my hips, and I bite my lower lip.
“Yeah,” he says with a hint of awe in his voice. “Restoration project?”
He suddenly squats and then lies on the ground, looking up under the car.
“It was.”
This seems answer enough for him. I hear him knocking around with things for a minute. Finally, he stands up and dusts his pants off. He gazes at it longingly, and I can tell he’s fantasizing about polishing it up and taking it for a spin. Every guy who lays eyes on it does.
“Dad died three years ago,” I say. “He was a Marine, too.”
Lake looks at me, weight
behind his eyes. “Thank you for his service.”
I just nod, and my eyes drop to the ground.
“You ever take those out?” Lake finally asks. He nods his head to the far back corner of the garage.
This time a smile does form on my face. “It’s been a while, but yeah.”
I walk over to the two ATVs and pull the keys off the hook on the wall by them. “Want to go for a ride? I can show you the rest of the property.”
A small smile pulls at his lips as he nods his head yes.
I toss him a set of keys and climb onto my wheels. The engine purrs as I back it out. Lake gets on his and starts it.
We drive slowly at first. I take him around the perimeter of the pasture. It’s huge. A solid thirty acres to it alone. I feel a certain pride as I show it off. This is our land. My dad fought to protect this country for most of his life. And this is our little corner of it. It’s simple, but it’s ours.
I explain how Lake needs to check the fence twice a week, make sure there are no breaches.
“What’s that?” Lake asks, nodding his head to the base of the mountain trail.
“The ranch butts right up to the government property. The trail wasn’t much more than a deer path when we got the property, but I ride the horses on it every so often. When it isn’t too muddy. It’s pretty dangerous when it’s wet. The trail stretches for about forty miles.”
“Ever take these babies on it?”
I smile, shaking my head at him. He knows so little about me. “This girl isn’t afraid of a little mud.”
He chuckles. It’s a low and deep thing, the kind you can feel, not just hear. “I didn’t figure you were.”
And I find something that I like about Lake. I don’t like being underestimated, and for some reason, I just know: he never will.
We start rolling back toward the garage and park them in their spot. I hang both keys up as I hear Mom yell that dinner is ready.
“Are you really not going to let us pay you?” I ask as we slowly walk back to the house. “Working for free seems kinda crazy.”
Lake shakes his head and his eyes grow dark. “Like I said, I have a debt that I can never repay, but I’ve got to try. I’ll be going down into town tomorrow to look for something part time. I don’t need much, just enough to survive on.”
I look over at him, my brows furrowed.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let whatever I find interfere with what you need done here,” he hurriedly explains.
I shake my head as we pass the garden. “I don’t understand you noble hero types. Sure would be a lot easier to just take the money we’re offering and work a lot less.”
“I don’t mind work,” he says as he holds the door open for me.
“But you don’t love it,” I say, echoing his words from earlier back to him.
He mutters something I don’t quite catch when Mom starts talking over him, but I’m pretty sure it was something like not loving much of anything in a long while.
CHAPTER THREE
I’ve never been particularly religious, but Mom likes to go to church, so we go.
We sit in one of the pews toward the back. Mom sings the hymns. She holds onto the pastor’s every word. And when the service is over, she visits with the townspeople, laughs, and socializes with others in the congregation.
But I hate coming. Because everyone here knows my past mistakes.
So when Mom gets to chatting, I sit in the truck and wait for her. I make a to do list on the back of receipt. It stretches long and I find myself relieved that we’ll have some help to get it all accomplished. There’s been a pit of dread in my stomach from the moment Lake stepped foot on our property, but we do need his help.
Someone raps on my window, making me jump hard. My knee cracks into the dashboard.
“Hey,” I say as I roll the window down.
“Sorry,” Jesse, also known as Dr. Wyze, says. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine,” I say, shaking my head. “I was just trying to plan out everything I need to get done this week.”
“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
I lean over the bench seat and open the door he’s leaning in. I nod my head, and he climbs in the passenger seat.
“Sounds like the rain storm is going to be pretty bad on Wednesday.” I make small talk when I’m not sure what else to say. “Everyone’s freaked out ever since that mudslide in Oso.”
“It was pretty awful,” he says as he leans back, his knee propped up on the dash.
It’s weird seeing him dressed up for church. Black slacks, a white button up shirt, blue tie. It’s stark contrast against his skin. His dad is black, and his mom has the blondest hair and bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. That leaves him with this creamy dark skin and these strangely bright green/gray eyes that are piercing.
He is a beautiful man. Thirty-two years old. He’s also the town vet. So our paths cross frequently.
“Yeah, it was,” I agree, looking out the window. The clouds roll in, dark and thick. Just on the verge of rain.
“So, your mom said you’d hired a new hand,” he says, looking in my direction. I feel his eyes, searching and deep. Like he can see right through me. “How you feeling about it?”
“Why do you ask, Jesse?” My voice is verging on testy, even though I know it shouldn’t.
“Cause I heard he’s a Marine,” he says honestly.
My eyes dart to him just once before flicking back out the window. People start coming out of the church faster now, headed to their cars quickly before the rain starts. “Doesn’t really matter,” I say with a shrug. “We need the help, and Mom thinks we can trust him.”
Another rap on the window sounds through the cabin and I look to my left to see Kyle Mark staring daggers at Jesse.
I roll it down and barely contain the roll of my eyes.
“Raelynn said to tell you she’s going to be a few more minutes,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “She and Mom are talking about some fundraiser they’re putting together next week.”
“Thanks,” I say, giving him a little half lipped smile. I’m over the years when every time I saw his face was like getting a little twist in the heart with a knife. It doesn’t mean things don’t still feel awkward between us every once in a while.
“Yeah,” he says, eying Jesse once again. “See you around.”
He walks away just as the first drops fall from the sky.
“Living in a small town is hard enough,” Jesse says as he watches Kyle walk away. “Living in a small town with your ex is agonizing.”
I shrug and shake my head. “It’s not so bad anymore. It was a long time ago. He’s kind of like a pesky fly now who just hovers around every once in a while.”
“He’s got no right to hover like that every time another male comes within ten feet of you.”
“Whatever,” I say with a big breath and a deep sigh. “You still coming out on Friday to do all the shots?”
He takes a minute, still watching as Kyle climbs into his car. “Yeah,” he finally replies. He looks over at me. His eyes are slightly conflicted. “Noon still good?”
“Perfect,” I say as something turns in my stomach. “See you then.”
Jesse climbs out of the car and calls a goodbye.
I watch him walk away. The interest he has in me has been fairly obvious the last few months. We’ve been friends for the last two years, but it was nothing more than that in the beginning when he was a brand new vet and all we could afford. And then Cal came along, and I didn’t talk to Jesse in any form outside of work for a long while.
He’s been a supportive friend. But then he had to go and want more.
He’s never told me that. Sometimes a woman just knows.
But I can’t. I just can’t. I used up all my chances at love and happiness.
“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting,” Mom says as she climbs into the passenger seat. There’s scattered rain drops over her shoulders
. “And sorry for sending Kyle as messenger. He was standing right there and well…”
“It’s okay,” I say as I shift the truck into drive. “It’s really not a big deal anymore.”
“I saw you talking to Jesse,” she says as we pull onto the main road.
“Yep,” I respond.
“That’s the problem with being such a beautiful woman,” she says innocently as she looks out the window, over our small town. “You can’t help but catch the eye of all the men around you.”
I chew on my lower lip and ignore her comment.
Being beautiful isn’t always a blessing. I’m pretty, I know that because other people have been telling me that my whole life. Because more than once, I’ve been stopped by people claiming to be model scouts, asking me to come in for headshots. Because photographers are always asking to take my picture.
But having a pretty face apparently lets people make assumptions about you. About what goes through your brain. About how smart you are. About what you do behind closed doors, and what you don’t. Because of the way I look, people seem to think they know me better than I know myself.
Having a pretty face also tends to draw some scary people. People like Travis.
It’s been six months since he’s bothered me, but I have no doubt those flowers that were in the garbage were from him.
That’s part of the reason why I like my men four legged. They don’t care what you look like. They care how kind you are, how firm you can handle them, how much you feed them. They know when you love them, and they love you back. Simple as that.
The rain is steady and heavy by the time we make the turn off toward our house. A small river is flowing down the ditch on the side of our driveway. I open the garage door and slide the truck in. Mom darts into the house while I make sure the back side door is locked. It has a tendency to get blown open during storms. Last time that happened, we had to chase out a family of raccoons who’d decided to make a home under Dad’s Shelby.
I’m just about to run for the back door of the house when movement out by the barn catches my eye.
Lake is hammering a sheet of plywood in place over the lean-to chicken coop off the side of the barn. His long sleeved T-shirt is soaked completely through and his hair plastered to his head. Rain drips into his eyes and runs off his nose.