Matthew slung his arm around her thin shoulders. “Has to get done, though.”
She sighed deeply, looking quite forlorn. “I know.”
“I’m happy to help.” I spoke up without even thinking about it first, but I meant what I said.
“No,” Matthew said firmly. “I can’t have a guest mucking stalls.”
At the same time, Gigi cheered. “Yay! Stay and help us. We have an extra pair of barn boots you can wear.”
I smiled at Matthew. “See? It’s decided. I’m helping.”
He shook his head at me. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not? Is it an insurance thing? Worried I’m going to slip in a pile of poo and break a leg?”
He laughed as he grabbed a wheelbarrow from a nearby wall. “No, it’s not that. You’re a paying guest, not staff. You shouldn’t have to do any work while you’re here. Especially not this kind of dirty work.”
“Okay, you can pay me.”
He set down the wheelbarrow and put his hands on his hips. “Pay you?”
“I’ll take one of those Silver Sage Ranch caps like the one you were wearing the other day,” I said. “A black one, if you have it.”
He hooked his fingers in the loops of his jeans, and I could tell he was weighing whether or not to keep arguing. “Take the hat, and I’ll throw in a t-shirt.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “A t-shirt and a hat. Happy now?”
“You got yourself a deal.” He gestured toward a nearby stall. “This way to the boots. Ladies first.”
Minutes later, we were using pitchforks to sift manure out of hay, cracking jokes while we worked. I laughed harder than I had in ages.
“I can’t believe Doug is a horse,” I said as I cleaned his stall. “When I first got to the ranch, you and Walt were discussing his ankle, and I assumed Doug was an employee.”
“He does work here,” Gigi said. “So technically, he is an employee. He just gets paid in hay and oats.”
“It’s an unusual name for a horse,” Matthew agreed. “He came to us with the name Sir Galahad, but Mom said it didn’t fit him because he feared everything from garden hoses to butterflies. You’ll see he has a white snip under his nose that looks kind of like a mustache, so Mom started calling him Doug after her brother. The name stuck. Walt and I are the only ones who ride him, because he spooks so easily.”
“I could ride him just fine,” Gigi grumbled.
“Did you ever think about selling him,” I asked, “since he’s not very good as a trail horse?”
Matthew frowned. “No one else would have wanted him, and we didn’t want to send him to a horse sanctuary. Doug’s part of the family.”
I tossed a pile of hay. “I’m learning so much about the history of this place today. I’m glad I stayed to help.”
“I thought a city slicker like you would be too fancy for barn work,” Matthew said with a glint in his eye.
“I’ll have you know,” I said haughtily, “that my first pet was a hamster, and I was the one who cleaned his cage every week, all by myself.”
He whistled long and slow. “Impressive. You should have mentioned you had experience with this type of work.”
“See,” I said, “people aren’t always what they seem on the outside. Remember that, Gigi.”
“People think I’m a weirdo,” she said, not sounding too sad about it. “That’s what they see on the outside because I don’t dress like the other girls, and I don’t want to talk about boys. They have no idea how fast I can ride a horse or that I know how to take a boy down if he gives me any trouble. Right, Dad?”
“That’s right, sugar. Knee him in the nuts then head butt him in the nose.”
I had the cutest picture in my head of Matthew teaching Gigi self-defense. Good for her. A girl needed to be prepared.
