My fingers paused on the keyboard. When I left the ranch last night, we hadn’t said anything about me going back again. In the moment, my ego had been too bruised to consider it. He’d never wanted me there in the first place. He didn’t care about the bet, and I cared about it more than I should. I needed to do as he asked and leave him be.
“I told you last night, he doesn’t want me to keep helping him.”
Pop puttered around in the kitchen looking for something like he hadn’t heard me.
What would happen out at Ty’s if nobody did the work I’d been covering? Aaron could only do so much working two jobs, and Ty shouldn’t be doing anything at all. Feeding, watering, mucking—it didn’t sound like a whole lot, but a dozen horses out there relied on it getting done every day.
I ran my fingers between the rows of my keyboard, thinking over Ty’s comments about sickness and disease breeding in dirty stalls. “If you needed help on a ranch like Ty’s, how would you find someone?”
Pop stopped opening and closing cupboards. “You fixing to do some hiring?”
“No, but aren’t there all kinds of high school kids who would be willing to help out, just for the chance to be around the horses?” I was suresomeonein Magnolia Ridge had to be available, and I was just as sure Ty hadn’t done much at all to find anybody.
“You could try down at the feed store or Ranch and Home. They’ve got job boards. Sometimes, kids post their phone numbers if they’re desperate for a position.”
“I don’t know if he could pay anything.” I didn’t like to ask how much this setback would wind up costing him. He still had the boarders, but losing all his training income until he healed up sure sounded like a lot.
“That changes things. He might get lucky and find somebody if he was willing to do a lot of calling around asking for help. That seem likely to you?”
I released a disgusted laugh. “That’s never going to happen. He’s too stubborn and pig-headed to ever ask. Even if he did find somebody, he’d probably run the kid off with all his growling, anyway.”
Pop’s raised eyebrows made me clamp down on the rest of my tirade. I’d seen enough of his suspicious looks the last few days, I didn’t need to dig my hole any deeper. He went out the back door, leaving me to work on the frilly-chic bedroom I had going, but my concentration was shot. Would I really let the horses suffer just because I was mad at Ty?
Pop wasn’t gone long before he came inside again and grabbed a set of keys off a peg in the kitchen.
“Storm’s coming on.” He nodded out the kitchen window, and I followed his gaze. The gray clouds of the morning had turned dark and menacing, casting the house in shadow. “I’ve got to get out there and double-check all the hail netting.”
“You need any help?”
“Jed’s on his way.” He started out the back door again.
“What about Ty’s?”
I wasn’t even sure what I was asking. Could horses weather the storm if things got bad? They had a couple of shelters out in the pastures, but would they use them? Did Ty have everything covered? Whatever needed to be done out there, he couldn’t do it himself.
Pop paused. “Maybe somebody will have mercy on him.” He winked at me, but his mood grew serious. “If you’re thinking of heading over there, do it now. I don’t want you driving in the thick of it. Summer storm like this can be as slick as ice.”
With that, he left.
I sighed, closing my laptop.I’m just doing the Lord’s work.
EIGHTEEN
ty
I should have known betterthan to trust the damn weather reports.
The day had started overcast, without a trace of blue in the sky. I’d hesitated letting Aaron turn the horses out that morning, but the cloud cover had been predicted to burn off after a few hours, and I’d given the go-ahead. Skies had grown darker as the day wore on, and a stiff wind whipped up from the north. I’d been debating what to do when my phone pinged a weather alert.
Thunderstorms. I would have no choice but to bring the horses in. In theory, they should be used to Texas’s summer storms, and able to withstand a few hours out in the wind and rain. In practice, if something could go wrong, it would. Most of the horses out there didn’t belong to me, and I couldn’t risk harm coming to them. It had always been my practice to stable them when weather got rough. Today was no different, broken rib be damned.
I strode across the yard to the barn, huddling against the buffeting wind. I should have listened to my own gut. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t recognize a storm brewing up when I saw one? I’d lived out here long enough to know the signs. Either my instincts were off, or I’d been too cowed by my injury to follow them. Wasn’t sure which option was worse.
I grabbed a rope halter off the tack wall, dread already weighing me down. A few days ago, I’d tried to halter a horse and had nearly doubled over from pain. But with Aaron out at Belton Grove for the rest of the day, I couldn’t very well do nothing.
I walked out of the barn and nearly ran headlong into June. “What are you doing here?”
She was the last person I’d expected to see on my ranch again after last night.
