“Now, the other ladies, on this side of the table, we have Penelope who goes by Red, then Karla and Neecie,” Leah said. “On the other side of the table we have Chyna, Tamara, Jo-Ann, and Janelle.”
“Nice to meet you, ladies,” Ellen said.
The women all responded with greetings.
“Moving on down this side,” Leah said, “is Emma Ives, our cook, and George Ives, our maintenance man. They have a house not far from here, on the property.”
“Nice to meet you, Ellen,” Mrs. Ives said.
“Likewise,” Ellen smiled. “Dinner sure smells good.”
George Ives patted his wide belly. “You know she’s a good cook. This is one sign. Welcome, Ellen, pull up a chair here next to me and dig in.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ives, I will.” She pulled out a chair on his end of the table and sat.
“None of that Mr. and Mrs. now, we are just George and Emma,” he said.
Ellen smiled. You couldn’t help but feel comfortable around George. There was just something about him.
Buck walked in and Leah said, “You’ve already met Buck Harris, our ranch foreman, he lives over the stables.”
“Yes, we’ve met,” Ellen said. She directed her attention to him. “Thank you for bringing my bags in.”
“Good to see you again,” he said. “I’m just here long enough to load up some biscuits.” He leaned over the table and started putting meat in between two biscuits before wrapping them in his napkin.
“Why you can’t sit at the table long enough to eat a biscuit or two, I’ll never know,” Emma fussed at him.
“I’ve got horses to take care of,” he said.
“And you’ve already had to come pick me up,” Ellen added.
“Now that was no trouble, young lady,” he said. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“Oh, good,” she said.
“Now if a certain red head hadn’t taken it upon herself to ride without asking permission,” he looked down the table at Red. “I wouldn’t have had a mare to go find and the same red headed young lady would not have had to go to the hospital in town.”
“It won’t happen again,” she muttered. “And I was fine.”
“Make sure it doesn’t,” he said.
Interesting. I wonder what happened?Ellen tilted her head to look down the table at Red. Clearly the woman had apologized as much as she was going to.
Leah, noting Ellen’s expression, chimed in. “Red decided to ride one of the horses without asking Buck. The horse took off, she’d never ridden one before.”
Buck interrupted. “She thought it would be like those motorcycles she rides. Just kick start it and it goes. But horses don’t like to be kick started and the horse threw her. She got knocked out.”
Leah said, “She got hurt because she didn’t follow the rules. After we found Red unconscious, we had to take her to the hospital to be checked out and make sure she was okay.”
Red was pushing her food around on her plate, with a sullen expression, not looking at Leah.
Leah, watching her, said, “I imagine if someone went up to one of your friends’ motorcycles and decided to climb on and ride it, they would not take that lightly.”
“No,” Red shook her head and frowned. “They wouldn’t. Someone would get a load of hurt.”
“Just as you shouldn’t do that with a motorcycle, you shouldn’t do that with someone’s horse,” Leah said.
Now she addressed all the women at the table and her voice turned stern. “Ladies we have rules here for a reason. I suggest you follow them. You certainly wouldn’t want to be kicked out before your time is up because you failed to follow the rules. If you have a question about any of the rules, come to me and we’ll discuss them. If it applies to the horses, talk to Buck. He’s the one who takes care of the horses and has the final say.”
