“#Timesup,” Andy said lightly, grinning. “Well, hey, Shay is one of us and look at her: She met Reese Lockhart, they fell in love and married. Now they have a beautiful baby daughter.”
“You’ve met Reese?” Alma demanded.
“Not yet. I’ve barely been home two weeks, but I intend to meet him at the barbecue.”
“Are all the good ones taken?” Grace worried.
“Haven’t a clue. Mom was saying, in the last decade, the valley has really changed because so many of the men coming here are ex-military.”
“Yeah,” Alma said, “and not all of them have their shit together either.”
“Granted,” Andy agreed. “But Dev is ex-military. Look at him.”
“Yeah, but it’s the guys who got their brains clobbered by IEDs and have permanent brain trauma as a result who worry me,” Grace said. “That’s not what I want in my life.”
“Dair Wilson, one of the Bar C wranglers, had her foot blown off by an IED and her dog killed,” Andy told them, sadness in her tone.
“Women can get hit with those pressure waves from the IED explosions, too,” Grace agreed grimly. “I’m sure she has some residual from that.”
“I’m sure she does,” Andy agreed sympathetically. “Mom gave me a list of military men and women and I intend to meet all of them. I’m living here now, and I want to know the people of the valley.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Alma said, munching on her hamburger. “We should meet them, too.”
Grace threw a thumbs-up, sucking happily on her milkshake.
“Well,” Alma said, “Pete Turner and Dev are decent men. I think that’s a good sign that maybe there are other guys in the valley like them.”
“I sure hope you’re right,” Grace murmured, raising her eyes upward.
Andy said nothing, her heart resting on Dev and their slowly developing relationship. There was no question in her mind that he was interested in her, just as she was in him. Yet he was her boss. She knew that relationships usually died when two people who worked together fell for each other. Still, she didn’t want to curse the possibility because he truly was, from all appearances, that rare twenty-first-century male every woman wanted as a lifelong partner. What would the coming weeks bring?
Chapter Eight
June 29
“Hey,” Andy called to Dev, who was in his office, “want to do something really cool tomorrow? It’s Saturday. You and I aren’t on the schedule to fly. We have the day off!” She gave him an impish grin and stood in the doorway. It was quitting time around the busy, harried office.
He looked up. Andy was tall and beautiful, her chestnut hair in a ponytail, tendrils touching her flushed cheeks. He liked that she didn’t wear any makeup, comfortable with who she was. Seeing the hope burning in her gray eyes that he’d agree to her offer, he said, “Sure, I’m open. What’s up?”
She slipped inside the office, leaning back against the doorframe. “I’m starting my weekly wrangling again at the ranch. I told Mom and Dad that I wanted to devote at least one day a week to it, get back into shape and be of some help to them.”
“Sounds like fun. Do I get to come along and watch?”
She wagged her finger at him. “Oh, no, tenderfoot. You’re gonna help me by throwing your leg over a good horse, and I’ll get you all the gear you need to ride fence with me. I’ll teach you the ropes as we go. There’s no ‘watching’ here. Just doing. We’ll be a wrangler team out on the ranch. How does that sound?”
“Well,” he murmured, leaning back in his creaky chair, “I’ve been trying to get over to Wind River to pick up a gym membership and start lifting weights like I did when I was in the military.”
“Oh, wrangling will give you the best workout in the world! You’ll love it. And you don’t have to pay for a gym membership either.”
“So? You think I can do this? An East Coast tenderfoot?” he teased, smiling. His heart opened swiftly when she laughed huskily, her eyes dancing with mischief.
“I’m positive. We’re both living at the condo, right across the hall from each other. How about you come over at 0700 and I’ll drive us to the ranch? We’ll spend the day there, have dinner with my folks and then I’ll drop your weary butt off at your condo.”
“Don’t take such delight in my being out of shape,” he grumped good-naturedly.
“Wear jeans, work boots, and a cap of some sort. I’ll have a pair of half chaps and good elkskin gloves waiting for you in the tack room.”
“Sounds like fun.”
She snorted derisively, pushing away from the doorframe. “Wrangling is many things, but I’d never say it was ‘fun,’ Mitchell. You’re gonna be sore as hell and your joints will creak by the time we’re finished with our day riding fence line.”
“Won’t you be, too?”
“Oh yeah.” She chuckled. “Misery loves company, you know?” And she swung out of the office, heading down the hall.
Shaking his head, he felt a thrill of joy move through him. At last! Time alone with Andy. The past week had been long, stressful and yet rewarding. They had all their employees and everyone was either spending time in Salt Lake City, Utah, undergoing link trainer instructions on the Black Hawk, or getting their helicopter properly outfitted with cots and medications. It was known that sometimes a nurse or doctor, or both, might be on board on a call to take care of the patients they were flying in to rescue and bring back to the hospital. Yes, everything was falling into place. He liked the crews. Tucker was the only male pilot, and the three women razzed the hell out of him, but he took it in stride, giving as good as he got. There was a respect among the four pilots, and that was the glue that held this whole thing together. Pete had done a good job of finding the right mix of people. He, himself, would be the fifth pilot, the standby should one of the pilots on the mission roster get sick or have vacay or not be able to come out due to another life emergency. And he would fly on the roster schedule as well. That way, each pilot would get seventy-two hours off, which was necessary to life demands in turn. Plus, pilots could only fly a certain number of hours within the FAA regulations, and five on the roster met those guidelines.
Wrapping up the day, putting the last file away in a side drawer, Dev looked forward to the weekend. The thought of a whole day with Andy was like a dream come true for him. What would unfold? He was still just as interested in her as before. And she appeared to be also. A part of him, the impatient part, wanted more time with her, but under the circumstances that wasn’t going to happen. His mother had told him while growing up that patience paid off. He hoped it would now. But what did he really want out of this if their relationship moved forward? Sophie was still a deeply rooted part of him and would remain so. Had he finally worked through the grief and loss of her?
Dev had heard, once again from his wise Irish mother, that grief had its own way with people, that it didn’t last just a year. It could last a decade or decades, depending upon the individual and the love they had for the person who passed over. Sophie had died suddenly at age twenty. He was twenty-nine now. Nine years. There was no question he had loved her and she, him. He’d had so many dreams for them after they graduated from college, but she died in their sophomore year. His life was shattered. Joining the Army, making it through helicopter flight school, had distracted him greatly from his grief. Maybe that was why it had taken so long for him to work through it. He honestly didn’t know. Most people in their early twenties didn’t have to go through a powerful and life-changing event like that. Dying was for old people, not someone in their twenties.
As he rose, fishing out the key from his pocket to lock his office as he left, Dev pondered what lay ahead for him. How was Andy viewing what they tentatively had? She was the same age as he was. He didn’t know how she felt about settling down, if it was even on her life radar. So many questions. Maybe he’d get some of them answered tomorrow.
June 30
Saturday
“Do your legs fee
l like a wishbone that’s ready to split in half?” Andy teased as they sat down under a line of cottonwood trees that comprised one of the grass lease pasture fences. She watched him walk with bowed legs and grinned with understanding. Her legs felt the same. If one didn’t ride at least three or four times a week, one always got bowed legs and stress on the inner thighs.
“Seriously,” he muttered, bringing along the leather saddlebag that contained their lunch. Handing it to her, she settled her back against the tree. Earlier, she’d said of this line of cottonwoods that it stretched for a mile and they were nearly 150 years old. They gave the cattle shade during the day, although it rarely got to eighty degrees in the valley during the summer.
Andy patted the grass next to where she sat. “Sit with me? It’s always nice to relax your back against a tree. Stretching out your legs before you will help those poor, screaming adductor muscles on the insides of your thighs.”
He grunted and slowly sat down, the sensation that his inner thighs were stretched and were protesting mightily was number one on his list for immediate attention. “This feels good,” he admitted. Their elbows were about six inches from each other. Moving his boot heels around, he smoothed out a place to rest them on instead of letting the toes tangle in the thick, long strands of grass. “We’ve spent the whole morning on just this one pasture.”
Opening the flap of the saddlebag, Andy said, “I warned you, working as a wrangler is far better exercise than any gym.” She chuckled when she heard him groan his reply. He took off his elkskin gloves and then removed his black baseball cap since they were in the shade of the tree. His hair was still military short, and she saw the sheen of sweat on his brow. They had been working hard, with few breaks. He was handsome in her eyes, with a face that had some lines, some character, and she liked that.
He gestured upward. “At least we don’t have to worry about this side of the leased pasture. These cottonwoods aren’t going to rot like a four-by-four will.”
“That’s true,” Andy said, pulling out one of the beef sandwiches she’d made for them. “When my dad’s relatives bought land in this valley, they tried to plant young cottonwood trees everywhere to use as ‘posts’ for the pastures. Unfortunately,” she said, handing him a sandwich, “the long, hard winters killed all but this line. And these survived because they wrapped them in gunnysacks to protect them from the freezing conditions when they were young saplings.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking it. “I guess no one knows how much hard work goes into a ranch until they hear the rest of the story from those who came before you.”
Setting the saddlebag aside, she smoothed out a place on her leather chaps and opened up the other foil-wrapped sandwich. “You said it all.” She grimaced and slowly moved her knees, then stretched out her legs once more. “I’m sore myself. This is my first day at it since I’ve been here. I’m sure both of us will have sore biceps and sore thighs before we’re done this evening.”
Looking around, appreciating the brown and white Herefords in a pasture opposite the one they were working on, he said, “No question. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take advantage of the spa room at our condo. Twenty minutes of very warm water on my body will take a lot of the aches and pains away.”
“Roger that,” Andy said. “I’ll be joining you.”
He munched contentedly on the sandwich, the lettuce crisp, the mayonnaise tasty with a tang of curry spices in it. “Kinda nice to spend the day with you, though.”
Her heart pinged once at his words. “Yes, I like it, too.”
“Are you up for twenty questions?” he teased, slanting a glance toward her.
“With you, I am,” she said. “I have twenty questions for you, too.”
“Okay, that’s fair.” He wiped the corner of his mouth with one of the paper napkins she had put in the bags. “You go first.”
“Tell me about your life as a kid growing up in North Carolina.”
“My parents would say that I was a wild kid, a risk-taker, curious and a strong swimmer. I liked swimming in the ocean when I could get there.”
“Surfing?”
“No, never had an interest in it. I liked swimming.”
“And yet you’re a pilot. How did that happen?”
Grinning, he said, “Kill Devil Hills was near where we lived. That changed my life.”
“The Wright Brothers took their first flight in that area,” she noted.
“Yes. Nowadays, very few people know much history.”
“Oh, my dad told all us kids from six years old onward that we needed to read a lot of biographies of famous women and men, that history was the most important thing in our lives.”
“Because if you don’t know your history, you’re doomed to repeat the same patterns from the past all over again.”
“Dad said that many times.” She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. “He’s a history nut. He compiled a yearly list of history books for us to read. And since civics was no longer taught in schools, he taught us himself. He said it was important to know how our government worked and functioned, that voting was a privilege.”
“My parents were green card people, so once they became citizens, they really hammered into me that I was to vote in every election, that I had to pay attention to local politics, as well as state and federal politics. They’d sit down with me and show me the inner workings of running for office, about polling places and voting, how vital they were for a strong, healthy democracy. They made me realize that what we have here in America should never be taken for granted. That democracy lives because people everywhere votes, gets involved in what their politicians are doing and are proactive in local politics.”
“I think,” Andy said drily, “that your parents and mine would see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, things that are important as I came to discover as I matured.”
Nodding, he finished off his beef sandwich. “Got another one?” he asked, pointing at the bag.
“Sure do. Two for each of us.” She picked them up and handed them to Dev. “Get me my second one? I’m still starving.”
“We’ve burned up a lot of calories,” Dev agreed, giving her a beef sandwich and setting his on his lap. Looking into the depths of the bag, he asked, “Any dessert in there?” and he grinned.
“Of course. I made a pineapple upside-down cake last night. Two big pieces in the other bag.”
“Good to know. Thanks for making it. And thanks for sharing it.”
She liked the gleam in his eyes. “It’s nice to be thanked. Most dudes wouldn’t think of it at all.”
Setting the other bag down between them on the grass, Dev said, “I come from a family where nothing is ever taken for granted. My dad thanks my mother for her cooking. And nothing is ever thrown away and everything was eaten that was put on your plate.”
“Wise,” Andy agreed. She unwrapped the foil. “When did you first see the Wright Brothers’ National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills?”
“I was nine. My parents were big believers in history, too, but in a different way. They wanted me to learn and appreciate the local history that surrounded us. When I saw the biplane, my parents bought me a book on the Wright Brothers, and that was the beginning of my love of flight.”
“Before that, did you dream of flying?”
“No, not really. But I always enjoyed the seagulls sailing in the air above my head. I always wondered what they saw when they looked below at me or other people on the beach.”
She frowned. “Maybe I’m getting too personal with you, Dev, but what pushed you into Army aviation?”
Finishing off his sandwich, he tossed the wrapper back into the saddlebag. He wiped his hands on the lush grass. “By the time I was a junior in college, I had joined an Army ROTC program and got accepted into aviation.”
“You must have aced a lot of tests to get that promise out of the Army.”
“I had a four-0 average,” he admitted humbly.
Andy gave a low whi
stle. “That’s impressive.”
“I don’t let it go to my head.”
She laughed heartily, trading a warm glance with him. “I like your humility.”
“That means something to you?”
“Sure. I think it does with most women. I don’t like dudes who are braggarts or think they’re God’s gift to women. Because they aren’t. At least, not in my world.”
“I’m kind of picking up that you like men who are . . . well, for lack of a better word, vulnerable?” and he studied her.
“Very much so,” she answered, stuffing the trash into one bag. Opening the flap on the second one she pulled out the cake, some napkins and two white cardboard forks that wouldn’t harm the environment. “When I was in my teens, I used to wonder what my real father was like and why he abandoned me. I tried to create him in my thirteen-year-old mind.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Naw,” she said, opening up the tinfoil. “Too young, too immature and still a kid. But my adopted dad was, as I found out much later, very different from most of the men I’ve run into since I left home.”
He cocked his head, giving her an incisive glance. “How is he different?”
“He is, as you used the word, vulnerable, and was always like that. There were times when my folks would cry. I always thought men cried until I got out into the world and men called other men sissies if they cried. My dad is my hero. I liked that he could cry. I mean, he didn’t do it all the time, but when our dog, Blackie, died, he cried. We all cried. Blackie was a member of our family. He wasn’t just a dog. And he loved us, too. The six of us stood out at Blackie’s grave and we held one another and bawled our eyes out. It hurt so much, but I remember clinging to my dad and his arm around me and the others, crying with us. I just didn’t realize how wonderful and important it was that he could cry with us. When I got into the military, of course, those guys were so jammed up and had been taught not to show emotion or cry, if they did, they’d be razzed to death.”
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