by Liz Isaacson
The idea of giving up his townhome—and the expense of it—only sent more excitement through Archer. “You married?” he asked Elliott, shooting a glance at Emery. Which was just plain stupid, as he was still pretty angry with her for even being here.
“No,” Elliott said. “But some of the boys are.” He glanced toward the hall when someone appeared, but it wasn’t Jace. “You?”
“No,” Archer said.
“You ever worked a ranch before?”
Archer had a hard time swallowing, but he said “No,” anyway.
“It’s not hard,” Elliott said. “Well, there are a lot of hard things about it, but I think you’ll do just fine.”
Jace and Ty appeared then, and the tension in the room skyrocketed. “We work until the job’s done,” Jace said. “Then we ask for another task. There’s always something to do in the fall on a ranch this size. So if you finish your chore, radio in and one of us will come check it. Then we’ll give you somethin’ else.”
He stepped away from the board and the crowd of cowboys swarmed. Archer wanted to press forward and find his name, but he hung back, unsure of himself or even where to go. He lost track of Elliott for several seconds, and then found him wearing a huge smile as he waved Archer toward the door.
Thankful to leave the mob behind, Archer hurried after his partner. “What did we get?”
“Bullpen fence check,” Elliott said, pushing out of the administration lodge. “The bullpen is back behind the barns, way out at the end of the lane. We check the fences, make sure the bulls seem healthy and happy, and give them fresh food and water. It’s an hour-long job, tops.”
“And that’s good?”
“Sure,” Elliott practically skipped down the steps. “It’s an easy job, number one. We’ll probably both get stars. And then we’ll get another job quick. Chance for another star.”
Archer smiled, finally understanding. “Do you guys do this every year?”
“I wish.” Elliott strode down a dirt road in front of a row of well-kept cowboy cabins. Archer wanted to live in one so badly, his throat tightened. “Jace gets this idea in his head about every three or four years. He needs new people, but he doesn’t want to take forever to train them. He thinks those of us that have been here a while are gettin’ lazy. And like he said, he likes to get out on the ranch every now and then and remind himself why he’s a cowboy.”
Elliott could walk fast, and Archer had a hard time keeping up. His breathing turned ragged, and he thought maybe he should invest in a pair of running shoes instead of these slippery cowboy boots.
“He changes it up,” Elliott continued, a bit winded himself. “Last time, it was a point system. I like the idea of stars.” He pointed way down the road. “That’s Tom’s cabin. He’s Jace’s brother. The bull pen is a few hundred yards beyond that.”
Archer had never been as close to a bull as he got only a few minutes later. Nearly eye-to-eye, and a thrill ran from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He watched Elliott, asked questions, did his best.
And sure enough, only an hour later, both he and Elliott had earned a star from the foreman, Ty, and were on their way back to the administration lodge get another assignment.
“Great job.” Elliott held up his hand for Archer to high five, which he did. Archer had just earned more than a gold star. He’d gotten a measure of pride back that he’d lost. And maybe he’d just made a friend too.
Chapter 4
Archer didn’t see Emery for the rest of the day. He could barely figure out where on the ranch he was, as he and Elliott went from task to task like Tasmanian devils. All the cowboys worked at the same feverish pace they did, and Archer wondered how long they could feasibly keep this up.
Jace finally rang a huge bell from the front porch of his homestead about six o’clock. Archer glanced around for Emery, but she wasn’t there. Had she quit? For some reason, that made a balloon of hope inflate beneath his heart.
He immediately regretted the feeling, his emotions warring with themselves. But they couldn’t both have this job. Just because he found her attractive and alluring didn’t mean he was going to let her beat him again. No, he was going to do what Myron had said and fight for this job.
“Great work today, boys,” Jace called. “Belle’s got dinner on in the house.” He held up his hand as the crowd started to swell forward. “Some of us are new, and some of us forget that this is my wife’s home. Let’s treat it the way we’d treat our own homes and wives, all right?”
He turned and opened the door, cowboys already joining him on the porch. Archer followed, his stomach growling like a grizzly bear. Everything about Horseshoe Home Ranch was better than he’d imagined.
His muscles cramped as he climbed the stairs, and he anticipated having a very painful night ahead of him, with soreness in his arms and abs in the morning. But he didn’t care. He’d put in a good day’s work. Work he liked. Work he could see himself doing for years to come.
And he’d never felt that way about anything before.
The scene inside the house felt familial, and Archer soaked up the warmth of it, the camaraderie, the easy ribbing of one cowboy to another. Elliott stayed by him, and Archer noticed all the new recruits had what looked to be the most veteran cowboys assigned to them.
“How long have you worked here?” Archer asked as he picked up a paper plate and put a square of cornbread on it.
Elliott took three pieces of cornbread and a huge dollop of “the best raspberry butter you’ll ever eat. Miss Belle grows the berries herself.” He grinned at Archer. “And I’ve been here about twelve years now.”
“Wow.” Archer’s curiosity bubbled inside him. “So this is something you can do as a career, right?”
“Sure.” Elliott bypassed the green salad and went for the mustardy potato salad instead. “Look at Jace and Tom and Ty. They’re in this for their whole lives. Nelson—the general controller—he’s been here for thirty-one years.”
Archer glanced around, finding some younger men and some older men. Some right in the middle. Something soft and feathery tickled his mind, almost like a whisper saying, This is what your life could be like, Archer. This right here.
He smiled and put a few pieces of lettuce and tomato on his plate to make his mother proud.
The sun had already sunk behind the mountains by the time he got home. His automatic light came on with the movement of his truck down the driveway. He eased himself from the vehicle and groaned as he went inside. Though it had been one of the best days of his life, it had also been one of the most tiring.
Everything hurt, from his head to his pinched left pinky toe. He swallowed four ibuprofen pills with a bottle of water and kicked off his boots. He shed his clothes completely and collapsed into bed, only home for five minutes before he was fast asleep.
Pounding woke him. He lifted his cheek from the bedspread where he’d fallen, trying to place it. Front door? One of his shared walls?
It didn’t come again, and he laid his head back down. His phone went off in the next moment, and he sat up to check it. First he needed to find it, and as it continued going off, he located it easily in the back pocket of his fallen jeans.
How many stars did you earn?
Emery.
Archer grinned as he typed 3 today.
I had to go back to work, she’d messaged, followed by, Can I get a ride with you in the morning? And maybe take your truck down to Silver Creek? Jenny broke down tonight.
Concern wove through him. Though he and Emery weren’t the closest of friends, he borrowed coffee from her on occasion, and they’d always helped each other when they had car problems.
Archer would rather call than text, but it was late, and he knew Emery hated talking on the phone. So he gave his thumbs an additional workout and told her he’d be happy to give her a ride up to the ranch. He asked what was wrong with Jenny, and said he could get someone to give him a ride home so she could take his truck to her other job.
>
I can come get you during my dinner break, she messaged.
The thought of two twenty-minute car rides, alone with Emery, accelerated Archer’s pulse in a way it hadn’t been accelerated in a while. He wasn’t sure why he had this perpetual attraction to Emery, especially after her stunt of looking up and applying for the same job as him. All he knew was that it existed, right there in his gut, making him jittery and warm at the same time.
They fed us dinner tonight, he told her. Can you believe that? Jace said not to get used to it, but Elliott told me they get food a lot. I guess Belle likes to cook.
Wow.
He noticed she hadn’t said anything about her Jeep and despite him texting several more things about the ranch and asking her again about her car, she never responded again.
He eventually plugged his phone in to charge properly and turned down the covers like a real adult. Sleep took a long time to come, mostly because he was day-dreaming about kissing Emery when she dropped him off tomorrow night.
Ridiculous ran through his mind, but still the fantasy remained.
Emery waited on her front porch for any sign of life from Archer’s townhome. She would not make him late, and she’d set her alarm for twenty minutes earlier than she would have normally.
She yawned, her early mornings combined with her late nights catching up to her after only one day. She’d only earned one star yesterday before she’d had to leave for her job at Silver Creek.
Jace hadn’t seemed too happy about her cutting out at one o’clock, but she’d explained the job at Silver Creek ended on Friday. He’d given her permission to come up to the ranch in the mornings, but she had to work in a group of three until next week, which made the opportunity for stars that much harder.
Not only that, but both of her partners were veteran cowboys, and though neither of them seemed disgruntled to be working with a woman, they hadn’t been overly chatty or outgoing either.
She sipped a protein shake, the ultra-creamy texture of it almost gagging her. But she didn’t think she could survive another morning of grueling physical work without a few calories in her system.
Archer’s garage door finally rumbled upward, and Emery sprang from the wicker chair she kept on her front porch.
“Good morning,” he said in a voice too perky for seven-thirty. “What happened to Jenny?”
He’d asked several times last night too, but she’d been too tired to explain. “She won’t start.”
“How did you get home?”
“One of the other counselors drove me.”
“So she’s over at Silver Creek?”
“Yeah.” Emery took another sip of the chocolate shake and then capped it for the final time.
“I can take a look at her tonight, after you come get me.”
“You don’t need to.”
“What are you going to do for a car?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Archer nodded and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator and his mouth into a tight line. Emery sighed at herself. Why had she refused his help? She could really use it. It took the entire drive up to Horseshoe Home for her to swallow her pride.
“I could use your help,” she said in a voice that was barely audible.
“Hmm?” Archer glanced at her and then the rutted road again.
“With Jenny,” she said louder. “I could use your help.” She hated this vulnerable feeling, this absolute helplessness.
“Sure, okay,” he said easily, completely unaware of her inner turmoil over asking him. “I’ll look at her tonight.”
They arrived at the ranch, where it seemed like a flurry of activity was happening. “What did you do yesterday?” she asked.
“Bull pens, rope checks, and equipment repair.” He grinned at her. “What about you?”
“I got calf feeding. But they’re hardly calves anymore, and it was….” Hard, her mind supplied. She couldn’t even imagine dealing with an adult cow. “Interesting,” she finished.
He parked and practically jumped from the truck, casting her a strange look before waiting for her to join him so they could walk into the administration lodge together. Though they were fifteen minutes early, the assignment board had already been filled out and several cowboys were examining it.
Emery felt so out of place though she wore jeans like all the men, a cowboy hat like all the men, and cowboy boots like all the men. But she wasn’t a man, and everyone in the room knew it. Archer got jostled as they stepped up to the board and bumped into her, his hand skating over hers.
Instant heat flamed through her whole body, and Archer’s chuckle sounded hearty if not a bit nervous. “I’m with Richard today,” he said, putting a few more inches between them. “I wonder who that is.”
“I’m with Richard,” Emery said, a frown pulling her eyebrows down.
“You are?”
She didn’t like the incredulity in Archer’s voice. Didn’t like the way he re-checked the board as if she couldn’t read.
“You two are with me,” a cowboy clipped out before moving toward the exit.
“I thought we couldn’t start until eight,” Archer muttered under his breath. He followed anyway, a lot faster than Emery could, what with his long legs and all.
She caught up quickly and asked, “What are we doing first? I didn’t have a chance to check.”
Richard wore a gray cowboy hat that covered his brown hair. He glanced at her with hazel eyes as he put on a pair of leather gloves. He pulled another pair from one of his back pockets and handed them to her. “Barbed wire fence repair in the cow yard. I hope you can use a pair of wire clippers.” He gave Archer a pair of gloves and he put them on before Emery could even process Richard’s words.
Turned out, Emery could not use a pair of wire clippers, and every time she needed to cut an extra length of barbed wire that she’d tightened, she had to ask for help. Thankfully, Richard came to her aid each time and not Archer. But he knew, as he lifted his head toward her more often than he focused on his own work.
The job took most of the morning, and when Jace came to check it, he consulted with Richard for several seconds before saying, “Stars for Richard and Archer. Next job is in the admin lodge. Follow me.”
Defeat mixed with fury in Emery’s bloodstream. The urge to quit had never been so strong. She buoyed up her defenses by picturing Glenna, with her strawberry blonde hair and quick smile. If Emery didn’t work, she couldn’t help her sister.
As soon as she stepped into the administration lodge, she thought about maybe having Glenna come live with her instead of on her own in Spokane. Because the shenanigans happening in the administration lodge made every cell in her body scream flight, flight!
A ring of sorts had been defined by the desks, with a small opening near the kitchen door. One cowboy was currently on a rampage in the empty space, lowing like a cow and wearing a hat to simulate horns.
It was Ty, the foreman, and he looked like he’d been stuffed full of batteries, wound up, and then let loose.
“You’re up, Caleb,” the general controller said, and Caleb got up on one of the desks. He watched Ty for a few seconds, his fingers twitching and a grin stretching across his face. In the blink of an eye, he leapt into the ring, looping one arm around Ty’s shoulders and pulling him to the ground in the next moment.
“Team!” the controller yelled, and a group of three men converged on a screaming, struggling Ty. One pulled up his pant leg and pinned his leg to the ground. One helped Caleb hold his head and shoulders.
The other simulated shooting something into Ty’s leg.
“Time!” Caleb yelled, and all four men straightened, their eyes on the general controller.
“Eleven-point-four seconds.”
A cheer went up, and Emery’s stomach lurched. The cowboys ahead of her were grouping themselves into fours, but she needed to get out of there. Fast.
“Do you guys need another person?” She glanced at the cowboy who’d c
ome over, an inquisitive look on his face.
“Sure.” Archer clapped him on the bicep like they were old friends, and the roiling in Emery’s gut increased. He’d made friends here already. He fit in here. She couldn’t even remember the general controller’s name.
She turned to leave, but Archer took one step behind her, blocking her. His hand swept over hers, locking on and squeezing. Emery swallowed as she looked up at him, and she got lost in the intensity of his gaze as he stared down at her.
“It’s okay,” he said so quietly she couldn’t be sure he hadn’t only mouthed the words.
In the same quick motion as he’d moved and touched and talked, he slipped away like mist rising into the morning sun. There, then gone. Visible, tangible, then nothing.
“This is Elliott,” he said, introducing her to the fourth cowboy who’d joined them. “Elliott, Emery. She’s my next-door neighbor.”
Elliott nodded at her, and he and Archer and Richard started strategizing. “I’ll do the shot,” she spoke up, hoping no one would argue. Of course no one did. She wasn’t going to be able to tackle Ty and keep him down long enough to get the team in. She couldn’t control his bucking leg and her weight wouldn’t add any help to his shoulders.
One by one, the teams took their turn, but no one left afterward. Tom kept track of the times on the assignment board, and the time to beat became 10.8 seconds with only three teams left. Emery’s team stepped up to their task, and everything around her blurred.
The scent of strawberries hung in the air, mingling with the smell of men and adrenaline. Emery focused on Richard, the biggest guy in their group. He brought Ty down quickly, and the general controller yelled, “Team!”
Emery flew into the ring with the men, stabbing the “shot” in as soon as Archer had the leg secured.
“Time!” Richard called and she got to her feet, her legs shaking and the feeling of every male eye on her.
“Ten-point-nine-five,” the controller called.
