by Emma Sutton
“Ooh,” she hums, causing Stephanie to buckle in laughter. “Right then.”
“Well, you have fun just hanging out,” Stephanie sings, using air quotes in jest.
“Thanks.”
As they head up the stairs and into the lodge, I fight the urge to roll my eyes and silently bemoan the one downside to sharing a home with the likes of twenty other people. Sure, the lodge is enormous with plenty of space, a lot of us even having private bedrooms. But sometimes solitude is just incredibly hard to come by unless you seclude yourself somewhere on the land.
Walker had met me, Eliza, and the rest of the wranglers at dawn this morning, rigging his ropes up to form makeshift barriers for the horses. The idea, though poorly received by some of the seasoned wranglers, actually worked beautifully after a few hiccups of knots slipping the poles. But by the end of the morning, we’d ironed that out. I make a mental note to thank him tonight for the idea, the rope, and the help.
As if he knows I’ve been thinking about him, I hear his truck in the gravel from around the other side of the lodge before I see him. Standing, I linger by the planked handrail and wait until he’s in eyeshot.
When I rush to the passenger side of his truck, I immediately grab for the door handle.
“Wait, let me get the door,” he calls through the window.
“I’ve got it,” I say as I slide into the seat, eager but my eyes averted as if I’m completely flustered should anyone— especially Eliza or now Stephanie and Brooke— catch me in his truck after work hours. “Let’s get out of here,” I smile.
Cluing himself into my momentary mania, Walker chuckles and steps on the gas, kicking up gravel and dust behind us. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thanks again for the barrier help this morning,” I say, looking over at him, already halfway losing myself in his charming profile.
He nods as he drives us up Dusk Road and turns onto a dirt road that leads to a part of the ranch that I’ve only been to a few times in my three years here. “It’s not a problem. They talk bad about me when I left?”
Cocking an eyebrow, I try to hide my smile. “Brooke and Lennon were fit to be tied. Kinda like I was at first. But by the end of it, I think they agreed it was easier on all of us.”
Walker forces a chuckle under his smirk.
“Where are we going?”
He taps the steering wheel in time with the radio that’s at low volume and glances over at me. “You really want to ruin the surprise?”
“Yes. I don’t love surprises.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” I start to prickle at his insistence, but then I remember the feeling he’d left me with again this morning. The same one he’d left me with yesterday up at the overlook. And then the day before at the stables. Biting my bottom lip, I cross my arms over my chest and catch a glimpse of my pathetic, crush-stained simper in the dusty side mirror of his truck.
“Well.” Walker rubs his thick jaw with a palm and parks the truck along an off-shooting dirt path that I’m not sure I’ve ever actually noticed before. “I guess that makes sense then.”
“What does?”
“It makes sense why you were so upended by my presence at the stable the other morning. You weren’t expecting me out of the blue like that.”
Following suit, I hop out of the truck and meet him at the bed as he lays the tailgate down, pulling a tackle box toward him along with two fishing poles. “Upended?” I ask, rolling my eyes. Tugging at one of the straps of my overalls, I blink at him. “I wasn’t upended.”
“Fine,” he smiles. “Surprised then.”
Fighting his smugness, I shuffle in the dirt and immediately feel my heart stirring something fierce.
“Surprise,” he winks, flipping open the tackle box.
Inside the box is a myriad of fishing line, a box of hooks, various bobbers and sinkers, and a pair of needle-nose pliers.
Walker grabs the two fishing poles in one hand and the case in the other, and my heart vaults itself into my throat with nerves.
“Um.”
Slamming the hatch of the bed shut, he turns to me, his brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t— I don’t like fish,” I stammer, my face scrunched in pain from the idea of even being near a live one.
Walker rubs his chin with his bicep and stares at me as if I’ve just baffled him beyond belief. “You don’t like fish. You never fished before?”
“No,” I shake my head adamantly. “Because I don’t like fish.”
He chuckles, my conundrum having apparently catapulted him into a different reality. “You mean you don’t like being friends with fish? You don’t like eating them? Or what?”
“Yes.” With my palms growing sweaty, I clench my hands into fists and feel an eery shiver climb my spine, even in the early evening heat. Never have I ever enjoyed fish of any sort. “All of the above. I don’t like eating them, they feel scaly and slimy, and I get the heebie-jeebies when I have to look at one. They look like crazy little aliens.”
“Ma’am,” Walker laughs as he shifts his face closer to mine and looks me square in the eye. “They look like fish.”
“Well, I still don’t like ‘em,” I say, taking the tackle box from him, my breath growing labored with the thought of having to be around them.
“The box is heavy,” he warns.
“Geez. You have rocks in here?”
With a side-eye glance as he gathers the fishing poles, he smiles. “Might as well.”
The weight of my ichthyophobia confronts me as I grip my hand tighter around the case handle. But by all things good in this world, I’m not going to let my ridiculously irrational phobia stop me from spending time with this man. Lord knows I’ve been through a ton worse than exposure to fish over the years.
Get a grip, Hattie.
Clearing my throat, I turn hard on the heel of my boots. “Let’s go,” I tell him, ready to give it my all. Even if I don’t want to be caught dead with a fish, that doesn’t mean I want to deprive Walker the joy of it.
“You sure?”
I lift my eyebrows. “Yeah.”
“Because we can do something else if you want.”
“As long as they stay in the water, I’m fine,” I counter.
“You realize that’s what fishing is, right? Catching a fish and pulling it out of the water.”
“Whatever.” Another jolt of vulgarity courses up my spine as I imagine having to hold one of those things. “I’ll manage.”
“Alright. You let me know if you change your mind. There’s a place down this way. I’ve only brought one other person here,” he says, making sure I’m able to keep up as we head into an opening in the brush. “Here, switch me. These aren’t as offensive,” he says, holding the fishing poles out to me, taking the box in his free hand.
We crunch over old leaves and dead grass until we hit a path made of hay and dirt. Birds whistle high above us in the trees, and there is absolutely no air in these woods with the humidity as high as it is right now. And with only a few yards under our belt, I can feel myself already sweating.
“Who’s the lucky person?” I finally ask as we pass a tree trunk that’s wider than my arm span. It has a green plastic marker hammered into it with a single nail.
Before he answers, I wonder if it’s not his ex-wife whom he’s brought down here, back when things were good between them. Or even Grace, the beekeeper and resident floral expert MJ had hired a while back. Weeks ago, she’d claimed to be dating a ranch hand there for a while but refused to tell any of us who it actually was.
“Mason. We come down a few times a year.”
“Oh. Is he your best friend? I know you two work closely. It seems like you two get along well outside of work, too.”
“I guess you could say that. We get along when we’re both on our best behavior. Otherwise, one of us is usually acting out. And with Mason, his antics easily go too far.”
Furrowing my brow, I grow curious. A
bush catches on the belt loop of my overalls and nearly pulls me off the path as I take another step forward.
“Oof,” I squeak. As soon as I free myself, the two fishing poles get tangled up in a low-hanging limb. When I pull on them, a handful of twigs snap off and drop right into my hair causing me to gasp.
“You okay?” Walker asks, looking over his shoulder. He’s not good at waiting, but the path only allows us to pass in single file anyway, so I don’t hold it against him.
“Don’t mind me,” I awkwardly laugh. “I’m just in an episode of The Three Stooges back here.”
Stopping in his tracks, he turns and stares me in the eye. “That’s an episode I surely don’t want to miss.”
I laugh and push my fingers over my cheek in embarrassment. But just as quickly as he’d faced me, he turns back around and leads us further into the woods.
“Hey, what’d you mean by that?” I ask, stepping over a pile of what looks like rotted pine cones.
“I mean I like watching you. You’re fun to spend time with.”
“No, the other thing,” I say, furrowing my brow, now super embarrassed that he’d admit something like that to me so openly. “About the antics getting out of hand.”
“Mason? Oh, I don’t know. He’s into pranks and all that. Wants to make everything a competition with all the other hands workin’. But it’s like I tell him, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.”
Mason has been one of my go-to’s for the past few years whenever I’ve needed help with anything that I can’t handle on my own. Though I see that side of him occasionally, I’m obviously not privy to all that goes on at the cattle barns and beyond.
“Yeah, he’s a goofball,” I tell Walker. Even at the volleyball games, cookouts, and festivities that involve us staffers at the ranch, he’s the class clown, usually minus the class.
“One of his most demented stunts was locking himself in his hot truck with Edward just to see which of the two could stay there the longest. I’m talking middle of a July afternoon. He even blasted the heater. That one almost ended with a trip to the ER.”
“Geez. Can I guess who won?”
“That’s right.” Peering back at me, Walker grins. “Mason did.”
We walk a few minutes further in silence to the tune of rattling bugle calls that Walker tells me are a family of cranes that probably live by the outpouring. The sound of flowing water grows closer until we finally hit a patch of riverbank about a quarter-mile from where he’d parked the truck.
“Ichthyophobia,” I tell him over the trickling water. “That’s the fear of fish.”
“That might be the strangest thing I’ve ever heard,” he beams over his shoulder, removing his hat. His blonde hair is short and messy, matted down on the sides. “A girl who’s brave around equine but doesn’t care for aquatics. Cute though.”
“Stranger than locking yourself in a hot box just for fun?” I call out to him.
“Good point.”
When we pass a tilted slab of boulder, Walker turns and glances at me, again causing my heart rate to rise. “You doing okay? We’re almost there.”
“Yeah,” I say, trying not to seem out of breath. But inside, I know I should’ve worn pants as my legs are already itching from the overgrowth, and we haven’t even started the scary part of this endeavor yet— the actual fishing.
“My grandpa taught me to fish back in Texas. He always said the best place to find them was to look in the calmest parts of the water. It’s always churned pretty good up that way,” he points across the river to where the current is visible upstream. “I’ve found the fish like to hide on this undercut,” he says, nodding toward the overhang in front of us. “Just don’t fall in,” he grins.
“Yeah, no,” I giggle.
“The fish might get you,” he chuckles with a wink.
When he steps aside, a perfectly paint-worthy shot of the sun setting in the reflection of the river appears. The colors swirl and swarm like bees of pink and orange, tainting the water with a certain palette of a June sunset.
“This is breathtaking,” I say, my voice small in the majesty of the landscape.
“You are too, Hattie. If I could’ve known you were scared of fish, I would’ve planned something different,” he says, his voice now solemn. There’s no sign of a joke in him. He takes one more good look at me, our eyes connecting for a few seconds. “But truth be told, Handful, I’m lucky to be here with you at all,” he grins as he squats and flips open the tackle box.
Chapter Ten
Walker
The way she casts her line out is beyond pleasing. Watching her standing there in her slightly too-big overalls and that blue bandana tied around her dark mahogany-colored hair, I can’t help but smile. She has the flick of her wrist down due to a simple show and tell, and for someone who’s never really gone fishing before, she sure can throw it out there at an impressive distance.
Though Handful hasn’t caught anything yet, I think she’s satisfied with that outcome. At least for now.
I’ve already landed three trout in the past half hour myself, but having reeled in empty-handed this time, I bring my rod back and toss it out as far as I can upstream so our lines don’t get crossed.
“Wow,” she sighs. “How do you get it to go so far?”
I shrug and try to stave off a grin at her unknowing compliment. “Might be all the cattle I have to rope.”
“I guess that would help.” She huffs again, loud enough that I can hear her four feet away overtop the crackling of Whipple River. “You’re like an enigma, Walker.”
I chuckle. “I could say the same for you, darlin’. Though I’d have to disagree with you on the account that I’m not much of a mystery.”
“You are though. I hardly know anything about you.”
The fact that she cares enough to remember a single thing about me makes my insides squeeze. “What is it you know about me?” I ask, looking at her.
She stands there with both hands on the fishing pole, waiting, swaying it from time to time as she continues to fish. “I know that you’re a really hard worker. I know that you love your job as the manager here. You must relish in the fact that you live in one of the few houses on the ranch and get to keep it all to yourself, so that probably means you like your privacy, too.” She lets out a sharp breath as the heat of the darkening evening descends down on us. “And I know that MJ must seriously trust you, but that, for some reason, you’re worried about losing your job.”
I don’t say anything for a full minute, the weight of her comment suddenly hitting me like an anchor of reality. I’d forgotten all about Mary Jo’s news once I picked Hattie up tonight. And it seems like the further away we pushed ourselves from civilization this evening, the more I was able to let my mind free itself of the shackles of what we’ll be forced to do with the ranch come the fall season.
“Well,” she lilts. “Am I right?”
Scratching my head, I clear my throat and yank myself back from the ledge of miserable thoughts. “MJ trusts everyone.”
“Not quite like she trusts you. You’re her right-hand man.”
“I suppose.” I pull my hat down further to conceal the disturbance in my eyes as I focus on a rock that sits jutting half-out of the river.
Hattie had opened up to me once I confronted her with her letter she’d dropped on the grounds. But now that I’m faced with my own truth, I feel an inkling of guilt mixed with something more— a pinch of deep desire— telling me to let her in on the news. But if she knew the possible future the ranch could have to endure, it might break her. Especially after learning her biological mom refused to reach out to her.
“Between you and me,” I say, chewing over the words before they come out of my mouth, “I think some things on the ranch will have to change pretty soon.”
Snapping her gaze over to me, her brow instinctively furrows. “Why? What’s happened? Is MJ okay?”
Fighting a chuckle, I try to calm her. “Yeah
, she’s fine. Don’t get your imagination worked up. I don’t want you to worry.”
“Well, what is it then?”
Scrubbing a dirty hand over my jaw, I shake my head. “I probably shouldn’t have mentioned anything.”
“But?”
Her persistence puts my heart in a state of woo, and I find myself not able to deny her. “The ranch might need a little help over the next few months is all. I can’t say much more than that, and I don’t want you or any of the other wranglers fretting over it. But we’ll figure things out. We always do.”
Her expression dissolves into something forlorn. I can tell she wants to ask for more of an explanation, but out of respect for me, and maybe even for Mary Jo, she resists. She tries to force a smile. “Well, I’m glad we have you managing the ranch. Things somehow always seem to be safe in your hands.”
I chuckle at her sentiment. Though I wish I could keep her— and this ranch— protected at all times, sometimes I feel like I fail in every which way despite my striving for it. “Has anyone ever told you you have beautiful eyes?”
Her smile broadens and exposes the white of her teeth for the first time tonight. After studying me for a few seconds, she shakes her head, her dark hair falling around her collarbone. She parts her lips to speak but then doesn’t.
“Well, you do. I haven’t seen the sea but a few times in my life, but they’re a mix of that— ocean water and nightfall blue.”
“Thank you.”
I nod, not wanting to stop telling her everything I notice in her. “I swear I can see the sun rising in them sometimes— your eyes. Usually early mornings. Hell, sometimes in the middle of the day, too. I know I haven’t spent a ton of time with you yet— especially in private like this. But you’re special, Hattie. In all sorts of ways.”
She takes a step closer on the rocks, her mouth upturning in surprise. “Really?” she whispers.
