by Emmy Eugene
“Okay, Fisher,” he said to the first horse. He checked the feed bag and moved to the next stall. Pearls hung her head over the door, and Seth stroked her nose. “How are you feeling?”
Of course, the horse didn’t answer. Seth knew what signs to look for, and Pearls looked ten times better than she had that morning. She pushed her nose into his palm, and he chuckled. “No, you can’t have a treat so soon after being sick.”
Seth hardly went anywhere without peppermint candies in his pocket, but that didn’t mean he was going to give one to the horse. His check done, he walked over to the hay barn, where he kept a small office for ranch affairs. He grabbed his gloves and headed over to the cattle pastures, where Russ was working the cows through the gates today, checking for injuries and sickness.
“Hey,” he called to his brother as he got close. “How we doin’ here?”
“Good enough,” Russ said. “Only three so far.” He indicated a small pen where Travis and one of their hired cowhands, Darren, were working on a cow’s back hoof.
“Need a hand?”
“How was lunch?” he asked.
“Good,” Seth said. “She didn’t agree to the Edible Neighborhood.”
“I told you,” Russ said. “And hey, thanks for bringing me something from Krauss’s.”
“Yeah, sure.” Seth looked down the row of cattle coming through the checkpoints one by one. Two more cowboys who lived in the cabins along the front road of the ranch were bending and checking feet and legs, running their hands up to the spine. Brian and Tomas were good cowboys, and Seth was glad he had a few extra hands on busy days like today.
He climbed the gate and started checking for the Chestnut Ranch brand, as well as the proper ear tags for their cattle. “What do you think I should do to get Jenna to agree to the community garden?”
“Maybe just let her come to you,” Russ said. “She works a ton, you know?”
Seth knew what a full workload felt like. Could he really see himself driving fifteen minutes to Victory Street every evening to check on fruit trees and muscadine vines? Pumpkins and cucumbers and zucchini squash?
He made the trip regularly to see his parents and help out, and there was no reason the actual residents of Victory Street couldn’t do the majority of the work. He could just be the invisible bank account behind the project.
He kept his eyes moving, checking for the tags and brands. “What are you going to do with your money?” he asked.
“Uh, I don’t know.” Russ blew out his breath. “It’s kind of a shock still, and I really liked what Dad said about not spending any of it.”
“Yeah, I liked that too.” Seth nodded and adjusted his hat. “Still, I know you’ve wanted a new truck.”
“Yeah.” Russ grinned and nodded, clapping together his gloved hands.
“Boss,” Brian called. “This one.” He motioned to a cow coming down the line. “Marked his front leg. Looks like it’s been bleeding.”
Russ waved and started making the arrangements to get the fences moved so he could separate the cow from the line of others. Seth kept the other bovines moving, and Russ got the wounded one out of line and into the pen with Travis and Darren. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s bad.”
He looked up at Seth. “Wonder how that happened.”
“What’s it look like?” he said. “Clean cut? Ragged?”
Russ bent down and took his time examining the wound. “Ragged,” he said.
“Could be barbed wire,” Seth said, looking in the direction of the cattle pasture. Chestnut Ranch had huge open grazing areas too, and it would take weeks to check them all for a stray piece of barbed wire. The enormity of the job threatened to suffocate Seth, but he compartmentalized it.
“Boss,” Brian called again, and Seth and Russ looked toward him. “This one too. And this one.”
“Where did these cows come from?” he called.
Seth really wanted to know that too. Maybe they’d just gotten tangled up in a fence as they were rounded up. “Top twenty,” Brian called, and Russ shook his head, a frustrated look on his face.
“Top twenty,” Seth repeated, climbing down from the gate. “I’ll go, Russ.” He could take the side-by-side and be out there in half an hour. Poke around all afternoon if he had to. They couldn’t afford to have their cows injured along the northern edge of their property.
He whistled for his dogs, and all three of them came from the shade of the trees where they’d been lying. “Let’s go, guys,” he said. “We’ve got a mystery to solve.”
Winner and Thunder were used to riding in the backseat of the side-by-side, but Dodger refused to get in. He laid down on the ground and looked at Seth with baleful eyes. His tongue lagged out of his mouth, and he whined when Seth pointed to the vehicle.
“Come on, boy,” he said. “You just ride. You don’t want to run to the top twenty, trust me.”
Dodger still wouldn’t get in, and Seth considered leaving him. He could put him in the canine enclosure and just take Winner and Thunder. But the point was to get Dodger to do whatever he was told. Seth was getting paid to teach Dodger how to act around other dogs, how to follow his owner’s instructions, how to manage his own energy.
“I’ll pick you up if I have to,” he said to the dog, taking a step closer. “Come on, boy. Load up.” The Akita whined, but he got to his feet. Seth crowded him again. “Load up.”
Dodger backed up, and Seth kept advancing, practically kneeing the dog until he jumped into the backseat with Winner and Thunder. He cowered on the floor of the side-by-side, but he didn’t jump out.
Seth moved slowly and got behind the wheel of the vehicle. He started the engine and checked the canines in the backseat. Dodger stayed down, and Seth chuckled. “All right, guys,” he said. “It’s a ride.”
He aimed the vehicle for the top twenty, his mind able to move through so many things with nothing to do but drive.
Funny how all he could think about was that kiss with Jenna yesterday.
A couple of days passed, and Seth had spent most of his hours combing the top twenty acres of the ranch for what had injured sixteen of his cattle. Just after lunchtime on Monday, he found the loose length of barbed wire in the long grass along the fence.
The grass here was wild and tall, and probably the most delicious for the cows. So they didn’t mind if they got cut up while the snacked. Seth minded though, and he ripped up the barbed wire, pulling the grass with it.
He put it in the very back of the side-by-side, where his dogs waited—all three of them. He checked the fence to make sure it was still sound, fixed the broken section of wire, and got behind the wheel again.
The drive back to the ranch cooled the sweat on his face and neck, mostly because he kept the speed as high as he dared over the bumpy ground.
As soon as he parked the side-by-side next to the shed in the backyard, the dogs jumped out and ran toward the house. They could get in without him, and he’d probably find all of them with wet snouts when he finally got inside the house too.
His phone made a strange sound, and he pulled it from his back pocket. He’d missed a call, and his heartbeat jumped and rejoiced when he saw who it was from.
“Hey, Jenn,” he whispered to himself, deciding to call his voicemail before he called back the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Hey, Seth,” her voice said, filling his eardrums with the sweet sound. “I was hoping I’d catch you at lunch, but whatever. We’re in a real jam here at the school, and I have a big favor to ask you. Call me back, would you?”
He kept the message for a reason he couldn’t name, his pulse still bobbing around against the back of his tongue. A favor. What could Jenna possibly need from him?
He pressed the call button to dial her as he moved toward the air-conditioned house. He kicked his boots off in the mudroom, her voice saying, “Hey, Seth,” as easily as if they were still best friends. As if he hadn’t kissed her twice now, even if one of those was only on
the forehead.
“Hey,” he said brightly. Maybe a little too brightly. He told himself to dial things down a notch, but he hadn’t heard from her over the weekend, and he didn’t really know where he stood with her.
“How’s your head?”
“It’s fine,” she growled. “If one more person asks me about my stupid head…” She let the words hang there, and Seth didn’t know what else to say.
Jenna sighed. “Anyway, I called because we need classroom aides in a bad way.”
Seth burst out laughing. But Jenna didn’t. He sobered quickly. “Oh, that wasn’t a joke.”
“No, it’s not a joke,” she said. “Our second grade teams are doing a huge reading event from now until Halloween, and they need as many volunteers as they can get to come read with their students.”
“And you thought I would want to do that?”
“I know you don’t want to do it,” she said, her voice taking on a new quality now. Lighter. More fun. Plenty of flirt. “But I don’t want to do the Edible Neighborhood either.”
Seth wasn’t stupid just because he’d never finished college, and he put two and two together real quick. “Oh, so you’re blackmailing me.”
She giggled, and Seth really wished he was in the same room with her. He thought about those perfectly kissable lips, and he wondered why he’d never seen her that way before.
“It would be an hour, three times a week,” she said. “I know you’re busy on the ranch, but it’s three hours a week.”
“And you’d give the community garden three hours a week?” he asked. If she was going to blackmail him, he could do the same to her.
“I suppose I could,” she said. “Only on the weekends, though.”
Seth would love to see her three times a week at the elementary school and on weekends too. He smiled as he entered the kitchen, glad neither of his brothers were there. They’d probably eaten lunch at a more normal midday mealtime, leaving the kitchen free for him to flirt with his neighbor next-door.
“I think three hours on the weekends would work just fine,” he said, pulling out the cowboy Texas drawl and hoping it would work as a flirtation tactic.
Jenna laughed full out this time, and Seth gave himself a point. “Come into the school tomorrow, and I’ll get you the paperwork to fill out.”
“Paperwork?”
“Yeah, you’ll need to get fingerprinted and we’ll do a background check. All of that. It’s painless, and the school pays for it.”
“All right,” he said. “What about tonight?”
“What about tonight?”
His throat was so dry, and he opened the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of lemonade. Bypassing the cup, he drank right from the container, smacking his lips when he finished. “Maybe you’ll be hungry. I know I will be. Maybe we could eat together.”
“Maybe?” Jenna asked. “Double maybe?” She scoffed, and Seth didn’t like this flirting over the phone business. He couldn’t see her reactions and know if he’d just heard an angry scoff or a playful one. They sounded the same over the phone.
“Maybe you should figure out how to ask a woman out decisively,” she said, plenty of bite in her tone now. But some teasing too? Seth wasn’t sure. “And maybe then she’d know if you were being serious or not.”
“Okay,” he said, but she cut him off with, “I have to go, Mister Johnson. Come in tomorrow to fill out the paperwork.”
The line went dead, and Seth actually looked at his device to see if she’d really hung up. She had.
He shook his head and scoffed too, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Frustration built inside him, but he supposed Jenna was just as irritated as him. He hadn’t called her or seen her for three days. He’d kissed her in the hospital.
“Stupid,” he muttered to himself. At age forty, he should know better—especially when it came to Jenna Wright. He’d known her for his whole life, and she wasn’t someone who dated without strings.
Seth’s heart pulsed now, the hurt he’d carried for five long years making itself known. Did he want to get involved with another woman? What if Jenna carved out his heart the way Wendy had? Left him wishing he’d been enough for her?
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Wendy was part of his past, and she didn’t get to shape his future in any way. He liked Jenna. They’d been friends for a long time. He sure did like kissing her, and he thought maybe, just maybe, he was ready for a new start.
A fresh outlook.
A good woman.
Chapter Six
Jenna did not want to answer the phone again, and it seemed to ring non-stop at the school. She was the financial secretary, and she wasn’t the first person who should even answer the phone. But Kim never got off the phone, or stopped checking in or out students, or handing out papers for the volunteers the second grade classrooms needed.
So Jenna had abandoned her work on the back-row desk and had been laboring up front, helping with the phones, the students, and the paperwork. She knew how to keep a smile in place though she was exhausted, and she knew how to keep her eyes off the clock. Instead, she used her stomach to gauge how close to lunchtime it was.
And she was downright famished by the time tall, broad-shouldered, handsome Seth Johnson walked through the door and into the office.
“Oh, wow,” she whispered to herself, turning her back to him as she took someone’s paperwork and laid it on her counter. She took a deep breath and smoothed down her hair before turning back to the desk.
“Hey,” Seth said, that smile already on his face. He should really patent that thing, because he could make a lot of money with those white teeth and that dimple in his left cheek. Jenna reminded herself that Seth already had plenty of money, and her heartbeat fluttered through her lungs as she breathed in again.
“Oh, hey,” she said. “You need the volunteer paperwork too, right?”
Confusion ran through his expression. “Right,” he said anyway, casting a look in Kim’s direction. She was on the phone, holding it with her shoulder while she typed on her computer. The kid in front of her was red-faced and trying to hold back more tears while two buddies held him up on either side.
Jenna handed Seth the packet of papers. “You need to fill out the blue one and the goldenrod one.”
“Ooh, goldenrod,” Seth said, and Jenna wanted to tuck her hair and giggle. Thankfully, she checked herself before doing either of those things. The weight of Seth’s gaze on her face was too heavy to bear, though, and she looked up at him.
The ringing phone and the crying kids and the loads of fingerprinting tests she needed to file disappeared. Just…poof. Gone. This circle only consisted of Seth and Jenna, and entire fireworks shows showered sparks between them.
“Seth,” someone said brightly, and he turned toward them, breaking the spell.
Jenna cleared her throat and ducked her head as her principal shook Seth’s hand and asked him, “What are you doing here?”
“I heard the second graders were doing this big reading…challenge,” he said. “I came to volunteer.”
Dan glanced at Jenna, his smile wide. “Jenna really did pull out all the stops.” He looked back at Seth. “The kids will love having a cowboy read with them.”
Seth laughed, and Dan invited Seth into his office to fill out his paperwork. Jenna shook her head. She should’ve known she couldn’t have Seth all to herself. The Johnsons were generational residents of Chestnut Springs, just like her family, and everyone knew who they were. At least other people who’d lived in town longer than a couple of years.
Jenna didn’t know what she’d been thinking. There was no way she could have more than a friendship with Seth Johnson, not without the whole town knowing. She sometimes forgot how rumors flew around Chestnut Springs, because she lived just outside of town, drove to the elementary school and back, and Isaac did all the grocery shopping.
She handed out another packet and gave the same instructions about filling out the blue paper and the go
ldenrod paper to a woman, who moved over to the table they’d set up, complete with pens and instructions.
The phone rang, and she practically dove for it, just so she’d have something to do when Seth emerged from Dan’s office. The hustle and bustle in the office rarely bothered her, but today, her head pounded and she just wanted a dark, quiet place to think.
She needed to figure out what to do about Seth. Why couldn’t she see clearly regarding him?
“Hey,” someone said, and she looked up. Dan stood there, and she managed to put a smile on her face. “Seth brought lunch for you. He’s wondering if you can take it now, or if he should just leave it on your desk.”
She glanced around, but Seth wasn’t anywhere to be found. “Oh, uh…” There wasn’t currently anyone in line, and miraculously the phone wasn’t even ringing.
“I’m headed out to the fifth grade pod,” he said. “Use my office if you want.” Dan smiled at her, and Jenna nodded. He walked out of the office like nothing unusual had just happened, and Jenna snuck a look in Kim’s direction. She, likewise, didn’t think it odd that Jenna was about to have lunch in the principal’s office with her maybe-boyfriend.
Maybe.
Oh, she hated that word.
She got up and went down the hall about ten feet and turned into Dan’s office. Acting quickly, she closed the door behind her and turned off the lights.
“Mysterious,” Seth said, chuckling.
With her back pressed into the door, she met his eyes. Jenna felt like she’d run a marathon, not walked ten steps, and she sucked at the air. “I just need a few minutes of peace and quiet,” she said.
The windows let in plenty of light, so the room wasn’t quite as dark as she’d like. But it was quiet. She pushed the lock so no one would come in, and she took the seat across from Seth. “You brought lunch?” Her stomach growled as if on cue.
“Yeah,” he said, reaching down to something on the floor. He set a white paper bag between them, and that could only mean one thing. “Strudels.”
