by Casey Hagen
His eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his hat as he took a half-step back. “And now you’re running. Is he the one who gave you that accessory on your face?” he said, gesturing to her bruised eye.
“No, he’s not,” she snapped.
“So you aren’t involved with him?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Are you married?”
She let out a choking sound somewhere between laughter and horror. “Ummm, yuck. No. He’s my father.”
“Your father?”
“Yes. Don’t sound so surprised. We all have one.”
“You must have money, then. Why are you taking odd jobs and struggling?”
“Because I don’t want him to know where I am right now.”
“And you’re not in any trouble?”
Each bit of information just precipitated more questions. It was time to level with him, if for no other reason than so he could breathe a sigh of relief. “Look, his campaign manager and I were dating. He’s the one who gave me this. I left. Not just because of him, though. I’ve been wanting a change for a long time. Needing a change. This just gave me the extra push to take what I want.”
He stepped up into her space and she went stock-still. She surprised herself by not flinching when he lifted his large hand to her eye. Her eyelids slid closed as the rough pads of his fingers dragged, with a whisper of pressure, over her tender skin. At a distance, she heard the muffled sounds of a living ranch. In the stillness of Levi’s bunkhouse, her shallow breathing mingled with Slade’s harsh breaths.
No one had ever touched her like this. Like the most precious piece of crystal, delicate and priceless. She memorized the sensation, scared she might never feel it again.
All too soon, he stepped back and cleared his throat. “Sorry,” Slade said. He glanced away, his gaze landing on the guitar. “If you want, I can take that to the house for you.”
“Thank you.” She took a step back, too. “I guess I should get started.”
Slade coughed and cleared his throat. “Sure. Yeah. Well, there are supplies in the bunkhouse on the end. They both need to be cleaned out. If you can make a list of anything that needs replacing, we can get that ordered. Anything that needs to be tossed, just stack it on the porch and I’ll have the guys haul it out.”
Switching to work mode, yes, she could do this. She nodded and smiled, trying to diffuse the awkwardness. “I can do that.”
“Good enough. I’ll just take this, then.” He took the guitar and led her out of Levi’s place.
A few hours and a bucket of sweat later, Ryan had dragged the mattresses and box springs out of each of the bunkhouses. She had cleaned the bathrooms from top to bottom, as well as the small kitchens. She had a legal pad filled with housewares that needed to be ordered.
She headed back to the main house, list in hand, covered in grime.
Ivy bounced out of the doorway onto the porch. Smoke awoke, lifted his head off of his front paws, decided Ivy had nothing for him, and dropped his head again. “I’ve been waiting for you. It’s lunch time. Come on, I saved you a seat next to me,” she said as she took Ryan’s hand.
“Lead the way,” Ryan said.
Ivy dragged her into the big dining room off of the kitchen, where a number of ranch hands, Slade, and Myra waited.
Slade stood and gestured to each of the men. “For those of you who haven’t met her, this is Ryan. Ryan, this is Quinn, Ned, Matt, Dylan, Elliot, Kip, Tex, Will, and of course you know Levi and Myra.”
She nodded and smiled at the men, who looked to range from their early twenties to late fifties. “Nice to meet you all.”
Ivy tugged her hand. “Come on, we’re over here.”
Ivy led her to two chairs between Myra and Slade. Ryan jumped to grab the seat next to Myra. There was no way she was sitting next to Slade, with the sweat and filth of the morning clinging to her. Normally she wouldn’t sit at a meal like this, but since everyone else looked to be in about the same condition, she dismissed it.
One more piece of her old life falling away. The thought made her smile.
Ivy nudged Ryan’s arm. “Myra makes the best fried chicken. Do you like fried chicken?”
Ryan smiled down to her. The exotic combination of her blonde hair and her father’s gray eyes would have boys lining up one day. Slade would be in some serious trouble in a few short years.
“It’s my absolute favorite.” Ryan smiled.
Ivy bounced in her seat. “It’s my Daddy’s favorite, too. Isn’t it, Daddy?”
Slade glanced at Ryan over Ivy’s head. He didn’t frown. Not quite, anyway. “Yeah, Trouble, it’s my favorite.”
“Well, then…what are you all waiting for? Dig in,” Myra said.
Conversation flowed all during lunch. The ranch hands discussed their impending cattle delivery and their plans for branding. That’s about the point Ryan stopped listening. She planned to be long gone before the branding, thank God.
Ivy kicked her feet and copied all of Ryan’s movements. Ryan noticed how Ivy avoided putting collard greens on her plate. Smiling to herself, Ryan slid her fork into the pile of collard greens on her own plate and lifted the bite to her lips, then watched out of the corner of her eye to see what Ivy did.
Ivy’s little face scrunched up, but she took the serving dish with the collard greens and scooped a small portion out onto her plate.
Slade was going to owe Ryan big time for this.
She had to give Ivy credit. She adopted that stiff upper lip and shoved the bite into her mouth. The look on her face said just what it cost her. She looked like she had just sucked a lemon and stepped in cat puke…simultaneously.
“Well, I’ll be…would you look at that, Slade?”
He stopped talking to Levi and glanced down to Ivy, who had now taken a second bite. His eyes went wide. Ryan just took another bite of her collard greens and grinned.
***
With the afternoon came heavy rain. Slade wasn’t complaining, though. They needed it, and they could all use a reprieve from the constant pace they had all been maintaining, getting ready for the cattle delivery. Edmund Frayley hadn’t called to raise a stink about Cutter, so Slade assumed plans hadn’t changed.
Since Ryan had no way of knowing he had called it a day early because of the weather, he went to find her. He opened the door just as she had climbed off the ladder with one of the light covers.
“Storms are coming in. Why don’t you knock off for the day?”
“The storms aren’t coming in here, are they?” she asked, giving him an arched brow and smirk.
“Well, no.”
She shrugged and set the light cover in the sink. “Then I can keep working.”
Who the hell was the boss here, anyway?
His men didn’t question him. Not even once. Even when Levi offered advice, he was careful to not tell Slade how to run his ranch. When it came down to it, the responsibility of managing the considerable amount of money his family had grown through the generations, money Slade had only added to, rested on Slade’s shoulders alone.
Now Myra, she questioned him. Hell, she bossed him around. Then there was Ivy. She had him wrapped around her little finger with just a smile. Maybe his problem wasn’t with being the boss, but with women. Well, there was a surprise.
“You don’t take direction well, do you?” he asked.
She turned and leaned back against the sink, bracing her hands on the edge of the counter. Her eyes shot fire. She stood there in those denim cut-offs, that tight tank top, plaid shirt tied in a knot around her waist, looking like a redheaded version of Daisy Duke.
“I take direction very well, thank you very much. Have you actually looked at this place?”
He had, and she had surprised him. He figured growing up as she had, in a house with a senator for a father, she would have no experience with cleaning. He’d been wrong. “When it comes to getting the job done, I agree, but it’s time to cut out for the day. That�
��s an order.”
“Whatever you say; you’re the boss,” she said in a chipper voice so unlike her.
Why did he have a bad feeling he was going to pay for this? “Ahh, thank you for noticing.” He led her out the door onto the porch. Humid air swirled with the gusts of wind that had kicked up. Dark clouds rolled across the sky in an angry march.
“It looks like a bad one,” she said, casting a wary glance up at the sky.
He nodded. “It will be, but it should move through fast enough.” She kept pace with him over the dirt drive, as fat, warm drops started to fall.
“So, what will you do with the time off?” She scurried a bit faster and ran up the steps of the front porch.
He joined her there, leaning on the railing, watching the rain fall harder now. In seconds, the rain saturated the surface dirt. He loved the sound of the rain on the metal roof of the barn. Even better to be in the barn, nestled in the hay, with the drumming so loud you couldn’t hear the person curled up next to you.
An image of Ryan curled up in there with him flashed before him, which was ridiculous since A) he wasn’t doing this, and B) she was afraid of horses and wouldn’t be caught dead in that barn.
He cleared his throat. “There’s a beer or two with my name on them, and I’ll probably attack some of the paperwork that’s been collecting on my desk.”
She stepped up right beside him, leaning on the railing much the same way he did, her arm brushing his. She narrowed her eyes at him. “So you’re going to work?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
It was his turn to raise a brow. He wondered if he did it as well as she did. “Excuse me?”
“Hey, if we have to put the work away, you have to do the same.”
“And what do you expect me to do?”
She bumped her shoulder against his, making him smile. “I’m sure Ivy would love to spend some time with her dad. Watch a movie, play a board game, talk to her.”
“Are you trying to say I don’t spend enough time with my daughter?”
She got a faraway look in her eye. Slade was pretty sure she had slipped into a memory of her own childhood. “I haven’t been here long, but I see you working hard, keeping this place going, until exhaustion sets in. I’m sure you think you’re doing your daughter a favor, and in a way you are, but she needs you, too. I had a dad who worked all the time. I missed him, and now I’m an adult and my relationship with him is…”
He waited a bit after she trailed off, hoping she would continue. When she didn’t, he was afraid she wouldn’t. “Tell me what your relationship with him is like.”
She sighed. “Well, it’s screwed up. I spent my life trying to make him happy. As near as I can tell he didn’t get any happier, and I made myself miserable.”
“She’s seven. I hardly think she’s spending her days trying to make me happy.”
“Not yet, no, but it’s only a matter of time.” She turned to him. She laid a hand on his shoulder, her face soft, open, and a bit sad. “Spend a couple hours with her. She’ll never forget it.” She went for the door, but stopped at the sound of his voice.
“Why do you care so much?”
She chewed the inside of her lip, seemingly considering what to say. “I don’t know. Maybe because I would hate for her to end up like me. Maybe because, even though it’s a horrible idea, and it’s only been a couple days, I’m starting to care about the people on this ranch.” She pulled open the door and walked into the main house, leaving him standing on the porch, he was pretty sure, with his mouth hanging open.
An hour later, he was sitting on the middle of his daughter’s flowered bedspread, brushing a Barbie’s hair. He didn’t even know Ivy liked Barbies. She had gotten these the last time her mother came to town, but he never saw her play with them. He assumed she didn’t want to because they made her think of her mom.
He held up the Barbie and tried to ignore that his finger rested right over her plastic chest and his daughter was watching him. “Is that good enough?” he asked her.
She inspected the Barbie’s head and nodded. “Now, I’m going to teach you how to braid it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Braids? We never talked about me learning how to braid.”
She shrugged and continued to brush her Barbie’s hair. “We never talked about me learning to clean tack, but you made me learn that.”
Well, shit. It was quick wit and turn-arounds such as those that made him forget about her autism and her age. Jesus. “Okay, you got me there. What do I do?”
“You part her hair in three sections. Like this.” She quickly separated her Barbie’s hair into three even sections. “Here, I’ll sit right beside you and you follow me.”
He parted the hair and tried to keep it smooth the way she did, but damned if his big fingers weren’t nearly as nimble as her little ones. He alternated crossing each section over the center.
When he got to the end, he looked at hers, then his. “So, how did I do?” His sections weren’t as even as hers, and the braid was tighter in some places than others, but overall, not bad.
“Well, it’s good for a first try, but you need some practice.” She took the Barbie from his hands and undid his work. “Here, now try again.”
“How many times are we going to do this?”
She turned her focus back to her doll. “Until you get it right.”
Leave it to Ivy to turn his own words right back on him. At least he could go to bed tonight knowing that some of what he’d taught her was sinking in, but it also made him wonder what lessons he was teaching her that he didn’t intend to. Ryan might have been on to something by pointing out all the time he was missing with his daughter.
His hands still cramped from two hours spent braiding a Barbie’s hair, dinner done, and everyone settled in for the night, Slade ducked into his room to grab Ryan’s guitar. Ivy had asked her to read to her and, of course, Ryan agreed happily. She did that. She gave her time, her effort, without a thought. While Ryan spent time with his daughter, he smuggled her guitar out of her room and headed for Levi’s bunkhouse.
Slade knocked and waited. With any luck he could pull this off, if for no other reason than to thank Ryan for pointing out the time he wasn’t spending with his daughter.
Levi answered the door, half asleep, his salt and pepper hair standing up on end.
“Sorry for waking you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Fell asleep reading. Come on in.” Levi pulled the door open the rest of the way.
“Thanks.” Slade stepped in and set his long duffel on the couch.
“Is there something you needed?”
“Yeah.” He pulled Ryan’s broken guitar out of the bag he carried. “I’m hoping you know someone who can fix this.”
Levi’s brows snapped together over angry eyes. “That son of a bitch did a damned number on it.”
Slade’s jaw clenched. “I’m hoping since he only snapped the neck, it can just be replaced.”
“Yeah, well that’s something. This is a specialty wood. I know a guy; he’s good, he can get the wood, but it’s going to cost her.”
Slade shook his head. “Not her. Me. I’m paying for it.”
Levi’s eyes widened and he scratched the scruff on his chin. “I’ll head into town first thing in the morning and take care of it.”
Slade nodded and headed for the door. “I appreciate it.”
“You like her.”
“I respect her.”
Levi choked on a laugh. “Yeah, that’s almost the same thing.”
Slade gave him a look and took his leave, Levi’s full-on laughter following him.
Back at the house, he headed for Ivy’s room to kiss her good-night. At the top of the stairs, he stopped as the notes of a slow song from a guitar drifted toward him.
Levi’s guitar. Ryan was playing it. From the sounds if it, she was playing for Ivy. Slade took careful steps and snuck up to Ivy’s door. There in Ivy’s bed Ryan sat upright,
her back up against Ivy’s pillows, Ivy between her legs. They both held the guitar as Ryan guided Ivy through the notes.
Ryan had been on his ranch for two days, and in that time she had marked his life permanently. Soon she would walk away. She would point her truck in the direction of the next town, the next gig, and forget that he and Ivy even existed in this corner of the world, at the base of the Mavis Mountains.
But with everything she did, working hard, making his men laugh, giving him unsolicited, yet excellent advice, and giving his daughter memories, she unknowingly ensured that they would never forget her, even long after she rolled down the road and out of their lives.
Envisioning that day caused a burning to churn in his gut. He would deal with it. After all, he had prior experience.
5
A week in, Ryan figured out what was wrong with this job…one project bred another, and another, and another, until it seemed as though it would never end. She had never really thought about what went into keeping a place clean. As for cleaning up a place that sat empty for who knows how long…well, that was a crap shoot.
Slade didn’t give her a list, so she was figuring things out as she went. Luckily, when she had had time, which wasn’t often, she had binge-watched DIY shows, which gave her a ton of ideas.
The seal around the toilets needed to be changed. She didn’t know what to buy or how to do it exactly, but she recognized the cracks and the areas where the flexible seal had pulled away. On her hands and knees, she noticed the dirt along the edge of the floor where it met the baseboards. She would need to take a brush to the edges. Sure, the room wasn’t huge, but it was all tile; probably on account that ranch hands tracked in truckloads of dirt.
Okay, so put that down on the list. The floors were the last project. From her vantage point, she spotted a gap in the baseboard and floor. She pushed at it in an effort to snap it back in place, but it popped right back out. The nail that once held it wiggled in the nail hole. Probably a board that had always bowed out that had never been properly fixed. She stood and gave it a kick. Nope, snapped right back out.
