He nodded, thinking immediately of his apartment back in San Antonio and all the junk he still needed to make decisions about. Extreme downsizing came with a lot of challenges, and getting rid of crap was one of the worst for him. “Exactly, and there’s the whole deal where you think it’s ‘perfectly good.’ This is a perfectly good hammer, and someday one of my other hammers will probably break, so why get rid of it even though I have three of ’em?”
“Yes! It’s hardest with practical objects because we know they’re intrinsically useful.”
Alexandra cocked her head. “What are you two even talking about?”
Victoria blinked at her sister, her lovely face going blank. No expression beyond a faint, fake smile. The light died in her eyes as she said, “Minimalism.”
She’s about to get shot down hard, and it isn’t the first time.
“Sweetie.” Alexandra shook her head. “I don’t think you know . . . well, minimalism can mean different things to different people, I guess.” She squeezed her sister’s arm gently, kindly, ending with a fond pat.
Victoria’s expression never changed. She didn’t even look angry or sad or ready to argue. As far as Ethan could see, she’d simply tuned out. There was a light in the window, but nobody was home.
“So I guess I can show you the main house first,” he found himself saying. “Introduce you to Robert if he’s around. Then the barns. You can check out the horses. Then the cabins.” Jesus. What was he getting himself in to?
Logan clapped his hands once. “Okay, we have a plan. Victoria, welcome aboard. And enjoy your tour.”
* * *
The clap startled Victoria from her zone-out and she blinked at Logan, trying to shift her mind off hammer weights and textile colors and everything she knew about tiny houses. He mentioned something about a tour—apparently, the interesting, horsey-smelling tiny-house guy was going to show her around the place.
“Thanks,” she said to Logan, knowing it was probably a few beats too late and sounded odd. “I really appreciate your giving me a chance.”
“We’re glad to have the help.” His smile was warm and genuine, as was Mindy’s. They seemed like truly nice, happy people, and for one distinctly catty moment Victoria wondered how the hell Alexandra had managed to score such great friends.
She was being so unfair. Alex was right to be pissy about the situation and had gone way above and beyond to help. What Victoria needed to do was find a way to repay her kindness, instead of indulging in childish, bitchy pouting because her big sister didn’t understand her. Why should she understand? How much of her own tween and teen years had been spent waiting for attention while her parents dealt with Victoria’s issues? And by the time Victoria was in high school and had more or less sorted things out, Alexandra was practicing law and married and rarely saw her sister except at major holidays.
So Alexandra might know a thing or two about Victoria, but she still didn’t know her. The fact that Victoria had chosen an art school instead of a “real” college only cemented her reputation as a flake in the family’s collective mind, never mind RISD’s sterling reputation. To the rest of the Woodcocks, it was only a lesser school conveniently situated next to an Ivy, where she was supposed to have been finding a man.
It was what it was, though, and she couldn’t change it by wishing. She forced her attention into the present moment and smiled at the tiny-house cowboy. He looked like somebody’s stereotype of a guy from Texas: Wranglers with dirt ground into the hems, boots too dusty to determine the original color, a sweat-stained hatband, a sun-burnished neck, and forearms that no doubt gave way to pasty white just past the collar and rolled-up sleeves of his plaid shirt. She would be surprised, when he turned around, if he didn’t have a ring worn into one back pocket from carrying a tin of dip. Not quite as tall or fair-haired as his brother, and his features weren’t as classically even. He looked less like a movie star cowboy and more like one of the folks a production team hired locally to play extras. Decent-looking enough to score a line or two, maybe. Too fidgety and quirky to pull the big box-office numbers.
“Ethan, right?” She smiled at him, trying to convey generic, brisk friendliness. “I guess I’m all yours.”
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, pressing his lips together and scowling before he finally spoke. “All right. S’go.” He put his hat back on his head a bit too firmly, then adjusted it as he pretended to tip it at the assembled group. “Y’all.”
He backed out of the doorway, then nodded for her to follow before disappearing down the hall. With a hasty smile and wave to the other three, she rushed to catch up.
What have I gotten myself in to?
She swung around the doorway in the direction Ethan had turned and saw him standing at the end of the hallway. In the room behind him she could spot a counter, a tiled floor. The kitchen maybe? That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. The kitchen—she could smell it as she got closer, a history of garlic and onions and things fried in heavy oils—looked spotless and professional as far as she could see.
The dog at Ethan’s feet wasn’t a kitchen staple, though. Black and white Border collie, tail tucked but wagging and ears pricked, looking way more optimistic about Victoria than her owner currently did.
Forget the dude. Victoria dropped into a crouch and held out a hand, palm up, clucking softly. “What’s her name?”
“Roxie.” Ethan sounded reluctant to give up the information. Or maybe he was just chronically taciturn.
“Roxie,” she called softly. “Hey, pretty girl.”
The dog wagged her tail harder and came forward, claws clicking on the dark, patinated hardwood. She sniffed Victoria’s fingers, then sat abruptly in front of her.
“Um.” Ethan pulled his hat off again, scratching his fingers through his hair. It was longer than she’d realized, and more of a light golden brown than it had appeared in the dimmer light of the office. “Sitting dogs get petted.”
Brilliant. “Good girl, Roxie! What a good girl.” She started behind the ears, giving the dog a thorough scritching on both sides before moving down to the shoulders and finally the spine. Roxie’s fur was sleek and thick. By the time Victoria was through giving her way too much attention, a halo of loosened undercoat surrounded her, clearly visible on the polished hardwood floor.
When Victoria stopped, the dog thumped her tail hard and nudged Victoria’s hand, trying to angle her nose under Victoria’s palm.
Ethan was apparently over it. “Roxie. That’ll do.”
The dog turned to him and then came to his gestured command, a hand signal so quick and subtle it might easily have been missed if Victoria hadn’t known what it was. Ethan’s demeanor didn’t holler dominant the way Logan’s did, but he definitely gave off a subtle toppy vibe, and the dog seemed to respond to it as instinctively as Victoria did.
She also couldn’t help but be impressed, even sheerly from a pet management standpoint. She’d tried to train her mother’s spoiled-rotten Pekingese, Noodles, but the silly dog had never even managed to sit without being told out loud several times and offered treats.
“This here’s the kitchen.” Ethan gestured behind him, then backed off a step so she had room to enter. When she passed him, the smells of horse and wood resin—pine, cedar?—momentarily overpowered the garlic and oil. But once inside the room, she forgot the man smells and focused on the culinary possibilities. Long stainless counters, professional cooktop, huge refrigerator, and a giant butcher-block island running down the middle of the room. One section of the counter was set lower than the rest for ease of kneading and rolling. Plenty of free space to set up cultures for sourdough or even vegan cheese.
“It’s perfect.” She smiled at him, trying to get a read on his sudden change in manner. One minute he’d been eagerly discussing downsizing, the next he’d been frowning when she made friends with his dog. Was he always so mercurial or had she done something to piss him off? She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
Ethan shrugged and glanced around the kitchen, as if seeing it for the first time. “It gets the job done. Robert seems to like it okay. He doesn’t seem to be here, though, so—”
“Yes I am,” trilled a voice from another doorway across the room.
Victoria heard what sounded like a clothes dryer door slamming; then the familiar rhythmic thrum of the appliance started up. A second later, a slim, dark-haired young man swished into the kitchen from what she assumed was the laundry room. He wore distressed jeans so tight they had to be endangering his circulation, leopard-print high tops, and a ringer T-shirt with a bright splash of rainbow watercolor under curly script that read Gayus ex Machina.
“Hey, li’l jefe.” The new arrival fingertip waved at Ethan, but his eyes were trained on Victoria with keen interest. Ethan seemed poised to respond, but the Gayus ex Machina kept talking. “And who have we here? Honey, you have Roxie hair all over that nice cardi. Do you want a lint roller?”
“Robert, she doesn’t need a lint roller.”
Victoria pursed her lips and looked at Ethan, then back at Robert. Tempted though she was to ask for the lint roller just to be contrary, she resisted and forced a smile instead. “Hi. I’m Victoria Woodcock. I guess I’m going to be working here for a little while.”
Robert nodded, his face solemn except for the sparkle in his eyes. “Is that your real last name?”
“Yes.” And she had heard every joke about it at least three times.
“I like it. But then I would . . . co—”
Ethan cleared his throat noisily. “Robert. Victoria says she’s good at baking. After dinner maybe she can help you with cleanup and the two of y’all can make some plans about that.”
“Lord yes. Is there enough in the budget for a baker, though?”
“She’ll be doing different things. Filling in around the place, figuring out what she’s good at. I’m giving her the grand tour right now.”
“All righty. Well, I assume there’s a story here.” Robert winked at Victoria. “But you can tell me later while we’re up to our elbows in dishwater. Welcome to Hilltop, Miss Victoria.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t have to fake her smile this time; Robert’s was infectious. “I’m glad to be here.” Strangely, as she said it, she realized it was true. Everything was new and different and overwhelming, but this seemed like such a good, solid, wholesome place. The kind of place people might come to learn something about themselves.
Maybe she’d spent too long perusing the guest ranch’s promotional literature while Alexandra had been catching up with Mindy earlier, before shuffling Victoria into manual labor. The brochures were full of glossy photos of happy guests on horseback, close-ups of local wildflowers, impossibly beautiful sunsets over the hills. Not to mention phrases like “rugged, authentic settings,” and “steeped in local tradition.” She wondered if they had brochures for the other events, too, the ones that apparently occurred during “private” weekends. Given Logan and Mindy’s predilections, and the way Ethan had asked about it, she was 99 percent sure that meant kink. Maybe she’d find out the following weekend. Those brochure pictures would look a lot less like motivational posters, that was for sure.
Robert crossed to the big commercial refrigerator and yanked the door open, pulling out a tray with what looked like enchiladas on it. “Where’re you taking her next, li’l jefe?”
Ethan growled. “Would you stop?”
“What? You said I couldn’t call you ‘baby boss’ anymore. Diego suggested an alternative for me.”
Victoria tried to stifle her giggle but didn’t quite succeed. Ethan shifted his frown her way for a moment, then shook his head. “Is everybody still out on the trail?”
“As far as I know.” Robert gestured toward Ethan’s belt as he walked to the oven and flicked it on. “Where’s your radio?”
“I’m not really here today. Okay, Victoria, we can hit the horse barn next, I guess. But Lamar’s up on the high trail with the guests—uh, did you see the whiteboards by the desk in the study, with the magnets that have names on them?” At Victoria’s nod, Ethan continued. “One is the employees and where they’re assigned throughout the day. The other is the guests: where and when they’re staying, any extras they’ve paid for, any special needs. The calendar next to that shows when we’re dark—nobody staying—and when we have folks booked. So we have four guests left right now from the weekend group. They’ll leave Monday morning. There’s a midweek package deal and there’ll be about twelve people here for that, Tuesday through Thursday. Then a large group arrives Friday and stays through Sunday, if I remember right. You’ll hit the office here each Tuesday morning for a staff meeting and to get your work assignments.”
He went on for a bit, talking faster all the time, and she lost track of the details. After a few minutes of nodding as if she understood and would retain everything he was saying—and wishing like hell she’d brought something to take notes on—Robert threw her a sympathetic glance, then tilted his head and batted his eyelashes at Ethan.
“Ethan? Would you mind terribly? I need to focus on finishing the mole poblano next, and I concentrate better in silence.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. Okay, we can head out this way.” Ethan led the way to the back door, which stood propped open. A screen door kept the bugs and critters out while letting the cool air in; though it was only February, Central Texas was currently enjoying daytime temperatures in the seventies. Victoria wore a long, loose-woven cardigan of her own design and making, but she hardly needed it. After Rhode Island, the seventies felt like summer. It would have been even more delightful if she hadn’t known all too well that actual summer in this part of Texas would be about thirty degrees hotter.
“This is the back door,” Ethan explained as he closed the screen behind them and jumped down the three stairs of the stoop. “The laundry room”—he pointed back toward the kitchen in the direction Robert had first appeared from—“is also the mud room, and the door into that is the back-back door. You’ll get used to it. Come in that way if you need to take your boots off. I’ll show you when we head in this direction again after the barn.”
“Okay. Will I need to take my boots off then? Will they get that dirty in the barn?”
He quirked his mouth and bit his lip, casting his gaze down at her ankle boots, then back up to meet her eyes. His whole face changed, humor transforming it from mildly attractive to dangerously appealing in an instant. Lord help the person who tried to resist if this guy ever made puppy dog eyes.
Then he shrugged, shaking his head as if there were nothing he could do to help her. “You’re probably gonna want some more serious boots.”
Chapter 6
The horse barn—the name seemed to suggest there were other barns—was located perpendicular to the main house, across a wide-open area that started as a gravel trail through lawn and opened into an expanse of typical, dusty, barnyard dirt. To one side of the barn Victoria spotted two corrals, one large, one small; a brown-and-white horse stood in the small one, head down, reaching through the fence rails to feed on the surprisingly lush growth of native grasses beyond.
In a month or so the place would probably be alive with wildflowers. Beyond the wide-open yard, the hill country spread out in shades of green and brown under an impossibly large, clear-blue sky. White powder-puff clouds floated nearly overhead; on the horizon, a darker area hinted at storms traveling closer or departing.
Ethan gestured around them with his free hand as they walked, pointing things out; with the other he led his horse by a reined halter that looked like hand-dyed, handmade rope. Nice stuff. She wondered where he’d gotten it.
Ethan gestured toward the small corral as they walked past it into the stable yard. “So . . . that paint over there is Diego’s horse, Spock. His first name isn’t really Spock.”
Victoria chuckled. “He’d tell us the first name, but we couldn’t pronounce it?”
Ethan did a double take at her, clearl
y astonished at her Star Trek acumen, then turned resolutely forward. “Original series fan?”
She shrugged, then squinted to let her eyes adjust to the gloom when they entered the barn. “Next Gen is my favorite, but I have an appreciation for origin stories. Oh, wow. That smell brings back some memories.”
Sweet, oaty, only faintly tainted with the less-pleasant smells of poop and sweaty horse. She’d been steeling herself against a negative reaction; instead she kind of hoped they stayed in the barn a good long while.
Ethan looked amused; the puckish, half-boyish, half-wicked smile ghosted across his lips again, and Victoria had to look away quickly when her heart started pounding faster. Not a helpful response to have to her new boss’s brother.
He led Sackett into one of the first few stalls, taking off the halter thing and then the saddle, which he plopped on top of the stall divider as if it weighed nothing. Then he moved around the stall, settling the horse, passing a brush over his coat. Victoria glanced down the corridor that split the long barn. It was clean, tidy, and airy, with a dozen or so stalls on either side, then another open double door at the far end.
Ethan finally emerged from Sackett’s stall and closed it behind him, saddle over one arm. “Be right back. Hang tight.” He disappeared into another stall—or room, she supposed, as it looked closed in—then came back out with empty arms and returned to the main door, nodding for her to come over.
Next to the door, bolted to the wall, was a big plastic bin. Ethan lifted the lid and scooped out a handful of grains, passing them to her. They were faintly sticky and obviously one source of the sweet smell. Curious noses were already peeking over nearby stall dividers; the horses seemed to know the sound of the bin opening quite well.
Ethan took a handful of the grain mixture for himself as well. “If you remember the smell, I take it you’ve spent at least a little time around horses?”
“I took riding lessons for a few years when I was pretty young.” She sniffed the handful of stuff more closely, trying to parse out the smells. Molasses maybe? Oats, corn, some sort of pellets. “Then I went to . . . well, a different school, and had to stop.”
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