Cowboys Can’t Lie (A Lily’s House Novella)

by Rachel Branton

  “Yep. First one.”

  “Is he as small as he looks, or are you going through a sudden growth spurt?”

  Most of the ranch calves were born in the late winter or early spring and sold in the fall, but Crew had set up a test group to give birth during the summer to see if the calves were healthier. It meant he’d have to winter them instead of selling them in the fall, and then sell them in late summer next year. The lack of competition at that time should send his beef prices skyrocketing. He hoped.

  Isaac laughed. “He’s tiny, which is why I’m bringing him and his momma in to keep an eye on. He’s a twin, though, so he’s actually big. Both of them’ll be fine.”

  Twins! That was a different story. Unlike horses, cattle often had successful multiple births. “Great. I’ll meet you there in a bit.” The cow had stopped bawling, so she must be in the van with her calves now. Good thing they’d moved them in closer from their more wild terrain last week.

  “Good news?” Tara asked when he hung up the phone.

  “Twins,” he said. “First births of the summer. It’s a good omen.” His grin faded. “I know we were going on to see the other foals but I really need to check on these calves and on rest of that herd—”

  “Fine. Raincheck.”

  Did she really mean it? He wanted to pin her down to a time now, but that felt awkward.

  They turned and began walking back the way they’d come. “When should the girls be here?” she asked. “We never decided.”

  “How about eight in the morning?” That was three hours after his day normally began. The delay would give him a chance to check for new calves born in the night and time to repair a broken fence he’d jury-rigged yesterday before he’d have to come down from the fields to meet the girls. He still needed to talk to the stable manager about them coming, but that was a matter of formality since they’d be working with the workhorses in the beginning.

  “Tomorrow. Oh, good.” Tara sounded a bit surprised.

  “They can get up that early, can’t they?”

  Her laugh was genuine. “I’m glad that’s Lily’s problem, not mine. She’s a whole lot scarier than me. In a good way. She’ll make it work. Anything they should wear?”

  “Comfortable clothes and lots and lots of sun screen.”

  At the training stables, they retrieved her jacket. “About the social media pages,” she said. “I’ll need someone to give me access.”

  He was tempted to tell her to forget social media, that he’d just been teasing, but it was an easy way to get her phone number. “If you give me your number, I’ll call you about it.”

  She pulled a business card from the pocket of the jacket lying over her arm.

  “Thank you.” He took the card without looking at it. “So, do you want to go for a ride some time?” There, he’d said it, but why had he asked her to go for a ride? She’d probably rather go out for a drink or dinner.

  Her expressive face went blank, as if she’d slammed a door. Not a glimpse of pleasure or excitement or even revulsion. A pit formed in his gut. He’d been so sure that there was a connection between them, but it was possible he’d misread things. Focusing on work hadn’t exactly given him practice with dating. Why hadn’t he kept his stupid mouth shut?

  “I’d like that,” she said after a hesitation that felt like a year to him. “And I’d like to see those calves, if I could. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby cow.”

  The tension slid out of him. “Sure. I’ll give you a call.”

  He watched her walk down to the parking lot and get into her car. She was one fine woman. Yet something was off about the scene, and it wasn’t until she’d disappeared and he was halfway to the east cow field on his horse that he realized what it was.

  She’d still been wearing the blue boots, and he needed them back.

  Chapter 3

  Tara ran inside the front door at Lily’s House at full speed without knocking. “Lily!” she called. “I did it! I found a place for the girls to work with horses.”

  Lily appeared, her blond hair swept up into a ponytail. “That’s great! Was it the place you were hoping for?”

  “Well, no. It wasn’t. Or any of the ones on the list I made, but one recommended another and so on, until I finally ended up at the Silver A Ranch.”

  Lily whooped with her before tugging her into the kitchen were dinner was already simmering on the stove. Two foster girls at the long table greeted at her before going back to one of the puzzles Lily always kept going somewhere in the house.

  “The Silver A Ranch,” Lily mused. “That’s a cattle farm, right? So will the girls be working with their ranch horses, or do they offer riding lessons or something as well?”

  “They actually have workhorses and Thoroughbreds, and offer horse training, so I think it’s perfect. There’ll be a lot of opportunities to learn different things. But how’d you know they raise cattle?”

  “I buy my beef in bulk from a butcher who buys cattle from them. He says they’re the best in the area. And their meat doesn’t have hormones.”

  Leave it to Lily to know that. Tara smiled. “The owner seems rather nice. Well, once he realized I wasn’t from his competitor.”

  Lily made a face. “Was he rude before that?”

  “No. Just very coldly polite.” As close as they were, she wasn’t going to tell Lily about how attractive she’d found him. She hadn’t even meant to accept his offer of going for a ride. In fact, she’d told herself to refuse, but somehow she hadn’t been able to. She wanted to see more of him.

  “Oh, well.” Lily stirred her soup. “I’ll have to go meet him for myself.”

  She was probably wondering if he might donate a side or two of beef for the girls. “I was sure you would.”

  “So aren’t you going to tell Kate and Brin?”

  “Where are they?”

  Lily’s laugh rang throughout the kitchen. “You have to ask?”

  Tara found the girls out in the barn with Tessa’s horse Serenity. Kate Miller, the seventeen-year-old, was currying her, while Brin Thompson, who was two years younger, perched on top of the stall wall, her thin legs dangling down. As usual, a piece of her straggly blond hair was in her mouth. They both looked up when they noticed Tara standing outside the stall.

  “You did it!” Kate dropped the curry brush and rushed over to the stall door. “Where? What kind of horses? Did they say we could ride them?” Kate’s short hair was dyed black and her round face layered with pale makeup. Black lipstick and thick black rings around her eyes completed what Tara called her mask. She was slightly on the chubby side, which was emphasized by pants so tight, it was a wonder they didn’t burst. Lily limited few things in self-expression regarding hair and makeup and even clothes as long as they covered the most important parts. Only piercings and tattoos were out of the question until they were eighteen. Lily enforced that as religiously as she did her no-swearing rule.

  “Yep! I found you a place.”

  “Where?” the girls asked together. Brin jumped down from the stall and hurried over, her narrow face eager. She was the quietest and most introverted of Lily’s girls, and it was good to see her this excited.

  “Silver A Ranch,” Tara said.

  Kate’s eyes widened. “You mean the one who owns Iron Express? No way! He won like a zillion races and his offspring are always placing at the top. That’s amazing!” She pumped her fist and then slapped a high five with Brin.

  “You’ve heard of them?” Tara asked.

  “Well, yeah. Of course I have. Anyone interested in horses knows who they are.”

  Brin nodded her agreement without speaking.

  “They aren’t a huge operation,” Kate went on, “but before High Vista showed up a couple years ago, they were bigger. I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow High Vista ended up with some of their horses. It was all news back then.”

  That had been before either of the girls had come to live at Lily’s house. “Okay, I’m glad yo
u’re happy about it, but you girls will need to be there at eight every morning.”

  Kate gawked. “Are you kidding?”

  “Hey, that’s when they need you. The owner gets up at five.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean. It’s late for a ranch.”

  Tara rolled her eyes. “This from the girl Lily has to force out of bed on school mornings.”

  “That’s different. These are Thoroughbreds.”

  Kate looked so happy, Tara hated to say, “They won’t start you out with the Thoroughbreds. You know that, right? Certainly not riding them. Those horses cost a fortune.”

  Kate and Brin exchanged a look and Kate said, “Yeah, we talked about that. We don’t care how much poop we have to shovel, we’re going to do it.”

  All the hassles of the day were worth it for that moment. “Wait. I need to record you saying that on my phone. Come out here.”

  That led to the girls oohing and ahhing over her pictures of the baby colts—and over her picture of Crew Ashman.

  “He is the most beautiful cowboy I’ve ever seen,” Kate said with a sigh.

  Tara laughed. “I think he’s rugged.”

  “Yes, rugged,” Brin said. “By the way, Tara, where did you get those boots? I thought you hated cowboy boots.”

  Tara stared down at the ground to see three pair of feet shod in boots. “Oops. Yeah, I borrowed these while I was there so I could go on a mini tour. I forgot my shoes.” Leave it to the quiet Brin to notice. How embarrassing.

  “They’re cute, and they match your skirt.” Kate bent down for a closer look. “We can take them back for you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know.” Tara would prefer to deliver them herself to make sure they got back safely. She had no idea who they belonged to, but they meant something to Crew.

  The girls were going back inside the stall where Serenity was investigating the curry brush. “So you’ll be there on time?” she asked the girls.

  Brin twirled a piece of her hair. “I’ll make sure she’s up.” The hair went promptly into her mouth.

  “Oh, yeah,” Tara added. “He said wear comfortable clothes and lots of sun screen. You should probably tie back your hair, too.” She grinned. “Keep the poop out.”

  The girls giggled, but Brin didn’t stop chewing on her hair. It was part habit and part self-comforting, Lily said, and she didn’t seem worried about it, so Tara wouldn’t be either.

  After stopping at the house one more time to make sure Lily knew what time the girls needed to be at the Silver A in the morning, Tara headed across town to the two-bedroom apartment she shared with another girl, Rylee Williams.

  Tara sat down at the desk in the corner of her room. She knew her inbox would be full of questions she needed to answer. A day off for her didn’t really mean a day off. It meant working from home later to take care of the clients. But she didn’t turn on her computer. Instead, she pulled off the boots and studied them for a moment.

  She was about to set them to the side when she noticed the small, neat writing on the inside near the top of each boot: Sophie Ashman.

  Her heart flip-flopped. Sophie Ashman? She’d suspected the boots belonged to someone important to him, but he hadn’t been wearing a ring. Was he divorced? Had this Sophie died? Or was he married but didn’t wear a ring because it got in the way of his work? Maybe his asking her if she wanted to go for a ride meant something altogether different than how she’d taken it. Maybe, he meant with the girls or . . .

  No, she’d seen the look in his eyes, and that look was the only reason she’d said yes.

  She opened her laptop, but she didn’t check her email. She had some investigating to do.

  Silver A Ranch, she typed into her browser. Let’s see what the Internet has to say about you, Crew Ashman.

  Chapter 4

  Crew had checked for new calves, repaired the broken fence, and taken Iron Express for a short ride before eight o’clock. Iron Express was too valuable to ride hard, but they both still enjoyed their time together, and to make up for not riding as often or as far as Crew would have liked, he allowed the stallion plenty of field time.

  He finished his ride at the training stables where he planned to meet the girls from Lily’s House. To his surprise, the teens were already there waiting. An attractive woman with blond hair was with the two girls, and he recognized her from the Internet search he’d done the night before: Lily Perez. She looked happy and confident, and everything about her screamed reliability.

  Unfortunately, the girls with her looked far from the “good girls” Tara had promised him. At least the plump one, who looked the type to hang out behind the school smoking pot. She did look strong enough to do the work on the ranch, which was more than he could say for the scrawny little wisp of a girl next to her, who appeared to be chewing on the ends of her ponytail.

  Lily smiled at him as he swung down from Iron Express. “Are you Crew Ashman?”

  “That would be me.”

  Lily opened her mouth to say more when the girl with all the makeup gave a gasp. “That’s Iron Express, isn’t it? Oh, wow, oh wow, oh wow! He’s amazing!” She took a step toward the stallion, then hesitated, her gaze going to Crew. “Can I touch him?”

  In that moment, she won him over. He recognized a true horse lover when he saw one.

  “Sure, you can. Let him sniff you first.” Crew signaled a passing groom. “Can you bring me a carrot?”

  The groom hurried back with a carrot from the stash they kept inside the training stables. Crew broke it in pieces and gave them to the girls, who eagerly fed Iron Express the treat. Neither girl hesitated or acted afraid, and the near worship in their eyes was endearing. These two were something he could work with. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have other misfits on the ranch, and in the end, it hadn’t made a difference. They all became family.

  He looked over to find Lily watching him. “Thank you,” she said, a knowing smile on her face. “I really appreciate this. Please let me know if I need to get the girls anything.”

  “Sure will.” Crew touched his finger to his hat as Lily left. He turned to the girls. “So what are your names?”

  “I’m Kate Miller, and she’s Brin Thompson,” the older girl said. “This is the most amazing day of my life. I never thought I’d ever touch a famous Thoroughbred.”

  Suddenly the morning he had planned for the girls cleaning out the boarding stalls under the watchful eye of the assistant stable manager wasn’t at all what he wanted for them. Not for their first experience at the Silver A.

  Crew gestured for the hovering groom to take Iron Express. He normally preferred to rub down his stallion himself after their rides, but today he’d arranged to let the groom handle it. The girls gave Iron Express one last pat before the man led him away.

  “Come on, girls,” Crew said. “Let me show you your first responsibility. It’s something you’ll need to do every morning.”

  He drove them in his truck past the field with the Thoroughbred foals to where a half dozen other foals played with their mothers in a larger field. “They’re so cute,” whispered Brin. The first words he’d heard from her.

  A thin, gray-haired cowboy was already setting up in the nearby stable. “Benjamin,” Crew called to him. “I brought you some helpers this morning.”

  Old Benjamin was one of the most patient and thorough of his stablemen, and he was over the care of all the workhorses. “That’ll be great,” he said. “I need to re-shoe the mares today, so I could use help with the babies.”

  Crew stayed long enough to see the girls inside a stall, brushing and petting a foal, while Benjamin and its mother watched. The delight in the girls’ faces reminded him of the first day Sophie had laid eyes on Jump Start.

  Clenching his jaw against the emotion, he started to turn. But Kate arose and came toward him, her movements slow enough not to startle the foal. “Thank you,” she said, her ringed eyes earnest.

  He dipped his head. “Don’t thank me yet, you
’re cleaning out stalls next.”

  “That’s okay,” she said with a laugh. She started to turn but stopped and added, “Do you think . . . do you think we might ever ride one of the Thoroughbreds? Or work with them?” The longing in her expression was apparent. Behind her, Brin was watching them, her hands still brushing the little foal.

  He brought his gaze to Kate’s, holding it for a few second before replying. “It’s not me you have to impress but Benjamin and all the others in charge of the horses. But I’ll tell you what, Kate. You give me your best, and I can promise you that within a month, you’ll get your wish. Deal?”

  Her head bounced up and down, her eyes shining. “Deal!”

  With a bounce in his step that hadn’t been there this morning, Crew left the barn. It had been the right thing to do, letting them come.

  He didn’t see the girls before they left at noon because he was out helping Isaac and the others move the cows to another pasture. Rotating the cattle was the best way they had to ensure the grasses would regrow and last throughout the season. After moving the cattle, they had to check the fence lines again to make sure there were no breaks in the new pasture. They found a cow that was stuck in a pond, and it took three of them to get her out. At the end of their adventure, he was covered in mud.

  By the time he rode back to Isaacs’s house for dinner at six-thirty, the three ranch hands who boarded on the Silver A had finished eating and either gone into town or headed back to their bunkhouse. The employees who didn’t board—most of those who worked with the Thoroughbreds—were probably long gone to their own houses, even the stable manager. Only Isaac, the ranch manager, was still out with the cows.

  Crew scrubbed his hands and face at the outdoor water pump, surprising a few chickens pecking at the ground nearby. He sat down at the long outdoor table with a thankful sigh. Normally when he was late, he’d go inside and get his own food, but Julie Kelley, Isaac’s wife, wouldn’t appreciate the dried mud on his boots and pants.