by Deb Kastner
A smile flickered on his lips, then disappeared. “I know,” he said, his voice low and soft.
“You’ve come about the foreman position?” It seemed the logical next question, but Dixie couldn’t help but feel it was like pulling teeth to get Erik to answer. It wasn’t exactly a personal question.
“Yep.” He nodded and replaced his cowboy hat.
“I see.” She paused while her thoughts raced. She should probably take him into her office and interview him properly.
Except she didn’t have an office set up yet. What would Abel have done? She scowled. Never mind that—what was she going to do? Abel wasn’t here, and she was.
She glanced at the main house, where she planned to build the big lodge, then back at Erik, who hadn’t, in her observation, moved at all. He was shading his gaze with his hat again, she thought in annoyance.
She certainly wasn’t prepared for his presence here. She planned to be neat and well-groomed, for starters, not in dusty, torn leftovers of designer Western clothes. She was certain her face must be equally smudged with dirt, and her usually immaculate, straight, shoulder-length black hair a tangled mess around her face.
Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a long, hot, peach-scented bath right about now to wash away the grime and blood. The thought made her sigh inwardly.
Erik Wheeler hadn’t returned a single phone call, yet here he was in person, obviously expecting something from her. Whatever that was.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. Well, you can see you caught me a little off guard.”
“Yep,” he agreed with a nod.
If he said yep one more time, she was going to scream.
This had been the longest day of her life. She was hot, tired and dirty. All she wanted right now was a warm bubble bath and a good book, but she wasn’t even sure the main house, where she planned to stay—at least until it was torn down and replaced with a modern alternative—had a bathtub. She could only hope.
“Why don’t you meet me over there, at the lodge,” she said, gesturing. “I’ll only be a minute. I’m going to run back to my truck and gather a few things I’ll need for the interview.”
“No interview,” he said in a soft, rich baritone that belied his words and curled her toes.
No interview? If he wasn’t here about the job, just exactly what was the rugged, handsome man doing on her property?
She was going to find out.
Chapter Two
“Excuse me?” If she was put off by his cavalier attitude before, she was doubly so now.
“No interview,” he said again.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wheeler, but if you want this job, you’re going to have to interview with me.” She stood to her full height, but still only came to the middle of his chest.
He shrugged.
Taking that as a yes, she whirled around and hiked away from him, sending up a prayer for patience.
If Erik Wheeler was the best, she needed him. But she wasn’t about to grovel and beg, no matter how desperate she was on the inside.
She was offering him a decent job, for goodness’ sake. With room and board.
She cringed. He’d be much worse than a neighbor. If he took the position, she’d be rubbing elbows with him on a daily basis. She didn’t know the first thing about running stables or leading trail rides, which meant she’d have to defer to his wisdom.
Mighty difficult if she couldn’t get a word out of him, she thought crossly.
Loosen up, Dixie, she coaxed herself. Comfortable as she was to the hustle and bustle of the city, the relaxed pace of country living would take a little getting used to. Maybe everyone here contemplated their words before speaking, as Erik appeared to do.
Well, not everyone. The woman in the post office nearly prattled her ear off giving her all the latest town gossip a new resident was required to know.
Reaching her truck, she opened up the passenger door to the cab and dug through the papers stacked on the floor. Somewhere in this mess was a blank yellow legal pad and the three-ring binder with the notes she’d prepared to interview potential staff with.
It took her a full five minutes to locate the needed items. She half expected Erik to have vanished the way he’d appeared, but she found him waiting for her next to the main house, his arms crossed, lazily leaning his hip on what she assumed was an old hitching post.
All he needed was a long stem of hay between his teeth and Dixie really would believe she’d been transported to another time and place.
She tried to quell the laughter bubbling in the back of her throat, but mirth squeaked out past her pressed lips despite her best efforts.
Erik pressed his own lips together to keep from joining in her laughter. It was an unusual reaction for him, to want to laugh, and it made him edgy. What was it about this tiny sprite of a woman that made him want to smile?
He tugged his hat lower on his forehead.
Crazy woman. Where did she get off thinking she could waltz onto a spread of land and magically transform it into a business? Or a ministry, or a retreat or whatever term she wanted to use.
For one thing, she was a woman on her own. And a beautiful woman at that, even if she did look like she’d been hog wrestling in the muck and lost. Dust couldn’t hide the shine of her shoulder-length, satiny black hair, nor could smudges mar her peaches-and-cream complexion.
She didn’t belong here. Her cowboy boots had heels on them, for crying out loud, and her clothes weren’t something a person could pick up in a department store, he didn’t think. And her fingernails—they’d last all of a day in these conditions.
He almost laughed, except that there was something distinctly not funny about the situation.
When he’d heard who bought the land, he’d done a little digging to get the lowdown on Miss Dixie Sullivan, since her land rode with his meager spread. He’d found out all he needed to know, and her appearance here did nothing if not confirm his worst fears.
She was as green as a newborn filly where mountain living was concerned, and heading for disaster with every step she took. She ought to just take her pretty little freckles—all five of them scattered across her nose—not that he was counting—and skitter on back where she came from.
Cute as she looked in her new Western getup, she was a city girl from top to toe. She didn’t belong here.
That’s what he’d come to tell her, though she was obviously under the impression he was here for the foreman position.
He should have set her straight right away, he supposed, but talkin’ to folks he didn’t know, especially women, was equal to him with riding a bronc with a burr in its saddle.
She opened a squeaky screen door to the main house and gestured for him to come inside. Having subversively witnessed the barn door catastrophe, he chuckled when she eyed the doorframe as if it were going to reach out and grab her.
Her gaze was on him in a flash, suspicious and full of questions he really didn’t want to answer.
“Mr. Wheeler?” she offered, gesturing for him to move inside.
“Erik,” he corrected, tipping his hat off and reaching above her head to hold the door for her. The movement caused a whiff of her perfume to meander over him, and he inhaled deeply. Wasn’t often he was this near a beautiful, fragrant woman.
Peaches and cream, he thought, like the lady herself. It took all his willpower not to lean in and inhale again. She stared up at him for a moment before letting out a breath and leading the way into the main house.
Her dismay at seeing the interior was evident on her face, giving him the oddest inclination to distract her from the mess. But what business was it of his? Surely she’d checked the place out before she bought it.
“I was told,” she said, her voice cracking, “there was furniture in this old house. I thought it would at least be livable until…”
Oh, man, she was about to cry. “Please, God, don’t let there be tears,” he mumbled, though in truth he didn’t believe God was listening.
He didn’t believe there was a God at all, at least not the loving, merciful God his mother had spoken of—before that merciful God took her away, leaving his father to raise three small boys.
He tensed, shaken by the memory. He hadn’t thought of his mother for a long time, or what his father…
No. He wouldn’t go there.
Turning his attention to Dixie, he mentally shook his head and crammed the lost-little-boy’s feelings back into the recesses of his heart.
If there was a God, He sure wasn’t helping this little lady, and she was professing to do His work.
He snorted his disdain, then pressed his lips together to keep from asking her why she didn’t know the condition of the interior of this building. It was none of his business. It wasn’t her fault his memories made him angry.
“Well,” Dixie said, her expression gathering composure as she walked into the kitchen, “there’s a table, at least. And a couple er—chairs.”
Using the term loosely, he thought. Logs would be more accurate, but not wanting to point out the obvious, he pulled up a log and sat down, elbows on his knees. It made him feel as gangly as an adolescent. He frowned at the picture he must make, all elbows and knees.
She sat on a log facing him and put her notepad on the table. “I’m glad we don’t have to eat this way,” she said with a wavering smile, gesturing to the table, which came just below her chin. “I wasn’t planning to use the furniture anyway, but I had hoped to live here until I can get some other things in order.”
She looked at him as if she expected a response, and he grunted noncommittally. What did she expect him to say? That she was crazy even to consider it?
“Good thing I brought a tent along.”
A tent?
He nearly stood up, so strong was his reaction. Now he knew the woman was certifiable.
She was planning to camp in a tent? He’d bet his last paycheck she didn’t have a clue how to set it up, much less what kind of danger she was putting herself into. This wasn’t Jellystone Park. And the bears here weren’t after her picnic basket.
“Yep,” he said at last.
And I’m a monkey’s uncle, he added silently.
She glared at him, angry sparks shooting from her eyes. He curled the brim of his hat in his fist, wishing desperately it was polite to wear it in the house. His hat made him feel more comfortable; it was like a shield from the world.
Somehow he’d ticked her off. Seemed like everything he said was the wrong thing, though for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how yep could be construed as anything bad.
Oh, to be out with his horses, instead of squatting on a log with a beautiful woman. With his horses, he knew what to say, how to act. It was only around people he felt tongue-tied and awkward.
His horses.
He didn’t have any horses. A spur dragged across his gut, and he clenched his jaw. Now wasn’t the time.
“Mr. Wheeler,” Dixie said. “Erik,” she amended when he narrowed his eyes on her. “I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m in the process of opening a retreat lodge here. Rockhaven Christian Center.”
She smiled when she said the name. “It’s going to be a place for church people to go when they need to get away from the hustle of the outside world and refocus their attention on God.”
Did she really think she’d find God here? He barely restrained himself from shaking his head. Instead, he dropped his gaze to his hat so he wouldn’t give his thoughts away.
“I want a big stable, with lots of horses.”
The enthusiasm in her voice meandered into his chest, stirring the deepest desire of his heart. His gaze snapped to hers, and he swallowed hard. Her big, aqua-blue eyes swirled with the same intensity he felt.
Her words confirmed it. “I love horses, Mr.—uh, Erik. And I need a foreman to design and implement my program. Trail rides, hayrides, pony rides for the kiddies. Interested?”
Surprisingly he was. When he’d come here this morning, he had no intention of taking this job, but something about the way Dixie presented it made it sound appealing. And truth be told, he didn’t have anything better to do.
“I expect we’ll need to work closely to make sure everything goes without a hitch. No pun intended,” she added, smiling.
She smiled with her shimmering eyes. A deep, inner glow that made him want to smile, too.
Yeah, he’d like to work with her, inhale more of her scent, ingest more of her laughter.
But he couldn’t. Not even for her.
“I understand you’re looking for your own herd, that you like to break horses in your spare time.”
Her words penetrated into his thoughts, jolting him back to the present.
“Yep,” he said. It concerned him that she knew so much about him. But Custer was a small mountain town, he reminded himself. No one kept a secret for long.
Suddenly the room felt cramped. He tugged at the collar of his flannel shirt. Though he wore the two top buttons open, he felt as if he were choking.
Dixie continued, ignoring his gesture. “I’m more than willing to accommodate your wishes. And there’s plenty of land here. We can build you a corral just for your own work. As long as you keep it to your off-hours, you’re free to break your own horses.”
His breath stopped somewhere between his lungs and his throat and began to swell almost painfully. He did need a job, and what she was offering was more than he could have ever hoped for.
But how could he work for a Christian retreat? He wasn’t a saint. Not anywhere close.
Dixie clasped her hands in her lap, wishing he’d look at her again. He seemed almost human when their gazes met, but then he’d look away and she’d lose the connection. He obviously felt he’d been given a small quota of words for a lifetime and was afraid he’d use them all up in his conversation with her, she thought, bristling.
“There’s one more question,” she said softly.
He met her gaze firmly and calmly.
“Are you a Christian, Erik?”
He immediately looked away. “No.”
She nodded. “You are aware that this is a Christian retreat. Are you comfortable with that, and all it entails?”
He coughed, sounding as if he were choking, but a moment later his gaze met hers, and his eyes were clear. “Yep.”
If she could get him beyond a yep.
Or at least get him to respond directly to her offer—then maybe yep wouldn’t be all bad.
“I’ll throw in a quarterly bonus. One horse. That’s more than a fair deal, Mr.—uh, Erik.”
She cringed inside, knowing it would take most of her own paycheck to make that bonus. Not so much for the money, but for the principle behind it.
It galled her that she needed a man to help her make this work, but there it was. She needed Erik, even if it meant bribing him to take the job.
Abruptly he stood and slapped his hat against his knee, staring out the broken glass window next to the table.
She waited for him to speak, but of course he didn’t.
After a silent moment, she stood and faced him off. “Will you come work for me?”
No more than a flicker of emotion passed through his dark blue eyes.
When she despaired of ever having an answer, his mouth tipped into what was almost a grin, and he slapped his hat on his knee again. “Yep.”
Relief flooded her chest. The man didn’t talk much, but from what she’d heard, he knew his way around a ranch. And she knew by their short conversation, however one-sided, that he shared her passion for horses. She’d seen that in his eyes.
In the back of her mind, she admitted to herself that there was a very personal reason she wanted Erik here. To teach her everything he knew.
To mold her love of horses into something concrete, something beyond mere fantasy. In her own spare time, she wanted to ride her very own horse through every inch of this land, to feel the power of thundering hooves beneath her and the wind whipping through her hai
r as she galloped across the meadow at top speed.
And Erik Wheeler could show her how.
She’d hoped to find a Christian foreman, but she supposed she couldn’t be too picky, as far removed from a big city as she was. She only hoped she was distant enough from her emotions to choose the man for what he could do for the retreat, and not for what he could do for her personally.
But a decision had to be made, and made now, where Erik Wheeler was concerned.
She extended her hand to him, and this time he took it. He had a strong, firm shake, with broad, callused hands that had seen many years of hard labor. A country man, not afraid of a little hard work.
Work hard, play hard.
The quote came unbidden to her mind, and she smiled. She couldn’t imagine this strong, silent cowboy playing at anything.
“If you could come back tomorrow, we can survey the damage to the barn and decide what needs to be built. I know this place doesn’t seem like much, but it will be.” Enthusiasm swelled in her heart as the finished picture entered her mind.
Happy children running around in front of the main lodge, bouncing toddlers taking pony rides, whole families spending quality time together with each other and the Lord.
“I’ll need your help assessing the damage. And if I can get you to hire the work crews—I know we’ll need carpenters and horsemen. You know the people in town better than I do.”
She added silently that if everyone in Custer was as hard a sell as Erik Wheeler, she was never going to get her retreat finished in time for her church family to make their visit.
Absently she reached out for her notepad. She barely leaned on the table, but that was all it took.
The table cracked loudly, and she jumped back, startled. Her notepad went airborne, papers flying every which direction. And the heap of wood that had once been the table looked no more salvageable than the stable doors had been. Firewood at best; and at worst, another mess for her to clean up.
“Not again!” she wailed, then clamped her mouth shut when she realized Erik was listening. She didn’t want to appear to be losing faith in front of him.
