Chapter Seventeen
Riley straightened up and pressed a hand to her aching back.
She had, apparently, gotten lazy when it came to the most gruntable of grunt work, like stacking hay bales.
She had several more to go, and she was ready to quit already.
She needed, she decided, to give the ranch crew a raise.
Especially the ones who did the heavy lifting.
She heard the sound of a vehicle approaching and headed for the already open barn doors.
When she recognized one of the Baylors’ ranch SUVs she smiled widely.
Nic had been a rock in the last couple of days, coming over to help out morning and evening, until Riley knew how long she’d be dealing with the personnel shortage.
On the one hand it was wonderful to have a family working for her, but on the other when there was a family emergency, it left her in a tough spot.
Amazingly, every time except once when he’d had a new group of kids coming in, Jackson had come with Nic to help.
And last time so had Logan, who had been a great help with the horses especially.
He in particular had been smiling a lot—for him, anyway—and Riley suspected the engagement they were all expecting would be announced soon.
But Jackson’s sister was nothing if not tactful, and Riley was sure she’d wait until after the wedding, not wanting to steal her brother’s thunder.
Trying not to dwell on the relationship happiness all around her, Riley smothered a sigh as she pulled off her heavy gloves. It was chilly today, but she’d worked up enough warmth to make her sweat a little.
“We didn’t want to miss the evening banquet,” Jackson said with a grin as he got out of the truck.
“Thanks,” she said, rather fervently and meaning it. “Ed is supposed to call with an update tonight, so I should know if I need to hire some temporary help.”
“I hope his wife’s okay,” Nic said as she came up beside the man who would become her husband in a little over three weeks.
“Me, too. She’s a sweet lady, and I—”
She broke off abruptly as a movement caught the edge of her vision. There had been a third person in the SUV, just now sliding out of the back seat. As if he’d been hesitant to join them.
Miles.
“We brought reinforcement,” Jackson said, smiling as if he hadn’t noticed the sudden crackle of tension in the air.
Why would he? It’s only you getting all wound up.
She stopped herself from asking “What are you doing here?” Barely.
As if prodded by her silence, Miles shrugged. “I won’t be much good with the real ranch stuff, but I figured there must be some grunt work I can do.”
That he used the very phrase she’d been thinking earlier only rattled her more.
But as they dug into the evening feed, she realized he was utterly serious.
If there was something heavy to lift or something dirty to clean up, he was there.
He complained about nothing but just kept working.
If he’d applied for a job here, all else aside, she would have hired him after observing him for this single effort.
Filling the feed bags was a pain to do alone, while trying to wrestle the bags the feed came in.
“How is your dad?”
It was the first time he’d spoken directly to her since his grunt work comment.
And he’d done that grunt work, so he deserved a decent answer, didn’t he?
She checked the level in the feed bag she was about to sling over King’s head, nodded to indicate he could stop.
Filling the canvas buckets with the right feed in the right amount for each horse was one of the most annoying things to do alone, and she appreciated that he was doing the lifting of the fifty-pound bags of feed, especially when dealing with everything from growth-oriented to senior-specific foods.
“Grumpy,” she admitted as she slipped the bag over King’s ears. “He thought he was going to sail through this like he has every other injury he’s ever had, so he tried to do some things he shouldn’t have.”
Miles set down the feed bag. “Ouch. That’s got to be tough, not only the injury but all the…subtext that comes with it.”
“Subtext?”
He shrugged. “That the older you get, the slower the healing gets.”
And again he’d surprised her. She didn’t know why she kept expecting superficial, unserious thoughts from him. He’d proven already that wasn’t the way he thought, and she should have known that Jackson wouldn’t be this close to a lightweight in that department.
And, she supposed it took more than a lightweight to come up with the kind of depth his work showed.
Stonewall proved that. And his other two shows, the ones she also liked, weren’t fluffy bits of distraction either.
They had their light moments, as Stonewall had, but underneath there was a rather surprisingly deep analysis of humans and why they are the way they are, in all their many variations.
They had started the cleanup, loading things into the wheelbarrow to put all the bags back in the feed room.
Nic and Jackson were out with the other horses in the big pasture, getting them fed.
The feeding itself was the last of the evening’s chores, and they were almost done.
But she didn’t want the conversation to end, so she finally answered.
“Yes,” she finally said. “Dad’s having trouble with that part.” She couldn’t stop a sigh from escaping. “And so am I.”
“I know the feeling.”
She gave him half an eye-roll. “You? You’re too young to even be thinking about it.”
“You say that like you think I’m a dumb teenager.” His mouth quirked. “Although my dad would say that’s a redundancy.”
She laughed and felt suddenly lighter. “I think I’d like your dad. Is he who you meant, when you said you knew the feeling?”
“Yes,” he said. “He’s still really active, but he’s mentioned more than once that things don’t mend like they used to.”
“Your dad should talk to my dad.” She grimaced as the difference between them popped back into her mind. “He could warn him of what’s coming when he hits his seventies.”
Miles leaned a shoulder against the wall beside King’s stall. “He already knows. He hit seventy his last birthday.” At her look he smiled. “He got a late start. And my mom’s ten years younger. Which is a good thing, or I might not have my little sister.”
“Little?”
“Well, she’s eight years younger than me. But all grown up, married and with two kids. Which doesn’t mean I don’t still get to call her that.”
“Like I could call you my little brother.”
He’d been stacking the feed bags, but now he went very still. Then he settled the last one and turned to look at her. When he spoke his voice was quiet, but with an undertone of tension. “Is that how you think of me?”
“No!” The exclamation was out before she could stop it. “I just meant…it’s the same age difference. You and your sister, and you and…me.”
Go ahead, maybe you can make a bigger fool of yourself…
She didn’t know which was worse, that she’d voiced the age thought, proving she’d thought about it, or how she’d yelped when he’d asked if she thought of him as a little brother.
Because if there was one way she did not think of him, it was that.
Too young for her, yes, but sisterly? No way in a Texas summer could she ever think of him like that.
“You know,” he said, his voice just a shade too casual, “it really sucks that nobody blinks at my dad’s situation, married to a woman ten years younger, but if it was the other way around, some people would blink, or raise an eyebrow.
When all that really matters is if they love each other.
My folks do. They’re rock solid and always will be. ”
She stared at him for a moment, trying to assess if he’d meant that in any other way than a casual—and valid—observation about human nature. The kind that appeared so often, and with such subtlety, in his shows.
Don’t be any more stupid than you’ve already been. Of course that’s all he meant.
“You’re lucky,” she finally managed to say. “Some couples are doomed from the start. Like my parents.”
He lifted a brow at her, tilting his head in that way she already knew meant he was curious. She imagined this man did that a lot, because a lot of things caught his interest.
“She bailed on us when I was five. And with her, it was a case of good riddance. Never saw her again.”
“Ouch again,” he said. “That, I don’t understand. How a parent could do that, I mean.”
This time she was the curious one. “But your shows deal with that. Like in Eastside, when Margo’s dad runs out on them.”
He blinked and drew back slightly. Then he smiled, and it was a warm, sweet thing. “That, in fact, was my idea. I’m forever trying to figure it out.”
“And when do you give up trying to understand acts that are beyond understanding?”
He let out an audible breath. “Sadly, never. Not completely, anyway.”
“So once it’s a question in your head, it stays until it’s answered?”
“Exhausting as that can be, yes.”
Riley tilted her head in turn. And realized that this was why this man’s work, his ideas, caught people so. Because he was doing the heavy thinking, the wrestling, the figuring out that too many of them were either too oblivious or too lazy to do themselves.
And he was altogether too fascinating for a simple Texas cowgirl.