Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Brody couldn’t help scowling as he held the wheelbarrow while Hannah joyfully threw horse shit into it. How could someone actually enjoy cleaning up horse dung?
She leaned on the pitchfork as she examined the pile in front of her. “I think that’s full. If I add anymore, it might slop over the sides when you wheel it out.”
He gritted his teeth at her happy attitude and started through the stall door.
“Don’t dally. There’s more poop to scoop.” She chuckled.
He growled low in his throat as he exited the barn to dump the wheelbarrow contents into the composting heap. The pile was high since the farmer in Cave Creek had yet to truck it away for his fields. With the sun beating down, the work was hot, tiring, and smelly. Yet he could hear her humming in the barn.
Tipping his load, he righted the wheelbarrow before grabbing his bandanna and wiping the sweat from his neck. Was this how all the visitors would feel at their future dude ranch operation? The thought had him perspiring more.
Hannah seemed to be enjoying herself on the ranch, exploring Four Peaks, and settling into her little house. He needed to up his game if he hoped to convince her to sell soon.
He walked back to the barn with the empty wheelbarrow and stopped at the opening to the final stall. “I think this last wheelbarrow load should be yours.”
“About time you let me chuck it. Here.” She held the shovel out to him.
He took it from her as she moved behind the handles. “I’m ready when you are. Let’s get ’er done.”
“Right.” It had been a lesson in patience to let her muck out three stalls. What took her an hour would have taken him a third of the time. Quickly, he picked up what was left and set the shovel against the stall wall. “Okay, it’s all yours.”
“Wow, you’re fast.” She lifted the handles and awkwardly turned the wheelbarrow around. “Now where do I take it?”
He pointed toward the barn doors. “Go straight out there, take a right and cross the dirt road. You’ll see a large pile, though you’ll probably smell it first.”
“Got it.” She pushed the wheelbarrow out of the stall and slowly through the barn doors.
He made himself stay where he was, afraid if he watched her, he’d be apt to take the wheelbarrow from her and dump it. Instead, he wiped the sweat from his neck with the bandanna in his back pocket again. He hadn’t expected her to do all the stalls. She was definitely persistent, or stubborn. He wasn’t sure which.
With the waiting getting to him, he moved out of the stall and put the shovel away. Purposefully, he moved to his horse, who’d been watching them all morning. “What do you think, boy? Would she make a good ranch hand?”
Chaos just looked at him.
“Yeah, I know. You want to head out. We’ll have to wait until after lunch.” He gave his horse a pat before walking toward the barn doors. She should be back by now, even if she did move slowly.
He stepped outside scanning the area, but she wasn’t there, so he headed to the right and crossed the road. He didn’t see her anywhere around the manure pile. Turning back around, he caught site of the empty wheelbarrow next to the back side of the barn. Worried now that something might have happened, he ran to it and looked around. Where the heck was she?
Moving quickly to the other corner of the barn toward the house, he stopped short. “What are you doing?”
She jumped before looking over her shoulder and bringing her finger in front of her lips. “Shh, you’ll startle them.”
“Startle who?” He strode forward, not a little irritated.
“Them.” She turned her head back and pointed about five feet away where a covey of quail was walking down the pavers between the barn and the house.
She was watching birds? He stopped next to her. “Have you never seen Gambel quail?”
“No. They are so adorable.” She smiled softly as she followed the dozen or so birds with her gaze.
He tried to wrap his head around the fact she’d never seen quail, a bird he ran into almost daily. He opened his mouth to explain that fact but closed it at the look on her face. It was as if she’d fallen in love. There was something about it that had him re-evaluating not only her, but himself.
Hannah was what his mother would have called ‘a kind soul.’
As the birds hopped up onto the porch, she took a couple steps forward, never letting them out of sight. “Do you think they’re lost?”
Her concern had him holding back a smile of his own. “No, they’re not lost. They come around here a lot. In the spring, the pairs will find a place around the house for their eggs. Usually, it’s that big planter over there, my mother’s bougainvillea bush, or in the brittlebush along the eastern fence. Then when the babies hatch, we have to watch out for them walking across this area where we park, especially if we’re going out in the morning.”
She spared him a glance at that. “I would love to see the babies. Is it true they walk in a line behind their mom?”
“Yes, it’s true. Though probably not as neatly as you may have seen in pictures.”
The quail began to hop off the end of the porch to waddle across the desert to the bushes he’d mentioned. This time, she didn’t follow, but turned to face him. “I’m sorry. I forgot you were waiting for me in the barn. We should probably go back and finish mucking out. Didn’t you say we now have to add fresh shavings?”
“Yes, that’s next. But if you’re tired, you can rest.”
“Absolutely not. I want to learn everything about horses.” She cocked her head, her gaze turning serious. “Will you teach me how to ride? Nothing fancy, but I’d love to be able to get up on one and have it walk around. I’d even be happy in a corral, like I saw them do with kids at the Arizona State Fair. My grandmother wouldn’t let me until I was ten, and by then they weren’t offering horse rides.”
Though he called her a City Girl, he hadn’t truly understood exactly how small her world had been. “Did you never take any trips beyond Phoenix?”
“Oh, yes. We drove down to Tucson a few times. Grandpa was in a bowling league and sometimes they made the regionals. I also went to Disneyland when I was eight. We drove because Grandma was afraid of flying. But the place we went the most was Las Vegas. Grandma and Grandpa liked to play the slots. I think they used me to avoid playing too long. Once I was old enough, I told them they should go without me, but they refused. I think in some ways, they saw me as part of my mom and didn’t want to leave me alone. I even tried to move out once, but they begged me not to, promising a bigger apartment even though I knew they couldn’t afford it. I felt so bad that I never brought it up again. I didn’t realize…” She pressed her lips together, stopping abruptly.
It wasn’t hard to tell from her rapid blinking that she fought tears. His instinct was to comfort her with a hug, but that was hardly appropriate. However, he could offer understanding. “You didn’t realize how little time you’d have with them.”
She nodded, her lips still pressed together.
“I understand. I knew Mom was sick, but I thought the medicine was a cure-all. I guess I was too young to understand that there was no cure.” He shrugged, uncomfortable now with his sharing as she focused on him. “It’s easy to look back and wish we’d done things differently, but we can’t and it’s doubtful the outcome would be different anyway. I know it wouldn’t have been with my mom.”
“You’re right. It wouldn’t have been with my grandparents either. They were quite old, and even though I knew that, I think in my subconscious I refused to recognize it. But I’ve learned to be more observant and in touch with the moment.”
He gave her a smirk. “Even when cleaning shit?”
“Absolutely. Look at all the exercise I’m getting and new knowledge I’m obtaining. It’s also helping me to avoid unpacking more boxes.” She shook her head. “Now, that is tedious work. Should the pots go here or here? Should this painting go over the couch or by the door? Should I put this shirt in the closet or a drawer? There are way too many tiny decisions that affect how I will live day-to-day. At least cleaning shit is straightforward.”
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or argue. He decided on neither. “Personally, I find that kind of change invigorating. I agree that learning something new is far more enjoyable than the everyday monotony, which in my case is cleaning shit, or moving cattle, or ordering supplies.”
Her eyes widened and she held her arms out. “But look at all this. You have so much to show for it. So much to be proud of. Your family has a legacy.”
He stiffened, telling himself not to get pissed. She was new to Four Peaks. She had no idea how desperately he needed to do anything but ranching. “Yes, my family does.”
“Well, I’m certainly not helping you much by talking about everything except cleaning the stalls, so I’d best do my part to be helpful.”
Before he could respond, she strode past him back toward the barn. After a dozen or so steps, she stopped and looked at him. “You coming? I can’t do it all by myself…yet.” She grinned before disappearing around the corner.
He followed at a slower pace, not quite as excited as she. She’d make a great wife for some ranch owner even if she was a city girl.
What was he thinking? If she had to muck the stalls every day like they did on Rocky Road, the novelty would wear off in no time. She was more like him than he would have thought, always interested in something new. He’d thought trick riding would be his career, but soon learned how short a career it could be. Then he’d taken lessons and earned his pilot license. He loved flying small planes, but all the rules and regulations drove him crazy. He’d much rather be the one enforcing the rules.
That’s what had him looking at the requirements for being a wildlife manager. He had all the qualifications now except the specific training. That and the special tests after he completed it. He’d always had a way with wildlife, maybe because he respected it. That was the career for him.
Walking into the barn he found her struggling to open a block of pine shavings. “Here, let me get that.” Pulling his utility knife from his pocket, he cut the top open. “We’ll need a bag of these for each stall. If it was Monday we’d have to clean everything, wash the stalls out and start fresh.”
“How many bags does that take?” She pulled the bag across the barn floor, sweat trickling down the side of her ear.
“Usually, four to five, depending on the horse. My father’s horse, Maximus, requires five.” He pointed down the row to where the stall was. “He’s being ridden by Tanner today. We take turns riding his horse and my brother Jackson’s.” He opened two more bags and dropped one at each stall door.
She stopped dumping the shavings. “Jackson? You mentioned him before. Why doesn’t he ride his own horse? Was he hurt?”
His chest tightened as it usually did when he thought of his older sibling. “No, or at least I hope not. He’s in the Army and was deployed to Syria. It’s his third deployment.” He attempted to smirk. “Sometimes I wonder if he’d prefer to be over there instead of here.”
“I doubt that’s true. This ranch is so amazing. I’m sure he loves it as much as you.”
“No, he actually loves it even more. He’s like my oldest brother Tanner, a cowboy through and through.”
She stopped spreading chips and shook her finger at him. “You can tell me all day that ranch life is boring, but you are still as much a cowboy as they are.”
Despite the fact he didn’t want to be, and the fact she had no idea what she was talking about, he still felt a sense of pride at her comment. It felt as if she defended him even though she’d never met his brothers.
Since she’d gone back to spreading shavings, he lifted a bag and swished it out across Fury’s stall. When it was empty, he tossed the bag to the side and lifted the one for Harmony’s stall, reliable Nash’s horse. Once that one was empty, he grabbed up the other one and checked in on Hannah.
She was taking armfuls of chips and spreading them by hand. He would have laughed if he hadn’t been so fascinated by her thighs in the tight jeans as she backed up closer and closer. He should move, but he didn’t and eventually she backed right up into him.
“Oh.”
He caught her about the waist, to steady her. Her floral scent filled his nostrils and his body reacted to her soft form in his arm. “You, okay?” He didn’t loosen his hold. She was just too tantalizing.
She grabbed his arm and looked up at him over her shoulder. “Are you okay? I’m the one who ran into you.”
He grinned. “So you did.”
She squinted at him. “Then again I don’t have eyes in the back of my head and you saw me coming.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I did or maybe I didn’t, because I just came in here to see how you were doing.”
She appeared to think about that, but shook her head. “No, you knew I was backing up. You’re way to observant to run into someone.”
He laughed, enjoying the way she thought, and forced himself to release her. “You already know me too well. I better be careful around you, Hannah Kingsley, or you’ll learn all my secrets in no time and I’ll become quite boring to you.”
She faced him, not stepping back at all. “Do you have so many secrets then?”
He nodded seriously. “I do. I have two.”
Her hand found her hip. “Only two? Then you must tell me.”
“Now what fun would that be? After all, I’m sure you’ll ferret them out of me in no time anyway. Now, let’s get the rest of these shavings spread, I think it’s almost lunch time.” As if on cue, his stomach growled.
She gave him the side-eye. “You do realize it’s only after eleven.”
“And you do realize I’ve been up and working since five this morning. Now get your little behind back to work.”
“Little? Well, when you put it that way.” She sauntered back to the bag of shavings, her hips swaying in exaggeration.
He meant to make a wiseass remark but it got stuck in his throat as he watched her. Shit. He spun around and exited the stall. The last thing he needed was to be lusting after his sexy neighbor, when he was hoping she wouldn’t be his neighbor for long.
Scooping up the empty shavings bags, he strode out of the barn and stuffed them in the trash barrel outside. The morning was not going as he’d hoped. The chores on a ranch were far too new to her to be considered boring. In fact, she seemed to have idealized ranch life even more. But she wasn’t running a ranch. She was living in a tiny casita in the middle of nowhere. Maybe leaving her alone would be the better strategy. Then she could see what it was like to truly live in the desert.
Yet even at the thought, his protective instincts protested. A woman living alone in that casita was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Still, it was what she wanted, to live on the land for a while. That was the crux of his problem—exactly how long was “a while?”
“I’m all done.” She strode out of the stable and found him. “Do you want this in there?” She held up her empty bag and pointed to the trash can.
“Yes.” He lifted the lid and let her smash down the plastic she added.
She brushed her hands together. “Just two more stalls. We’re doing great.”
“They’re all done.”
“You did them already?” Her brow crinkled with what could only be disappointment.
He barely kept from shaking his head at her. “Yes. Now we need to clean the water buckets out.”
She brightened immediately and set her hands on her hips. “Great. How do we do that?”
He smiled as he turned toward the barn. “I’ll show you.” Something about her excitement communicated itself, and he found himself looking forward to instructing her. She must be an angel to have made him happy to be washing horse buckets. Ranch chores were boring, but Hannah’s outlook was anything but.