Chapter 4
Leah
The shed didn’t look any better in the morning, everything looking like it had come out of a Goodwill clearance sale twenty years ago. The sunlight, even filtered as it was through a thick film of grime, showed every stain on the green carpet, and how long the spiders had been tenants. The place had so many dust bunnies that it was as if they’d been banging like the real things. My suitcase was in the middle of the room, looking like a safer bet to store my clothes than the swelled particleboard thing in the corner, trying to pass itself off as a dresser. The twin bed had a mauve comforter and a pillow so flat that my back felt like it had aged fifty years in one night. I wasn’t a stranger to roughing it, but this wasn’t just frugal. This was I don’t give a shit .
I’d sweep it out, borrow some glass cleaner, and go on. I was here for a year. I could survive anything for a year, including him .
Worse than the discomfort of this place, my bladder felt like a water balloon with a pin poised at its surface. This was what I got for wanting to avoid meeting my new coworkers last night.
It wasn’t barely dawn. Did I bust in there now and sprint to find the bathroom?
Too awkward. I’d risk the bushes instead. I walked around to the side, hiding behind a nice, tall row of hedges.
I was squatting down, feeling a relief I hadn’t imagined possible, when I heard footsteps.
I scrambled to stand up and fell over instead, my legs getting tangled in my pants at my ankles.
“You okay in there?” a man called out.
I froze. There was no ignoring him. If I didn’t answer, he’d think he had to climb in after me and save me.
“I’m good,” I squealed, my tone indicating pure humiliation.
“I’m Chuck,” he replied. “I’ll be over at the bunkhouse making coffee when you’re done.”
“Okay.” I was already done. Now I was just hiding.
Oh noooo, did he think I was pooping? I scrambled to my feet so fast that I banged into the hedges as I scrambled out, rushing to get to the bunkhouse as fast as possible now.
I stepped into the bunkhouse. There were couches around a large, rolled-down screen on one wall. Several doors were closed and another was open, hinting at a bathroom.
An older man with a gray beard was in the kitchen area of a large main room, brewing coffee.
I smiled hesitantly.
“You’re Leah, right?” He had a gruff voice and crinkles near his eyes, which made him look like he was quick with a smile.
“Yes.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m the foreman here.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“Want a cup?” He was already grabbing a mug and filling it up for me before it finished dripping.
“Thank you so much.” I sipped the coffee, and it might’ve been the best cup I’d ever had. Or maybe it was because it marked the end of my worst day and a new start, of sorts. Well, at least it was a new day. I had to take what I could get at this point.
“Do you live here?” I asked, wondering how little Kade paid if his foreman had to live in the bunkhouse with the hands. When I’d known him, if I’d ever really known him, he’d been too poor to pay anyone. He’d had his hands full not losing this place.
“No, I’ve got a place down the way. I just come and get the coffee on and make sure the boys are up so they don’t start slacking. Come on, take your coffee and I’ll give you a tour before everyone else gets up—unless you want to get something for breakfast first?”
“Not really hungry.”
“Yeah, me either. Give me one second and we’ll head out.”
He walked to the first of the closed doors and gave it a pound. “Get up!” he yelled before doing that two more times and then lapping the room, back to me.
His eyes shot to my shoes. “You got anything a little sturdier than those?”
He was looking down at my designer combat boots. They were more for looks than work, but they were still boots. Wardrobe hadn’t been high on my list of concerns this past month.
“You don’t think they’ll be okay?”
He made a humming noise before he said, “I’ll have someone pick you up some things to make it a little easier to get by.”
“Thanks.” I wasn’t used to having to depend on anyone to get my things since I’d been in grammar school, and even then it had been sporadic after my dad had passed.
Chuck pointed to some buildings I hadn’t noticed last night, farther away. “Those are the first stables, and then the newer stables are behind it. That one is only about half filled, but with Kade’s breeding plans, it’ll be full soon enough.”
“That’s a lot of horses.” More than a decade ago, there had only been one. Kade had used to talk about how he was going breed a dynasty of cutting horses. I’d never even heard of a cutting horse until Kade explained how they were used in ranching to “cut” a cow from a herd. I’d never have imagined how much money they could be worth, either. He hadn’t been kidding about building a horse dynasty.
“Considering you’re new to ranching, I’ll probably have you mucking out stalls and tending the chickens initially,” Chuck said with a kind voice, as if apologizing in advance.
“Understandable.” He was looking at me, spending an extra couple of minutes staring at my boots. Maybe the embroidery was just too much for him to handle? I might’ve looked like the princess Kade called me, but I’d never had an aversion to dirt or hard work.
I might’ve been living in a high-rise apartment in New York when I rose to infamy, but I hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon. There was no point in telling him that, though. People tended to believe what they saw, not what they heard.
It didn’t matter much to me anyway. At this point, as long as I wasn’t near Kade, I’d be more than happy shoveling shit. I’d actually consider it an upgrade.
“You got any other clothes? Those look like some fancy jeans you’ve got there.” Chuck was eyeing them up, and not in the way most men looked at me in jeans.
“They won’t work?” I mean, jeans were still jeans, right?
“They’ll work fine, but they’re going to get ruined. I’ll get some stuff ordered for you. I’m sure Missy has some stuff she could lend you in the meantime. You look close to her size. I’m going to have you shadow her for a while until you get used to the place.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” For as rough as he appeared, Chuck had the feel of someone who’d been weathered by a lot of sun and fresh air and it had left his soul clean and bright, and a little soft around the edges.
“Oh, speak of the devil. Here she is now.”
Missy was walking toward us, bright red hair up in a messy ponytail that was more of an authentic mess, than being intentionally styled that way.
“Leah, this is Missy. She’ll show you the ropes.”
“Nice to meet you.” She had a smile that hit as fresh and open as a flower field and had gone extinct in the big cities. Although I’d grown up here, I wasn’t sure I’d ever had that bright a look in my eyes. She reminded me of a Rockwell painting, ice cream sundaes and rolling up your jeans for a wade in the creek.
“You too.” I tried to muster up a fraction of her freshness and enthusiasm but was fairly certain I fell short.
“Maybe you could lend her a couple things to get by for a few days?” Chuck asked, as if instinctively knowing I never would.
Missy gave me a quick once-over, as if measuring my size, and nodded quickly. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, I’ll check in later.” Chuck was already disappearing, as if he had no real concern over how I actually performed on the job, making me wonder what Kade had told him. Was I supposed to be useful or just keep busy?
“So you’re from New York?” Missy asked.
“Yes.” It wasn’t clear whether she’d hold that against me or if it would play in my favor.
“I’ve never been there, but it looks amazing. I haven’t been more than a few hundred miles from here. My family’s been here for generations, and we kind of like staying put. Not that any of us have the money to go somewhere like New York.” She wasn’t holding my gaze like she had been, as if I’d hold her lack of travel against her.
“I didn’t have much growing up either, and the way things are going, I won’t have much going forward. My business pretty much tanked in the last couple of months.”
“I kind of heard.” She was shrugging, in an apologetic way. “I like to read the gossip pages. You were a marketer of sorts, right?”
“Yep. I used to help businesses come up with launch plans, or relaunch plans when they were tanking. No one wants a felon attached to their brand name, though. Isn’t a strong selling point.”
“Looks pretty amazing there, though, so it was probably fun.”
“You know what looks amazing to me right now? That.” I pointed to the sun rising over the mountains, sunlight spreading out before us. I’d forgotten how much I’d loved this view as a kid. Or the smell of the crisp air and the sounds of the birds. I’d been surrounded by cement for so long that I’d forgotten how nice this place really was. How much I’d never wanted to leave.
“I’m sure you have sunrises in New York,” she said, even as she stood beside me taking it in.
“Not like this, or at least it sure didn’t feel like it.” How could I forget how beautiful this place was in the morning?
“Come on. I’ll give you some stuff real quick before we start,” Missy said after a few minutes.
We walked past the bunkhouse to another small cabin about fifty feet or so away. It was about twice the size of mine but nothing that looked too elaborate, until you got inside.
It was set up like a studio, but it had a bathroom, and a small kitchenette against the wall. A loveseat and living room area was in the center and a bedroom area on the other end. On top of having modern conveniences, she’d decorated it in an eclectic, cozy way, with plants near the windows and paintings on the wall, furry throws, and plush area rugs. It made you want to curl up on a couch with a cup of tea. It was a penthouse suite in comparison to my hovel.
“This place is adorable.”
“Thanks. If you want, I could lend you some stuff for yours? Make it more comfortable?”
“No, I’m fine.” It was bad enough I was taking her clothes. Plus, my shack would need a lot more than a few pieces to make it livable.
She pulled some jeans out of her closet and a few flannels and handed them to me. “I’ve got some old boots so you don’t have to ruin those. They look expensive.”
“That would be great. Thanks. How long have you worked here?”
“A couple of years. I knew Chuck and he put in a good word for me. He’s a bit rough sometimes, but he’s as solid a guy as they come.”
Rough was welcome. I was used to dealing with smooth-edged sharks who smiled right before they ripped your life to pieces.
“These should hold you for a bit.” She handed me some boots that looked broken in but way better than what I was wearing.
“I’m going to be here a little while,” I said, not sure how much she knew.
“I heard,” she said, shrugging.
“I wasn’t sure if they covered that in the gossip mags.”
“They did,” she said, giggling. “Okay, well, the chickens are going to be waiting. I put out some extra feed at night but they’ll be wanting out of their pen so they can wander around for a bit.”
“Chickens?” Kade had chickens? I’d thought Chuck had said chickens but that I’d misheard.
“Yeah, Kade likes fresh eggs. You didn’t hear those roosters carrying on?”
“Yes, but I thought maybe they were the neighbor’s.”
She laughed. “Next neighbor ain’t for miles. Kade bought up all the land surrounding this place. You won’t see anyone, let alone hear anyone, unless they work here. Okay, well, let’s go let the chickens out and then we can grab another coffee before we hit the stables.”
We did a quick detour, letting the chickens out before heading back to the bunkhouse.
“Did you meet any of the guys?” she said.
“Only Chuck.”
“Some of them live here. Some come in like it’s a regular day job.”
We walked into the bunkhouse, and three sets of eyes turned to us.
“Hey, all. This is Leah. She’s going to be working here,” Missy said, as if I’d been hired like a normal person and not sentenced to forced labor in order to dodge a federal sentence. It was a kind effort, but I wouldn’t kid myself into thinking they didn’t already know. The world seemed to know. “Benny there works with the horses, and so does Adam.”
Benny didn’t seem older than twenty and looked as if he were going to trip over his own feet as he nodded at me with a goofy, lopsided smile.
Adam, on the other hand, was pure man, and broad in all the places a woman, me included, tended to like. His smile was confident as he tipped his hat to me.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, and I was pretty sure he probably didn’t have to say much more to get most women in bed.
The way his eyes settled on me, I was fairly certain I’d just received an invitation too. I gave a small smile, not RSVPing.
Elijah fell somewhere in between the two, with sandy-brown hair and a demeanor that was easy and inviting, but did not lead to his bed. “Nice to meet you. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Missy, we need more eggs,” Elijah said.
“You know you can go get them, right?” Missy said.
“But you go there a couple times a day. You can’t just bring them?” Elijah said.
“Fine, we’ll go get them, but we want some of that bacon when we get back,” Missy said, watching what Elijah was pulling out of the refrigerator.
“I’ll make you both omelets if you go get them.”
“You good with that?” Missy asked, as if I had a say in anything.
“Sounds great to me.”
“See? Leah’s easy. You should be like that,” Elijah said.
“Oh, Missy can be pretty easy too,” Adam said.
“Go screw, Adam,” Missy said at the same time Elijah chucked a roll at his head.
“I was only kidding around,” Adam said.
“Come on, let’s go get the eggs. Adam usually leaves early, so by the time we get back he’ll be gone.”
We left the bunkhouse and all the dread I’d been feeling about my first day was fully gone. I could do this, with these people, for a year. Not only could I do it, I might even enjoy it.