Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
TUCKER
The biting air outside the bunkhouse helped cool my burning skin.
Was it too late to tell Jackson we’d be walking the property?
I wasn’t sure I could handle being trapped in the confined space of my truck’s cab, smelling that sandalwood and bergamot scent.
It turned my brain offline and made my body confused.
That had to be it. Had to be the reason his smile made the heart I thought had died and been buried three years ago beat just a little too fast, or when he said I’d be begging him to stay forever, I’d almost told him I’d beg for something else.
But it didn’t explain the way my breath hitched when I’d first seen him through the window of his truck.
Jackson was classically handsome. Bronze skin, sandy blond hair, a jawline that most men would kill for, and a smile that would win anyone’s momma over.
His eyes were broody, but they came alive when he talked, showing off their green-brown coloring.
There was this boyish charm to him, only made more so by the single dimple that appeared in his left cheek when those pretty lips spread into a grin.
I covered my mouth with my hand, rubbing over the coarse hairs of my beard as I stared at the overcast sky. What was I even thinking? He was eleven years my junior. That was practically a child. And let’s not lose the plot here—he was my fucking employee.
Foreman was my title for now, but it was only a matter of time before my father stepped down as the owner of Juniper Grove.
He was a figurehead at best these days, and I’d already been delegating responsibilities to Granger in anticipation of the day Dad decided it was time to retire.
A legacy stood on my shoulders, and I knew the weight of it all too well.
Which was why I couldn’t be getting things confused.
I’d been the one to decide to hire Jackson. He was my employee. My responsibility.
And maybe my biggest mistake.
“Are we going to tour the grounds?” Jackson’s soft cadence came from behind me, making me startle back to awareness.
“Jeez, man. I didn’t mean to sneak up on ya.” His eyebrows came together in concern. “You seemed lost in thought, and I was just going to let you ponder it out, but it’s colder than Satan’s tits out here.”
As he said this, he cupped his hands together and blew on them, and I noticed the soft flush to the tip of his nose. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t.
“Yeah,” I sighed, unlocking the doors to my pickup. “Sorry for zoning out. Lots on my mind. Hop in.”
Jackson’s sweet smile made my chest ache. “Hopefully, with me here, I can ease some of those worries.”
For a second, I stood there, dumbfounded, as he rounded and got into the passenger seat. A wave of his cologne followed him, making it feel like every bone in my ribcage was breaking open. I closed my eyes, taking a steadying breath. When I opened them, I forced my head to get back into work mode.
This is my employee. He didn’t mean it that way. We can’t afford to be without another hand, so sending him away isn’t an option. Get your head out of your ass, Tuck.
I pulled myself into the driver’s seat, turning the truck on without so much as a glance to the man beside me stirring up things inside me I didn’t appreciate or care for.
The moment the engine was going, I cranked the heat, ignoring the grateful smile I could see Jackson sent me from the corner of my eye.
Pulling out from the bunkhouse, I took us out to one of the stallion barns since it was closest to where we were.
We got out when we got there, and I introduced him to some of the horses inside from the pasture.
Mack was in the process of mucking out a few of the stalls, and Jackson was just as lively introducing himself as he’d been with Dudd.
“You’ll notice we use partial contact, where the stallions have companions across from them, but not on either side. We’ve found that this reduces their aggression when in the barn, and there is a small bachelor herd, but not all of them fit in it.”
“You don’t mix any geldings with them?” Jackson asked.
“We do, but this barn is specifically for the studs being used for breeding this cycle. We rotate our stock to help reduce stress and to promote better health in both mares and stallions. The end result is a healthier foal when both parents aren’t being used every opportunity they can be.”
That was a core value for Juniper Grove.
We made sure every mare and stallion on this property was given adequate time in between cycles to properly recover.
It was especially important that the mares were given breaks, given the stress pregnancy could put on them, but some other operations looked down on our practice to rotate stallions.
While their job wasn’t as “hard” as what the mare went through, sperm quality was important when you were dealing with a foal that could potentially sell for hundreds of thousands, depending on their sires.
Plus, from a business standpoint, there was exclusivity in only breeding stallions every so often.
“We have another barn where the geldings and stallions are mixed. It’s where we keep the stallions that are still being raced, as well.”
“How many barns in total are on the property?”
“Five. We have Laurel Block A, which is where we are. We just call it Block A. Laurel Block B is where the current racers, teasers, and off-cycle stallions are mixed with the geldings. Also referred to as just Block B. Clover is for the mares, both the current broodmares with foal and dams, along with their companion geldings. It’s the largest barn on the property, so we call it the main barn.
The foaling block is where the broodmares will go when they’re closest to going into labor, and finally, there is the breeding shed. ”
Jackson’s brows came together. “A breeding shed?”
I nodded. “Unlike for quarter horses, thoroughbreds are required by the Jockey Club to be bred by what’s called live cover.
There is no artificial insemination with breeding thoroughbreds.
Instead, a mare is monitored throughout her 21-day cycle to determine when she will go into heat.
During that time, a different stallion from the one intended for breeding will be used to ‘tease’ her to see if she’ll present herself.
If she does, she’ll be brought to the breeding shed where she’ll be introduced to the stallion of choice. ”
The more I talked, the more Jackson’s eyebrows rose. This was a complete one-eighty from the program he’d been at where the stallions and mares had little to no contact to produce a foal. There was more at risk—staff and horses included. It required more work. More planning and strategy.
This part of the process wasn’t the main reason he’d been hired. We truly needed the extra hands and eyes on our current mares in foal, especially when those maiden mares got closer to delivery. But if he intended to stay on, he needed to know what he was walking into.
“We have a vet on staff who monitors our mares for their estrus, along with any other abnormalities in our herds. Our breeding shed will also be used if an outside mare is brought in to be bred with our stallions. We have fifty horses currently on the property, not including the foals and yearlings. Thirty mares, fifteen of whom you know are pregnant, eight geldings, and the remaining twelve are stallions.”
Jackson stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed, before he lifted his hat off to scratch at the back of his head. It revealed wispy waves, and the intense urge to run my hand through them punched me in the gut.
“That’s… very different from what I’m used to. But I know horses, and I’m willing to learn whatever I need to,” he admitted, plopping his hat back on his head with a wide grin.
I hardly knew the guy, but somehow that self-pitch felt so like him as though he felt the need to emphasize he was a good fit for the job even though he already had it. At least for six months.
Somehow that thought felt wrong. It had teeth, and they scraped over sores in my heart that had never healed. I bit my tongue, unable to offer anything other than a grunt in response because I was too afraid of what would spill from my lips otherwise.
After briefly showing him around the feed room and the storage space we used for hay in this barn, we made our way back out to my truck before heading to the main barn.
Jackson would need to get familiar with the broodmares quickly, given that we only had a few months before foals could be dropping.
A cacophony of nickers overlapped as we stepped into the barn.
We kept the mares in foal inside in the early mornings, allowing them to eat alfalfa and hay before being turned out to graze in designated pastures.
Granger was tossing flakes into some of the stalls along with Dillon when we walked in.
Both looked up, and with a quick word, Granger stepped away from his duties to meet us.
“Tucker,” he greeted, flashing his All-American smile that had dropped plenty of panties at our local bars. “And this is the new guy, I’m assuming.”
I nodded, giving a simple introduction as my eyes danced between the two men beside me.
Granger had fluffy blond hair that he never could seem to tame. He always kept it tucked back with a cap, causing the longer strands to fan out around the back of his head like a terribly done mullet.
He was only a few years younger than me, but he didn’t look a day past twenty-five despite his many years working in the same sun and soil as me.
If you believed him, he swore there was European royalty somewhere back in his family lineage, and the longer I worked with him without so much as a single wrinkle popping up, the more I started to put weight to those claims.
Granger had been one of Raleigh’s closest friends and had introduced me to my husband. I was an only child, and he was the closest thing I’d ever have to a brother. But the way Jackson’s eyes flared with obvious attraction as he shook hands with Granger made my stomach sour.
It was fucking stupid. Who cared if Jackson made heart eyes at every single man on the property?
He was free to do that as long as it didn’t interfere with our work.
In fact, it would be better if he did. Granger wouldn’t entertain it since he was straight, but there might be other possibilities.
He was my employee. He was too young for me.
“Tuck taking you around the grounds, huh?” Granger flashed me a wide smile that was quickly replaced with a questioning look as I stared back at him with an expression that probably gave away all my warring thoughts.
“Tuck, huh?” Jackson must not have clocked the tension on my face because he chuckled in a way that shouldn’t have soothed the anger that bubbled in my veins. “Can I call you that?”
As he said it, he bumped his shoulder against mine in an admittedly overly friendly gesture for someone just getting acquainted with their new boss, but I could already tell Jackson Arness was just as open and free as the eagle soaring high in the sky.
The move would have been endearing if he hadn’t already gotten so under my skin.
That one single touch, though, was all it took for me to feel on the verge of breaking, and then that damn smell wafted off him. Every single piece of my poorly put-together heart shattered to the floor.
I took a huge step backward from him, shaking my head as I bit back the emotions sitting high in my throat.
“Don’t.” My voice was shredded and rough as I tried with every ounce of strength left in me to keep it together. “Don’t do that shit. We aren’t friends.”
My chest was rising and falling in short pants, my lungs too constricted to get in a full breath.
The sound seemed to echo in the barn despite it hardly being silent.
Like a trapped animal, my eyes bounced between the shocked and hurt expression on Jackson’s face, the confused one on Granger’s, and the curious but concerned look on Dillon’s, who’d stopped his work and came closer at my outburst.
I was fucking everything up. But I couldn’t be here anymore. I couldn’t be around him.
“Granger can take it from here,” I grunted.
Without waiting for a reply, I turned on my heel and walked out of the barn, the smell of sandalwood and bergamot tormenting me with every step. The back of my eyes stung with the weight of it all.
He’d have to change his cologne. That was an unreasonable ask, but it had to happen.
He couldn’t wear the same cologne as my dead husband.
I wouldn’t survive it.