Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JACKSON
By the end of my first week with Juniper Grove, I was certain I would do anything to retain a long-term position here.
I’d get down on my knees and beg if I needed to.
Honestly, Tucker would be downright cruel to let me go after my contract ended.
How would anyone be able to get up and walk away from somewhere this great?
The bunkhouse had almost every commodity we could need aside from a fully functioning kitchen.
Though, the Legares had been courteous enough to have a fridge and microwave put in.
Granger had said it was in case we missed a meal call at the main farmhouse, but he’d also confirmed my suspicions that Tallie would never turn away someone hungry.
Since we weren’t in the thick of the foaling season, most of the hands had a little bit of energy in the evenings after dinner.
While I had gotten snips of them over our shared meals, I primarily spent my days with Tucker or Granger during my training, so getting to see more of their personalities had been fun.
They were all generally kind guys, and even Dudd was easy to get along with in his own way.
Lane and Elliot were like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and just as likely to get themselves into trouble if left alone for too long. Dillon was working here while he was saving up to get his degree in agricultural studies, and Mack was hoping to one day own his own operation.
Weston and me, though? We were cut from the same cloth.
He wanted to work for Juniper Grove until his joints ached too badly for him to halter a horse, and then he wanted to live out the rest of his days on a few acres nearby.
I’d been right thinking we were going to be fast friends, but I could easily see Weston becoming someone I was still friends with when we were both old and wrinkled.
The ear plugs were going a long way to helping forge that bond, though, because I don’t think I’d be as receptive to chumming around with him if he was making me miss out on those precious hours of sleep.
Tallie had come to me one evening after I’d refused to touch the vegetables two nights in a row, and I’d had to admit that anything green probably wouldn’t end up on my plate.
She was convinced she’d be able to make them in a way that’d have me asking for seconds.
I was skeptical but willing to humor her.
So far, we hadn’t had any winners, but there would be plenty more days for her to try again.
Her taking the time for me when she had a whole farm full of other mouths to feed was absurd, and when I’d mentioned as such, she’d just flapped her hand saying that most everyone else wasn’t picky, so this would be a good challenge for her.
Seriously, how was I expected to give this all up?
I’d already caught myself more than once staring out over the wide pastures of the property when Tucker took me out to check the fence lines, picturing myself fifteen, twenty years in the future doing this exact same thing. On this same property. This land felt like home, down to my very marrow.
Today was the end of my training period, and a buzz was in the air.
Granger had told me the farm would celebrate a hand coming off training with a group ride, and everyone looked forward to it.
The horses on the property were exercised regularly, except for the broodmares that were close to foaling.
But this was pleasure riding. Taking the horse out and letting them run to their hearts content, following trails they normally wouldn’t, and getting to explore the property through their eyes.
I had to admit, all the excitement around it was really starting to hype me up, and every minute of the day seemed to tick by slower because of it.
Tucker was going to be choosing my horse for me since I still wasn’t as familiar with everyone’s temperaments, especially in the saddle. Somehow, that felt like a treat too.
I’d witnessed so many different sides to Tucker over the past week working beside him.
He was a quiet man, sure, but there was a gentle soul under the gruff exterior he exuded.
The pain he’d been forced to carry had caused cracks in his armor, and maybe because I knew to look for them, they were obvious now.
He held people at arm’s length, even the family he’d supposedly created around himself.
There was no engaging in or with the jokes the other hands threw around, but I saw the way his eyes tracked all the interactions, as if he were cataloging and ensuring no one else felt left out.
But in the stillness of the barn, when it had just been me and the horses to witness his actions, he was tender and sweet to each animal.
I wasn’t sure what it meant that he allowed me access to that side of him, or if I was reading more into it, but it felt…
poignant. Somehow, Tucker Legare was able to let his real feelings out around me, and it melted me inside just a little.
Especially when I watched him with Poe. Though that always had a sharper edge to it, maybe because I still wasn’t sure about what Raleigh’s relationship to that horse had been.
Though, honestly, it wasn’t any of my business.
Tucker was my boss, and that was the problem.
He was everything I wanted in a man, so having him dangled before me on the daily was a temptation I’d never been prepared to fight.
I was an instant gratification junkie, but the real problem was I also happened to be an optimist. The things I wanted, I went for because I believed it would all work out in the end.
But my boss? The man who literally controlled my future in his hands?
Even that was a boundary I knew I couldn’t cross.
So when it turned out Juniper Grove was full of ridiculously good-looking men, I’d thought I’d hit the jackpot, and my attraction to Tucker would fizzle out when I set my sights on someone else.
Except, my eyes kept coming back to him.
They sought him out in the dining room when he wasn’t sitting beside me, or across the barn when we were feeding and mucking out stalls.
When we were separated, I found myself eager to be back at his side—even if he didn’t say two words to me, just being in his presence settled something inside me.
It was a dumb crush, but Tucker Legare wasn’t making it easy on me.
For the millionth time since he’d given it to me, I lifted the collar of the jacket to my nose and inhaled the deep bourbon scent that clung there.
It was faint but intoxicating all the same.
I pictured that first night where he’d come to dinner smelling like this and burying my face into the crook of his neck to get a hit straight from the source.
I closed my eyes, pressing my nose against the corduroy like it would make the smell stronger. God, I was so fucked.
“You good?” Tucker popped his head up over the flank of the horse I was grooming, and I startled, the flush creeping up my neck and into my cheeks as I realized I’d zoned out around the man in question.
It was almost late afternoon, and Tucker had wanted to get some of the horses ready for the ride later tonight. Both of us had been in our own cross-tie paddock, but I guess I’d been taking too long.
“I’m fine,” I stammered, flattening out the jacket and putting the currycomb back to Rein’s side. She shivered in appreciation as I found a particularly itchy spot, and I couldn’t help the grin that tugged at my lips.
Tucker, though, stood there, a frown marring his features. Really, it was hard for me to believe this man was on the downward slope to forty, but somehow even that fact about him was attractive.
“Are you anemic or something?” he asked, drawing me up short as I worked the brush over Rein’s body.
“Not that I know of…” I hedged. “Why?”
Instead of responding, he continued to stare over me like he could find the answer to his question written on my skin. Then without another word, he trailed his hand along Rein’s backside as he rounded her body until he was standing beside me.
I thought he was coming to inspect my grooming—to see why it was taking me so long.
Instead, his hands wrapped around my arms, twisting my body so we were facing each other.
My eyes blew wide as Tucker continued to examine me for whatever it was he was looking for.
His hands roamed up my arms and then down my chest, and I swore my lungs seized up as I forgot how to breathe.
“Are you still getting cold?” he asked, examining the clasps on the jacket in a way that should have been clinical but felt anything but. The distance between us was far too small. So close I worried that if I managed to suck in a big enough breath, our chests would brush.
“Jackson?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you’re still getting cold. I knew the jacket might’ve been a little big on you, but I was hoping the insulation would help.” Tucker’s hands found their way back on my chest, flattening it down like that might force the heat into my body. But I was already on fire.
“I—” I swallowed, and when those whiskey barrel eyes found their way back to mine, I saw the shift.
The flip of attraction that swirled in those amber eyes was undeniable, and it set off a chorus of beats in my chest that were solely for him.
I wondered if he felt it; the way my heart was slamming against my ribs.
Who knows how long we would have stood there, breathing the same shared breath between us in this enclosed space, but a nicker from the front of the barn had Rein perking up, shifting her body in that direction to respond back to the call.
It caused Tucker to step into me, and on instinct alone, I wrapped my hands around his hips to pull him against me. I meant to pull him away from being pinned between Rein’s body and the wall, but instead, it caused us to become off-centered, and we both ended up stumbling backward.