Chapter 13
Stomping.
Bode has been stomping. Like a worked-up foal, he’s been stomping, and I’m sick of it.
“What has got you all worked up, Bode Walker!” I finally stop him, throwing my rake into the pile of hay at the edge of the barn. The snow is licking up into the open door and catching in his dark hair, but it does nothing to soften the glare he sends my way from the outburst.
“There’s nothing wrong, just get your chores done,” he warns me. His voice is strained like he’s talking to a toddler, and it gets under my skin more than I care to admit.
“You’re colder than the temperature outside, and I’m sorry to break it to you, but I don’t do well in the cold. Makes my skin dry,” I mumble with a pouty lip.
“Maggie, please,” Bode sighs.
“It’s not healthy to keep things pent up, you know,” I say as I fix my hat over my ears. I’m sweating to death, but the chill nips at my nose and cheeks with a dull tingle that reminds me it’s the dead of winter.
“And you talk too much to be a ranch hand,” he mumbles.
“You ever thought about switching professions? Use that big city girl degree to talk to people who actually want to listen?” He keeps rambling with his head down.
“Getting off this ranch, far…far away from me?” he adds, tipping his chin up from his work to look at me.
“I didn’t know you had a sense of humor!” I clap my hands together and scowl at him.
“I wasn’t being funny,” he says, but the corners of his lips curl, and I know I’ve got him loosening up just a little.
“You sure? That almost sounded like a laugh…” I tease, seeing how far I can push the crack in his grouchy armor.
“Maggie-Mae, you are bothering me,” he groans, lifting a sack of grain above his head and moving it out of the way so we can clean.
“Kinda sounds like a good time if we’re being honest,” I shrug, burying my face down into the collar of my jacket as a gust of wind rushes into the barn.
Bode shakes his head at me, sick of my pestering, and carries on to his next job as I start to feed the horses.
I follow behind Bode as he wraps them up in warmer blankets.
He thinks I don’t notice when he circles back around with an extra apple.
His brows pull together tightly, and it's clear that something is eating at him. It’s infuriating how buttoned-up cowboys can be, and it isn’t going to be as simple as pushing a few of his buttons.
“Does it have something to do with Ford’s departure?” I ask as he continues to ignore me with a frustrated huff. “You can talk to me…”
“We don’t need to be talking, you need to be working.” He turns his head slowly toward me. “And if you can’t figure out how to be a help and not a hindrance, you can leave because I do not have time to hold your hand over every little thing.”
I stiffen at his scolding, but I’m not going to let it get to me, because that’s what he wants. “Fire me if you’re gonna then,” I challenge. For a moment, he stares at me, and it feels like he actually might. Which would make paying for Mama’s bills the actual challenge.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He grumbles, tossing the horse blanket in his hand to the side. “You’re here to be a ranch hand, not to entertain us with how many words you can shove into one day.”
“And you need me here a heck of a lot more than I need to be here.” A lie. But Bode doesn’t need to know that. “So you’re going to have to learn how to deal with the sound of my voice.”
Bode’s shoulders stiffen as he stands up straight, realizing that I’m not just going to back down. “I don’t need you here, Magnolia,” he bites, taking a step towards me, sending a chill up my spine, “I didn’t even want you here in the first place.”
“Good thing it’s not up to you then.” I grin back, which only infuriates him further.
“Ford put me in charge while he’s gone, which means you listen to me.
If I say jump, you ask how high. If I say shovel shit, you do it with a smile on your face and with silence.
I don’t need to know what you had for breakfast or how many fuckin’ flowers can grow in the middle of a goddamn snowstorm! ”
The anger I try to keep shoved deep down starts to boil to the surface as his cruelty grows.
His grin from before is completely wiped away, and his eyes are a mixture of thunder and ice.
Aside from Mama’s situation, Bode is the only one who can make me feel this frustrated and helpless.
Nothing I’ve done has been good enough. “If I’m making things so much harder for you, Bode Walker, then fire me and get it over with then. ”
“The last thing I need right now is the shitstorm Ford would rain down if I did.” The words are honest as they leave his lips, dripping with disdain. “And whatever you think you know, I have more important things to be dealing with other than a city girl trying to play cowboy.”
Crew shuffles in behind him, hauling a bay of hale over his shoulder like it weighs nothing, and glances between us. I’m grateful for the distraction, but Bode’s gaze is still burning through me.
“He won’t fire you even if Ford lets him,” Crew huffs, tossing the hay bale down and breaking the tension growing between us. “He wouldn’t have anything pretty to look at anymore.”
Bode turns on him, which gives me a chance to take a breath and ignore the way my cheeks heat on their own.
“Why aren’t you out helping Peter and the temps?” he barks to Crew.
“Peter’s got it covered out there,” he says with a shrug. “Besides, too many of us will be noticeable.”
“Out where?” I ask, watching as both men realize I’m still standing here. Crew shuffles on his feet, which normally wouldn’t be so obvious, but the man takes up so much space even in the wide breezeway it’s hard not to notice.
“Nowhere,” Bode says, looking back to me. “Finish feeding the horses and go home, Maggie.”
“I don’t want to go home,” I say with a level of honesty that the two of them won’t understand.
He sighs. “Then find something to do. I don’t care.”
“Bode,” Crew warns.
“It’s fine.” I give him the best smile I can muster, even though I feel about three feet tall. Bode stares at me for another moment before he turns and stomps his way out of the barn past Crew.
When he’s out of earshot, Crew turns back to me with an apologetic look. “There’s a lot going on,” he offers with as little detail as he can. “He didn’t mean what he said.”
“But he said it.” I pick up two of the grain buckets to hang them on the inside of each stall.
“You know my cabin?” he asks and helps me fill the next bucket.
I nod.
“Logan and Ash are watching cartoons all day and drinking heaps of hot chocolate if you want to join them when you’re done.” His eyes find mine, and I get now why he’s good at handling unbroken horses and Logan’s temper. “I heard about your mama,” he says, and it makes everything in me tense up.
“How?” I ask.
His smile turns sheepish. “Logan and Dot aren’t the quietest gossipers. I overheard the other day when Dot got back from your place.”
“Great.” I sigh and tuck my hands into my jacket. “Please don’t say anything to Bode. I don’t want him to–”
“He wouldn’t, but I won’t,” Crew interrupts with a firm shake of his head. “I’ll let Logan know you’re headed that way in a few?” he asks, changing the subject I’m clearly uncomfortable talking about.
I glance past him in the direction where Bode stormed off and nod softly. “Yeah, hot chocolate sounds perfect right now.”