26. Beau
twenty-six
Beau
I’m in the reception area of the community clinic, waiting for Ollie to finish his session with Amy, when my phone rings. I slip out onto the street and accept the call from an unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” The voice on the other end of the line is gruff but pleasant. “Is this Beau Covington?”
“Yes.”
“This is Duke Montgomery. I own Emberfield in Kismet Creek. I spoke to Daisy a little while ago about hiring you for the stables in the fall.”
My stomach drops. I’ve been meaning to call Emberfield since Daisy mentioned the job, but I kept putting it off. I was waiting to feel prepared for a conversation about a job that would take me away from Silver Leaf—and Daisy. Turns out, I’m still not ready.
“Hi, Duke. It’s good to hear from you.”
“Well, that’s nice of you to say. I hear you met my son, Emmett? He’s running the veterinary clinic over your way for the summer.”
“That’s right,” I say.
Duke chuckles, and I get the impression he likes to laugh.
“Well, good. So, listen, Beau. We’re about a month out from the job starting here, so I wanted to introduce myself and make sure you have my details.
We’ll get all the paperwork sorted for you and your boy and make sure things go off without a hitch when you arrive. ”
I move up the street a little, pacing and pinching the bridge of my nose.
Pretending nothing has changed feels dishonest, but until Daisy and I define what we are, what else is there to say?
There’s no real place for me at Silver Leaf, and my commitment to Daisy doesn’t change my responsibilities to Ollie.
It certainly doesn’t make me less determined to pursue full guardianship, and I need a job, a home, and stability to do that.
“I appreciate that,” I tell him.
“But there is one thing I wanted to run past you, Beau, if you can spare a minute?”
“Sure.”
“You see, the job I told Daisy we have for you? It was for straightforward stable hand work. Honest work for honest pay. That’s what we needed at the time.”
“Mr. Montgomery—”
“Call me Duke.”
“Okay. Duke. Daisy would have explained my situation. I’m raising my nephew, and it’s relatively new, so all I care about is being somewhere solid and safe for him. I’ll do whatever work I have to. I’m not shy about getting dirty.”
“Well, that’s the thing. After Daisy sent me your credentials, I got to thinking maybe the job wasn’t a good fit after all. Oh, I wasn’t about to go back on my word, but with your experience, I started to wonder if we should find you something more challenging.”
His kindness, given the fact that I have to eventually let him down, is uncomfortable. “That’s nice of you, Duke, but you don’t need to worry about me.”
“You don’t know how right you are, because as luck would have it, there’s been a few changes around here, and I’ve got something even better for you.
We need a property manager. Someone to handle daily stable operations, budgets, general maintenance.
” He chuckles. “Well, I don’t need to explain it to you. And the money’s not bad either.”
He quotes a figure that’s fifteen percent more than I’ve ever made anywhere.
I stop pacing, feet stuck to the sidewalk. “Are you serious?”
“You bet.”
“But… you don’t even know me.”
“Well, I know what you can do. I know Daisy likes you, and she’d never let someone around her horses she didn’t trust. Plus, Emmett’s a good judge of things.
He could tell looking around the Silver Leaf stable that you’re doing a good job there.
Most importantly, you love your nephew, and that tells me more about a man than a twenty-minute job interview. ”
It’s suddenly hard to swallow. “Well, Duke. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll think about it and give me a call next week so we can nail down the details.”
“I… uh…” I push away my doubts. “Sure.”
“Fantastic. This is my number. I look forward to hearing from you.”
I end the call, head spinning and staring at the phone long after the line goes dead.
A job like this was never on my radar. My work history is so patchy that I’d long given up hope of a senior role anywhere.
At least not until I could spend a few years in one place proving my worth.
Duke’s offer literally knocks the wind out of me.
I’m not used to people putting that kind of faith in me.
I walk back into the clinic as Ollie’s coming out of his session.
“Ollie, why don’t you take a seat over there?” Amy suggests. “I want to have a quick word with your uncle before you go.”
With an agreeable nod, Ollie helps himself to a book from a shelf of children’s novels, and I follow Amy to the other side of the empty reception foyer.
“He’s doing well,” she says quietly. “Better than I might have expected so soon after his mother’s absence. It seems he’s developed a friendship with Izzy?”
“That’s right.”
“And grown attached to Pony Noir,” she observes.
I sigh. “That’s true.”
“He talked about Daisy a little more in this session,” she tells me, “as well as Izzy’s parents. He’s settling and starting to feel safe, but I take it you haven’t spoken to him about the possibility of moving?”
“About that.” I grimace. “Daisy and I… Things have changed. The situation is in flux.”
“Ah.” Amy nods, and though I know there’s no judgment in her tone, I hear it anyway. “Well, I’m happy for you, but if there’s a way to confirm your plans sooner rather than later, I can start supporting Ollie through another change if required. You’ll keep me updated?”
“Of course. Thanks.”
All Ollie wants to talk about on the drive back to Silver Leaf is horses, and I enjoy the excited sound of his voice as we toss questions and answers back and forth. He’s still twittering as we approach Silver Leaf, and as we pull into Daisy’s drive instead of our own, his eyes light up.
“I thought we had the afternoon off,” he says. “What are we doing here?”
“Daisy invited us for dinner,” I say as I unbuckle my seat belt. “How do you feel about pizza?”
“I love it!”
He bounds from the truck and bolts to Daisy’s front door. She’s already answered his insistent bell ringing by the time I catch up.
“Hey, cowboy,” Daisy greets him. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving!”
“Well, that’s perfect because I’ve got bucketloads of groceries here and I need someone to help me eat them.”
Ollie raises his arm. “I can do it!”
She tweaks his Stetson. “I knew I could count on you. How about you go wash up and we’ll meet you in the kitchen?”
Ollie dashes through the house, confident now about moving around. I step over the threshold, remove my hat, and without thinking, lean in to give my girl a kiss. It’s deep and slow, and she responds willingly before pulling away with a glance down the hall.
“Should we be careful around Ollie? At least until…”
She drops her eyes, and it mirrors the drop in my stomach.
“Until we’ve worked out how to make this work?” I finish.
Her smile is apologetic. “Yes.”
I dip in for one last, quick kiss. “Then let’s do that. Fast.”
I hang up my hat and toe off my boots, then follow Daisy into the kitchen.
She wasn’t joking about all the food. There are bowls and platters piled high with smoked meats and fresh vegetables, cheese and herbs and olives.
Three massive ready-to-be-topped pizza bases are lined up on the counter, and a pizza stone is preheating in the oven.
“This looks amazing,” I say as Ollie skips in from the hall.
“Can we make them now?” he asks.
I squint out the window at the sun that hasn’t quite set, then check the hands on the clock. “It’s a little early, but I could eat.”
“Me too.”
“Me three,” adds Daisy. “Plus, I’ve got double-chocolate mud cake for dessert, so if we eat dinner a little early, it’ll give us time to get hungry again later.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I throw her a wink, then haul Ollie up onto a counter stool. “Let’s get started.”
As Ollie helps himself to a spoonful of tomato sauce, then makes a mess spreading it over his pizza base, Daisy pulls out her phone, cues up a playlist, and fills the house with music.
Ollie uses bits of vegetables and pepperoni slices to make a face on his pizza, and Daisy takes it as a challenge.
Just when I think I’ve nailed my pizza portrait, using olives for eyes and cheese for hair, Daisy declares Ollie the winner, and he magnanimously declares it a tie—between him and Daisy.
“That’s fine,” I say as I help Daisy slide the bases into the hot oven. “Next time, I’ll be better.”
“There’s going to be a next time?” Ollie asks.
I straighten from the oven, and Daisy and I glance at each other.
“I hope so,” she says.
Ollie pops a chunk of pineapple into his mouth. “Me too.”
When the oven timer rings, we take our slices to the dining table. The far end is loaded with reports and pens and scrunched-up balls of paper with Daisy’s laptop whirring among the debris. The nearer end is set with plates and glasses and napkins and a little vase of flowers from the yard.
With just the three of us, the large table surrounded by so many empty chairs should feel impersonal, but it’s exactly the way Daisy described. Cozy, like a family table is supposed to be.
“Maybe we can ask Izzy to come to our next pizza night,” Ollie says around a mouthful of crust. “She can sit in the chair next to me.”
Daisy and I swap another one of those looks that says Ollie’s moving fast and we need to either stop him or run to catch up.
“Definitely,” she says.
After dinner, Daisy suggests we watch a movie, so with plates of double-chocolate mud cake and glasses of wine for the grown-ups, we settle into the living room to watch Cars.
Daisy doesn’t have a flat screen yet, so she sets her laptop on the coffee table in front of the velvet green sofa, and Ollie snuggles up between us.
“This is nice,” she says to me over the top of his dark head.
Ollie thinks she’s talking to him. “Yeah, it is,” he says with a sigh.
I glance at him, a tickle of worry in the back of my throat, then at Daisy.
We’ll figure it out, she mouths.
I nod. Somehow.