Chapter Eleven
The posthole digger was heavier than it looked.
Hanson had learned that approximately forty minutes ago when Benny, one of the ranch hands, had handed it to him with the cheerful confidence of a man who considered this a light morning task.
He’d also discovered that operating it required a specific combination of grip, leverage, and body rotation that his index card had not covered.
This morning before breakfast he’d written the process down on a single card—gate installation: mark posts, dig holes, set posts, hang gate, check alignment—and the card was doing its job, sitting in his left breast pocket, consulted twice already when Benny’s radio had crackled and taken his concentration sideways.
The card had saved his hide, and yet, he was still mildly amazed every time it worked.
The southeast pasture fence line ran straight along the road for more than a mile, and they’d been working it since seven, he and Benny and two of the other hands, marking and digging and setting posts at the intervals Preston had measured out the week before.
Gate openings every hundred feet—one for vendor access, one for equipment, two for general parking.
Practical, orderly, the kind of work that had a visible result at the end of it, which Hanson had decided was the best kind.
He pulled the card out, confirmed he was on step three, put it back.
Benny nodded and went back to tamping the base of the post he’d just set, and that was the end of that, which was one of the things Hanson had come to appreciate about the ranch hands. They were not, as a group, interested in things that weren’t their business.
The sound of a truck slowing on the road pulled his attention up.
Garret Sweet’s pickup, which Hanson recognized now the way he was slowly learning to recognize all the vehicles that came and went from the ranch.
Garret climbed out with the unhurried ease of a man who’d grown up working this land before and after school for most of his life, and came through the temporary gap in the fence line where the first gate opening had been marked.
“Mom sent reinforcements.” He picked up a pair of work gloves from the truck bed. “Also coffee.” He held up a thermos and set it on the fence post nearest Hanson.
Hanson hooked another bite of dirt out of the hole and tossed it aside.
The work suited him. It had sequence. It had order.
Measure. Mark. Dig. Set. Level. Brace. Bolt.
He did better when the job in front of him stayed honest and didn’t change shape halfway through.
The three of them lifted the treated post and lowered it into the hole.
Benny steadied it while Hanson crouched to check the level and Garret shoveled dirt back around the base.
The men worked their way through this gate and moved to the next, before Hanson shoved his gloves into his back pocket, glanced down the fence line and turned to Garret. “How many more of these gates do you think we need?”
“Good question.” Garret grabbed a nearby water bottle from a cooler and took a long swallow.
“According to the head of the fair committee the new management company running this show is frustrating everyone with a serious lack of communication that would be teetering on comical if the date for this shindig wasn’t approaching fast and hard. ”
Hanson leaned against the tailgate of the ranch pickup. “What do you mean?”
Heaving a deep sigh, Garret took another long gulp. “The company who runs this show used to be a family-run operation. I can’t even remember how many generations back were putting on our county fair, along with fairs and carnivals all over the country.”
“Used to be?” Hanson ran a cool bottle of water along the back of his neck.
“Bought out a few months ago by some foreign conglomerate.”
Benny tossed the last piece of equipment into the back of the pickup. “Probably the same foreigners who are buying up ranch land all over the Midwest.”
“My guess is it’s becoming too politically problematic to buy up our land so now they’re just going to be content with simply playing on it.”
Benny bit back a chuckle. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” Garret shook his head. “If I wasn’t the school rep on the fair committee, I’d be laughing at this Keystone Cop routine too.”
“Sorry, man.” Hanson pushed away from the truck. “If there’s anything I can do…I may not remember whether I’m digging a hole or screwing on a hinge, but I’ve been known to be pretty persuasive with uncooperative people.”
“Thanks.” Garret smiled. “Someone’s going to have to get these idiots to answer or they’re going to find their carousel in downtown Abilene instead of the Sweet Ranch.”
That had Hanson chuckling outright, his mirth subdued at the sound of crunching gravel announcing an approaching car. The moment recognition dawned, his heart did a little kick and the corners of his lips curved north. Kat.
The car door opened, and dressed in jeans, a long sleeve cotton shirt, and pink cowboy boots that to Hanson looked sexier than show off stilettos, Kat looked amazing.
Their gazes met, her smile bloomed and he thought his cheeks might crack from smiling so hard.
Every minute of the last couple of weeks that he’d gotten to spend with this woman had only proven that Kat Sutton was truly and completely making herself at home in his heart—and there weren’t enough index cards in the world to explain that one to him.
From the road, Kat had first noticed the fence line, then the men. The moment she spotted Hanson, every other thought went sideways.
He stood near the ranch truck in faded denim and work gloves, broad shoulders catching the sun, his movements slower and more deliberate than most of the men around him and yet somehow no less capable.
There was nothing frantic in him now. No grinding gears.
No parking lot disaster. No confusion written across his face for the whole world to see.
What she saw instead was a man working through a task one piece at a time and doing it well. And then he looked up.
Standing with one hand on her car door, their gazes met across the distance, and his whole face changed.
The smile that hit him was not cautious or polite.
It was immediate. Warm. The kind of grin that started in his eyes and spread from there until Kat felt her own smile grow even wider.
He smiled at her as if seeing her was the best part of his day.
Wasn’t that something a woman could get used to?
Slamming the door shut behind her, she moved forward, gravel shifting under her boots.
Working down the road a short way, one of the hands lifted a gloved hand in greeting before going back to work.
Garret Sweet leaned against the truck bed with a water bottle in one hand and the sort of expression that suggested he had already spent too much of the day dealing with fools.
“Well,” Hanson called out as she came closer, “if you’re here to inspect the work, I’d appreciate it if you lowered your standards.”
“I was just thinking it looked impressive.” Kat shaded her eyes and smiled. She didn’t mean the gate, but no point in mentioning that.
Besides looking like sin on a stick, Hanson also looked tired—and proud of himself, though he probably didn’t know it.
“How many gates are needed?” she asked.
“Too many,” Garret said dryly. “Actually, we’re guessing.”
“Guessing?” That made no sense to Kat; she’d known the Sweets most of her life and they weren’t the sort to ‘guess’ at what work had to be done.
“Apparently,” Hanson reached for another bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and handed it to Kat, “the company responsible for building the event is not responding to questions.”
“They’re beyond communication issues.” Garret shook his head slowly. “At this point I’d settle for smoke signals.” He spun around. “They submitted the plans from last year, which would have been fine if we were still holding the fair on Harding’s land, but we’re not.”
Kat paused to take a long swallow of cool water. “None of that sounds good.”
“Could certainly be better.” Garret walked over to the gate they’d just installed.
Benny straightened from the post he’d sunk and wiped the back of his wrist across his forehead. “You think they even know where this place is?”
“That,” Garret muttered, “is becoming my chief concern.”
Hanson’s hand shifted to his shirt pocket.
With quiet efficiency, he pulled out a small index card, glanced at it, and slid it back into place so fast most people would have missed it.
Kat didn’t miss it. The little surge of pleasure she felt was wildly out of proportion.
He was using the cards. Not because she had told him to.
Not because someone stood over him making him do it.
But, because they helped, and he had decided that mattered more than pride.
There had been several small moments like that over the past couple of weeks.
Hanson stepping aside after Mason’s lesson to check a card before going to the barn.
Hanson pulling one from his pocket while Alice asked him to fetch something from the pantry and Clint called from the porch at the same time.
Hanson pausing, reading, then continuing instead of freezing, covering, or turning frustration inward.
Each time, Kat had wanted to cheer, but merely smiled to herself.
“Sometimes,” Garret paused, “I wonder how I get myself into these messes.”
A slow grin took over Benny’s face, not with contentment but like a man who had just pulled one over on a buddy. “Because your mama asked you to.”
“There is that.” Garret chuckled.
Kat, on the other hand, let out a deep belly laugh.
Immediately, Hanson’s head snapped in her direction and his gaze locked on hers.
Not accidentally. Deliberately. And there it was again, that little tug low in her chest. When had this become normal?
When had the man from the parking lot disaster—the one who had turned her coconut cream pie into a crime scene and her trunk into an insurance claim—become someone whose smile could rearrange her whole morning?
Maybe it had happened in pieces. The western store, when he had allowed himself to be teased.
The porch, when he’d asked about Mason and listened as if dyslexia mattered because Mason mattered.
The horse auction, when his hand had stayed warm in hers after she’d grabbed it.
The kitchen, when he’d admitted the Sweets made the family part look easy.
The index cards, when he had slipped them into his pocket even though pride had made his jaw hard.
Piece by piece, moment by moment, he had stopped being a question and started being a person she looked for. That was dangerous. Also wonderful.
Her mind was so lost in the merits of Hanson Taylor, she’d missed what he’d just said. The way the sparkle in his eyes dimmed, she feared it had been something important. “Sorry, my mind was kicking around Garret’s problem. What was it you said?”
Heaving in a deep breath, as though repeating his words took a monumental effort, Hanson took a step closer to her and away from the work crew.
“I’m grateful for all your help and wondered if you’d allow me a proper thank you.
” Forcing a stilted smile to hide what was clearly difficult for him, she wondered what the heck could be so hard to spit out.
“Would you join me for dinner tomorrow night?”