sighed as he stood in the doorway to the dining room and studied Jenny’s sullen expression. If ever a teen had needed a stern hand, this one did. Whether she knew it or not, she was just aching for someone besides her mama to set some rules and make her stick to them.
It was a job her father should have been handling, but he’d clearly abandoned it. It was little wonder the girl was misbehaving, he thought with a deep sense of pity. Typically in the aftermath of divorce, she was crying out for attention. Maybe she’d even hoped if she were difficult enough, she’d be sent back to her father for disciplining.
It took some determination, but Harlan finally shoved aside his inclination to feel sorry for her. It wouldn’t help. He figured whatever happened in the next few minutes would set the tone for the rest of the days Jenny spent at White Pines.
“Thought you’d be outside by now, ready to get to work,” he announced. “I won’t tolerate slackers working for me.”
Her gaze shot to his. “What does this crummy job pay anyway? Minimum wage, I’ll bet.”
“It pays for a smashed up pickup, period. Think of it as a lump sum payment.”
“I’ll want to see the repair bill,” she informed him. “If the figures for my pay, based on the minimum hourly wage, are higher, I’ll expect the rest in cash.”
Harlan wanted very badly to chuckle, but he choked back his laughter. This pint-size Donald Trump wannabe had audacity to spare. “Fair enough,” he conceded.
“And I’m not getting on a horse,” she reminded him belligerently.
“That’s something we can discuss,” he agreed. “Meantime, let’s get out to the barn and groom them. They’ve been fed this morning, but tomorrow I’ll expect you to do that, too.”
She stood slowly, reluctance written all over her face. Harlan deliberately turned his back on her and headed out through the kitchen, winking at Maritza as he passed. He didn’t pause to introduce them. He had a feeling Jenny would seize on any delay and drag it out as long as she possibly could. She might even inquire about those Tex-Mex recipes she claimed not to like, if it would keep her out of the barn a little longer.
With her soft heart, Maritza would insist on keeping Jenny in the kitchen so she could teach her a few of her favorite dishes and coddle her while she was at it. That would be the end of any disciplining he planned. Until he’d laid some ground rules and Jenny was following them, he figured he couldn’t afford to ease up on her a bit. Her very first day on the job was hardly the time to be cutting her any slack.
“Was that your housekeeper?” Jenny asked, scuffing her sneakers in the dust as she poked along behind him.
“Yes.”
“How come you didn’t introduce us?”
“No time for that now,” he said briskly. “You have a job to do. You’ll meet Maritza at lunch. She’ll be bringing it out to us.”
“We’re going to eat in the barn?”
Harlan hid a grin at her horrified tone. “No, I expect we’ll be out checking fences by then.”
She scowled at him. “I thought you were rich. Don’t you have anybody else working this place? I can’t do everything, you know. I’m just a kid.”
“Trust me, you won’t even be scratching the surface. And yes, there are other people working the ranch. Quite a few people, in fact. They report to my son. They’re off with the cattle or working the fields where we have grain growing.” He shot her a sly look. “You had any experience driving a tractor?”
“The sum total of my entire driving experience was in your truck yesterday,” she admitted, then shrugged. “You want to trust me with a tractor after that, it’s your problem.”
He grinned. “You have a point. We’ll stick to horses for the time being.”
He led her into the barn, which stabled half a dozen horses he kept purely for pleasure riding. Jenny eyed them all warily from the doorway.
“Come on, gal, get in here,” he ordered. “Let me introduce you.”
“Isn’t it kind of sick to be introducing me to a bunch of horses, when you didn’t even let me say hello to the housekeeper?”
“You’ll get to know Maritza soon enough. As for these horses, from now on they’re going to be your responsibility. I want you getting off on the right foot with them.” He pulled cubes of sugar from his pocket. “You can start off by offering them these. That’ll get you in their good graces quick enough. Let’s start over here with Misty. She’s a sweetie.”
Jenny accepted the sugar cubes but she stopped well shy of Misty’s stall. “Why is she bobbing her head up and down like that?”
“She wants some of that sugar.”
Jenny held out all of it. “Here. She can have it.”
“Not like that,” he corrected, “unless you want her to nip off a few fingers at the same time.”
He showed her how to hold out her hand, palm flat, the sugar cube in the middle. Misty took the sugar eagerly. He grinned as Jenny’s wary expression eased. “Was that so bad?”
“I guess not,” she said, though she still didn’t sound entirely convinced.
For the next two hours he taught her to groom the horses, watching with satisfaction as she began first to mutter at them when they didn’t stand still for her, then started coaxing and finally praising them as she worked. He’d never known a kid yet who could spend much time around horses and not learn to love them. Jenny’s resistance was weakening even faster than he’d hoped.
When he was satisfied that her fear had waned, he walked over to her with bit and saddle. “How about that ride now? Seems to me like Misty’s getting mighty restless and you two seem to have struck up a rapport.”
Jenny regarded the black horse with the white blaze warily. The gentle mare wasn’t huge, but Harlan supposed she was big enough to intimidate anyone saddling up for the first time.
“I don’t know,” Jenny said.
“Let’s saddle her up in the paddock and you can climb aboard for a test run. How about that?”
“You’re not going to be happy until I fall off one of these creatures and break my neck, are you?” she accused.
“I’m not going to be happy until you try riding one,” he countered. “I’d just as soon you didn’t fall off and break anything, though I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll get thrown sooner or later.”
“Oh, jeez,” she moaned. “My mom really will sue you if that happens. We’ll ask millions and millions for pain and suffering. We’ll take this whole big ranch away from you and you’ll end up homeless and destitute.” The prospect seemed to cheer her.
“I’ll take my chances,” Harlan said with a grin. “Come on, kid. Watch what I’m doing here. If you don’t cinch this saddle just right, you’ll be on your butt on the ground
