scowl intensified. “Aren’t you going to practice?”
“I’m good,” Ryan said.
“I’ve never known you to be good.”
“Good enough, then.” Ryan rarely sloughed practice, but tonight he figured he needed to focus on Walt. Calm him down before he left tomorrow night. He had back-to-back rodeos three hundred miles apart, one of which had a rich purse he needed to win—a purse that his brother wouldn’t be fighting him for. It still felt so damned strange.
“Having this woman around is very unsettling,” Walt grumbled, resuming his pacing. “These people know nothing.” He shot another fierce look at Ryan. “She told me she knows nothing. She’s ‘here to learn,’” he quipped, miming quotation marks.
“I know you hoped this would be like the Bar R and the Trail Creek,” Ryan said, referring to two ranches that had sold to absentee owners solely interested in tax write-offs. “And it may still play out that way. Give it some time. Don’t piss these guys off.”
“If George has his way, then none of us will be here to piss anyone off,” Walt muttered.
“You don’t know that it’s George.”
“You don’t know that it isn’t,” Walt growled.
Ryan came to stand in front of the old man, waiting for him to glare up at him before he said, “I’m not telling you what to do or anything—” although he really was “—but while I’m gone, kind of steer clear of Ms. Hunter, at least until you cool off. No sense burning any bridges just because she might be bringing in George Monroe.”
“Afraid I’ll muck things up for all of us?” Walt asked.
“Totally.” The frustration of working with a person who knew nothing about ranching but was suddenly the boss was that there was a lot of explaining to do. Some people could take it, some couldn’t. Walt was in the latter camp. He wasn’t going to put up with micromanaging and questioning the wisdom of his decisions.
Walt considered, then gave a soft snort. “Maybe lying low is the best thing to do.”
“For now,” Ryan agreed, relieved. “No chance you want to come to the rodeo with me? Lonnie and Francisco could cover while we’re gone.”
“I have a lot to do rebuilding the calving barn,” Walt said. “And hopefully I’ll be here next spring to use it.”
“Which is why you’re going to lie low for now.”
“Agreed,” the old man muttered. “I’ll be invisible. Or as invisible as I can be with power tools.”
Walt got into his rig a few minutes later and took off for his house, or the Garcia’s, depending on whether he went there to eat or not. Sometimes Walt liked being social and playing Grandpa to the kids, and sometimes he just needed to be left alone. Ryan and Francisco and Jessie understood that. Ellison probably wouldn’t.
Once Walt was gone, Ryan threw a few more practice loops before deciding to call it a night. He’d asked Lonnie to handle the irrigating tomorrow while he took one last stab at finding Walt’s missing cattle, and then it was simply a matter of showering and driving two hundred miles to the rodeo where he’d compete the following morning. It’d be a string of long days, but that was the way it was in the summers. Nothing he could do about it except deal with sleep deprivation.
“Excuse me?” Ellison’s voice startled him. After Walt left for the day, Ryan was always alone.
Not anymore.
She stood at the corner of the bunkhouse wearing a long white shirt over slim dark jeans with those flimsy flat shoes, regarding him with those cool green eyes that he found more attractive than he wanted to admit. She started toward him when he didn’t answer immediately and as she got closer he could see that her hair wasn’t as perfect as usual. Instead it looked as if she’d been resting her head in her hands, loosening the strands around her face, giving her a softer look. “I was wondering if you were able to do anything about the snake?” she asked.
“I, uh, no,” he confessed. He’d pushed the matter of Hiss to the back of his mind and left it there. “I haven’t had time and I didn’t see Lonnie today.”
“Could you maybe call him?” Ellison asked with a polite edge to her voice.
So much for softness. “Sure.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight, but there’s no guarantee that Lonnie’s going to be able to catch him immediately.”
“He can try.”
“That he can.” Ryan walked toward her, rope in hand. She cocked her head.
“Were you roping?”
“Yes.” It seemed best to keep answers short and sweet, and then maybe she’d go back to her house.
“Like for exercise?”
A smile formed before he could stop it. “I guess.”
She studied him for a moment, obviously trying to get a read. “Do you do a lot of roping on the ranch?”
“During branding, yeah.” He stopped a few feet away from her, letting the rigid coils of the rope bounce on the side of his leg. “But that’s not why I’m practicing. I rodeo during the summers.”
“I’ve never met anyone who rodeos.” She smiled that cool smile of hers. “I’ve never met anyone who uses the word rodeo as a verb.”
“I guess that’s because you’re from the other side of the Mississippi.” He bounced the rope off his leg again, the coils making a soft clacking sound, impatient to get back to his place, away from her. He debated about announcing that he’d be gone for the next couple days, but decided not to take a chance on her messing things up. She wasn’t there to take over ranch operations. She was there to get a feel for how it was run. His absences were part of the package. “I didn’t get a chance to write my bullet points yet.”
“Let me know when you do.” Spoken like a boss.
“I will. And I’ll have Lonnie keep an eye out for Hiss. Now, if there’s nothing else, I haven’t eaten yet and I’d kind of like to.”
“Of course,” she said briskly as she took a step back. But there was something in her expression that he hadn’t expected to see there. A touch of disappointment. A touch of...loneliness?
Welcome to rural life, lady.
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