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They had the same blood running through their veins, and yet they were so entirely different. Sure, they weren’t directly linked or anything, he could understand that, but it was still fascinating how they fell on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
None of his musings mattered at this point. Besides the occasional chance he might see her in town, Mason knew their paths wouldn’t cross all that often. He didn’t like the social scene, and something told him that she was the complete opposite. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he had met her for the first time at that country club everyone liked to spend time at.
He shook his head as he retrieved the tools he’d need for the current job. As far as he was concerned, he’d been born in the wrong time period. If he’d been able to choose, he would have jumped into the generation before all of this technology nonsense.
Something told him that people were just better before the internet.
Mason pulled a stool over to the first horse after getting him harnessed and lifted the horse’s leg to get to work on the hoof. He pried off the shoe and examined it before placing it aside. Using his hoof knife, he carved out the debris that had gotten beneath the shoe. Then, he used his hoof trimmer to get the edges cleaned up.
It was grueling and tedious work, but it allowed him to get lost in thought. Mason specifically shied away from thoughts of his neighbor and the proposition he’d been made. Instead, his thoughts shifted to his oldest brother. Wade still needed to explain why he thought their family would be better off by sending one of their own to another property. It couldn’t just be the fact that they needed more space or more money.
Of course they did. But something told Mason that wasn’t the full story. Had Wade finally realized something he wasn’t willing to talk about? Just that notion made Mason’s stomach churn.
His brother had never been one to keep secrets. Ever since he could remember, Mason had been part of the family meetings where his brother would lay it all out straight. This had been the first time he hadn’t, as far as he was aware.
Mason moved onto the next shoe after reattaching the first.
Maybe he was looking at this too deeply. What if Wade was being as transparent as ever? Their family was the largest in all of Copper Creek. That meant more mouths to feed and more homes to maintain. If they wanted to stick together as a family, it would stand to reason that Wade would want to keep everyone physically close. There wasn’t a ranch closer than the one that belonged to Mr. Abrams.
A scowl fell over Mason’s face. If that was the case, then Wade should have told Mason before offering his services to their neighbor. It really felt like Wade didn’t want him around anymore, which was ridiculous because he was one of the harder workers.
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
Mason yelped, jumping so badly that he toppled the stool where he’d been sitting. The small wooden object landed on its side, and Mason right along with it. His head snapped up, eyes darting this way and that until they came to land on the offensive thing that had startled him so badly.
He didn’t really need to find the source of the question. He would have remembered her voice if he hadn’t heard it in over a year. Ten years, even. That was just how bad her voice grated against his nerves.
Mason glowered at Harley from where he kneeled on his hands and knees. “What are you doing here? You’re like that darn black cat from that song.”
The corners of her lips tugged, but only slightly. “There’s a song about me?”
He groaned as he got to his feet and brushed his pants off with frustrated movements. “That cat that came back even though its owners tried to kill it.”
She blinked and her expression sobered. “There’s a song about killing cats?” Harley almost sounded like she felt bad for the fictional animal.
“What do you want?” he demanded. “I’m busy. I’m sure you’re supposed to be doing something back at your uncle’s place.”
Harley made a face. “Yeah. I have to muck out the stalls in like thirty minutes or my uncle is going to send me off to do something else and let me starve.”
He shot her a confused look over his shoulder but thought better of asking her to clarify. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She fidgeted, shifting her weight from foot to foot until it almost looked like she was dancing. He didn’t have time to wait for a response. There was too much to do around here. Mason righted the stool and scooped up the tools he’d been using. Thankfully, the horse he’d been working on was old and not nearly as skittish as he used to be.
Mason moved the stool around to the backside of the animal. “If you’re just going to stand there, you might as well help me out a little. Can you grab that horseshoe?” He nodded to the one that had landed a few feet away from her boots. He didn’t know how it had managed to get that far, but he wasn’t prepared to get close enough to Harley to grab it for himself.
She picked it up and took a step toward him, but his sharp voice stopped her in her tracks. “No. Right there. You can toss it to me. Just don’t hit the horse, okay?”
Harley rolled her eyes as she rocked her arm back and swung it forward. The shoe landed with a soft thud in the straw where he sat. She watched him with a sort of curiosity that he didn’t think she was capable of. Her eyes watched every single movement he made, and when he hammered the shoe back onto the hoof, her eyes widened.
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
He glanced up at her, then down at the hoof. “Does it hurt when you clip your fingernails?”
“Of course not. But at the same time, I don’t walk on my toenails either.”
“But you wear shoes to protect them. Imagine if you had to walk barefoot all the time. I don’t think you’d like it all that much.”
“No,” she murmured. “I don’t believe I would.”
