He giggled as I swung him around.
“Hey, bud! You have a good morning with Mrs. Jenn?”
“Yeah! I helped her bake….” He looked back at her.
“We made snickerdoodles.” She beamed at him. I bet she was the type of a grandma who couldn’t wait to have her grandkids grow up enough to be able to bake with her.
“Yeah, snickerdoodles!” Tony yelled.
Seeing him so damn animated was worth the temporary ringing in my ears.
I set him back down and followed Crew’s lead. He was running his boots against a boot scraper. It was cast iron and had replaceable brushes in one spot and a metal bit that you could scrape the soles on. Very handy looking thing, and probably very necessary in a household like this one.
I cleaned my own boots and smiled as I heard Tony explaining to Crew that there was, in fact, coffee and all the other things.
Russ ambled over from the broodmare barn and came to wipe his boots.
“How’s the ranch life treatin’ ya?” he asked, grin wide on his weathered face.
“So far, so good.” I winked, and he laughed, then followed me inside.
There was a spread of lunch already served. Tony bounced around explaining what everything was until I told him to sit his butt down.
He sat and then continued to explain things, including how he and Mrs. Jenn had read about where cinnamon like they’d usedon the cookies came from and howfascinatingit was. Yeah, I couldn’t look at Crew, because I recognized that tone.
Apparently all I’d needed was to have someone even vaguely interested in the same things and I was off to the races, too.
After lunch, Crew headed to the broodmare barn to his office, and I went to find Wy at the stock barn.
I could hear her talking to one of the hands when I entered, so I made enough noise to announce my arrival and rounded the corner.
“Oh, Mal. This is Tommy, he’s our part-timer.” She smiled at me, and the young man standing next to her looked a bit shy but then pulled his shoulders back.
“Hey, nice to meet you.” I held out my hand to shake.
His grip was firm. “You as well.” He glanced at Wy as if to see if she would talk, then continued, “My dad worked here for like nearly ten years, but he passed last spring. I’m still in school, but I do some of the shit jobs around here to pay for my own expenses. I have two younger siblings and mom has three jobs already, so….” He flushed a little, as if embarrassed at the life story.
“And no, he wasn’t being rude calling it ‘shit jobs,’” Wy said, laughing. “He gets roped into cleaning the pastures and managing the tack and all the other stuff nobody else wants to do.”
“It’s not so bad,” Tommy said quickly. “It’s actually kinda nice. And I still get to be around horses.”
I nodded. “That’s true. We lost my family farm last year, and it’s been rough being away from horses for sure.”
I could see Wy file away the information while Tommy just looked relieved.
“Yeah, so I don’t mind. And if I sometimes clean the paddocks a bit longer because I’m petting the horses, who needs to know!” His grin was pure youthful mischief.
“Exactly,” I agreed sagely, grinning back.
“Okay, you two troublemakers,” Wy said, attempting a stern tone which was belied by her twinkling eyes. She pointed at Tommy. “You, go ask Hawk if he has any kit that needs cleanin’.”
The boy blushed lightly, he nodded politely, and then left the stock barn to go to Hawk’s.
“He has the biggest crush on Hawk, poor boy,” Wy murmured, sighing.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Puppy love. Boy’s only sixteen. Hawk is trying to be nice to him but not too nice, you know.”
