Page 55 of Second Chance Saloon

“I don’t mix my personal and professional life,” she mumbled.

“Oh, come on, Jackie. Spend one day with me. You said yourself you wanted to thank me.” His lip quirked in a grin. He would’ve helped any animal if he could, without any incentive, but this was definitively a bonus. “Besides, we know each other so well, it doesn’t count.”

She glared at him, any trace of humor absent from her face. “I’m swamped at work for the next three days. I can’t take off to drive around and play tourist. There are things I need to see to, with Christmas coming up and everything …”

“I can entertain myself for three days and then have something to look forward to on day four,” Mitch said, warming to the idea.

Jackie wrinkled her nose at him, grimacing as though she’d run through a catalogue of more excuses in her mind but came up empty-handed. “I guess, since you saved Gus and Lina, it’s the least I can do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

November, fourteen years ago

Mitch

“You need to put your back into it. Shovel that shit like you mean it,” Ali barked, not bothering to look over her shoulder at him as she spoke.

Mitch lifted the shovel and dumped its contents onto the wheelbarrow nearby. “And you do this every day?”

Ali rested her elbow on her pitchfork, her laughter echoing in the otherwise empty barn. “Stalls should always be mucked daily. So yes, we do it every day. All year round.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Jacks said you want to be a vet. You should know these things.”

Mitch pushed the fork into another patch of dirty hay. “I do but that’s years away.”

Ali shrugged. “Never too early to start. Especially if you want Brenda to give you a summer job.”

“You’ve heard about that too, I see.” He glanced around the barn. They’d cleaned five out of the ten stalls so far. “How long does it normally take you to do the whole barn?”

“Well, when it’s Colt and me, it ain’t bad. He has this quick way of doing things. He sort of stands in the center and divides the stall into four parts, then starts with one quadrant, pulls all the bedding and manure to the center, and sifts and chucks into the wheelbarrow.” She gestured around them. “I’m still learnin’ it, and I’m much slower. Though not as slow as you.”

Mitch chuckled, shaking his head. It had taken Jackie a lot of making big puppy eyes at Dustin before he reluctantly grunted that he wouldn’t tell Brenda she’d brought Mitch round. Jackie whispered into his ear at breakfast, when Dustin was grumbling about the coffee machine having too many settings, that if he stepped in to help with chores today, while she trained on Ricochet, Dustin might be more likely to look the other way later, when she had “plans”.

That one small word—plans—played on repeat in his mind. A never-ending loop of butterflies filled his stomach, turning into nervous bats. Damn, he wanted her so much.

Mitch had very valiantly—or very stupidly—told Dustin he’d help Ali muck the stalls, so Dustin didn’t have to. Dustin’s moustache twitched with so much suppressed laughter that Mitch should’ve suspected it was a much harder job than he thought.

It wasn’t too bad, but it was hard. There was no other word for it. If he wasn’t in such good physical shape, his back would be killing him by now.

“Why didn’t we do it the Colt way?” He grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and pushed it out of the stall, toward the gate of the opposite one. “Sounds like a good idea.”

Ali reached his side and wiped her forehead with a swatch of material she pulled from her pocket. “Because I’ve only been here four months or so, and I haven’t gotten the hang of the Colt way, as you’ve called it, yet. At the previous ranch I worked on, the way I showed you was the way we’ve always done it. Seven years and all the stalls have always been clean and tidy. Colt’s goin’ to love it, by the way. Get right cocky about it.”

“The Colt way?”

She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. “Damn right. I know he’s not been particularly welcomin’ to you …”

“You mean, outright hostile?”

Ali groaned. “You ain’t seen Colt bein’ hostile. Trust me, you don’t wanna see that. He ain’t a bad guy, just protective of his people.” She looked right into his eye. “Jacks is important to us all. I don’t know her that well yet, but if you hear people talk about her … Colt pretty much grew up on the ranch. Dustin took him in as a scrappy teenager. He didn’t have an easy life with his family.”

“I’m sorry,” Mitch said automatically but Ali waved him off.

“Don’t be, he’s over all that crap now. I’m sayin’ that, to him, Jacks is a bit like a little sister. So, he won’t like you on principle.”

Mitch nodded mechanically. He could respect that. “I really like her, you know. I would never hurt her, not on purpose.”

Ali clapped her hand on his back. “I have eyes. I can see how much you like her. Anyone can.” She lowered her voice. “Can see the same when she looks at you, too, you know.”

Mitch gave her a wide smile. “Thanks, Ali.”