Page 9 of Roping Her In

“Well, I’m glad you could be there to help with Jonas,” she said.

Elaine smiled. “You know, it’s actually really good for me to do things like that.”

Lila Mae lifted the lid on the soup pot. “I thought you felt really good about being that little boy’s mom.”

“I do,” Elaine said. “But it’s still good for me to understand what life is really like at the orchard, and that I’ll be left at home alone with Jonas—and any other babies I might have—while Colt takes care of things.”

Hailey had never been married, but she’d seen the give and take between her own parents, her aunts and uncles, and even some of her cousins who’d gotten married in the past few years.

“I’m not going to do it every night or anything.” Elaine started looking through the box again, asking, “Do you have a ladle, Hailey?”

Hailey met Lila Mae’s eyes. Lila Mae shrugged one shoulder and smiled, which caused Hailey to do the same.

“Yeah, probably in the one labeled utensils. I know I did one for that.” She grinned as Elaine kept digging. “Honestly, if I had a hot cowboy boyfriend who needed help on his orchards, I’d probably sleep over too,” Hailey whispered in not quite a whisper.

Lila Mae laughed, and Elaine shot to a standing position, her eyes firing at them again. “Nothing. Happened.” She lifted the blue ladle. “If you’re going to make me talk about this, I’m going to make you tell me everything you’re nervous about for the internship.” She lifted her eyebrows, her challenge clear.

Hailey held up both hands, still grinning. “I’m not going to make you talk about it,” she said. “And thank you guys so much for bringing lunch.”

Elaine nodded, and Hailey took the ladle from her to get lunch served. No, she absolutely didn’t want to talk about anything to do with the internship, because that was too close to Jake Ahlstrom.

And if she talked about him, Eagle-Eye-Elaine would know something had happened. Hailey was determined to keep the accidental kiss a secret, something only she knew about, and she’d deal with Monday’s internship on Monday.

5

Jake stood on his front porch as the dawn light spread across Three Rivers Ranch. He took the last sip of his coffee as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“If only,” he said with a half-scoff accompanying the words. After returning to the house and leaving his now-empty mug in the sink, he headed over to the administration building. His vet techs should join him within five minutes, and then the two interns had been notified to meet here at eight-thirty.

He’d come face-to-face with Hailey in approximately thirty-three minutes—as if he couldn’t visualize her beautiful face any old time he wanted. He could, and he often caught himself doing exactly that before throwing up his defenses and pushing her right back out.

“Like that’s worked.” Jake moved some papers around on his desk, not quite sure what today would bring. What he knew was he’d obsessed over this day far more than he should’ve, more than was even healthy, at least mentally.

“Morning, Jakey.” Leia moved through the door and took one of the seats in front of his desk. Her arrival prompted him to stop talking to himself and take a seat. He did that as Hartford laughed with someone in the hall, and then ducked into the room as Laurent continued past.

“All right.” Hartford nodded to Leia. “Good morning, guys.”

Jake wanted to ask him what was so good about it, but he simply nodded to the man. “Our interns will be here soon,” he said. “Which makes the job of going through our stables much easier.”

He handed a half-sheet of paper to Leia and then Hartford. “I want Hailey to shadow you, Leia, and we need to get the horses that were displaced in this past weekend’s flood checked over and put back in their stalls.”

She didn’t even look at the tiny dossier Jake had put together on each intern. Name, strengths, things to talk about how the ranch ran. She blinked too fast for a couple of moments. “Is the stable ready for that?” She glanced over to Hartford. “Last I heard, the cowboys were still trying to figure out how to make sure it didn’t happen again.”

“Same,” Hartford said, and they both looked over to Jake.

They didn’t live on the ranch, nor did they work weekends. He, unfortunately for this winter season, did both, and he really needed to find a way to separate his life from his job. “Libby’s had a crew working on it sixteen hours a day over the weekend. I was told last night that it would be ready today.”

“You haven’t checked the horses?”

“Preliminary checks,” he said. “My notes will be on your devices.” He nodded to the papers. “I need you guys to get Hailey and Patrick up to speed on how we take notes and communicate. I want them to do full checks for the experience, and I want you to agree with their assessments before an animal is moved.”

He took a deep breath, because the flash flooding that had displaced over thirty horses wasn’t the only thing that had kept Jake working seven days a week, even over the holidays. “When they’re ready, send them to me, and I’ll go over stable conditions with them.”

He swallowed, because he’d thought long and hard about simply having his current techs handle everything with the interns. But he’d already signed off on a meeting with Hailey that hadn’t really happened, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of doing a poor job.

This way, he’d have to be in tight quarters with both Hailey and Patrick, and he told himself that as long as he didn’t have to be alone with Hailey, he could make it through these next sixteen weeks.

Besides, she’d only be here part-time—something else he needed to work out with her. He’d already done so with Patrick, because they’d had a real meeting a week before Christmas. Jake had counted Hailey’s impromptu appearance the day he’d opened the internship letter as her pre-internship meeting, and he’d signed the paperwork with a pinch of guilt flowing through his veins.