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“And you couldn’t just wake me up?”
“I wanted you to sleep.”
“Then you should have left me there,” she said. “I was sleeping fine.”
“That’s what Chris said.”
“What the hell, Jack? Did you bring everyone through here and vote?”
“We’re all just worried about you.”
“I’m fine!”
“Sure you are,” he snapped back. “Because everyone who is fine falls asleep in a drafty barn in an upright chair. For crying out loud, Mia, go to bed before you fall over.”
“It’s none of your business, Jack.”
“You know I am still your husband—”
She stepped back, blinked, and then howled with laughter. He burned at the sound; he was just trying to help. Just trying to make sure she didn’t collapse under the weight of this damn ranch.
“Oh, come on, Jack, don’t get mad. I’m fine. Honestly, I feel better.” She smiled. “We’ll all sleep when the week is out.”
She stepped away, heading into the stable, back to the endless work, but then she stopped. Paused in the doorway.
Hesitant. Careful. Shy, almost. He saw, in the woman of steel she’d become, that shy girl she’d been.
“Thanks,” she said.
And all he could do was nod awkwardly.
Walter managed to be useful by pulling casserole after casserole out of the freezer for the guys. Jack ate chicken potpie for breakfast, lunch and dinner and had no complaints. The old man made coffee so strong it could remove paint, and he made lots of it.
The laundry situation got so dire that Jack found Billy dressed in plaid Bermuda shorts, of all things, spraying a hose at five pairs of manure- and mud-crusted jeans that he’d thrown over the horse paddock’s fence.
“I’m outta jeans,” Billy said.
“You look like a cowboy surfer,” Jack said.
“You’re not much better, corporate cowboy,” Billy pointed out, flicking the hose at him.
Jack howled and leaped out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep his last pair of pants—khaki chinos—dry. “Watch it, man. I’m out of jeans, too,” he laughed.
He could only avoid the camaraderie among men working too hard for so long. And after a while, he didn’t even want to. It felt good to have friends again. To laugh again.
“Well, bring me your pants and we’ll hose `em off before throwing them in the machine.”
Jack shook his head. “Don’t they have a housekeeper?” he asked. It was a rare cowboy who did his own laundry.
“Gloria’ll be in tomorrow,” Billy said. “But I’m desperate now.”
Jack was, too, and he went off to gather up the stinky pile of denim in the corner of his room.
When the last cow gave birth and the last calf was tagged at twilight on the fourth day, everyone, Jack included, fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.
But at dawn, Jack woke up with a start, staring up at the white ceiling from the sagging mattress on his single bed. He knew exactly what needed to be done. It was so obvious, he couldn’t believe that Mia hadn’t thought of it herself. Although, considering how damn tired she was, how the nonstop work must seem like a track she couldn’t get off, it wasn’t all that surprising.
He stepped into the kitchen just after sunrise, surprised to find both Mia and Walter up and sitting at the table, a pot of coffee between them and, oddly, what looked like a bag of sliced ham.
“Morning,” he said, and both Walter and Mia spun to face him. He didn’t even glance at his father, refusing to see the hope on that face like an open wound.
That hope was ridiculous in light of all his father had done. Or not done, as was more often the case.
“Morning, Jack,” Mia said. “Ham?” She lifted the bag of ham toward him.
He shook his head, a little grossed out.
“Suit yourself,” she said and tossed a piece into her mouth, chewing with gusto for Walter’s benefit.
See? he thought. She didn’t have the energy or inclination to get herself a proper breakfast. Something needed to be done and if she couldn’t see to it herself, he would help.
“You guys didn’t replace Sandra?” he asked. Having a cook and housekeeper at the ranch was a pretty integral part of the life. Cowboys had been known to leave jobs on account of crappy food.
“We got a woman, Gloria, comes in and cleans, makes us food a few times a week,” Walter said. His father’s familiar voice hit Jack’s body like a barrage of dirt and small stones. It stung and he wanted to walk away, but he’d walked away enough from the tailspin the ranch was in.
“What about the men?” Jack asked. “Chris and Billy and Tim, who cooks for them?”
“They manage themselves for breakfast and lunch. Dinner, Mia heats up something that Gloria puts in the freezer. We all eat in here, like we used to.” Dad was answering his questions like a star pupil. Was, in fact, talking to him more at this moment than he had for the last two years Jack had lived in this house.
