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Beth sat on her couch in her cooled house, not much else to do. She had a list of chores a mile long she hadn’t completed that day, and she’d be behind for weeks because of it.
Trey came back down the hall and sat beside her, a sigh leaking from his mouth. “He’s gettin’ himself scrubbed.” He took off his cowboy hat and did a bit of scrubbing through his hair too.
“Thank you, Trey,” she said again. “For everything. I’d probably be passed out on the bathroom floor without you.” She dared to meet his eye, and he gazed at her.
“Of course.” He settled his hat back on his head, and everything about him was just one shade past mysterious. “Now, what are you going to do about your farm?”
She sighed. “I’ll have to do what Dr. Watts said, and hire people in.” She couldn’t afford to do that, but she saw no other choice.
Trey nodded. “Let me know if you want me to send you a list of guys we’ve used at Bluegrass. We’re always lookin’ for more help at certain times of the year.”
“Sure,” she said. “I want that list.”
“Great. I’ll get it and send it to you tonight.” He rested his elbows on his knees and focused on the ground. “I better get going. I just wanted to…” He paused, and Beth sensed a shift in his demeanor.
“You just what?”
He looked at her, pure vulnerability in those beautiful eyes now. He was so handsome, and yet so approachable. “Would you like to go to dinner with me sometime?”
Beth’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. “What?”
“Dinner,” he repeated as if she really hadn’t heard him. “It could just be something simple here at the farmhouse. I’ll bring it, so you don’t have to cook, and we can…talk. Get to know each other better.” He kept his steady gaze on her, and she couldn’t look away from him because something electric moved through her body at the speed of light.
“Or we can go out,” he said, dropping his head again. His cowboy hat hid most of his face now. “I can help find a babysitter for TJ, and we can go to your favorite restaurant.”
“No,” she said.
Trey flinched, and he got to his feet in one fluid motion. “Okay. I’ll leave you alone.” He walked away a few steps. He kept his back to her as he kept talking. “Your pain meds are right here on the counter for tonight. You should take those before you go to bed. I wrote down my number for TJ, so he can call me if he needs any help. I’ll get you the list of cowboys, and you can do that tomorrow.”
No?she thought. Why had she said no?
She just didn’t want him to get a babysitter for TJ. She could call her dad, and he’d take his grandson. She blinked, trying to catch up to what was happening. Things were moving too fast. So fast.
“I’ll send someone over tomorrow to make sure your animals get fed,” he said. “Everything else can be put on hold.”
She still didn’t know what to say, and he was moving again. Moving fast, toward the back door. He opened it and turned back to her. “Okay, Beth?”
“No,” she said again.
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You can’t run this place by yourself with your hand in that condition.”
She’d just meantno, it was not okay. He couldn’t leave. She needed him to back all the way up to his first question. The one about going to dinner with him.
“Blaine will come over tomorrow.Pleasebe nice to him.” With that, Trey walked out the door, closing it gently behind him. She watched him cross her back porch without a single stutter or glance over his shoulder toward her, and then he disappeared as he went down the steps.
Tears came to her eyes again. “No?” she repeated aloud, immediately sucking in a breath. “Dear Lord, why did I tell him no when I meant to say yes?”
15
Tam used her hydraulic press to cut the saddle skirt and a couple of other pieces, using her measurements to get each thing exactly the right size. She loved watching the pieces of a saddle come together into a whole unit, and she picked up her head knife and laid the template she’d made for this particular western saddle over a large piece of rawhide.
She cut this by hand, as she was getting paid for a custom saddle that would only be used by one cowboy on one horse. As such, Tam could charge a premium price, and the cowboys at Cattle Ridge Ranch would pay it.
It wasn’t the first custom saddle she’d made for the men up there, and she was hoping it wouldn’t be the last. She worked steadily, first cutting out the saddle by hand and then shaving down the edges of each piece she’d cut or pressed so it would lay precisely flat on the saddle tree.
She glued, crimped, and nailed the saddle horn pieces into place, using a strong needle to punch through the layers so she could then sew it too. Her hands had started to ache in the past few weeks, and she reached for her compression gloves before continuing.
As she turned back to the saddle horn with two needles now, the door to her shop opened. She expected Blaine to walk inside, but instead it was Cara.
