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She hadn’t liked that answer. She wanted someone to tell her she’d feel better by Halloween. Then, once the calendar flipped to November first, she’d be better.
“Where are you, Trey?” she muttered to herself, her boots crunching over the loose gravel in front of the barn. She wrapped her hand in a thick brace whenever she left the house, because she didn’t want to take any chances. She still had a long road ahead of her before she’d have full use of her hand, and she thanked the Lord every day that it was her left hand and not her right that had been cut.
She could still make scrambled eggs and macaroni and cheese. She could still type decently fast and write checks. She could tie her shoes and brush her teeth. Everything would’ve been harder had her dominant hand been the one with forty-seven stitches in it.
Those had actually come out a few days ago, and Beth’s hand pulsed with pain as a reminder. Afterward, she’d taken the highest dosage of painkillers she was allowed and laid down in her bedroom, all the black-out curtains drawn.
Her daddy had come to take TJ for an afternoon of miniature golf and wading in the river, and Beth tried not to think about the dozens of tasks around the ranch that needed doing.
Trey Chappell had been coming every few days to help her. He usually brought a crew of at least six men, and they made sure the horses were thriving, all her equipment was still working, and any major issues were taken care of.
She could feed chickens and goats, and she did. She did the daily feeding of the horses too, and while she couldn’t clean a stall, she could open a gate and move an animal from one pasture to the next.
The hand she used to mouse around on the computer worked fine, and Beth was able to check her accounts and keep up with her bills as best she could.
Like lightning, a hot flash of fury hit her. It sizzled through her whole body and left quickly. She really wanted that to stop too, but she suspected those particular feelings came from such a deep place that they’d be with her for a while.
She turned toward TJ when she heard someone talking. Trey approached him, and he clearly hadn’t seen her yet. She ogled him, because she could.
Trey Chappell was a glorious specimen of a man, and she waited for the guilt to hit her. It did, but only as a tiny splash, not the tsunami that had threatened to engulf her just last week. He was tall, with plenty of dark hair curling out from underneath his cowboy hat. When he looked at her, his eyes shone like her hardwood floor after she’d polished it, the dark, deep color of them like rich soil.
He always wore a shirt in some sort of plaid, usually in blue or green. Today’s had blueandgreen, with yellow in there too. Jeans. Big belt buckle. Cowboy boots.
He was perfection.
He crouched down with TJ, who pointed underneath the logs stacked against the shed there. The back lawn met the front of the shed, and the farmhouse sat beyond that.
Trey laughed, and Beth couldn’t help smiling. She didn’t think either of them would be once she talked to him about the Sweetheart Classic.
Her fingers twined around one another, and she pulled in a breath when he straightened and looked in her direction. A smile popped onto her face, but her feet shifted, betraying her nerves. Even if she wasn’t about to ask him to do something crazy, she’d be anxious about him being on her farm.
He’d asked her out, and she’d floundered it. She’d told him later that she meant to say yes, and he’d seemed so hopeful. Then he’d come, and she was sure he’d overheard her and her father talking about how she wasn’t sure she was ready to date.
He’d made up an excuse and left. Beth had been wondering what she was so afraid of ever since.
She hated change with the fierceness of a cornered alley cat. If someone had asked her five years ago what her future held, she wouldn’t have putwidowin the fantasy. So much had changed with Danny’s death that Beth didn’t even recognize her life or herself inside it. The woman she’d once been had definitely died with her husband, on that lonely stretch of road where he never should’ve been.
“Hey, Beth.”
She pushed her dangerous thoughts away and focused on the man in front of her. “Thanks for coming, Trey.”
“Sure,” he said easily.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from your own chores.”
“Nah.” He reached up and pushed his hat back. “We’ve got people to cover ‘em today.” He smiled at her and reached for her hand. He paused, his skin only an inch from hers. Plenty of energy flowed from him to her, and Beth sure did like it.
“You can hold my hand,” she said.
Trey’s eyebrows went up. “Can I?”
“Yes.” She took his hand as it hovered there in front of his body, and an internal sigh moved through her. “I need help with the horses today, because they need to be inspected, and I can’t use both hands to look at their shoes.”
“All right,” Trey drawled. “Let’s do it.” He went with her into the barn, which had a row of stables down the left side.
Bluegrass had dedicated stables, with long row houses where the horses lived. Beth had five horses in this barn, and three stables which could house two dozen each. She didn’t have quite that many horses right now, but sometimes the farm operated at full capacity.
She boarded horses. She bred them. She sold them. She offered horseback riding lessons. She raised cattle. She did anything she had to do to pay the mortgage and keep the farm. That first summer after Danny’s death, she’d sold produce from a table at the Farmer’s Market in town.
