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CHAPTER5
Steel
Istomp up into the big house, my temper flaring hot as hades. I know damn well those fuckers were trying to keep me busy so that they could talk to my sister. Greedy fuckers just can’t keep their mitts off my family member.
Every damn time I turned around I was getting a message from one of the rookies. Can you check that filly in barn one? Oh, hello. Did you check on the feed order for this week? Did it come in? And on and on it went. Until I was ready to beat the shit out of them.
My hackles were still up when I walked in the door and what’s the first thing I see? One of those dogs hanging on my little Sassy and another one of them hanging off of my little sister, Tally. A growl rips from my throat and I have to struggle to keep from grabbing each of them by the scruff of the neck and kicking their ass.
But they know. These are two of our newbies and both of them immediately find something else to do.
I stalk up to where my sister and my Sassy are chatting at the table and slip into a seat that my sister saved in between them. Maggie’s head jerks back and she eyes me like you’d eye a bear in the wild, waiting to see what it’s gonna do.
I chuckle under my breath and my sister slaps my shoulder. “Behave yourself, big bro,” she mutters under her breath. I grin sheepishly and then turn to Maggie.
“Hello again, Sassy. I see you found the place alright.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You could see it from my window.”
I nod my head. “Yeah. But some people have gotten lost on the ranch. We try and keep a close eye on y’all because there are a few parts of the ranch that reach the foothills of the Iron Hills. It is rougher out there and very easy to get lost. That part of the ranch is also not fenced in so if you go past the fences, you can easily get discombobulated.”
Her blonde brow lifts and she grins cheekily. “Discombobulated?”
“What?” I pretend to frown at her. “You think cowboys can’t know big words?”
She throws her head back and laugh and every man jack in this place turns to smile at her. My lip curls at them and they all swivel around quickly.
“I would never say that to anyone. I know some amazing people out there who can do amazing things!”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“Really?” Steel smiles. “You must be able to do some amazing things then too. I mean…there’s no way in hell I could balance somebody’s books. I’m awful at numbers. They take so long to work on. I just want to go back out and work. It’s no fun being tied to a desk when you could be out working with a beautiful animal that trusts you to make good decisions for it.”
“That’s a lovely way of putting it.” Her sweet smile makes my heart jump in my chest, fluttering against my ribs and knocking me off-kilter so bad that it feels like I could topple onto the floor in a boneless puddle of goo.
“Thank you.”
“Did you always want to work with animals?” I can see my sister grinning out of the corner of my eye and I tap her foot with mine under the table. I don’t need my little Sassy picking up on the fact that she’s actually quizzing me like she’s interested. Just like I’m interested in her.
I nod my head. “Yeah. Our dad had a ranch and I loved working with all the animals.”
“So why aren’t you still on his ranch? Why aren’t you working with him?”
My shoulders tense up and she notices immediately. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that.”
I don’t like the hesitant way she talks. Like she’s embarrassed somehow that she asked me a question.
Shaking my head, I touch her hand on the table, petting it lightly when she jumps. “Don’t ever think that you can’t ask me anything, Sassy. I’m an open book for you.”
“I’m actually saving money to buy my family’s ranch out in Colorado. We lost it when he died. Didn’t realize that he had a huge loan and some other bills that were going to wipe out his insurance in one go.”
Her full lips twist. “I’m so sorry.” She glances over at my sister, her golden cinnamon eyes darkened with regret. “That must have been very hard.”
“You have no idea. It was brutal. We lost the ranch and everything except a couple of small pieces of land that weren’t connected and not very usable for the ranch so they meant nothing. Some of it’s pretty much useless period. I can’t believe that Rebel found a buyer for that land.”
“She didn’t find him, he found her,” Tally corrects me.
