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“I only do this little bit for the babies,” she said, looking up at him. “Yes. Twice a day. Jess’ll have someone else take them out with their moms and teach them how to ride and all of that.”
“What if there are no babies on the ranch?” he asked. “Then what do you do?”
“I’m the ranch manager,” she said. “I do all the behind-the-scenes stuff that keeps the ranch going.”
“Wow,” Ted said. “How long have you been doing that?”
“Ten years.” Emma tucked the bottle under her arm as Ruby started sticking her tongue through the holes in the fence to lick it. “You’ve had yours,” she told the horse.
Ted looked down as the blue heeler passed him. “And what about the dogs? How many of those live on the ranch?”
“Oh, five or six,” she said. “They roam with the horses and help herd the boars in when we have our boar hunt.”
Ted had no idea what planet he’d landed on. “Boar hunt?”
Emma smiled at him, and everything in the world got a little brighter. “It’s a long story, and I think your meeting starts soon.”
“Right,” he said. “Okay, well, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I know,” she said, and she seemed ten times softer now than she had even a few minutes ago.
He reached up and tipped his hat, something he’d done yesterday as he’d left too. He hadn’t even known how to do it, but the motion had been natural then, as it was now. “All right, well, I’ll see you later, Emma.” He looked down at the dog. “And….” He looked up at her, expecting her to fill in a name.
“Oh, we don’t name the dogs,” she said.
“What?” he asked. “You name the horses, but not the dogs?”
She shrugged with another perfect smile on those lips. “Gingerloveshorses.”
Ted crouched down and scratched the blue heeler, feeling the dirt in his hair. “Well, he deserves a name too. I’m gonna call him…” Nothing came to mind, and he looked up at Emma for help.
“Don’t ask me,” she said, giggling again. “I’m not having any part of this.”
“I’ve never named a dog before,” Ted said, and he couldn’t believe how hard it was. He looked at the heeler again, and blurted, “Simon.”
“Simon?” Emma asked, and she burst out laughing.
Ted straightened, and he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You think that’s funny, huh?”
“Why Simon?”
Ted shrugged, not wanting to say that one of the shows he knew about from his mother wasAmerican Idol. She loved Simon Cowell, and maybe Ted wouldn’t feel so lonely if he had a dog here named Simon. Maybe then, it would be like his mother was close by.
“Seems like it fits,” he told Emma, because he didn’t need to get into all of his emotional issues with the woman. “I better go. See you later.”
“Yeah,” she said, backing up a couple of steps so he could move in front of her. “See you later, Ted.”
He wanted to stay near her too and ask her all kinds of things about herself. He’d tell her anything she wanted to know too—including how he’d gotten six years in prison—but he forced himself to keep walking.
Just because Nate had fallen in love at Hope Eternal Ranch didn’t mean Ted was going to. In fact, he was fairly certain Emma’s scream was really how she felt about him, and he didn’t need to put himself through anything unnecessary.
He needed to be here for three and a half months, and then he could return to Clydesdale with his head held high.
