AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Spencer Rust buttoned up the red, white, and blue plaid shirt, not necessarily trying to be patriotic, though he knew it would probably help. He checked his belt to make sure it sat in the right place, and he reached for his boots.
These old things could stand to be replaced, but Spencer hated shopping with about as much intensity as the sun shone in Texas in June. The moment he stepped outside, he wondered why he lived here, and yet, he’d never lived anywhere else.
Memories started to stream through his head, and Spencer pressed against them. It would do no good to hash up the past, even if he was willingly stepping into it this afternoon.
“She’s not going to be there,” he told himself. Sweet Water Falls wasn’t a huge town, though it did bring in people from several little towns around it. All the shopping was in Sweet Water Falls, with ranches, farms, and other communities spreading out from it like spokes on a wheel—at least until the beach took over on the south and southeast.
Spencer loved Sweet Water Falls. He loved his job at Hope Eternal Ranch. He really did. Honestly and truly did.
Something, however, seethed inside him. An animal that paced back and forth, demanding to be set free.
He’d been at Hope Eternal for thirteen years, and that was the longest Spencer had stayed anywhere. Even as a kid and then a teen, his life had been filled with constant turmoil. This new job in Cotton Creek could be “the one.” That boss in Short Tail just didn’t understand.
He boxed up the memories and shut the lid tightly. Tape went on the outside of the box, but Spencer knew it wouldn’t last for long. He always thought about his family and his past in the summertime, when his mother had died.
With his well-worn boots on, Spencer stood. He’d told exactly one person about his interview today, but he didn’t expect to see Nathaniel Mulbury on his way out. A ranch in the summer—especially a commercial ranch like Hope Eternal, where tourists came to visit, buy honey, watch live horse care demonstrations, and even stay in cabins out on the river—was extremely busy.
Nate had two kids now, and when school wasn’t in session, he’d have both his boys with him, slowing him down. If Nate could even go slow, which Spencer wasn’t sure about.
He smiled to himself and left his bedroom. He shared the house where he lived with four other cowboys, which didn’t bother him all that much. But at thirty-seven, Spencer was starting to wonder what it would be like to live on his own. He hadn’t really done that in his life, though most of his memories only had himself or his parents in them.
Sure, he’d had a few girlfriends over the years, but Spencer…well, he hadn’t had much luck with women.
His pulse rioted as he reached the front door, where he hung the nicer of his two hats. The other one always waited by the back door, as that was the exit he used to go to work on the ranch. If he was going to church or town, he used the front door, and thus, wore his nicer cowboy hat.
Out on the porch, in the shade, the Texas heat didn’t hit him square in the face. No, that heat penetrated his lungs on the first breath, and Spencer dang near choked on the humidity. His body remembered how to behave in the heat quickly, and he was fine by the time he reached the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Spencer didn’t expect to run into anyone leaving the ranch. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t planned it that way, so he didn’t even think that.
“It’s time,” he told himself. “This is the right thing to do.”
While he wasn’t entirely sure of that, he got behind the wheel of the truck and left Hope Eternal Ranch in his rearview mirror.
“It’s not the last time,” he said, keeping up the stream of talking to himself. He’d been doing that since his momma’s death too, and old habits sure did die hard around these parts of Texas.
The highway leading north and then west took him to Sweet Water Falls Farm, and it only took fifteen minutes from one ranch to the other. They weren’t the same at all, though Spencer’s job wouldn’t be too terribly different. At least on paper.
Hope Eternal ran a lot of horseback riding lessons. They were a working ranch, with agriculture, breeding, branding, and so many chickens, Spencer had lost count. But they were really a tourism ranch. The owner, Ginger Mulbury, made most of her money off families coming to the Coastal Bend of Texas for an authentic western vacation. And the horseback riding lessons.
Wayne Cooper owned the operation where Spencer was now turning off the asphalt and onto a dirt road. It was a dairy farm, not a cattle ranch, and not a tourism destination. Wayne ran the place with his three sons, but all Spencer could think about was Wayne’s youngest daughter.
“She’snotgoing to be here,” he told himself as he came to a stop in front of the beautiful, sprawling farmhouse where Wayne lived with his wife. The rumor mill around Sweet Water Falls churned constantly, and just because Spencer was a man working at an outlying ranch didn’t mean he hadn’t heard about Clarissa Cooper’s big exodus to San Antonio.
It was almost like she was a local celebrity just for going to culinary school, as if she was the first person to ever do so.
Spencer tried to box her up too, but Clarissa had a way of busting right through the confinements, tape, and resistance he put up against her. He supposed it was the fire of the redhead in her, and a smile touched his mouth.
Maybe he’d be ready to play with that fire this time.
“Don’t be stupid,” he told himself, and he sounded so much like his father it made him pause. He did not want to be like his father, not in any way, shape, or form. Not in how he acted. Not in the way he dressed. Not in how he spoke.
He took a deep breath and got out of his truck. Wayne had said to come by the house first, and they’d talk about the job, the farm, all of it. Spencer swallowed hard as he made his way over the gravel and onto the sidewalk. Then up the steps.
The front door opened before he reached it, and Wayne Cooper slipped outside. “Chrissy is sleeping,” he said with a quick smile. “Don’t want to wake her.”
“Of course not,” Spencer said, glad his voice had softened. He reached to shake Wayne’s hand. He’d known the man for years, and a measure of relaxation moved through him as they shook hands and smiled at one another.
