“Hey, Kasey,” I said.
“Em, Daddy’s gonna barbecue. You wanna come over? It’s been a few days. You could tell us how your job search is going!”
I didn’t have to think about it long. My stomach was yowling at me. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that hadn’t been much. I’d been too anxious over my two interviews. But neither of them had gone very well.
“Sure,” I said. “Tell Daddy I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I pulled out of the driveway, minding the potholes, as soon as I hung up the phone. The drive to Daddy and Kasey’s took less than ten minutes. I was born and raised in Round Rock, so I felt the most at home in this county in general, and on this property in particular. Daddy had sold off a chunk of land after Mama died and set up some accounts for Kasey and me to use for college and a down payment on a house. Kasey hadn’t started school yet, so her money was just sitting untouched. I had a partial scholarship, which meant I could put more of the money down on a house after I graduated. I’d actually signed the paperwork three weeks before I had my degree in hand. Thanks to the money Daddy had put aside for me, I only had a small mortgage payment to make each month on top of my other expenses.
I parked and went around back of the house. Daddy only barbecued on nice days, and he liked to eat out at the picnic table. I found him and Kasey at the table already, a steaming plate of grilled chicken in the center along with potato salad and baked beans, both store-bought, probably by Kasey. I slid into my seat.
“How’s the job searching?” she asked, her light green eyes extra shiny in the sunlight. It had cooled off some after five, but not enough. It was still hot as hell out here.
“Not as well as I’d hoped,” I admitted. “I went to one farm yesterday and two today. No one’s paying enough, and the farm I just came from looked like it’d been completely neglected for more than ten years.” I put some food on my plate while Daddy watched me, his blue eyes steady and thoughtful. He didn’t often say much, but you could always tell there was a lot going on behind those eyes.
“You should just come work in Austin with me,” Kasey said. “The bar is so much fun some nights. And, we could carpool!”
I shook my head. I’d tried food service once in high school, and it hadn’t gone well. “I have to be outside. I don’t feel comfortable anywhere else. And, I want to be around animals.”
“Oh, there are animals at Murdock’s!” She brayed a girlish, high pitched laugh, covering her pink mouth, her eyes sparkling.
“Not those kinds of animals,” I countered with a smile.
“It’s a lot of fun, Em. And, you meet so many people. It can get wild, but that’s the good thing about it. No one day is ever like another.”
“Working in a bar isn’t for me,” I replied. “I like animals. Horses, cows, chickens, whatever. It doesn’t matter. As long as it doesn’t talk.”
Kasey giggled again and flipped her wavy locks over her shoulder. Her hair wasn’t quite as curly as it’d been the other day.
Daddy cleared his throat, drawing my eyes back to his side of the table. “I found an ad in the Register this morning. A local rancher’s looking for a farmhand to manage the stables and care for his horses.”
I tilted my head, my brow furrowing as I considered this. I pictured some old farmer around Mr. Myers’s age — late sixties creeping into early seventies and ornery as hell — dropping by the office of the Register to give them a handwritten job notice. It was what Daddy did any time he had an old piece of farm machinery to sell. This used to be a full-service farm when Mama was still living. There was a lot he could still get rid of, but he liked to keep a large garden and pasture land for our horses.
“I cut out the ad,” Daddy said. “It’s in your room.”
My old room, but it still had all my old furniture in it. I’d bought a queen-sized bed for my new bedroom. “Thanks, Daddy.”
I wasn’t sure about the job. Another old farmer who didn’t know how to advertise for positions on the internet — even Mr. Myers had figured out how to do that, and his farm was falling down around his ears — but I needed something to start paying the bills before my savings ran out. I didn’t need much, but I needed something. “I’ll call tomorrow.”
He nodded, but didn’t answer, just let his eyes stay pinned to mine for a few seconds before going back to his plate of grilled chicken and fixings.
The silence didn’t stretch on for very long before Kasey jumped in to fill it with animated stories from her crazy shift at the bar last night.
“I’m pretty sure I met my future husband last night, Em,” she announced and didn’t wait for me to even ask her to go on before she jumped into a tale of some tall, blond, tattooed stranger who’d wandered into Murdock’s. I smiled at all the right places and laughed at the end, like I always did, but I kept my gaze wandering back to Daddy so we could share those meaningful glances, the words passing between us in silent flashes that calmed me after such a disappointing day. Who knew? I thought. If things panned out, I might have a job come this time tomorrow evening.
Chapter Five
Pete
Wednesday
After I filled my belly in town at the Texan, I drove home and rested my feet on the porch, my paper in one hand and coffee in the other. Riley was curled up next to me, snoring peacefully. I looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle, expecting Lacey, who came in anytime between eight and ten, depending on how late she stayed the night before.
But it wasn’t Lacey. I didn’t recognize this car.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Riley, who didn’t even lift his scruffy head or twitch an ear. So much for a guard dog. Somebody could run up on the farm with a gun, and he wouldn’t even open his damned eyes.
I set my paper aside and stood, leaning onto the porch railing to watch the sporty, bright-blue sedan approach. It looked mighty out of place here. The brightest thing was usually Lacey’s fire engine red truck. The car came to a stop, and a woman got out. She saw me watching from the porch and started my way.
She was young, maybe twenty, twenty-two, with long brown hair worn loose down her back that swung when she walked. As she got closer, I could see the bottom few inches had a reddish tint to them that looked natural. She was dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but the jeans hugged her curves, and I found myself staring hard at the sway of those hips as she walked up to the house. She moved with an easy, confident grace that was hypnotic to watch.