Читать книгу: «The Wrangler's Last Chance», страница 2

Chapter Two

Shannon ran a currycomb in a circular motion over the bay gelding named Memphis. Memphis was a large but gentle and patient horse, which made the big lug perfect for the Mighty Girls Horse Lessons Rhett had placed Shannon in charge of for the spring session. Girls from the area who were in the foster care system were offered the opportunity to learn how to ride and take care of horses for free at Red Dog Ranch. The winter session had been canceled, but they hadn’t wanted to do that again. Her father had been gone a year and it was high time for all the programs to be up and running as usual again.

While the Jarrett family homestead was a working cattle ranch, the main mission of Red Dog Ranch was to serve to better the lives of foster children. The ranch ran a free summer camp program, hosted holiday parties, had internships available to teenagers who wanted experience for their résumés and had programmed classes and lessons throughout the year, like the riding lessons, among other things. Rhett and his wife, Macy, had recently gone through the process of being approved to be foster parents, as well. Everyone who lived on the property was busy and many were overextended at the moment.

Mighty Girls Horse Lessons was usually run by one of the staff members, but there had been so many changes at the ranch in the course of the last year that the staff was still in flux and Rhett had been at a loss, which was how the lessons had ended up on Shannon’s plate. Not that she minded. It was nice to be in charge of something, even if it was temporary.

Even if she had been his last pick.

She was surprised he wasn’t here to hover over her. Like he usually did.

Since the breakup with Cord, Rhett and Wade had both engaged in far too much hovering. As if Shannon might fall apart if they weren’t around to take care of her. At first she hadn’t minded—it had almost been sweet—but now it was nothing short of annoying. She knew they had watched over her these last nine months because they loved her and wanted only the best for her. And whenever she got frustrated, she reminded herself how blessed she was to have a family that cared so much, but it was high time they let her be.

Allowed her to sink or swim on her own.

Between Cord’s controlling ways and now her brothers’ overprotection, she was so sick of men calling the shots in her life. She wished someone would come alongside her and cheer her on or join what she was doing instead of telling her what to do.

Was it so bad to want her brothers to see her as something other than their baby sister? Once, just once, she would love it if they had admiration in their eyes, pride instead of pity.

Because either her dad or brothers had always stepped up to run things, Shannon had never actually been in charge of anything at the ranch before. In high school she had been happy to serve as a summer camp counselor at the ranch, and as she had gotten older, she had started floating around the ranch, pitching in wherever necessary but never having a defined role. A fact that had never bothered her before, not as long as she was busy and felt useful. But now she questioned why she hadn’t asked her father for more responsibility and opportunities to lead when there had been chances. The way her life had panned out, she knew a little about a lot of aspects at the ranch, but she was a master of nothing. She wished it was different, but wishes never helped anything.

Shannon gripped the brush a little harder. She would change all that now. She would square her shoulders and swallow her doubts and learn how to lead.

Rhett had told her the new head wrangler would be aiding her with the lessons, and for that Shannon was grateful. While she didn’t want one of her brothers nosing around, she didn’t mind the newcomer. He didn’t know her past, her failures. For all he knew she was capable and smart. A strong woman.

Far from the truth.

Finished with the currycomb, Shannon traded it out for a large stiff brush that she used in a sweeping motion to clear the dirt and hair the currycomb had loosened. She sighed. If only it was as easy to brush away her mistakes and worries. In a show of affection, Memphis leaned into her. There was a reason he was one of Shannon’s favorites among all their trail horses.

In nearby stalls Carter and Easton, a teenage boy who’d started volunteering at Red Dog Ranch a few months ago, were both busy getting other horses ready for riders. There were only six girls in the class this session, so they had two horses apiece to prepare.

“How long are these lessons?” Easton’s words from one stall over made her jump.

“Forty-five minutes. We’ll do fifteen minutes of review to make sure they remember everything from the last session since it’s been a few months, and five minutes of instruction for the emergency dismount. Then they’ll have twenty minutes to practice and work with their horses before cleanup,” Shannon answered.

Carter came up to Memphis’s stall door and leaned his forearms across the top of it. “Emergency dismount? That’s tough stuff for new riders.” He tilted his head. “How old did you say these girls were?” Last night Shannon had considered him attractive, but today he was even more appealing in his cowboy hat.

She fumbled with the brush in her hand. Memphis snorted.

Appealing was dangerous. She would do well to remember that.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The scents of straw and dust and dirt reminded her of what was important. The kids the ranch served. The ranch itself. Making her brothers proud again and carrying on her father’s legacy.

“These girls are intermediate-level riders,” she said. “They’ve already passed our other courses.” She rested a hand on Memphis’s side. “And hopefully, they’ll never need to perform an emergency dismount, but I’d rather have them know how to do it than get into a dangerous situation on a horse someday and not know how to handle themselves.”

“Makes sense.” Carter nodded as he straightened. “This is your gig. I trust your judgment.”

He probably wouldn’t have said that if he knew her. Still, it was nice to hear.

She forced a smile as she checked her watch. “Ten minutes until they arrive.” She peeked at Easton through the slats between the stalls. The redheaded teenager wore a baggy T-shirt over his thin frame. “Tell me you brought a coat this time? It’s cold out there.” Cooler than March in Texas normally was.

Easton shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”

Shannon’s heart twisted and she fought the urge to go into the next stall and hug the boy. Or shake some sense into him. But Easton had been in and out of foster care his entire life, so she knew he had little in the way of possessions and was often not dressed for the weather. They did so much to help kids like Easton at Red Dog Ranch but there were always more needs than resources.

She tugged keys out of her jeans and tossed them to Carter, who impressively caught them one-handed. “Check the office at the front of the barn. My brothers are forever leaving coats in there.”

Carter held the keys up by the keychain that was shaped like a rose. “Your brother gave me keys to the barn office, too. I work here, you know.”

Right. Her cheeks warmed. Carter wasn’t one of the teen volunteers she had grown used to working alongside in the past year; he was the head wrangler. A paid staff member. Any more, the barn office would be more his domain than hers. She held out her hand, taking the keys back with a small apologetic half smile.

As Carter turned to go, Shannon traced her fingers through the soft hairs on Memphis’s neck. He nickered. She sighed and rested her forehead on his shoulder for a second. She loved working with the girls and didn’t mind teaching lessons but she couldn’t help feeling as if something was missing from her life. The lessons would only last for a few weeks, and then, after that, what would she do? Lately, because they had been short on staff and she had always enjoyed working with the animals, she had been helping to take care of the horses and doing chores around the barn, but with a new head wrangler she would no longer be needed as much here, either. She would go back to floating around the ranch doing odd jobs.

No set place. No set path.

Rhett owned the place and was the director. His pregnant wife, Macy, was a codirector and she managed the ranch’s office and administrative affairs. Shannon’s twin, Wade, had recently taken over the position of head of maintenance, and his new wife, Cassidy, was the head chef. They all had defined roles. Purposes. The ranch would cease to function without any of them.

But if Shannon up and left she wouldn’t be missed.

The ranch would continue on just fine.

For the first time in her life, Shannon wasn’t sure she belonged at Red Dog Ranch.

A pit formed in her stomach. She wasn’t needed.

A text made her phone buzz in her back pocket. She slipped her phone out to see a message from Wade: Cassidy and I have to run out. When you go to get Thanksgiving Dinner make sure Rhett goes with you.

She rolled her eyes at Wade’s name for Wing Crosby and was trying to think of something clever to text back when the barn doors slammed open and six ten-year-old girls rushed in.

For now, in this space, she was needed. She would pour herself into these girls and send them back to their homes full of praise and encouragement and the knowledge that people at Red Dog Ranch cared about them.

Afterward she would have plenty of time to figure out where and if she still belonged here.

Carter stood in the center of the corral and turned in a slow circle, trying to keep an eye on all the riders as they practiced their emergency dismounts. Clouds plodded through the sky like a herd of lazy cattle, but even then, it was much nicer out than he was used to for the time of year. March in the Northern states still brought plenty of snowstorms and frozen ground, but here in Texas it was already sunny and green. He had to cover a smile when he heard Shannon insist that all the girls zip up their coats.

Shannon repositioned her horse so the kids could get another look at how to perform the dismount. “The most important thing is to get your feet clear of the stirrups.” She had told them they would only be practicing the dismount from a stopped position today but if they did well, then they could try it at a walk in the coming weeks. “Hands on the withers.” She put her hands on the horse’s neck. “Kick out of the stirrups, then jump, using the horse as a vault—really push away from him.” She perfectly kicked her legs out and vaulted away from her horse, landing to the left. Done demonstrating, she handed the reins to Easton. “Really launch yourself away from your horse. Remember, if you’re doing an emergency dismount it’s a bad situation to begin with, so you’re trying to get off and away.”

Shannon stopped to give a struggling rider some extra attention, and within a few minutes she had the girl laughing and trying again. She caught Carter watching her and smiled as she crossed to where he stood. Her short blond curls bobbed with each step.

“Are you sure you’re not cold?” Shannon jutted her chin toward him. As she stepped close he caught a whiff of the same vanilla-and-caramel smell that had lingered around her last night. So not just the cupcakes. Something she wore.

He swallowed hard.

Carter knew she was talking about his coat. When he hadn’t found an extra in the office, he had shed his, giving it to Easton. At first the boy had protested, but when Carter had insisted, he’d relented easily enough.

“I’ll be just fine.” He realized that people who were used to the Texas weather might think it was cold out, but his Northern blood was feeling warm even in the jeans and button-down he had on. He should have just worn a T-shirt. He had been glad to shirk his unnecessary coat. Even gladder when the teenage boy had fawned over the article of clothing like it was the nicest thing he had ever worn. Carter would probably just tell Easton to keep it.

“I had wanted to have an indoor arena built last summer.” She hooked her thumbs into her pockets and scraped the toe of her boot into the dirt. “That way we could ride in any type of weather and it would shield the horses and riders from the worst of the sun in the summer. It would have opened up the ranch to host more types of events, too.”

“They’re useful, but they can be expensive.” He had helped build one when he had worked at Dove’s Peak Ranch in Wyoming. But there they were sometimes hit with feet of snow, so the arena had been a much-needed addition to keep the horses exercised during the long winters.

“It had been on the list, but with the storm—” She met his gaze. “Did you know this place was almost leveled by a tornado a year ago?”

Carter took his time looking out over the expanse of Red Dog Ranch—large buildings, brand-new cabins and barns, fields of healthy grasses and a huge herd of cattle. “You guys have done an amazing job rebuilding.” He noticed Shannon’s frown. Carter cleared his throat. “But I’m guessing the indoor arena got scrapped from the build list after the storm?” And for some reason that really mattered to her. He wondered why. Maybe she just really loved horses.

“For a while it was still on, but everything else took priority, you know?” Her mouth twisted to the side. “So it just kept getting moved down the list until there weren’t funds left. I tried to argue for it but I was overruled.” She sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

His mind was stuck on overruled.

“By your brothers?” Rhett had explained to Carter how their father had passed unexpectedly last spring, leaving Rhett with the ranch. Now, from what Carter could tell so far, Rhett and Wade oversaw everything. But if Shannon was a Jarrett, then her opinion should matter, too.

She gave a quick laugh. “Yeah, all three of them. Even Boone, who doesn’t even live here, outvoted me.” She held up a hand. “But they were right. It was the least important item on the list. It would have been nice on a day like today, though. The girls are freezing.” She rubbed her arms as if she might have been cold, too, despite the fitted jacket she had on. “And it would definitely come in handy in the summer.”

Carter folded his arms over his chest. He hadn’t known there were three Jarrett brothers. All the more reason to give Shannon a wide berth. Carter didn’t want to get caught in the crosshairs with any of the Jarretts.

Still, he fought the desire to press her about why the arena had been so important to her, but he swallowed that question. Too personal. Stick to the weather. “It’s what—upper fifties out here?”

Shannon kept her eyes on the girl she had just been helping. “It’s a little colder than normal. Usually we start hitting the seventies by now.” A couple of the kids even wore winter hats.

Carter chuckled. “Where I’m from this is called summer weather. We don’t wear coats unless it’s well below freezing.”

Shannon turned to face him. Even in the diminished sunlight, her brown eyes held unreadable depths of both light and dark hues. “And where is that, where you’re from? You haven’t said.”

He had walked right into that, hadn’t he? Personal information he didn’t want to give.

Carter shrugged. “North.”

She didn’t need to know about his sad upbringing in Montana or the many states he’d meandered through in the last thirteen years, either.

“That encompasses a lot of places.” She arched an eyebrow. “But you know that, don’t you, Doctor?”

Doctor.

The title still felt odd, like a child slipping into his dad’s too-big shoes.

If you were going to spend all that time and waste so much money, I don’t know why you couldn’t have become a real doctor. That would have been something. But you threw that all away on animals. Too bad. It would have been nice to tell people my son was really a doctor.

Carter clenched his jaw as he shoved his father’s words away. His dad’s opinion had stopped mattering the day he had walked out on Carter and his mom to run off with his much younger mistress. Had mattered even less when he had turned Carter away when he had showed up at his front door as a homeless teenager.

I don’t want you near your half siblings. You’ll be a bad influence on them. I haven’t even told them they have a big brother. They have bright futures and I don’t need you ruining their lives.

Then his father had taken his new family and moved to California. Far enough to make sure Carter would never be a part of his stepbrothers’ lives.

There was a reason he didn’t dwell on the past.

He mentally shook his father’s words away like a horse shaking off bothersome flies so he could focus on Shannon, who was smiling warmly, waiting for him to answer her.

“I’ve been a lot of places.” There. Nonspecific and revealed nothing.

“How cryptic of you.” Shannon popped her hand on her hip. “Work with me here, cowboy. At least name your favorite one.” She blew a strand of hair away from her face. “Listen, I just want to hear about someplace other than here. I’ve been nowhere. Never left Texas. Pathetic, right?”

“It’s an awfully big state,” he offered.

“But I’ve always wanted to see other places. Be adventurous.” She shrugged.

“Moving around, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Still, what was your favorite place?” she pressed. “I’d love to hear.” Apparently Shannon was an expert at directing the conversation and was used to dealing with difficult men, because she wasn’t about to let up. The fine art of male question avoidance didn’t seem to faze her whatsoever.

Oh, well. Talking about places he had lived in didn’t have to be personal. “Montana is really something. The sky there,” he said. “It doesn’t compare to anywhere else. But Idaho has something special, too—something different. It’s a sort of hidden gem.” And if she asked Rhett, she would know he had studied at Colorado State University, so it didn’t hurt to mention that state, either. “Then, of course, Colorado and the mountains are pretty inspiring.”

She gave a low whistle. “Well, cowboy, you really have been everywhere.”

“Not everywhere,” he said. “The world’s a big place and there’s still a lot more to see. I’d like to mark it all off my list someday if I could.” The last part had slipped out. More than he had wanted to share with her.

“That’s as good a dream as any, I guess.” Her smile was wistful. It made him want to ask what her dream was. He bit that question down right away.

She called to a girl named Susan. “Don’t be afraid to grab the mane if you need to stabilize yourself before you jump, okay? It won’t hurt your horse at all.” They watched each of the girls try a few more times before Shannon told them that they could stop practicing their dismounts and ride a few laps to close out the session.

Carter came up beside her again. “Have you heard from Dr. Spira? About the goose?”

Her face lit up. “Wing had a great night. The vet said I could go pick him up this afternoon.” She bounced a little. “I can’t wait.”

“That’s great to hear.” He was glad the little gander hadn’t experienced any complications. It was nice to know he had done the right thing. Carter might have received his DVM but a piece of paper and a handful of years in school didn’t mean he automatically knew everything there was to know about doctoring animals. That was where experience and further study came in.

Someday he would be confident enough in his abilities and knowledge to strike out alone. But not until he knew more. Not until he was certain he would always be able to help and make the right call. Right out of school he had worked at a clinic and made a mistake in a diagnosis that had cost a family their beloved pet. He never wanted that to happen again.

“Do you want to come with me into town?” Shannon’s question surprised him. “To pick Wing up?” She rocked on the toes of her boots. “I’m sure Spira would love the chance to chat with you again.”

While he did want more opportunities to get to know the local veterinarian, he didn’t know if offering to go anywhere with his boss’s sister was the best plan for his future. “No, you go. I’ll take care of unsaddling the horses so you can head out right when the girls leave, if you want.”

Her smile faded. “Right, okay, that works.”

Shannon drifted toward the edge of the corral and unlatched the gate as she instructed the girls to bring their horses back to the barn to be unsaddled and brushed down. “Make sure you fill their buckets with fresh water before each of you leave.”

Easton came up beside Carter. The tips of his ears were red. “I can take care of unsaddling and feeding. This might be the first riding lesson, but I’ve been helping get the horses ready for the ranch hands for weeks now. You should go with her.”

“Why?” Carter hadn’t even known Easton had been close enough to hear their conversation.

“Her brothers won’t let her go get him unless someone goes along.” Easton slouched as he walked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of the oversize coat. His posture made Carter’s heart twist. He had been that boy before—scrawny and alone and hoping no one picked up on how sad he was. Carter didn’t want to embarrass Easton by pressing him to reveal more about his situation than the teen boy was willing to, but he promised himself he would keep an eye on Easton and help him whenever he could. Care about him.

Something Carter wished someone had done for him at that age.

Easton rubbed at his nose. “She told me Wade’s busy and I know Rhett’s off ranch today, too. Before the lesson she asked me how long I was sticking around today, but my ride should be here sooner than it would take to go back and forth to town. If she asked me, then she’s at her wit’s end trying to find someone.”

“Why don’t her brothers let her go into town on her own?” Shannon was a grown woman who hardly needed her brothers’ permission to do things. Unease swam through Carter’s gut. In all his interactions with his new boss, Rhett had seemed like a stand-up guy. He really hoped his impression of the man was correct.

“Beats me.” Easton shrugged. “I only started here a few months ago and they’ve always been like that since I’ve been here. All I know is that Miss Shannon wants to get her goose and she’ll catch heat from one or both of those Jarretts if she heads to town alone.”

He’s really important to me.

I can’t lose him.

Shannon’s frantic words from last night swam through Carter’s mind.

Carter closed the gate once all the horses were on their way to the barn. He scrubbed his chin while he watched the retreating forms of Shannon and Easton. He had witnessed firsthand how much that goose meant to Shannon. And she had been nothing but kind to Carter in all their interactions so far. She didn’t have to be nice to the new staff member. He was still touched by her gesture of making him cupcakes.

He lifted his hat to run a hand over his hair. What would it hurt? He could drive into town with her.

To get to know Dr. Spira better, of course.

And if the Jarrett brothers had a valid reason to be concerned for their sister’s safety, Carter hardly wanted her decision to go alone pinned on his refusal. Getting on Rhett’s bad side his first day on the job wasn’t ideal. Carter rolled his shoulders. He could handle being around the sister of the person in charge without losing his head or heart.

It wouldn’t be like last time.

Carter jogged toward the barn to catch her before she headed out alone.