Clay would do an excellent job, of course, being sure to tell Jamie everything he’d need to know to be a success on the ranch. But Jamie had looked tired, still strung out from his travels, perhaps, or, like he said, simply overwhelmed. Would he be okay all on his own his first night in a room he described as his own personal palace?
Maybe Leland should check with Clay at dinner, just to see how the tour went, and then check with Jamie to see if he had any questions. Yes, that’s what he’d do. In the meantime, he needed to move on from worries that would probably amount to nothing. He needed to take a shower and get to that paperwork so he could keep up with the daily accounts.
Nobody had asked him to take on such work, but he’d decided to save the ranch money by doing it himself, so now it was his responsibility. He needed to focus on that and not on how Jamie had smiled and tossed his dark hair out of his eyes, and looked around him as though the ranch was the prettiest place he’d ever seen.
Drinking the rest of the root beer, Leland rinsed the glass bottle, put it in the blue plastic recycling box, and padded to the small but serviceable bathroom. There he stripped, threw his dirty clothes into the hamper, and stepped into the shower, turning the dial as hot as it would go.
The moment the hot water hit his shoulders was a sigh-worthy one, and he shuddered as his body released all the tensions of the day. He still had some hours to go being on duty as ranch manager, but in this shower stall, his thoughts could be all his own.
As he washed, the sweet smell of soap drifted up in rising swirls of air, and he inhaled deeply. Then he let out his breath quite slowly and closed his eyes as his mind drifted to where it would go. Which was, he was not surprised to admit, to Jamie wearing his new straw hat with its narrow leather band around the crown and the twist of brass in the front that looked a little like one of the pine trees on the ranch that grew so proudly and smelled so nice.
Breath the brim of the straw hat, Jamie’s hair tumbled in loose, loping curls past his ears, turning this way and that, dark against the pale skin of his neck. Green eyes looked at Leland, as though through the mist of the shower, wide with wonderment and surprise that something good had happened to him.
That’s what the expression said to Leland now as he turned the soap over and over in his hands. He wanted, suddenly, to hop out of the shower and find Jamie to ask him what had happened to him to make the simple act of getting a job and a place to lay his head at night such a miracle.
He couldn’t ask that outright, of course, but perhaps over time he should find out. Then, having solved that mystery, he could move on and stop obsessing over a young man who probably did not know he was causing Leland’s mind to dwell on the curve of his cheek. Who did not know that the memory of him, covered in road-dust and leading a horse in a hopeless way, was making Leland smile in spite of himself.
Who had no idea, none at all, that Leland had his hand on his own soap-covered belly, clenching every muscle in his body to keep from doing what he very much wanted to do. Which was to give in to the spark of lively desire he felt at the thought of how he might, quite gently, ask Jamie to sit at dinner with him. Or maybe go for an innocent walk after.
Innocent it would be, for Leland was not the type to fraternize with employees, especially not ones almost ten years younger than himself. And who, at the end of all of that, was probably straight as an arrow, with no interest in single-minded ranch managers who felt the love of the land, of horses, of hard work, too deeply to let go without a fight.
With an odd pang in his heart, he finished his shower as fast as he could, buffing himself afterward with a towel. The ranch was the prettiest place in the world, with green prairie grasses and aspen trees and a clean-running creek. It was everything to him. He would not risk it by flirting with someone he’d just hired that very day. Sure, he was willing to share the ranch, share his joy in the wild country all around, but that didn’t mean he could play fast and loose with his responsibilities. Fast and loose with the emotions of a young man who’d come through a rough patch and just needed to get his life together.
The last thing he wanted to do was be reckless with the ranch. With himself. With Jamie.
He resolutely fixed his mind on what he needed to do, and he changed into clean blue jeans and a t-shirt.
Later, after he was done with the paperwork, he’d put on socks, and add back his cowboy hat and a long-sleeved snap-button shirt, turning into a ranch manager once more. But for now, he took the ledger, the calculator, a stack of receipts, and a scratch pad out to the little table on his back patio, settling himself in to update the accounts, to make sure of the books. And then he needed to show up at dinner looking like the ranch manager he was, even if there weren’t any guests in residence, setting a good example for ranch hands and staff.
Jamie Decker was a mystery he wanted to solve, but in the meantime, he still had work to do.
9
Jamie
Morning brought Jamie to bleary-eyed wakefulness accompanied by a knocking on the door and a stiffness along his ribs. He should have asked for aspirin or something when he and Leland had been in the ranch’s store, but he’d been given so much already he hated to ask for more.
“Hey,” said Clay from the other side of the door. “Better get a move on or you’ll miss breakfast.”
“Coming.” Jamie sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wincing as his sore shoulder protested. “Coming.”
As fast as he could, he scrambled into the clothes he’d worn the day before, and scraped his hair back from his face. There wasn’t time for a shower, but he took a swallow of water from the sink in his little bathroom and scrubbed his teeth with his finger. It would have to be enough.
He tied his boots and proudly put on his straw hat. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he smiled. The hat made him look like a genuine cowboy—a real ranch hand—and the little brass pine tree on the narrow leather hat band made the hat look special.
Thumping down the stairs, he raced to the dining hall, but found that they were already clearing up the buffet warmers and wiping down the tables from breakfast.
“Sorry, kid,” said the white-aproned guy as he paused with a tray of dirty glasses. “You can grab a glass of milk from the dispenser, at least.”
“Thank you,” said Jamie, breathless.
A glance at the clock on the wall told him he was already late to the meeting, but he downed a glass of milk and scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. Then, as fast as he could, he raced out of the dining hall and up the dirt road to the barn.
The night before, he’d been so tired after his tour with Clay that he’d skipped dinner and gone straight to bed. Now he was starving even before he got to the barn and shaking beneath his skin because he going to be late, already on his way to screwing everything up.
The outside air was chilly. The skin on his bare arms prickled in the cold, even though it was June. The ranch was near the mountains and high up in altitude, so that must be the reason, though he honestly hadn’t expected any of this when he’d bought that Greyhound ticket.
He rubbed his arms as he arrived at the barn where all the other ranch hands were already gathered in a group. All of them wore sturdy boots and long-sleeved shirts and felt or straw cowboy hats. Chatting with each other, joking around, they all looked like they belonged, and Jamie wondered how long it would be before he felt like he fit in.
