“Uh, yeah,” I finally reply, blinking rapidly in an attempt to get my head on straight.
I don’t need to be staring at the beautiful woman who just stripped her shirt off in front of me and is now leveling me with a distrustful glare. I really don’t need to be thinking about the way her lips go all full and pouty when she frowns at me. Hell, I don’t need to be thinking about her at all.
“You don’t sound very certain,” she says.
It’s stupid to think that she looks cute, right? She’s got mud all over her clothes and she’s visibly annoyed with me, but that just makes me want to tease her.
“It’s mud,” I say, a slow grin stretching my lips as I glance back to where the calf is currently taking a shit in the corner of the pen. “Mostly mud.”
She makes a truly disgusted face at the implication, swallowing hard before nodding and taking a quick step back.
“I need to change,” she says, “and shower. If you’ll excuse me.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer from any of us, just turns on her heel and walks right back toward the house. The view ofher leaving isn’t any less distracting than watching her strip out of her shirt was. Her hips sway with every step, and my mouth goes dry as the image of her taking everything off and stepping into the shower pops unbidden into my mind. Would she still be smiling so sweetly if I pinned her to the shower wall?
“You, uh, alright, boss?” Bill asks.
He sounds a bit hesitant and a bit teasing, and I turn with a scowl to find him, Tony, and Al all doing their best to bite back grins. I try to shove all thoughts of Mary out of my head immediately, frowning deeply when they stubbornly refuse to go anywhere.
“Shut up,” I grumble at Bill, shoving the pliers toward him.
I’m too busy to be fantasizing about a pretty girl, especially when she’s far too young for me. I haven’t looked at anyone but my wife like that, and after she passed, I haven’t considered dating again. The idea makes me feel guilty, like I’m throwing out 30 years spent together, as well as the 10 years since that I’ve spent grieving. Cancer took Laura from me before either of us were ready, and I lost everything along with her. I lost the connection I had with my kids, the love I had for the ranch, any hope of being able to move past how much I miss her every day.
I have no idea why I’m so hung up on Mary, anyway.
She asks too many damn questions, and she never shuts up. Every word out of her mouth is hopeful to the point of being delusional. She wears designer clothes and complains about how much everything smells and can’t even handle getting a little bit of mud on her.
“You and Tony can get the rest of the calves tagged on your own,” I say.
No one argues with me as I step out of the pen, although I hear an annoyed sigh from Tony. They all know better than to rile me up further when my mood slips like this, and while I won’t admit it, I’m grateful for it.
My head is spinning, and I wish I could just step back from all of it.
The money situation has been stressing me out more and more. Just recently, the land developer who’s been riding my ass raised his offer again, and he’s only asking for half the ranch. It would cut our productivity, but I’m only managing to keep things running by the skin of my teeth as is. We’re all overworked and exhausted, and the cash would be enough to pay most of the debts off and at least get the threat of foreclosure off our backs.
Even Al doesn’t know how close we really are to losing everything, but he doesn’t need any more to worry about right now.
As much as I don’t want to sell even part of the ranch—because it feels like giving up—the money is getting more tempting by the day. I could scale back operations to something a little more manageable, fix up the crumbling fixtures and parts of the house.
I could get Ms. Bryce and all her hopeful suggestions off my back.
I sigh heavily as I round the corner of the barn, exhausted and drained by my unsureness on how the hell to fix any of this. Jennifer is so hopeful that a smart marketing scheme will be the change we need, but I just can’t see how some advertising is going to repair a decade of ruined friendships and my own shitty work ethic.
I want the ranch to succeed, but I just don’t have it in me anymore.
I rub my hand over my face, frustrated. It’s not worth thinking about right now. Jennifer and Mary will talk when Jennifer gets back, and it’ll be their problem to figure out.
Right now, all I really want to do is lay out on the dirt in the shadow of the barn and take a damn nap.
Yeah, a nap sounds just about perfect right now.
MARY
Annoyance is an emotion I’m getting more closely acquainted with recently.
I’m working hard to stay unflappably positive, but dearlorddoes Everett Riggs test me at every turn. It’s been an entire week since I got here, and I’ve made approximately zero progress. My boss is riding my ass to give him a single decision on literally anything, but Everett won’t budge. No matter what I bring up, it’s always the same answer:
Guess you’ll have to talk to Jenny when she gets home.
