He nods.
A family recipe. I want to ask more, but I don’t know where to start.
“Day like this makes me wish this place had air conditioning,” I say, grabbing a glass and filling it next to him before sitting. The air between us feels awake, like a live wire. I should sit farther away, though I don’t know if that would change anything.
“Former employee. Any way to talk you into taking that position back up?”
Our eyes meet. A pulse of pure energy.
He looks away too quickly, face darkening and hardening. “Nope.”
I knew the question would be a long shot. But still.
“It’s no joke,” I add. “My ranch hand up and left after the bull, and…” I stop short, try to shove the words back in my mouth. Waitressing mornings at the café has made me generous with information. Too willing to share.
“And?”
“The field. I’m sure you noticed as we passed.”
He sets his hat brim up on the table, stabbing thick fingers into his ebony hair, disheveling it rather than smoothing it. He looks wild. Downright feral. But lithe and controlled. Like one of the bobcats that menaces the chicken coop before dawn. Dangerous because it doesn’t waste energy. “Don’t notice anything you don’t want me to.”
That’s an arrangement that could work.
“But surely you at least looked?”
He nods, eyes blazing. Body hunched forward and moving as if he can’t quite hold still. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“Thoughts?”
He shakes his head. “No more than you.”
“Pranksters, maybe?”
“That what you really think? Like the bull?”
“Don’t know,” I say, shoulders drooping. “Just that this weird activity—whatever it is—came with the storm. And if there’s another like that… I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
“Too much ranch for one woman,” he mutters.
True. But the way he says it makes me sit up, set my spine. “Too much for one person. Female or otherwise.”
He huffs a laugh, more exasperated than amused. “Don’t expect me to keep up with your newfangled ways of talking.”
“Does that mean you’re staying?”
His face looks torn, like my question hit bone. “Pay decent?”
“Nothing special. Twenty-three hundred a month.”
He whistles low. “I remember when it was forty-five.”
“Forty-five hundred?”
He shakes his head. “Forty-five. Period.”
I gasp. “But that would’ve been…” I look away, studying the hardwood floor.
“Don’t think about it too hard,” he scolds darkly. Before I can respond, he adds, “You a decent cook?”
