“You know what you need?” Larson asked.
I exhaled, knowing what was going to come out of his mouth. He was an amazing cowboy, could ride a horse backward with both hands tied behind his back and his eyes closed, but he was obsessed with sex.
“What do I need, Larson?”
He flashed me that boyish grin. “You need to find a nice warm body to fall into bed with.”
“That is thelastthing I need, but thanks for the advice. I’ve just got a lot going on right now.”
Billy frowned. As the foreman, he knew everything there was to know about the ranch. If he thought I wasn’t telling him something, he’d think I didn’t trust him.
I sighed. “I guess you could say it’s woman trouble.”
Bubba’s brows shot up.
“You dating?” Jimmy asked, shocked.
“No, nothing like that. A friend of mine is going through some stuff, and she asked me for advice.”
Billy frowned. “Anyone we know?”
“Nah, she’s not from here.”
Howdy, who was a master at keeping all of our ranch equipment up and running, leered. “Old college flame?”
All I did was smile, and that was enough for this group. They let it go.
“Do we have the breeding schedule finished yet?” I asked Larson.
“Almost. I’dreallylike to breed Lonestar with Mitch Tanner’s stallion, Louie the First. That horse has some good blood running through him. The problem is, he won’t take any of my calls.”
I nodded and jotted a reminder in the notebook I had open in front of me. “I’ll give him a call; he’ll talk to me about it.”
Larson replied, “I hope so. I’m not sure what’s going on with him or why he’s being so stubborn. From what I heard, he’s not even letting anyone on his property these last few weeks.”
Bubba and I exchanged a look as I asked, “Is that so. You know why?”
“Not sure. Something’s going on with him, though,” Larson said.
“Maybe I’ll head on over there later today or tomorrow,” I said, writing down another note to inform Randy of this new bit of information tonight at dinner.
“Good luck. I’d like to get the schedule done and off my plate.”
I jumped when a loud boom suddenly shook the entire barn.
“Shit!” Billy said as he placed a hand over his heart. “I think that hit something close by.”
“This storm is going to cause some downed trees; tomorrow morning, eight a.m., we’ll check the fence lines. If it’s not toomuddy, use the four-wheelers. I’ll check the west line myself and get a head count of the cattle in the far west pasture. What was the head count there as of last week?”
Billy turned a few pages in his own notebook. “Seventy-two last count in that pasture.”
I wrote down the number. “I’ll let you five divvy up the rest of the ranch. Billy, I want you to look into getting the old original barn torn down.”
In my periphery, I saw his head jerk up in surprise. “Torn down?”
Without looking at him, I acted as if I was reading something in my notes.
“Boss, did I hear you right? Did you say tear it down? The old barn? Theoriginalone?”
