Page 73 of Roping Her In

Jake exhaled heavily, all the oxygen in his body seemingly disappearing in that single moment.

“I’ve got about seventy animals here on my farms—well, I guess it’s just one farm now.” He chuckled. “And I know she wouldn’t be, like, a vet, but she could take real good care of them, and manage the farm. It’s a full-time position, and it comes with housing.”

“Yeah, I know it does,” Jake said as Conrad asked one more question.

“Do you think she’d be a good fit? I mean, I can ask her myself, but I’d love to get your professional opinion as a veterinarian who’s worked with her in a professional capacity.”

The message ended, and Jake stabbed the seven to delete it. Conrad had bought the farm adjacent to the one where he currently lived, which had effectively doubled the size of his acreage. He’d taken on horses and a few cattle as well, and he’d been looking for a farm manager for quite some months now. Jake couldn’t exactly remember when he’d brought it up at the ranch owners’ meeting, but he hadn’t found anyone yet.

Beau and Charlotte asked about Hailey seemingly every other day, and Jake had two more messages: one from JJ asking Jake whether he thought he should hire a full-time vet or someone like Hailey to do the job, and one from Charlotte’s brother, Mason Wisenhouer, asking if Hailey would be qualified to work on his ranch in a “close vet capacity.”

Jake didn’t want to answer any of these messages, because he didn’t want Hailey to go work for any of them. He wanted her to stay at Three Rivers.

The timer on his oven beeped, and he left his phone on the table to get up and get his pizza out. It was bubbly and melty now, and Jake cut it into quarters right on the cookie sheet, which he then took over to the table. He put a hot pad down before dropping the tray onto it and collapsing back into the chair.

Hailey had asked where she would live if she got hired on at Three Rivers, and he’d told her in her condo, as both Leia and Hartford didn’t have on-site housing as part of their contracts. Hailey hadn’t seemed too happy about that, and Jake pulled the ranch map toward him from the end of the table. They had twelve cowboy cabins lining the road from the homestead to the administration building, and they were all full.

Eleven of them held men, and the lone cowgirl cabin was over capacity with three ladies already living there.

“She can just live with you,” Jake muttered, and it wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to him. At the same time, Hailey’s internship ended in one month, and he certainly wouldn’t be asking her to marry him before then.

She wouldn’t live with him before they were married, he knew that, as the Glovers never did that. Jake himself hadn’t wanted to live with his previous girlfriend without being married—and he’d been in love with her.

If his relationship with Hailey continued down the path it had been on for the past few months, yes, Jake envisioned her in his cabin with him as his wife, living here at Three Rivers.

Of course she should work here too, but he had no idea how fast their relationship would progress, and it could be a year before they got married.

With that thought, Jake reached the same wall he had every time he’d thought about this since that triple date. All it would take was a conversation with Libby, and he’d be able to offer the job to Hailey, but based on their past conversations, he wasn’t sure she’d take it.

“At the very least,” he grumbled. “She’ll use it as a backup.”

He took a bite of pizza, that thought like poison in his veins. He did not want to be a backup, not personally and not professionally. He honestly didn’t know what to do about Hailey and Three Rivers, but he did know that she was one of the best vet techs he’d ever worked with, so he texted Mason, Conrad, and JJ and told them exactly that.

Now, if he could figure out how to get her to use them as backup until he could put together a job offer, Jake would feel a lot better.

Sunday morning dawned with a gorgeous sunrise, which Jake took pictures of and sent to Hailey. He’d see her in a couple of hours when he picked her up for church, but she’d said she wasn’t an early riser and rarely saw the beauty of the sunrise.

It’s really pink this morning, he said, and then he returned to his cabin through the back door. He sighed as he thought about someone else he needed to talk to, and he wondered if his brother would respond to pictures of the sunrise or not.

Carson hadn’t responded to any of Jake’s calls or texts since the Valentine’s Day dance, despite Jake doing his best to explain why he’d sent his parents over to him and Denise.

Number one, Carson shouldn’t be all dressed up with a pretty woman on his arm—out in public—if he didn’t want the scrutiny of Momma and Daddy.

Jake couldn’t be blamed for that.

Number two, Denise was practically royalty in Three Rivers, and she’d literally not been back in town for over a decade. Did Carson really believe he could show up at a dance, even in their small town, with her at his side and have it not be a headline?

Because it had been a headline—on the society page of the paper, which yes, Three Rivers Chronicles still got published bi-weekly. And on the TwoCents app as well. The chat boards there had gone wild with speculation about where she’d been and how long she’d stay in town.

As it turned out, Denise had only been in town for about a week, and then she’d left again. Jake had access to the Walkers, and he could definitely try to find out where she was and what she’d been doing with her life. But to be honest, he already had enough on his plate, and small town gossip truly disinterested him.

Hey, he typed out, and then he sank onto his couch and stared at the word. Then his brother’s name at the top of the screen. His stomach grew a pit way down deep inside it, and Jake’s fingers started to fly.

Hey, Carson. I’m so sorry about what happened at the dance. Daddy was looking at me all snake-eyed, and I panicked. I shouldn’t have told them you were there with a woman, and I hate that you won’t respond and talk to me about it.

He sighed and sent the message, his mind whirring through other solutions.

Maybe we can meet for breakfast or something soon. Lunch after church—without Momma and Daddy. I can cook something, or we can go to that barbecue place you like. Just…I’m sorry. I’d call and say the words if I thought you’d pick up.