Authors: Claire Adams
Over
the years, I had heard some pretty crazy stories for why people ended up at our
ranch. Some were traveling away from their past, others just trying to waste
some time. I tried not to judge people when they ended up at our ranch. Ranch
hands were needed, that was a fact. It didn’t really matter how they arrived on
our doorstep; we needed them and they needed work. But I did prefer to know the
truth of what was going on with them. The truth was something I valued very
much in the people I associated with.
“Yep,
that’s true,” I said. “Let’s finish up and get you out of here so you can eat
and get started on all that work you need to do,” I said as I tried to hide how
annoyed I was with him.
Why
couldn’t he just talk to me like a normal person and tell me why he was there?
Garrett seemed to love keeping secrets and it was all fun and games at the
moment, but I was going to get really tired of it really quickly.
“I’m
happy to help serve the guys too if you’d like.”
“No.”
“Why
not?”
“Don’t
let the guys see you back here with me,” I said as it got close to breakfast
time. “Go wash up and come in for breakfast with the rest of them. I don’t need
help serving.”
Our
short conversation had reminded me exactly why my mother had always told me to
steer clear of the ranch hands; they never stayed long. When I was younger, I
thought she didn’t like me hanging around them because they were older, or
because they were poor. I even remembered getting into a huge argument about
one young man who had arrived at our ranch suddenly in the middle of the night.
My father had brought him and he looked scared to death to be there. He was
quiet and I naturally reached out to him to make him feel more comfortable.
After a couple of weeks on the ranch, we had grown close and we were laughing
and flirting with each other every chance we got.
My
mother warned me to stay away from him, she told me I had work to do and so did
he. But we kept talking and flirting, then suddenly one morning the young man
was gone. He had just up and left us in the middle of the night, just as
suddenly as he had arrived. He never said goodbye to me, never told me he was
thinking of leaving; I was so heartbroken that I hardly left my room for a week.
It was then that I realized my mother had only been trying to prevent me from
getting a broken heart.
Sure,
there were good guys and bad guys who worked at our ranch. But they were all
going to leave sooner or later and that meant I needed to guard my heart and
keep it from getting broken. Even a good-looking, funny guy like Garrett wasn’t
going to catch me off guard. I had already had my heart broken by the company I
loved, there was no need to open it up and have it broken by a man in the same
month.
“You’re
afraid the other guys will get jealous of me?” Garrett joked.
“Just
do what I tell you,” I said sternly.
I
didn’t mean for my words to come out so bitchy, but I wasn’t going to take them
back. The truth was, I was his boss and he was an employee of the farm. I
wasn’t going to flirt with him and I didn’t need him flirting with me. If he
couldn’t even be honest with me about little details of his life I wasn’t going
to hold out hope that he was even going to be at the ranch for long.
Men
who had lots of secrets to hide weren’t my type. I liked guys who were strong,
handsome, caring, and honest. So far, I was beginning to wonder if Garrett was
honest at all. He certainly seemed to be strong and handsome though. He was the
kind of guy I could see myself marrying somewhere long down the road, but the
one I finally settled on would have to be caring and honest too. I wasn’t going
to settle for anyone that didn’t have all four traits.
“You
must have been a really good boss; you’re excellent at giving orders,” Garrett
said.
“I
wasn’t a boss.”
“In
that picture I saw, you looked like a boss.”
“Why?
Because I was dressed in a suit? I asked him.
Again,
I noticed the stern tone in my voice, but I didn’t mean to argue with him, my
work was just a bit of a sore subject. I had dedicated myself to my job since
getting out of graduate school. I worked up to twenty hours a day sometimes,
yet at the first sign of financial distress, the company chose to let me go. It
wasn’t what I had expected. I certainly couldn’t have planned it or even
prepared myself mentally for the news. But there I was, back home on my parents
ranch at twenty-seven years of age.
It
was hard not to feel like a failure and Garrett bringing that photo up just
reminded me that I was no longer that person. Maybe I had never really been
that woman at all. All I knew at that moment was I enjoyed being home and I was
going to do everything possible to ensure my father could keep his farm. Maybe
we would have to sell part of it, or maybe we would have to change how things
were done, but I was home for a reason and that was to help my family.
“And
the large corner office.”
“Well,
in New York there are a lot of corner offices; I wasn’t anything special.”
“I
doubt that,” Garrett said as he took a couple steps forward. “You’re special no
matter what you’re doing for your job.”
He
was only about a foot away from me as his large chest hovered near me. I looked
up at him and felt my breath catch as my body reacted to him. Garrett had a
delicious looking smile filled with confidence as he looked down at me. For a
moment, I could have sworn he was going to kiss me from the look he had in his
eye. I quickly took a step back and looked away. There would be no kissing
going on in that kitchen on that morning. I appreciated a good man as much as
the next woman, but Garrett needed to understand that I wasn’t interested in
his charms.
Okay,
maybe I was interested; but I wasn’t going to give in until I knew more about
the man. He was going to have to show a little bit of honesty before I would be
falling for his flirting. But I suspected Garrett wouldn’t be around all that
long. From the way he was keeping secrets, he was probably going to be back on
the road within the week.
“You
better get out there so you can eat.”
Garrett
nodded his head and gave me one last glance before he turned to leave the
kitchen. Every muscle in my body relaxed when he had finally left and I shook
my whole body in a big shiver. The way Garrett made me feel was unsettling in a
way a man hadn’t made me feel in a really long time.
I
hated it, but liked it all at the same time. I felt energized and ready to take
on the day like I had just finished a whole pot of coffee. I wouldn’t give up
on him totally, not just yet. There was always the possibility he would come
around.
I
wasn’t the type of woman who had one night stands, or even relationships that I
knew wouldn’t go anywhere. But if I was that sort of woman, the idea of
sleeping with Garrett even if he was only at the ranch for a short time, well,
that didn’t sound all that horrible.
“No,
no, no; you stay away from that one,” my mother said as she walked into the
kitchen. She was smiling as she looked at me and I knew right away that she was
joking.
“What
are you talking about? He was just helping me with breakfast.”
“Oh,
I saw how you looked at him. Just remember, we know nothing about these men and
any one of them could have a past that is dangerous. He could be a murderer.”
“Mom,
any man could have a past he’s not telling a woman about. You can’t tell me to
stay away from every man on the planet. Anyways, why are you up? I told you I
could handle breakfasts. There’s no reason you can’t sleep in.”
My
mother had already started unloading the plates and piling them up near the
front of the kitchen. It felt like when I was a teenager and I was helping her
out; she was instantly in charge of everything. I knew she just wanted what was
best for me and I wasn’t going to argue with her logic. It was true: Garrett could
be hiding a lot from me. I felt like he was hiding something, but I certainly
didn’t think he was a murderer.
“I’ve
been getting up before dawn for over twenty years. You can’t teach an old dog
new tricks.”
“So
what do you know about Garrett?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know
something about him that I should know?”
We
continued setting up the line for breakfast as we talked. The men were going to
start arriving shortly and I liked to have everything ready for them before the
first one entered the hall. They worked hard and a good meal was the least we
could do for them. I actually really enjoyed helping with the meals on the
ranch; it was more fun than dealing with the pigs—that was my least favorite
job on the farm. Those damn things always ran from me and I inevitably ended up
injuring myself in some way.
“I
thought you weren’t interested? Hmmm?”
“I’m
not. But Dad wants me to teach him about the horses so I was just wondering if
you knew anything about him.”
“You
probably know more than I do. I’ve only had a couple conversations with him. He
seems like a good kid, from Wyoming, I think. Not sure how your father found
him or how he ended up working here. I can see you took care of his blistered
hands for him.”
“Oh,
yeah, they were the worst I have ever seen. But the strange thing was that he
wasn’t even complaining about them. He was going to just keep working. It
actually was pretty impressive. Remember that one guy who got blisters and
stopped working by noon each day? Oh man, that was hilarious.”
My
mother stopped to think for a moment as she looked up into the air. My mother
was a beautiful and kind woman. Over the years, we had taken in many men who
just weren’t cut out for working on a ranch. But she was always kind to them
and always did her best to help them out. Even my father would pull the men
aside and work with them to teach them what they needed to know to get by. It
had always been strange to me that some men would just show up at our ranch and
think that the work was going to be easy. Within a day or two, they were
obviously in over their heads; it was quiet funny to watch.
“Oh,
yes, that poor guy. I remember father ended up teaching him how to use the
tractor mower and having him mow for us and feed the animals.”
“That
guy certainly didn’t earn his paycheck. I remember he’d always be reading books
before anyone else had even finished their jobs. Why did father let him stay
for so long?”
“I
don’t know. Maybe he felt bad for the guy. You know your father; he’s always
trying to help people out.”
“Yeah,
he needs to start being a little more selfish.”
As
the men started to line up for their plates, I noticed Garrett as he walked
into the building. Damn he was a good looking guy. His chiseled jaw and
brilliant, blue eyes were embedded into my mind and I couldn’t get them out of
it. Garrett Reynolds was much too good-looking to be a ranch hand.
I
could see Garrett as a model or business man, certainly not a ranch hand. I was
going to have to work hard to get his story out of him though, because he
wasn’t willingly going to share it.
“He
is handsome, I’ll give him that,” my mother said as she noticed me looking at
Garrett. “But you need to stay away from him. Let him do his job and you do
yours. You said you wanted to come home to get your mind straight, I don’t
think anything about that man will help you plan for your future.”
“I
know.”
“Do
you really?”
“Yes,
mother. I’ll stay away from him.”
“Your
father said one of the guys he’s hired just got out of prison. I don’t know
which one it is, but you need to keep your wits about you. A handsome man can
still be a bad one.”
My
mother cracked me up. She was so kind to everyone who came through our doors
yet she was trying to warn me away from Garrett. I knew that she wasn’t afraid
of him anymore than I was. She had a good eye for people just like my father
did, even the ones who recently got out of prison.
That
was a big lesson I had learned at a young age; just because people did
something bad in their past didn’t mean they were bad people. And just because
they didn’t have a criminal record didn’t mean people were automatically good
either. People were complicated characters and I felt like I was constantly
learning and trying to understand them.
“Mom,
I seriously doubt Garrett is a killer. The man looks like a fraternity boy who
got lost on a camping trip.”
We
both laughed as Garrett stood in front of us with his plate held out for his
breakfast. He grinned and looked between my mother and me before moving down
the line. I swear I held my breath every moment he was standing there.
Garrett
had charisma and I liked that. His thick muscles made him a joy to look at and
that was all I planned on doing. Like the fancy merchandise in the stores, I was
going to look and not touch. Well, I might touch a little, but I wasn’t going
to fall in love with the guy. A quick, summer fling before he took off on the
road, that’s the most I would do: nothing more. I had to think about my own
future and the plans I wanted to start working on for Garrett and myself would
certainly distract me from those plans.