Keep You Safe, page 7
“Be sure and eat some protein too,” Casey advised as I fetched some milk. He was one of the few who had a hot breakfast, as he tucked into a large bowl of oatmeal.
“Morning.” Grayson apparently ran on black coffee and a cranky attitude as he didn’t glance at the breakfast options when he came in. Didn’t even take his black hat off as he stood at the kitchen door and assigned tasks until I was the only one left without a job. I put my bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, taking my sweet time until the others departed.
“What do you have for me today, boss?” I asked, putting more sass in my voice now that we were alone.
“Congrats.” Grayson, on the other hand, had the same dry tone as he’d had for everyone else. “You were so good at stall mucking that you get to do that again with an added task of cobwebbing.”
“Cobwebbing?” I grabbed my coat from the row of hooks by the door. The poor thing was way dirtier than it had been yesterday morning.
“Dusting the stalls.” Grayson clomped toward the barn, movements stiff. Why didn’t he use a cane on bad days? I knew better than to voice that question, though, so I stayed quiet and watched my breath hang in the air on the walk to the barn. Once inside, Grayson fetched a large duster on a telescoping pole.
“Here.” He handed it to me. “Can’t risk horse health with spiders and bugs, but the darn cobwebs are a never-ending and messy chore.”
“I told you. I don’t mind mess.” This was hardly the first duster I’d seen. I’d be fine.
“We’ve gotta get you some better clothes.” Frowning, he gestured at my hoodie under my open coat and my gray corduroy skinny jeans.
“What’s wrong with these?” I wasn’t going to take comments from him any more than I would from Reindeer.
“Too nice.” He pursed his lips before ducking into a tack room and returning with two blue-and-red bandannas. “You’ll want to cover your hair with your hoodie or a bandanna, and here’s another for covering your mouth.” He handed them over and then pointed at the duster. “Clean the duster frequently so you’re not just spreading chaff around.”
“Do I get another riding lesson if I do well?” I gave a pleading grin, complete with a chin tilt. I was determined to break through his icier-than-usual exterior. The air was chilly enough. I didn’t need Grayson adding to the freeze.
“Not today.” However, he didn’t thaw one bit in the face of my best smile. “Too much to get done.”
“Okay.” Nothing I could do other than agree and follow him to a different row of stalls from the day before.
“If you finish mucking and cobwebbing this side of the barn before lunch, you can sweep the aisles.” He gestured back toward the barn doors. “Lunch is your choice of leftovers or sandwiches. Clean up after yourself if you use the microwave.”
“Yes, sir.” I used a cheeky tone, but even that didn’t get a rise from Grayson.
Soon, I was alone with the muck cart and my cobwebbing task, which indeed turned out to be worse than mucking. A disgusting mix of spiderwebs, dust, bits of hay, flies, and other yuck rained down on me. I found the broom and dustpan on my own for cleaning up after my dusting efforts. I also made sure to do my best job on the mucking of each stall because I was certain Grayson would be checking. However, I finished the task before he returned, so I found a larger broom more suited to sweeping the wide aisles. I had my music for company again. I could have grabbed headphones, but the possibility of pissing off a certain foreman was too good to pass up.
As I threw out the last dustpan full of scraps of hay and dirt, Grayson finally showed up, scowl from earlier still in place.
“Spic and span, boss.” I was undeterred in the face of his bad mood. I followed him from stall to stall as he looked over my work. He added a small amount of bedding to two stalls, but otherwise had no commentary for me. “How’d I do?”
“It’ll pass.” He pursed his lips like actual praise might physically hurt. “You eat yet?”
“Not yet.” I couldn’t help the rising hope that maybe he’d brought me lunch again, but he merely shook his head.
“You’ll wanna do that before your next task because it’s a gut twister.”
“Oh?”
“Since you’re already all dirty from cobwebbing, gonna set you to drain cleaning.” He sounded just short of gleeful about assigning me the job, and as he showed me what I’d be doing with the floor drains, he kept glancing at me as if expecting me to bolt for the barn doors.
“I told you yesterday your plan to make me run away wouldn’t work.” I rolled my eyes at him and made my tone more bored. “You’re giving me the worst tasks to make me change my mind about being a hand.”
“You wanted ranch life. This is part of ranch life.” Instead of matching my teasing tone, he was at funeral-levels of seriousness. “We get dirty.”
“Yes, you do.” I met his gaze to remind him of exactly how dirty he’d gotten on the bank of the pond.
“Behave.” He glowered at me, not moved in the slightest. “Kat will be around if you have questions. I’ll check back later this afternoon.”
I returned to the bunkhouse to make a hasty lunch of leftovers, remembering at the last second to clean up after myself and put the plate in the dishwasher. In my little studio apartment, dishes were less of a pressing task, but this communal living was like a return to my college days. Back then, my distractibility level had been a frequent complaint from my various roommates, and I was determined to not have it be an issue here.
“Can’t believe he’s got you cleaning drains on your second day.” Kat greeted me with a pair of elbow-length rubber gloves upon my return to the barn. “This is gonna get gross, just warning you. Even the best drain covers can’t keep out all the hay, dirt, manure pieces, horse hair, mud, rocks, and other crap.”
“I think he has it in for me.” I laughed, but he really did seem determined to make me miserable today.
“Gray’s usually a fair boss.” Kat frowned as she leaned against a post. “Folks like working for him even if he’s on the strict side.”
“Usually is doing a lot of work in that sentence,” I teased.
“You do seem to rankle him like a horsefly circling his tail.” Unlike Grayson, Kat was quick to smile back. “He’s usually unflappable, but you’ve got him swinging in the breeze. Nicely done.”
“Thank you.” I gave a courtly bow.
“Tell you what. You get this done before the school bus comes, and you can ride when the girls get their lesson.” Kat smiled as she gestured beyond the barn door to the paddock, where many of the horses were milling about. By girls, she meant Maverick’s niece Hannah and Colt’s daughter Willow, both of whom were horse-obsessed. “Cinder needs more practice.”
“Riding practice would be awesome.” Resolved to earn that lesson, I applied myself to the grossest of tasks, cleaning drains and taking the extra step of shining the drain covers. I was done with plenty of time to help Kat bring Cinder, Magnolia, and Pepperjack in for the riding lesson.
Accordingly, I was following Hannah and Willow around the ring, working on my turns, when Grayson finally made a reappearance.
“What’s this?” He strode up to the arena gate.
“Kat said I could ride if I finished the drains.” I knew he was talking to me even without him saying my name.
“He did a great job.” Kat walked over to him and patted his arm, an action I knew far better than to attempt and was slightly jealous of. She pitched her voice all soothing. “You’re gonna need him riding fence sooner or later.”
Harumph. Grayson made a frustrated noise but didn’t disagree.
“Did you need me for another job?” Mirroring Kat, I kept my voice all sweet, ignoring his obvious displeasure.
“As soon as you’re done here, you can head over to the hay barn. The loader’s broken again, so we’re needing to load by hand before chow. Make sure you find a pair of work gloves. Otherwise, your hands will turn to hamburger in no time.”
“Sure thing, boss.” I gave a chipper nod as he stomped back out.
Being agreeable wasn’t working as well as I’d hoped, and neither was doing the best job possible. He hadn’t even mentioned my shiny drain covers. If being good wasn’t getting me noticed, maybe it was time to be bad.
Chapter Eleven
Grayson
Halloween fell on a Friday and a payday to boot, so the bunkhouse was full of folks in a hurry to spend their cash and have a little Halloween fun. Most everyone had plans to head into town or farther on to Durango, and they’d all cheered at the morning meeting when I said the hands could knock off early if the chores were all done.
The hay loader was still broken, which meant a lot more time spent loading bales onto the flatbed truck. No one liked the task as bales were heavy, and the twine tended to break at the least opportune moment. However, today, everyone was focused on getting the afternoon loading done as quickly as possible.
Everyone other than Adler, that was. Lord, but he had been on my last nerve the past few days, moving at the pace and urgency of the last float in a town parade. His first few days as a hand, he’d been Johnny-on-the-spot, only too eager to do a good job. The last two days, he’d been woefully terrible, dropping bales, lollygagging, distractible, and doing a half-assed job on his tasks until I sent him back for a second try.
“Did you sweep the horse barn earlier?” I asked as we finished. The others were quick to head back to the bunkhouse, chatting happily about their weekend plans. I had none, so I didn’t mind lingering to ride herd on Adler.
“Oops. Forgot.” Adler made a show of slapping his forehead. “I’ll go do that now.”
“I’ll be along to see that you do.” I was mighty tired of needing to check up on him, especially since I suspected he was perfectly capable of keeping himself on task.
Sure enough, I arrived at the barn to find a half-swept floor and Adler leaning on the broom, checking his phone.
“Are you trying to get me to fire your ass?” All my frustration of the last few days came out in my tone, but Adler didn’t recoil from my ire.
“What do you mean?” He blinked all innocently.
“Your first couple of days, you were gunning for hand of the year, going over and above on every task.”
“You noticed.” He had the absolute gall to preen like I was giving out awards.
“And then your work went to shit.” I gave him a hard stare as he continued to smile. An unhappy possibility entered my brain. Hell. What if he was adjusting worse to ranch life than I’d thought? “What gives? You okay? Keeping up with your meetings?”
Adler’s smile faded, replaced by an indignant frown. “I’m fully sober.”
“Good.” I had no reason not to take him at his word, but my concern remained.
“Maybe I’m simply bad at ranch work.” His tone was sly, almost teasing.
“I’d agree except I saw what you hammered out at first.” I hadn’t wanted to load him up with praise, but he’d been better at stall mucking than a lot of new hands who’d done 4-H all through school. Adler had done extra as well, shining drain covers, getting corners and baseboards, keeping his area in the bunkhouse all clean and neat, instead of the explosion of clothes currently erupting from his dresser. “I think you’re being bad on purpose. Only question is why.”
“Perhaps I need more oversight.” Adler’s eyes sparkled. Today, they were more hazel thanks to his dark coat and black hoodie. “A stern hand, so to speak. You should discipline my insubordination.”
“Fuck.” The word escaped before I could school my reaction. Of course. I should have known. “That’s a lot of big words to say you did it to get a rise out of me because I wasn’t praising you enough.”
“Clearly, it worked.” He grinned.
“You’re happy I’m pissed?” I might never understand this man. He sure did like to poke at me, though, and just like that, the memory of the pond bubbled back up, the way he’d pushed and pushed that day too. And I’d liked it. Heat swept through me.
“I’m happy you noticed.” Adler’s eyebrows went up like exclamation points on his grinning expression. His heated look said I wasn’t the only one with memories of that day. “And like I said, feel free to punish me.”
“Finish sweeping while I think on what to do with you,” I growled. This banter was getting us nowhere good. I was seriously worked up and in danger of losing my cool. No matter what Adler said, working out my frustrations by ordering him to his knees right here and now would be all kinds of wrong.
“If you need suggestions…” Adler trailed off with one of those musical laughs of his.
“Sweep.” I pointed at his broom. Amazingly, he actually listened this time. Of course, being Adler, he had to add a lot of shimmying as he finished the job. He did have a nice ass, not as skinny as the rest of him, high and round, and all kinds of distracting as he wiggled with the broom.
“Did I say dance?”
“It gets the job done.” Adler shrugged like there was nothing wrong with his little pole-dancing routine. He swept the last of the chaff into the dustpan with a flourish. “See? All clean.”
“I see.” It was a much better job than his first effort, but I wasn’t about to heap on the praise.
“You’re still mad.” Adler’s face drooped right along with his shoulders. “You should do something about that. Teach me a lesson.”
“I don’t fool around on the job.” No sense in tiptoeing around what he was asking for because it sure as hell wasn’t extra chores.
Adler made a show of checking the time on his phone. “Believe it’s past quitting time. Everyone else is taking their night off for Halloween. Nothing but leftovers and time on our hands.”
“Maverick isn’t expecting you?” Lord, I should not be entertaining this idea in the slightest. Sneaking around was a terrible idea and unlikely to lead anywhere good.
“Nah. He and Colt are taking the girls to the county festival at the school. I didn’t want to be a fifth wheel.” Adler moved in close enough to lay a hand on my arm. It was the first time he’d touched me in months, and an electric sizzle raced from my arm to my neck right to my already overloaded brain as he continued, “How about I trick or treat at your place instead? You don’t want to risk fooling around in the barn here, but you’ve got a door that locks, I presume.”
“You presume a helluva lot.”
“I do.” He grinned because he knew he had me.
“Someone needs to bring you in line.” I’d gone and done it, let him poke me until I had no choice but to play along. Something about fooling around with him was more intoxicating than half a bottle of Jack. Letting my stern yet playful side out felt good in ways I couldn’t fully understand.
“Someone should.” Adler nodded his agreement.
“Go shower.” I pointed in the general direction of the bunkhouse. “You see fit to knock on my door after, you better be in a following orders mood.”
“Oh, I will be.” Adler winked at me and gave me another electric pat on the arm. “You’ll see.”
I’d see all right. I’d see all the reasons this was a bad, bad idea, but hell if I could stop the anticipation gathering low in my gut.
Chapter Twelve
Adler
“Trick or treat.” I knocked on the door to Grayson’s trailer. I’d triple-checked that I was at his place, not Kat’s, because the trailers were similar. Both were aging single-wide mobile homes with metal front steps and minimal frills. But Grayson’s had the ranch truck he used most out front while Kat’s had a pumpkin on the narrow metal porch and a little collection of gnomes next to the bottom step, fanciful touches I couldn’t see Grayson doing in a million years. Hers also didn’t have lights on, which was good because the fewer people who saw me heading in Grayson’s direction, the better.
I’d rushed through my shower, not wanting to give him enough time to change his mind about letting me talk myself into an invite. My hair was damp, and I wore my coat over a T-shirt from a previous Halloween that read Hate is Boo-Sheet with a cute little ghost waving a Pride flag.
Grayson took his sweet time before answering the door. He too had wet hair and clean jeans. No shirt, though, so I took a moment to admire his fuzzy chest and the impressive horse tattoo on his left pec. He had a towel slung over one shoulder, adding to my mental image of him all soapy in the shower. Maybe he’d also had to resist the urge to rub one out.
“Trick or treat. Give me something good to eat,” I said in a singsong voice.
“I see you’re still full of sass.” He gave me a pointed look.
“I promised to follow orders, not to turn into a robot, but I can be good, especially with proper incentive.” Something about him brought out a bratty side I’d been largely unaware of until that day at the pond. Pushing him felt so damn good though.
“Something tells me you mean to be naughty.” He didn’t sound particularly put out by the thought as he stepped aside to usher me in.
“Naughty can be good.” I waggled my eyebrows at him. Fully intending to stay awhile, I shrugged off my coat. His trailer was the typical long, narrow variety with a living room to the left and a kitchen and eating area to the right of the front door. The place was spotless to the point I wondered if he’d vacuumed for my benefit, but the furniture and decor were quite possibly older than me. The only nod to this century was a large flat-screen TV on a low stand opposite an oversized leather recliner and a floral loveseat where I set my coat.
“Naughty is gonna earn you more discipline,” Grayson warned, like that was going to stop me.
“Please.” A whimper escaped my throat. I had never played power games like this before, but want surged through me, the prospect of more of his firm tone and clipped orders making me rock hard from anticipation alone.
