Perfect Tales of the Were - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,4

been one of the top people, but not the foreman. Taking the job with Cassandra had allowed Rich to move up and start his own program with little to no owner input. It was a good situation for Rich. As long as he took care of the rest of the ranch, Cassie let him have the run of the barns, of which there were many.

Most of the outbuildings were in need of repair. Some, more than others. Cassie was willing to pay to restore the buildings, but she left the actual work up to Rich and the hands. She paid everyone salaries, too, but there was also income from boarding the horses, which went into Rich’s business. His horse breeding and training operation was going to be a separate endeavor, which would ultimately pay rent to Cassie, once he was making enough money to do so.

Cassie was a good landlord in that she was willing to give Rich time to get his operation up and running. She was also able to foot the bill—at least for a while. Rich had filled Cody in on the particulars of the arrangement because Rich intended to put Cody to work training horses as soon as they had enough work to spread around. Rich said he wanted everything to be transparent to Cody, so they all knew where everybody stood.

Cody could respect that. Even if there weren’t something funny going on at the ranch, Cody would have enjoyed this kind of work. He liked horses. Cody was one of the few predatory shifters who could finesse prey animals like horses and cows into doing what he wanted. He had a gift, some had said. To Cody, it was just fun to earn an animal’s trust and coach it into becoming a winner—however that was defined.

He’d worked with show horses, cow ponies, even thoroughbreds. There were a wide variety of horses in this part of Texas and the other parts of the country to which he’d roamed in earlier times. He always came back to Big Wolf, though. His hometown was special in ways that no other place he’d been could mimic.

When he was done for the day, Cody grabbed a quick dinner in the main room of the bunkhouse, which doubled as their dining hall. There weren’t that many hands working on the ranch at the moment, and they had a very nice setup. One of the larger outbuildings had been re-worked into a big main room with a kitchen and dining area at the back, a living room setup in the main part with a big screen TV, usually set to a sports channel, and big couches for everyone to relax during their time off.

On either side of the main room, there were separate bedrooms and a couple of suites. The foreman and his wife had the largest suite, which had its own private bathroom. Cody had one of the smaller bedrooms and had to share the bathroom with the room next door, which, at the moment, was unoccupied. In fact, the room wasn’t even finished. Cody was working on finishing the drywall as time permitted. It was one of the tasks Rich had asked him to help out with, and Cody didn’t mind. He liked working with his hands.

He was glad of the private bathroom at the moment, as he took a quick shower before heading out to his date with Cassie. He didn’t want people talking about Cassie and what she may, or may not, be doing with one of her ranch hands, so for now, he was trying to keep things quiet.

Cody changed into fresh clothes and threw the dirty ones in the hamper. One of the perks of this job was laundry service and meals served up by the bunkhouse cook, who served the same food to Cassie, he’d learned. No special trappings for the lady of the manor. Cassie had her own kitchen and did a lot of her own cooking, but she also ate with the hands a few times a week, in the bunkhouse.

One thing Cassie insisted on, though, was that she do all the confections. The bunkhouse cook did the meals. Cassie did the desserts. She claimed she was using the hands as guinea pigs for her new recipes, but she always had something cooked up special for the bunkhouse. Cakes, pies and all sorts of desserts were kept in stock at all times, supplied from Cassie’s kitchen in the big house. It was like