Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,18

to be fed and exercised at the same time every day, and Jess found she did too.

“How’s the rest of the string?” Rich asked as she climbed over the fence and they started around it together.

“Good,” Jess said. “Bumblebee gave me attitude this morning about the saddle, but I’m wearing him down. All the temps came back normal. Noah’s Ark won’t leave his leg wrappings alone.” She looked at Rich and rolled her eyes. “So good. Normal.”

“I’ll paint more of that cayenne pepper on them.”

“I think he actually likes it,” Jess said with a smile. She and Rich chuckled together, and she gathered the lead line for Diamond Valley from a hook on the wall, climbed back into the ring with the horse, and got the rope around her head. “Come on, sweetheart. You did so great today. Before you know it, you’re going to be showing a little boy or girl how amazing the ranch is.”

“She’s going back to her stall?” Rich asked, taking the line from Jess as she left the ring.

“Bath today,” Jess said. “Bill should have the stalls in our string done by then with fresh wood chips. Then yes, back in the stall.”

“We need to work on that pasture rotation,” Rich said.

“Yeah.” Jess sighed, because there was always more tasks to do than hours in the day. “I’ll pull up the one we’ve been using and get it started.”

He nodded and veered left to take Diamond Valley down to the wash bays while Jess went right to go check on her men. They each worked with a string of horses, most of them much bigger than the one she oversaw. With over seventy horses at Hope Eternal, Jess had a lot of conversations each day, and the paperwork involved in their care could make the gruffest man cry.

Her phone buzzed again, and this time, Jess removed it from her pocket. Dallas’s name sat on the screen, which caused a frown to pull at her eyebrows. She wasn’t even sure why. She’d enjoyed texting with him last night. But this morning, when he’d shown up at the barn early, then barked at her and Nick that he really only had an hour for the tour, her annoyance with him had blossomed.

The call ended before she could decide to answer it or not, and she checked the other missed calls. She had three, and they were all from Dallas. Her heartbeat shot into a faster pitter, and she looked up as if someone would be able to hear it.

There was always activity in the stables, and today was no different. Men and women walked horses around. They fed them. They checked on them. They wrote on clipboards and left those by doorways. The riding lessons would begin in two hours, and most of the horses should be back in their stalls for a bit of rest before then.

Almost everyone in the stables only worked on the ranch part-time, and on weekends, Jess ran a skeleton crew to feed and water the horses, monitor their health, and rotate them out to pastures. Everyone took a break from training on Sundays, and Jess sometimes found an hour to go sit in church and listen to a pastor.

“Bootstrap is showing some signs of a cough,” Giselle said as she went by Jess with a different horse in tow. “Tony said he’s looking for you.”

“Okay,” Jess said absently. She didn’t go find Tony though. She looked around again, as if she were trying to make an escape from the stable without anyone seeing her. She ducked down a small hallway between two stalls and pulled out her phone.

With a slightly shaking finger, she tapped to return Dallas’s call.

“There you are,” he said instead of hello.

Jess couldn’t decide if he sounded frustrated or not. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry. I can’t really answer the phone when I’m in the ring with a horse.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

Jess leaned against the wall and pressed her eyes closed. “What’s up?” She infused as much false brightness into her tone as she possibly could.

“Something’s a bit off with you,” he said, his voice lowering in volume and pitch. “I just wondered if I’d said or did something to upset you.”

“No,” Jess said, hating how two letters could be a lie.

“You sure?”

She shifted her feet, not sure what kind of game this was. How had he known she was slightly annoyed with him? And had he actually called to clear the air between them? Who