Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,25

and not get daggered looks. They obviously didn’t like her, and that suddenly struck him. Why didn’t they like her?

Why do you? he asked himself, but he had no answer to either question.

He sat down at his desk. “It’s nothing, guys. Do you have your schedules for today?”

“You’re no fun,” Chris said. “I came by to say I’m headed to San Antonio with Greg to get that load of hay. We’re going to pick up the swather parts we need.”

“Oh, perfect,” Dallas said, pretending to look at something ultra-important on his laptop.

“And I came to talk to you about a couple of days off,” Leon said. “My mother is having her gallbladder removed, and she needs someone to sit with her after she gets out of surgery. You know, the drugs make a person loopy.”

“You have the paperwork?” Dallas asked, and Leon stepped forward and took a folded square of paper out of his pocket.

“Right here.”

Dallas took it and unfolded it to find the dates. Not for another month. He tapped and clicked to get the calendar for the shop, and no one else had requested those days off. “You should be good,” he said. “I’ll put it in right now.”

“Thanks, Dallas,” Leon said. “I’ll bet we can figure out who it is,” he said as he and Chris turned to leave the office.

“Yeah,” Chris said, and Dallas expected their voices to get quieter the further from him the walked. But they didn’t. In fact, it sounded like Chris was still in his office when he said, “I’m sure we can figure it out, Leon. Looks like a woman is coming this way right now.”

Chapter Eight

Jess saw the two grease monkeys ogling her as she walked toward Dallas’s office. She knew Leon and Chris, of course. She knew everyone who worked on the ranch. “Good morning,” she said politely.

“Morning, ma’am,” Chris said, twittering a moment later.

She paused and peered at him, something igniting in her blood. “What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” Leon drawled. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Dallas,” she said, ready for them to move on. Chris had moved over to mechanical after she’d had enough of his complaining in the stables. Ginger had reported that it was a much better fit for him, and he’d been doing well in the past year since he’d left her crew.

Of course he was, Jess thought. He didn’t have a supervisor over here to answer to. At least not until she’d hired Dallas. She tried to see past them to the office, and thankfully, Dallas filled the doorway.

“Go on, guys,” he said. “You’ve got work to do.”

Chris and Leon moved on, and Jess turned to watch them go, wondering what she’d done to them. Again. She’d simply asked for Chris to be transferred, and he had been. He still had a job, and he was better at it than he’d been with the horses.

Leon had worked his way through all the women here at the ranch, and Jess had been dating someone else when it was her turn. At least, that was what he’d told her. She’d been more disgusted with him for that than anything else, and perhaps she had told him she wouldn’t go out with him even if he asked.

He never had, and she couldn’t help feeling like she’d been slighted in some way.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing,” Dallas said, touching her elbow. His skin seared hers, and she turned toward him. “What are you doing here?”

“I just came to see you,” she said, smiling at him as she pressed in close to him to enter the office. “You got an offer on your house?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But I should by tonight.” He smiled too, and in Jess’s opinion, he didn’t do that nearly often enough. She didn’t see him often enough to really know, though, and she decided on the spot to change that. How, she wasn’t sure, but if they started dating, surely she’d get to see him more.

She’d spent the last two weeks fighting with herself over whether or not she should even want to see him more. In the end, she’d always come back to yes, she wanted to get to know him better.

The problem was, Dallas was like a walled city. He didn’t say much, and he was so busy that anything she did to pop into his life would be extremely noticeable. She’d settled for texting a little bit here and there and seeing him occasionally at the West Wing. He