she drove through, he closed it again before getting back into the cab.
The several dozen yearlings looked like fully grown cattle but much smaller, steam rising as they breathed. Their heads came up when they heard the retriever coming, their lowing growing louder.
“They’re expecting us,” Adam said.
She nodded, pulled out a bungee cord, and affixed it the steering wheel, then climbed out the door and onto the runner, leaving the cab driverless. The retriever was still moving, but now in a slow, wide circle.
She ducked her head back inside and gave a wicked grin. “You coming?”
Grinning back, Adam opened his door and clambered up onto the bed of the retriever. The bales took up almost all the space, and he could only hang on to the chains and pull himself on top of the double stack of bales. The ground looked fifty feet away.
“If you fall, make sure you push yourself away from the truck,” she advised, still smiling. “Those are big wheels.”
And he did fall, several times that morning as they ripped the string off bales of hay and together unrolled them so that they fell in a long, uneven line, startlingly green against the white snow. It was grueling work, each bale eight hundred pounds and frozen solid. The yearlings didn’t seem to care as they chomped happily.
On the drive back to the truck shed for lunch, Adam glanced at Brooke with new respect. He might have been unloading cargo ships the last few months, but much of it was done by cranes and modern equipment. This was a more intense manual labor, and Brooke did it with ease.
She saw him looking at her. Her skin was red from the wind, tiny curls of escaped hair framing her face.
“What?” she demanded.
“You impress me.”
She looked back at the road that only showed their previous tire tracks. “Surely you’ve seen some impressive women overseas.”
“A few. You could handle yourself among them.”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him.
“You’re blushing,” he said.
Brooke felt the heat of that blush spreading across her cold cheeks. “I’m not.” But she was. He sounded like he admired her strength. She didn’t want to think that because it didn’t lead anywhere she could go. “So tell me about the job you took after you were discharged. It must have needed strength because you handled yourself okay for a greenhorn. Or was it all that Marine training?”
“I worked in the shipyards on the coast of Louisiana.”
“How did you get into that?” she asked with surprise.
“A buddy worked there before the Marines and went back. I had nothing better to do, so I went with him.”
“You didn’t want to come home to Valentine Valley?”
“Not really.”
She glanced at him curiously, but his head was turned to look out the window. She could see his strong jaw, the silhouette of his throat and Adam’s apple since he’d opened his coat. That alone was sexy, but she was able to overlook it. She turned back to the road. “But your grandma—”
“That’s who I’m here for.”
“And there was nothing else that made you want to come home?” She couldn’t even imagine it—everything she loved was here, everything she knew. But there was a whole world out there, and maybe he liked the diversity.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance at her, brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“Are you asking if there was a woman I wanted to come home for?”
She frowned, keeping her eyes on the road. “Of course not. After ten years?”
“I’m sure the grapevine would have been buzzing if a girl had waited that long for me,” he said with faint sarcasm. “There’s a constant need around here to know everyone else’s business. One of the reasons I didn’t look forward to returning,” he added.
She shrugged. “It can be good sometimes—or so I tell myself. I’m not a big fan of gossip even if I do share a juicy tidbit with my girlfriends now and then.”
“Who are your girlfriends?”
Fair was fair—she was asking questions, so she had to answer some of his. “Emily, Nate’s fiancée, and Monica, of course.”
“Of course.”
He must remember that she and Monica were best friends—maybe he even realized Monica told her everything—everything—he’d done while they were dating. Brooke hadn’t appreciated his behavior at the time and had been indignant on behalf of her friend. But that was a long time ago.
“Monica’s not married?” he asked.
“Nope. Surprised?”
“A little. I thought she was the marriage-and-baby type.”
Brooke smiled. “I think she’d like to be but she hasn’t