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“You want to be a summer hire?” Zach leaned back in the creaky old kitchen chair that had probably been on the ranch since they rebuilt the main house following the Second World War. After Meg had accosted him in the barn, telling him she had a matter she wished to discuss, he’d invited her back into the bare-bones kitchen for coffee. Strong coffee. Coffee that would put the proverbial hair on one’s chest. As to Jason...she had no idea where he’d disappeared to. He wasn’t a guy to run, but he also wasn’t a guy to butt his nose into his boss’ business.
She hoped she had him feeling edgy.
“I’m out of work and there are no new jobs on the horizon. I plan to apply to grad school to pick up some new certifications, but it’s too late for the fall semester.”
“And...”
“I’m shifting gears in my life.”
“So you want to be a ranch grunt?” Zach narrowed his eyes at her in a way that had no doubt shaken the truth out of the younger brothers he had raised, because Meg certainly felt like squirming. Zach might be her cousin, but the ranch was the center of his life and he wasn’t going to tolerate any turmoil there.
He leaned forward again, tapped his forefinger on the table. “I’m not buying this, Meg. Why move here to do work you could do on the Marvell North, or on the hay farm? It isn’t like I pay all that well.”
“I want to step away from my old life.” She spoke the partial truth with enough conviction that Zach’s dark eyebrows came together even more, which encouraged her. “I have résumés out, but no job offers. Brett has the hay farm under control and doesn’t need me. If there was ever a time to cut loose for a month or two...figure out a few things...”
“What about the summer camp you run?”
If she followed through with this madness, she had no doubt that Brett’s wife, Jacie, would take over the horse day camp for her. She’d volunteered a lot of hours the previous summer and loved working with the kids.
“It won’t be an issue.” She leaned forward, mirroring her cousin’s body language and went for broke. “I’ve lived a very cautious life, Zach. No risks. I followed the prescribed path, did all the things I was supposed to do.” Like a peaceful middle child did. “Now I’ve hit a point where I want to take a few risks. Deal with some things while I’m in a position to do so.”
“Is one of those things Jason?”
Meg’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t answer. She had no idea what Zach knew about her and Jason and she wasn’t going to address the matter if she didn’t have to.
“The ranch can’t afford to lose him.” It was a flat statement of fact.
“Do you think he’d walk just because I’m here for a few months?” She cleared her throat, which seemed unusually tight. “I’m not interested in...” She had no idea how to finish the sentence. It was possible that all Zach had heard was innuendo and rumors. She was not going to confirm them by giving up too much. “Anything but working in a new environment.”
“What do you teach?”
Meg blinked at the sudden shift of topic. “I’m a math specialist.”
“Can you teach reading?”
She eyed her cousin cautiously. Did he have a job lead in the area? Not exactly how she’d seen things playing out, but she reminded herself that she was now all about the risk. “From kindergarten to eighth grade. I have elementary certification.”
Zach shook his head. “What I’m asking is can you teach someone to read?”
Meg gave him a bewildered look. “I guess?”
“Your answer doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
“Your questions don’t exactly inspire comprehension.”
He let out a breath and again drummed his fingers on the old table. Debated, although Meg hadn’t a clue as to what he was debating. “Our branches of the family aren’t exactly close...but we are family.”
Meg shrugged instead of answering.
“I think we understand each other to a degree.”
They did. It was a gut-level understanding. Perhaps some kind of genetic bond that overcame time and distance. The cousins knew one another, yet they didn’t. But there’d always been a feeling of connection. Despite the ancient family rift, they were all Marvells. Their ancestors had fought the elements and the odds and created successful ranches during difficult times.
“So you must know that I won’t allow anyone to fuck with my crew. Not even family.”
Megan felt her cheeks warm as she wondered if he was speaking literally. Fucking wasn’t her intention. “I don’t want to...mess with your crew. I want to prove a few things to myself.” And someone else.
“Not at the expense of the harmony of my crew.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll hire you on for three months, but Jason has to agree.”
Meg debated about assuring him that everything between her and Jason was long dead, then decided against it. She wouldn’t make the mistake of protesting too much.
“That seems fair.” The words came out matter-of-factly, reflecting no hint of her growing sense of defeat.
“That’s not all.” Zach lightly drummed the table again, his lips pressed together thoughtfully before he met Megan’s gaze. “Here’s the deal. I have a guy who can’t read and would rather take a bullet than admit it. You teach him to read well enough to survive, without making him quit, and if Jason agrees to have you here, you can be on the payroll for three months.”
“As a reading teacher?”
“No. That’s what you do at night. By day, you can be Shane. He’s hitting the rodeo circuit and I need someone to help Cody build and repair fences.”
“So I work all day and in the evenings, too.”
“Same as Brandon.”
“The guy who can’t read.”
Zach nodded.
“What’s the pay?”
“Same as any cowboy on the payroll, plus room and board. Although...you’ll probably have to stay in the main house. The cabins are all in use.”
“I have a camper for my truck.” Or rather Brett had a camper.
“Sounds cramped.”
“I prefer the word cozy.”
“You’ll stay in the main house.”
It was a decree and Meg didn’t argue.
Jason stared at Zach, who scowled back at him as he waited for a reply to a crazy question. “You’re the boss,” he finally said.
Zach rolled his eyes. “No. The question is: will it be a problem if I hire Meg for the summer?”
Jason shifted his weight. “I don’t see a problem.” He hoped his pants didn’t light on fire as he spoke. “We’ll do fine.” Besides, he couldn’t believe she’d follow through with this lame-ass plan. She was pissed at him. He’d drawn a line and she’d stepped over it. But she had five hours of driving and two hopefully sane sisters waiting for her on the Marvell North. Between those two circumstances, surely this would never come to pass.
“We could use the help.”
A statement of fact. Shane was about to embark on an intense summer-long rodeo circuit, leaving the ranch one hand short—one and a half if they counted him, since it was going to take him a couple of months to get back up to speed. “I agree.”
“This will allow you to focus on those colts full time.” They hoped to have the entire crop of three-year-olds ready for the Ranch Horse Sale in Billings in mid-October. The problem was that they had more colts than usual and he wasn’t one hundred percent—which also meant he wouldn’t be able to lend a hand as easily as before.
“I’m going to be honest, Zach. I think she’s doing this because I drew a line.” His mouth tightened as he glanced across the kitchen before bringing his gaze back to his boss. “But she’s a good worker.”
“Will having her here be a problem?”
Same question as before and Jason had the same answer, because he wouldn’t allow it to be a problem. “Not at all.”
“I’ll give her a call. She can start on Monday.”
“Fine.” That gave Meg five days to back out of this crazy plan. Because once she cooled off, once her sisters got hold of her and talked sense, she’d see that going to work on the MCC wasn’t a good move at all.
Meg did not back out of the crazy plan.
She arrived late Sunday evening and parked next to Cody’s rig in front of the main house. Jason watched from the window of his small cabin—one of four that housed the crew of the MCC—as Megan made a couple of trips to and from the truck to carry suitcases and a saddle into the house. Then the porch light went off and Jason leaned back in his chair, propping his knee against the solid oak table he’d commandeered from the barn shortly after hiring on. The game was on.
He showed up at the main house at 6:30 the next morning, wearing his business face, because that was all he was going to focus on for the next three months—business. He’d train horses and be polite to Meg and the weeks would pass. She’d go home or to grad school or wherever she needed to be and he’d release a relieved breath and life would go on. Without Meg. As it should.
He knocked on the door, then pushed it open when Zach waved him in from where he was sitting at the kitchen table—the place they held their meetings to outline the objectives of the week. Meg came into the room just as he walked in the door, their eyes met for the briefest of moments and then they went to sit at opposite ends of the table with Zach in between them. A second later Cody came in, whistling under his breath. He poured coffee and sat on one of the three remaining seats. “Brandon’s moving the wheel line. Shane’s in the shop.”
Zach propped his elbows on the table and cupped his fist in the palm of the opposite hand. He looked at Cody. “North pasture fence needs checking and you need to calculate materials to repair the jackleg fence.”
“On it.” He jerked his head toward the door. “I gotta catch Shane before he heads to town.”
“Yeah—tell him I want to see him, too.” Zach shifted his attention to Meg as the door shut behind Cody. “I want you to go with Cody. Pretty much, do what Shane would do. Cody will line you out.”
Meg nodded, idly pushing her long brown ponytail over her shoulder—a gesture Jason remembered well, and wished he didn’t.
“And on the days when you don’t have a lot on your plate, we have five or six foals...” he shot a look at Jason, who held up his hand, fingers spread “...five foals that need to be halter broke. Six when Cody’s mare foals. We’ll talk about the halter breaking this evening...among other things.”
Jason had no idea what the other things were, but Meg appeared to. “Sounds good,” she said.
“And...I think that’s all.”
Meg pushed back her chair and went to the coffee pot to fill her travel mug, which was white ceramic with pink hearts and said, ‘World’s Best Teacher’ in bright red letters. “See you later,” she said with a cool smile before heading out the door, leaving Jason and Zach alone.
Jason gave Zach a “See? There’s no problem,” look. Fifteen minutes into working with Meg and no problems at all.
Zach merely gave a small shrug and lifted his coffee cup. “How’re you feeling?”
Jason sure as hell hoped he meant physically. “Okay.” Zach gave a small snort. “All right—my ribs hurt like hell and it feels strange having Meg here. More because she’s female than...” He made a gesture.
Zach let out a breath. “I’m curious to see how this plays out.”
Jason’s nerves gave a jump. “How so?”
“I’m kind of hoping that the two branches of the family might get a little closer.”
Jason didn’t know the history of the rift, so he said, “This may be a good start.”
“I think so. I think if we collaborated more, we could benefit one another.”
“So hiring Meg might be mutually beneficial? Between the branches of the family,” he added, so that Zach didn’t think he had a stake in things. Which he didn’t.
“Yeah. I’m kind of hoping it will.”
“Is that a warning to be nice to your cousin?”
Zach gave his head a slow shake. “No. I think she can take care of herself. If I didn’t, she wouldn’t be here.” He smiled a little and leaned back in his chair, more relaxed than Jason had seen him in a long time. “Do you know, once at a rodeo in Polson, when we were kids, I got into a fistfight in front of Meg and Jo? Now we didn’t know each other all that well, but those girls flew into action.”
“What did they do?”
“Pelted my opponent with rocks. Pretty much got his attention so that I could take care of business. After that...well, I kind of developed a soft spot for my cousins.”
Meg leaned her forearms on the sun-warmed wood of the lodgepole fence and stared out over the field where the horses grazed. She was pleased that Zach had given her the foals to halter break.
She’d lived and breathed horses while growing up on the ranch. Alex had been all about the dogs and Jo, the barrel racer, had been all about speed. Both loved horses, but horses hadn’t been the center of their existence, as they’d been with Meg. Escaping on her favorite mare had been how she had dealt with trauma and drama—and with Alex and Jo butting heads, drama was not uncommon. As a result, she was good with horses. It was men that she seemed to have a problem with. The screen door of the main house slammed shut and her shoulders stiffened. One man in particular.
She closed her eyes as her chin dipped down. This really was crazy, just as Alex had said. She was glad to be doing something different for the summer, but that wasn’t why she was here. The truth was that other than being fed up with being overly passive, and needing very much to prove to herself—and anyone else who cared to notice—that she wasn’t going to be pushed around, she had no firm objective. She was there to see how things played out—something she had never, ever done before. She was operating without a plan or a safety net.
It was time.
The way Jo and Alex had tried to talk her out of going, the way they assumed that she couldn’t fend for herself in the big, bad world was quite possibly the biggest reason she hadn’t backed down. Even those near and dear to her thought she needed to be protected.
But her newfound determination to stand up for herself didn’t keep her heart from beating harder as heavy footsteps sounded behind her. Even though it could well have been Zach, she knew it was Jason. Remembered the sound of his movements, the cadence of his steps.
She let out a silent breath and turned.
He wasn’t happy that she was there. She hadn’t been happy when he’d left. That made them even.
“We need to talk.” The low timbre of his voice rolled over her.
She ignored her gut-level response and spread her hands. “Here I am. On the ranch, as you suggested.”
He scowled at her, just as he had when they’d started to get close and he hadn’t been certain how to handle it. Meg had known what to do. It had been one of the only times that she’d gone with her gut instead of analyzing pros and cons to death. And even though she’d ended up nursing a broken heart—something she’d thought was a myth until she’d experienced it—she’d never been able to regret her time with Jason. That didn’t keep her from being angry with him. In some regards, it made her angrier.
“I told Zach that I had no problem working with you.” He lightly gripped his belt buckle with both hands.
“I hope that’s true.”
His mouth tightened briefly. “Sure it is.”
“I’m not here to get back with you, Jason.” Because she wasn’t going through that again.
“Good to know.”
She glanced down at her well-worn boots, then folded her arms in front of her as she raised her gaze. “I’m here to figure out a few things before I move on to the next chapter of my life.”
“Or grad school...whichever comes first?”
She smirked at him, something she’d never done to him before. “But you were the catalyst for this particular move.” Her expression sobered. “I’m done having people decide what’s best for me.”
“My mistake.” He shifted his weight. “I didn’t think you’d really come.”
“Neither did my sisters.”
“Are they also catalysts?”
“Most definitely, but the bottom line is that I’m here to do a job.” She let her arms drop to her sides, opening herself up, doing her best to appear as confident in her decision as possible.
“So it’s just business as usual?”
“Exactly.”
“While you figure stuff out.”
“Very little of which involves you.” And that was kind of a lie.
“Because I’m just a catalyst.”
“Correct. So while I’m here, I treat you like a peer and a colleague and you do the same. Mutual respect.”
“This all feels pretty damned bogus.”
Meg didn’t ask in what way, because she was half afraid of the answer. “Bogus or not, it’s the situation.”
“Mutual respect. No problem.”
Brandon headed by, whistling under his breath, and Meg smiled at him. He gave her an openly flirtatious grin. When she glanced back at Jason, he was frowning at her, but his expression quickly shifted to neutral. “I need to get to work.”
“Me, too.” They pushed off the corral at the same time. Meg thought about offering her hand for a neutral colleague-like handshake, but quickly discarded the idea. It was one thing to work side by side with the man. Another to touch him.
Jason grimaced as he shrugged out of his heavy jacket and hung it on the hook next to the door, before putting on his canvas vest. Meg was on the MCC to prove something—to herself and, he suspected, to her sisters and to him. He believed her when she said she wasn’t there to rekindle what they once had. He’d made a mistake two years ago, allowing himself to get involved with her to the point that he didn’t know what his next step should be.
In his world, people married and divorced within short time spans, raged at one another and the world in general, made their children miserable. There was no one to truly depend on. When you got close to someone, they either disappointed or disappeared.
Cody Marvell had been an exception to the disappoint/disappear rule...as had his step-grandmother, Maxine, who’d continued to be his grandmother even after she’d divorced his wildly dysfunctional grandfather.
But Maxine died when he was thirteen, leaving him to cope by getting into a shitload of trouble. It wasn’t long before he was shipped off to a juvenile boot camp...which had gone a long way toward saving his life. For the first time ever, he encountered true discipline—not the kind that knocked you across the floor or bloodied your nose. And he’d loved it, loved being grounded, having set boundaries. He was one of the success stories. He’d even managed to get his GED before being sent back to his family and the hell that followed, which made it possible for him to join the military at eighteen.
He’d have probably been career military, for want of anything better to do, if he hadn’t met Cody, who’d convinced him that it was totally possible to make a decent life without wearing fatigues and saluting. He also discovered what it was like to have a real friend—one who didn’t sell you out or shift alliances. Or disappear due to circumstances, as had the people he’d connected with at the boot camp.
Cody Marvell had changed his life, helped him become a better person. But being a friend was different than entering a relationship where someone depended on you. Where your screw-ups became their screw-ups. And, apparently, he still had a penchant for screwing up—he put a hand to his ribs, testing for pain—such as interfering in a private dispute instead of letting the bartender call the cops to deal with the matter. Sweetheart, Montana was a small place. The cops would have known all the players. Justice would have been served. He wouldn’t be operating at half-speed.
And Meg Marvell wouldn’t be on the MCC.
He was going to have to be careful of screw-ups like this in the future.
