“You are.” Shelby’s sigh echoed down the line. “It looks bad, Krissy. Like surgery and major-time-off bad. We’ll know more after the X-rays and probably an MRI, but . . .” Emotion thickened her voice once more. “One second he and Pardner were pushing the cows back up toward the high pasture, and the next thing,
boom
. Pardner tripped, did a somersault, and went right over on top of Foster. He was scrambling to get up when I got there. The horse was, I mean. Foster . . . he wasn’t moving. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.” She sob-hiccupped.
“God, Shelby.” Krista cradled the phone to her cheek, like that would do anything to bring her friend closer. “Seriously, forty minutes. Or at least let me call Jenny.”
“I already did. She’s on her way.”
“Good. That’s good.” It didn’t make Krista feel any better about not being there, though. “You’ll call me with updates? I don’t care when, how often, or what I’m doing when the phone rings, I want you to call me. Promise?”
“I will. I promise. But”—another hiccup—“you’re going need to make some other calls, you know.”
Krista could’ve sworn her stomach had already sunk as low as it could go. “Don’t say it. Not yet.”
“Sorry, kiddo, but sometimes the truth sucks. And the truth is, you’re going to have to find a new head wrangler to finish out the season.”
B
y the time the weekend rolled around, Krista had proof positive of something she had long suspected: Foster was irreplaceable.
Granted, he could be crabby with the guests, but he had been her go-to guy since about five minutes after she’d taken her first reservation. Now, she was leading the rides herself with Junior bringing up the rear and both of them trying not to blink—because when you mixed horses, greenhorns, and the great wide open, the craziest things had a way of happening. Like when Art Finkle overbalanced in the saddle during a river crossing, made a panicked grab for his estranged wife, and took them both down with a big, messy splash. Or when the Miller family tied their horses to one another rather than the hitching rail in Keyhole Canyon, and Sassy—a chestnut mare who more than lived up to her name—made a high-speed beeline for the green grass of the upper pasture, dragging the other three along for the getaway.
“Smile, sweetie.” Her mom nudged her with an elbow. “It was a good week.”
In the office, maybe.
But Krista plastered on a smile as several sets of guests headed for where she and Rose stood with Gran near the shuttle bus, which was packed and ready to go.
“Thank you!” Mandy, a single mom to a pair of sulky preteens who had softened considerably over the course of the week, gave Krista a fervent hug. “This was . . . You’re amazing. All of you. We’ll be back next year, and I’m telling all my friends about Mustang Ridge.”
Krista returned the hug, feeling her smile turn genuine. “I’m so glad you had fun. You’ve got great kids and you’re doing an amazing job with them. I’ll look forward to seeing all of you next summer!”
Even better, she got smiles and hugs from Mandy’s daughters, Bria and Kyle, who had been full of eye rolls and
whatever
s when they arrived.
“Tell Jenny we said bye,” Kyle ordered. “She’s the coolest.”
“I’ll do that,” Krista promised. “Have a safe trip home and don’t forget to double-check your cinch before you mount up.”
Bria looked mournful. “I don’t think we’ll be able to ride much in Chicago.”
“It’s a metaphor,” Kyle said with lofty scorn, then added, “Duh.”
“I knew that,” Bria shot back. “I was being ironic.”
“You were not.”
“Was so.”
“Annnd, they’re off.” Mandy came around her
daughters and herded them up the shuttle steps. “See you!”
Next in line was a rawboned teen, all hands and feet and hair that fell in his eyes. “Hey, Randy!” Krista offered a fist bump and got one in return. “I see you’ve got your rope.”
“You know it.” He patted the coil she had given him, which he wore slung over one shoulder in fine cowboy style. “I’m going to practice every day back home.”
“Not on your brothers or any family pets, okay?”
“How about my stepfather?”
She shot him a narrow look at that one, but Bradley Nixon—who had quickly graduated from
potentially high maintenance
to
type A but a good guy
—stepped up and slung an arm across his son’s shoulders. “Actually, Randy and I are going to keep riding. I did some research, and there’s a barn not far from my house that offers lessons.”
“They’ve got team penning, calf roping, and even cowboy-mounted shooting!” Randy put in.
“No guns,” his father said immediately, but then qualified it with, “at least not at first. Let’s get our riding solid, and we can go from there.”
They were going to be okay, Krista thought as they headed for the shuttle. It was nice knowing she had played some part in opening the lines of communication . . . though the horses and the high country should get most of the credit there.
After the Nixons, there were more hugs, more gratitude and promises to return, until the bus filled up and
the line wore down to the final two: Art and Amy Finkle, who stood with their fingers twined together, wearing matching smiles.
Krista blinked. “Well. Look at you two!”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Amy reached up and patted Art’s vacation-stubbled cheek. “That dunking in the river got us laughing together for the first time in—God, I don’t know how long. Then we talked a little, and a little more, and, well . . .” She blushed.
“The next thing we knew,” Art said with an eyebrow wiggle, “we were sitting out behind our cabin with a couple of empty wine bottles, watching the sun come up over the mountains.” He kissed Amy’s temple. “It was a pretty perfect moment.”
And so is this,
Krista thought. Maybe Reunion Week hadn’t been as much of a disaster as she had thought. “I hope we see you again.”
“Count on it,” Amy promised.
They exchanged final hugs and good-byes, and Krista watched as the Finkles climbed onto the shuttle, with Art keeping a hand on the small of his wife’s back like he didn’t want to let go, even for a second. Then the shuttle door accordioned shut, signaling the end of another week.
As the bus lumbered off, Krista gave one last wave, then turned back to her mom and Gran with a sigh. “One week down, seven more to go before the end of the summer season. I hate feeling that way, but there it is. On the upside, I don’t think the guests suffered.”
“Are you kidding?” Gran said. “That was our best
Reunion Week yet. As long as there are horses to ride and cookies in the saddlebags, we can fudge the rest.”
Rose made a face. “I’d rather not have to fudge for too much longer. I’m beat, Eddie is hiding in his workshop, I haven’t seen Big Skye in days, and no offense, Krissy, but you look like death.”
“Wow, Mom, way to rock the tact.” Not to mention reminding her that she had spent most of last night trying to catch up in the office and prep for the new guests.
“You should take a nap.”
“Can’t. Too much to do.”
“Like hire someone to fill in for Foster?”
“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” Krista tipped her head back and stared up at a fluffy white cloud that was shaped like a sledgehammer. “I feel like Goldilocks.” She pitched her voice to a girly falsetto. “This one can’t ride her way out of a paper bag. This one has the people skills of a lima bean. And this one is just ri—whoops, never mind. He’s staring at my chest.” Dropping her voice back to normal, she added, “I’m not finding a ‘just right,’ or even an ‘I can live with this for a couple of months.’ Foster and I have called in all the favors we can think of, but nobody good enough to do the job wants it. I even tracked Ty down and offered him twice his old pay to come back for a couple of months, but I guess his band is doing really well.”
Gran shook her head. “Bummer. I mean, good for Tyler, but that would have been an easy solution.”
“Who needs easy? At this point, I’d settle for complicated if it would get the job done.” Saying it brought a
pang, though, because there was one very complicated option that Krista had been doing her best to ignore ever since it snuck its way into her head in an annoyingly chirpy little chorus that started with
Wyatt’s in town
and went through several variations of
He’d be perfect for the job
.
Ugh. Unfortunately, her inner ranch boss had a point—he’d had a part-time job leading trail rides when they met in college, and even the rankest of beginners had swaggered like cowboys when they climbed off at the end of a ride with him.
“You’ll figure something out.” Gran patted her hand. “You always do.”
“From your lips, Gran. In the meantime, I’m going to hit the office and see if I can knock a few things off the to-do list.” Like confirming the hair and makeup people Jenny had found for Makeover Week and taking a crack at the growing digital mountain in her e-mail in-box. Maybe a message from the perfect fill-in would be waiting for her.
But instead of an “I heard you were looking for a temporary dude wrangler, here are my awesome creds” message, there were thirty other new e-mails since that morning—inquiries from potential guests, order info from suppliers, and a few offers to make parts of her anatomy bigger or smaller, depending.
Those could be deleted. The others she would have to deal with. Thing was, she couldn’t settle into a productive rhythm. Her eyes drifted to the window, her fingers tapped on the desk, and her toes beat a pattern
on the floor.
Just do it,
she told herself.
Just call him.
She surged to her feet and paced the small space, resisting the urge to kick a box of logo-embroidered towels out of the way. It wasn’t their fault she kept coming back around to the seemingly perfect solution that made her want to stick a Bic in her eye.
Make the call. What’s the worst that could happen?
He could say no.
Or, worse, he could say yes.
Gah!
She already had the number—she had gotten it from the mayor, along with the go-ahead for him to compete in the mustang contest, even though he’d worked behind the scenes for a day. Which was putting the chuck wagon ahead of its team, but whatever.
“Just do it!” She snatched up the phone and dialed before she could talk herself out of it again. Then, listening to it ring, she crossed her fingers.
Please be voice mail, please be voice mail, please be
—
Click.
“Hello?”
Not voice mail. Bracing herself against the sound of his mellow baritone, she said, “Wyatt. It’s Krista. Which you probably figured, if you’ve got caller ID.”
Don’t babble. Be professional.
“I, ah, wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?” he said, inflectionless.
Tightening her grip on the handset and telling herself to pretend this was just another stranger who’d been recommended for the job, she said, “I don’t know if you heard, but my head wrangler blew out his knee over the weekend.”
A beat of silence. “I caught something to that effect.”
“Then you know I need to hire someone for the next couple of months.”
More silence. Then: “Are you offering me a job?”
No. Yes. This is crazy.
“If you’re available.” She hadn’t been able to make herself look him up, hadn’t wanted to know what he’d been doing for the past eight years. Which was irresponsible from a business perspective, but it was where the business and personal sides of the situation had locked horns. “I know it’s short notice, but you mentioned being between jobs.”
“You seemed like you were in a real hurry to get away from me the other day.” His voice rumbled on the airwaves, stirring echoes inside her as he asked, “What changed?”
Nothing. Everything. Dang it!
“I kept thinking about closure and bringing things full circle, and . . .” She pinched the bridge of her nose, unable to lie, even to him. “I’m desperate, okay? It isn’t easy to find someone with the right mix of teaching ability and horse skills, and I know you’ve done the job before.” When he didn’t say anything, she launched into her sales pitch. “It’d be an eight-week contract, room and board plus salary.” She named a generous figure. “You’d be in charge of training Jupiter, the gray mare I got the other day, and overseeing all the guests’ interactions with the horses. Lessons, trail rides, mounted games, cutting cattle, overnight trips, the works. You’d be staying in Foster’s old bunkhouse, which is mid-reno at the moment, as we’re turning it into a luxury cabin. It’s
livable, though. It’s six days a week, Saturdays off, and you can have a stall if you’ve got a horse to put in it.”
“You want me to work for you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Think about it.” Her heart thudded against her ribs. “Or just come out tomorrow for a trial run, and we can see how it goes.”
“Okay.”
“We’d need to work together some, especially on the training, but—”
“I said okay.”
He had, hadn’t he? She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone completely dry. “Okay you’ll think about it, or okay you’ll do it?”
“What time tomorrow?”
She wasn’t really doing this, was she? “Breakfast starts at seven thirty, but the barn stuff doesn’t really get rolling until more like nine.”
“I’ll aim for seven thirty. Get the lay of the land.”
Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.
“Okay, I guess I’ll see you then.” That felt so inadequate, even over the sudden rushing in her ears, that she added, “And, Wyatt?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. If this works out, you’ll be saving my bacon, big time. I’ll owe you one.”
“The way I see it, we’ll be even.”
Her stomach twisted.
So not going there.
“Let me give you Foster’s number. You can talk to him about the specifics of the job.” There, that sounded businesslike and in control, didn’t it?
But when he rang off, she sat there for a second,
staring at the computer screen, not feeling professional. At all.
What was she, nuts? She couldn’t do this, not in a million years. She should call him back and tell him she didn’t need him. She could tell him that she found somebody else. Or was moving to Belize. Anything but “see you in the morning.”
Ohmigosh.
He would be there tomorrow morning. At Mustang Ridge. It should’ve been one of those twisted reality-meets-impossibility dreams. Not her real life.
She couldn’t do this.
Hands shaking, she dialed again. Twice, because she messed up the first time.
Jenny answered on the second ring. “Hey, sis. What’s up?”
“I need alcohol, chocolate, and girl time,” Krista announced, “and not necessarily in that order.” She hesitated, then went ahead and said it out loud. “I just sort of hired Wyatt to work at Mustang Ridge.”