Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Snagging a pitchfork, I ducked into the closest stall and tried to look busy.
His footsteps stopped outside the stall.
“The hell are you doing in there?”
Fuck.
I kept my head down. “Working.”
“Why?”
My mouth clamped shut, not sure how to answer that one.
“Dammit, Roger, you’re supposed to be looking at the mower, not screwing up my stalls.”
I froze. Roger. Who the hell was Roger?
He most likely wasn’t part of the FBI, so I guessed that was a step in the right direction.
“I’m headed there next,” I replied.
He stomped into the stall and snatched the pitchfork from my hand. “You don’t have to dig to the dirt. Just get the shit off the shavings.” He made a sound that landed somewhere between a grunt and a harrumph. “Come on. I’ll take you to the shed.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“I do if I don’t want to pay for another truckload of shavings.” He walked out of the stall, leaned the pitchfork against the wall, and then shot me an expectant glare. “You plan to stand there and argue with me over horse shit, or are you gonna fix my damn mower?”
Right. Okay. Clearly, I was fixing a mower.
“Lead the way,” I said.
As we passed the round pen, Lofton finally saw us. She did a double take, her eyes growing wide as her face filled with panic.
I gave her a thumbs-up. “Seems Lawrence doesn’t like when Roger touches his stalls. So I’m headed out to see if I can fix the mower.”
She nodded in understanding, but no more convinced than I was that this was a good idea.
“Can I help?” she called, guiding Zoey and Snickers to the fence.
Lawrence never slowed down as he grumbled, “Keep working with Lofton. And for Pete’s sake, tell her to put her heels down. That pony so much as trips, she’s gonna end up in the dirt.”
Her lips thinned as she eyed him closely before flipping a questioning gaze my way. I did not want this to blow up into another episode that was going to have her normal turn into a spiral of chaos. But he seemed pretty chill about Roger fixing his mower.
“I got it. They don’t call me Roger Repair for nothing.” I shot her a wink that at least made her shoulders relax.
“Um…okay. I’ll be here if you need anything.”
One more wink, and then I lost sight of her as I followed her father to the equipment shed, some twenty yards away. As we walked, he grumbled, pointing out things that needed to be fixed. Not necessarily asking me to do it, more just voicing his judgments out loud.
The fence line that needed a new post.
The paddock gate that was leaning.
The overgrown remains of an unkept garden. On that one, he mumbled something about Clara under his breath.
He talked about it all with such proprietary concern and devotion that I made a mental note to take care of it after Brooke and Jenn took off the following day.
The equipment shed was dim and smelled like oil and gasoline as we stopped at a machine that appeared to be held together with nothing more than optimism.
“Here she is,” he announced.
I crouched beside it with my hands on my knees and studied it with the trained focus of a man who had absolutely no idea what he was looking at. I was relatively handy, but I would have needed a scroll unearthed from ancient ruins and a team of archaeologists to have any idea where to start with this thing. Lawrence settled onto an overturned crate in the corner, his attention focused in the distance.
“Look at ‘em,” he said. The sharp suspicion he’d aimed at me in the barn was gone. In its place, a slow, beaming smile pulled at his mouth as he watched Lofton walk with Zoey, Brooke leaning against the rail.
“She’s always been such a good mama,” he said, a smile curling his mouth. “More patient than I could ever be, that’s for sure. If the world were fair at all, my Clara would have been named a saint by now.”
I flicked my gaze out to the round pen, a hollow ache of understanding settling over me.
He wasn’t seeing Lofton, Zoey, and Brooke.
He was seeing Clara, Lofton, and Jenn.
It felt wrong not to correct him. But if he wanted to see his wife, this was the only way it was going to happen.
“Jenn would rather be off chasing boys, but I swear Lofton taught herself to walk just so she could follow her mama out to the barn each morning.” He chuckled. “Not a scared bone in that child’s body.” He leaned forward on the crate, elbows on his knees. “Jenn’s already giving us the runaround, but Lofton is gonna be a wild one when she gets older. She got all of Clara’s beauty and my stubbornness. That one’s gonna put me in an early grave. I can already feel it.”