Mountain Country Cowboy

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But he didn’t relinquish it.

She gave it a tug. He held fast.

Looking into his amused eyes—he’d no doubt noticed the spark of irritation in hers—she fought back the urge to jerk it out of his hands. “May I have my clipboard, please?”

“You may.” He leaned in slightly. “But only if you forgive me for sharing my opinions. I get the feeling that, in spite of the future role I’ll be playing here, you think I’m stepping out of bounds—Princess.”

Heartbeat sprinting, to her irritation she couldn’t draw her gaze from his. Out of bounds. That’s definitely where he’d stepped. “I—”

“So it’s not a vicious rumor,” a man’s voice boomed from the open doorway.

Cash immediately relinquished the clipboard and stepped away from her as the man approached. Now as big and burly as his father, Eliot Greer was dressed in work clothes and boots, his unruly blond hair shower-damp. He was a handsome man several years younger than Cash, who was at the moment looking at Eliot blankly, as though trying to place him.

But why was her face warming as if the new arrival had caught her in a compromising situation with their new hire?

“You remember Eliot Greer,” she said somewhat breathlessly, “don’t you, Cash?”

“Oh, yeah.” Eliot chuckled, but didn’t sound amused. “He remembers me.”

Chapter Four (#ubaa52016-73d4-5e85-9f6a-57a7ca39502f)

Now that a name had been put to the big bruiser of a guy, Cash could see the resemblance between the grown-up version of Eliot and his father, Jeb. Although time had passed, those pale blue eyes that had once stared holes in Cash didn’t cut him any slack now as they flicked between Rio and him.

He’d have to be stupid not to recognize the disapproval in the gaze—and its softening when resting on Rio. Cash had barely set foot on the property, and already another of Rio’s admirers had surfaced.

Eliot thrust out his hand. “Wish I could say it’s good to see you again, Herrera.”

“Been fourteen years.” Cash briefly clasped the offered hand. He had no intention of reviving youthful conflicts.

Eliot’s eyes narrowed. “I have to admit I’m surprised you’re back in Hunter Ridge considering this is where—”

“Let’s not go there.” A familiar splinter of anger wedged itself under Cash’s fairly thick skin—something he’d been on guard against in recent years, too well aware of where it could rapidly lead. Conscious of his son seated nearby, Cash’s words came quietly. “We were boys, and our parents’ poor choices had nothing to do with us.”

The man snorted. “Maybe not for you, but—”

“Eliot.” Her eyes issuing a warning, Rio nodded toward Joey, who, although earlier occupied with the barn cats, was now taking in the conversation with interest. “This is Cash’s son. Joey.”

The other man studied Cash’s boy for a long, expressionless moment, then walked over to shake his hand. “Good to meet you, Joe Herrera. I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of each other this summer.”

The boy nodded uncertainly, his questioning eyes darting to his dad. Then Eliot moved back to Cash.

“So you have yourself a kid now. That come with a wedding ring?”

Cash’s jaw tightened at the insinuation that there wouldn’t have been one. “It did. Divorced now.”

“Figures.” He gave a dismissive shrug, then turned to Rio. “I have those three wagons cleaned out and repainted. Axles oiled. So you can come around to give them your stamp of approval when you’re finished with this morning’s ride. See if there’s anything else that needs attending to before that church group comes in for hayrides over Memorial Day weekend.”

“We have a packed schedule today.” She flipped through the pages on the clipboard. “I trust your work, though.”

The man’s chest puffed out at her words of praise. “I want to make sure things are up to the Hideaway’s standards. Assuming, of course, that those high standards hold since I was here last summer.”

He cut a dubious look in Cash’s direction, and Rio frowned.

“Of course our standards hold. And I’ll do my best to check out the wagons today.”

“Much obliged.” He smiled in acknowledgment, his gaze lingering on Rio. Then he gave Cash a brisk nod and strode out of the barn.

“Sorry, Cash.” Rio made a face that reminded him of when she was a kid. “Eliot seems a bit touchy today.”

Because Cash had been standing too close to Rio when the other man had walked in? “He never liked me much when we were kids. Can’t say I blame him.”

“He needs to get over it.”

Pushing thoughts of Eliot momentarily aside, Cash looked to where Joey was again playing with one of the cats. If he hadn’t been mistaken, his son had been uneasy that morning about spending the day around the corrals and barns. But in an effort to please his dad, he’d gone along with what they’d discussed the day before—the importance of the role he’d play in enabling Cash to get started on the new job. At least the furry felines seemed to have kept him distracted. Of course, horses had yet to be removed from the confines of their stalls. But so far, so good.

Rio tapped the clipboard with a knuckle. “Looks like we’re set to go. And no rush, but later today Luke has a saddle he’d like you to—”

“How long, again, is Eliot here for?”

At his too-abrupt comment, she gave him a questioning look. “He’s in college. Comes back here to work every summer. Is that a problem?”

“Just wondered.” Fortunately, as the future horse operation manager, he wouldn’t have to deal with the other man year-round. But would there be an expectation that Eliot be hired full-time postgraduation? “What’s he do besides maintain wagons?”

“Odds and ends. He does building and fence maintenance. Is active in trail rides and hayrides. Whatever needs to be done.”

“What’s his major?”

She frowned, tiring of his questions as she’d earlier tired of his opinions? “Sports medicine. He’s working on his master’s. Why?”

Cash had taken a few night classes after high school himself, but hadn’t gotten anything close to a degree. Eliot was one up on him in that respect. But, thankfully, the career path Eliot had chosen didn’t sound like something he’d be putting into practice around the Hideaway in the future.

Cash shrugged. “I hope that works out for him.”

And kept him far from Hunter’s Hideaway. Eliot appeared to have a chip on his shoulder, and Cash didn’t want to be forced to be the one to knock it off. But the guy could rest easy. Cash wasn’t looking for trouble, and he wasn’t campaigning to be president of Rio Hunter’s fan club. Once upon a time, crazy in love, he’d played that thankless role with Lorilee longer than he should have—right up until she’d walked out of his life with another besotted fool, toddler Joey in her arms.

“Cash? Did you hear me?” Rio bumped his arm with her clipboard, drawing him back to the present. “Our summer hires will be here any minute to start working with the horses. You might want to find a place for Joey that’s more out of the way.”

“Yeah, sure.” She was right. Sitting in the open might not be the best spot for him once activity picked up. Cash hadn’t figured out what he’d do with Joey when accompanying Rio on this morning’s ride, either.

When he’d suggested to Joey that he could double-up on Cash’s horse, it hadn’t gone over well. So he’d backed off that idea. Of course, he could always force the issue if that’s what it came down to. Throw him up in the saddle and be done with it. That’s what his own father, not pandering to any sign of weakness, would have done. But he didn’t want to make the boy more fearful or risk humiliating him.

He walked over to Joey and placed a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s find you a better place to hang out while I work.”

“Can I bring the kitty?”

“Sure.” But barn cats usually had a mind of their own.

When he had his son safely situated in an old-time surrey where he could watch the activity in the biggest corral, Cash joined Rio and a group of high school and college-aged summer hires. All were Hunter Ridge natives who were as horse crazy as he’d been at their age. A great bunch he’d enjoy working with.

But in short order, he again butted heads with Rio.

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

It wasn’t Rio’s imagination. Cash Herrera had an opinion on literally everything that had to do with anything.

After the last ride of the day, with satisfied guests sent home or back to their quarters to await dinner and with horses unsaddled, groomed, fed and turned loose in what passed for pasture at this high elevation, she was more than ready to call it a day. And put some distance between herself and the opinionated cowboy, as well.

But she had to stick around the barns until Cash returned from retrieving his son from her folks’ place. They needed to have a talk concerning that turn of events. Her mom, having seen Joey racing his toy cars along the leather seat of the surrey before the first ride of the day, had taken him under her wing—despite Rio’s protests. Baking cookies. A walk with Rags. Coloring pictures. Kids always took to Mom, and while she appreciated her mother’s consideration for the little boy, Cash couldn’t go fobbing his kid off on other people. Especially not on her mother, who still needed regular rest.

“He probably has an opinion about that, too,” she said to one of the cats that was carefully cleaning a front paw a few feet away from her. With a sigh, she continued filling the water tank in the main corral.

Cash’s first observation of the day, of course, had to do with the inadequacy of the Hideaway’s facilities to meet the expectations of the ritzy clientele of the last place he’d worked. Next had been his insistence that anyone under eighteen wear a riding helmet despite the waiver stating the requirement was for those under sixteen. And he further changed things up by deciding one of the mares would handle better with a snaffle bit rather than a curb and that one of the geldings needed to sit things out until his bad habit of crowding the horse in front of him was corrected.

All the latter things were good. He knew his stuff. But already he was taking over.

Having turned off the spigot, she slowly cranked up the hose as she listened to the chattering of summer hires coming from the main barn while they attended to their end-of-day chores. More than once, to her exasperation, she overheard the name Cash.

It wasn’t her imagination, either, that the guests on the two rides that day had deferred to him more times than not. That they directed their questions and comments to him rather than to her. Granted, he looked the part of an experienced horse wrangler with those well-worn boots, the Western hat low on his brow and that slow smile loaded with charm. Unlike him, she preferred to don a riding helmet to encourage the younger crowd to willingly accept the headgear rules. So maybe she didn’t look as authentic as their guests thought she should?

Obviously, too, summer hires Sue, Kaitlyn, Micki and Deena, not many years her junior, had fallen head over heels for Cash, and he wasn’t helping matters with the way he teased them and listened attentively to whatever they had to say. Which, to her way of thinking, was way more than needed to be said. Even Ned, Leon and Billy seemed to be developing a hero worship of sorts, setting cowboy hats at the same rakish angle as their new idol. When she’d complained to Delaney at lunchtime, she got no sympathy. Just a grin and a sounds like someone’s jealous to me retort that irritated her further.

She was not jealous. She was a woman who had a job to do and people to supervise to make sure Hideaway guests had the best experience possible. But suddenly the whole world was being forced to rotate around Cashton Herrera.

“I know you said you wanted to see me, but you look like a thundercloud fixin’ to break loose.”

Startled, she looked up at Cash as he pushed off from where he’d been leaning his muscled forearms on the corral fence. How long had he been standing there while she was lost in her thoughts? Thoughts about him.

As he unlatched the corral gate, she gave the hose crank one final jerk. “Enter at your own risk, cowboy.”

He slipped through the gate and fastened it closed, then walked toward her with that confident cowboy stride of his. Broad shouldered. Narrow hipped. No wonder he had the girls swooning. She deliberately looked away. Any man she’d ever again take an interest in had to have more going for him than that. The superficial looks and charm no longer hacked it.

“So what’s up, Prin—”

“Where’s Joey?”

He halted a few feet away, a smile surfacing in spite of her clipped words.

“He’s playing with Chloe and Tessa. And yes,” he added before she could voice the question, “they’re supervised.”

Chloe was Luke’s younger of two daughters by his first wife, and Tessa was the child of the former Sunshine Carston, town council member, artists’ cooperative manager and Grady’s bride as of last Valentine’s Day.

She placed her hands on her hips. “It’s not going to work, Cash.”

“What isn’t?”

“Not having a regular caregiver in charge of Joey until after school is out. Besides, Anna usually has a full plate of summer activities—horse shows, church youth group outings, chores around the Hideaway.”

“We’ll work around them.”

“How? My mom can’t be taking on your kid to raise. No way. She’s—” Maybe she shouldn’t go there. Mom’s health was family business and didn’t concern an outsider.

“She’s what?”

“She has more important responsibilities than playing babysitter.”

Cash frowned. “I didn’t ask her to help. You were there. She offered. Joey would have been fine right where he was.”

“You think so?” She gave him a disbelieving look. “Take it from me, that kid isn’t going to be satisfied with sitting by himself for the next week, no matter how much you’d like to believe it. It’s a matter of time before he gets bored and restless, and the next thing you know—”

“We made a deal.”

“A deal.”

“Right. I explained how I need to make a go of this job and that I need his help. That he has to stay out of trouble. He was good with it.”

This man was clueless. “He’s eight years old.”

“And smart as a whip.”

“I’m not disputing that. But a deal? I can see what you’re getting out of it, but what’s in it for him?”

“Well...” Cash looked momentarily perplexed, then his voice firmed. “Whatever time I have free on Sundays is his. Whatever he wants to do. Within reason, of course.”

“So ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week he kicks his heels and twiddles his thumbs all by his lonesome while you go about your business.”