LITMIR.BIZ

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a good hand, yeah.”

      “Don’t let Brad get to you. He likes to give orders.”

      The red Chevy short box turned off the road and sped across the grass in their direction. Brad leaned out the window. “Hey, Fox, you ready to get to work?”

      “Been ready.”

      “Hop in and I’ll show you around.” He pulled on the brim of his straw hat. “What’s up, Lila?”

      “Have you seen Bingo?”

      “What, that old dog? You lost him?”

      “I can’t find him.”

      “Then he must be dead somewhere. I guarantee you, nobody would steal him.” Brad caught Del’s eye, expecting an ally. “Good for nothing, that dog. Except making a lot of noise.”

      “Only when you come around,” Lila said.

      “Recognition of the alpha. One thing about dogs, they know their place.” He stroked his scraggly mustache with thumb and forefinger, then grinned, basking in the perfection of his observations. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled. If I see hide or hair, you want me to bag it up for you?”

      “If you find him, I’d like to have him back. Del’s already searched the right-of-way.”

      “Del, huh? Just remember he works for me, Lila.” He watched Del slide into the passenger seat. “Don’t let her boss you around, man. She likes to give orders.”

      “Just something to do while I was waiting on the boss.”

      Del’s smiling eyes connected with Lila’s as he propped his elbow on the open window and gave her a conspiratorial wink.

Chapter Two

      Lila wasn’t taking the new hand seriously. She’d known he was kidding when he asked her to go down to her father’s house with him for supper. She had managed not to look out her kitchen window more than once or twice, checking for signs of life at the bunkhouse. She told herself she was only parking her horse in Dad’s corral now because it was time to check in. She hadn’t seen her father in more than a week, and she was suddenly missing him.

      She stuck her socks in her boots and left them in the elaborate mudroom June had added to the plans for the new house, padded through a kitchen filled with the smell of beef and fresh bread—interesting, since she’d never known June to bake bread—past the kitchen table normally used for meals and ventured into the dining room.

      “Well, look who’s here,” Brad said. “There’s an empty chair next to me and one beside our new hired hand. Take your pick.”

      “Your new hired hand asked me to go to supper with him.” Del almost managed to get out of his seat and pull out the chair before she claimed it herself. Lila tamped down a smile. “So I choose him.”

      “You should’ve told me you had a date, Del. We could’ve picked her up.” Brad peered across the table at Lila. “How’d you get here? Don’t tell me you finally decided to put the crazy woman in the closet and get behind the wheel of a car again.”

      She eyed him right back. “The horse I rode in on is helping himself to your hay.”

      Frank laughed. “My daughter is no crazier than I am, son. I’m taking up bread making. Watched one of them videos and got the recipe off the internet. How’d I do?”

      “I knew he’d find it relaxing,” June said. Her red hair looked freshly styled, the color skillfully revived. Dar’s Downhome Dos had done it again. “It’s very good, my darling. And you notice, the baker in the video was a man. The best chefs are men. So it doesn’t surprise me that this bread is delicious. No more store-bought for us.” She flashed Frank a doting smile. “No surprise, he especially enjoyed kneading the dough.”

      “What else has he been kneading?” Brad pulled a fake double take. “Never mind. We probably don’t want to go there with our parents. Right, Lila? I mean, we’re eating.”

      Once begun, half done, Lila reminded herself.

      “He experimented with the dough hooks that came with that new mixer I got him, but that didn’t do it for him. Right, Frank? I’d say mission accomplished, technique perfected. What do you think, Del?”

      Del brandished the buttered heel he’d just torn into. “Great bread.”

      “There’s more in the kitchen,” Frank said.

      “Just for you,” June told Del. “When Brad said he’d hired a new hand, Frank was all about welcoming you with a good meal.”

      Frank gestured with the point of his table knife. “If you’re as good as Brad claims, I’d like to keep you around for a while. Guess Thompson took off without saying too much. I never thought much of him, tell you the truth. Brad says he called a guy you worked for, what? Couple of years, right? Said you’re a top hand.” He turned to Brad. “Where’d you say that was? Colorado somewhere?”

      “Denver,” Brad said.

      “So you came along at the right time. You mind puttin’ up hay?”

      “It was a four-month job,” Del said quietly. “This last time. But I’ve worked for Walsh before. And I guess I wouldn’t be much of a ranch hand if I minded putting up hay.”

      “I used to hate that part of the business, but nowadays, with the new equipment we’ve got, I can just—”

      Brad’s knife clattered to his plate. “I’ll make sure Del has plenty to do, Dad. I drove him around all afternoon, so he knows what he’s in for. He’s like you. Says his cowboy ass ain’t sittin’ on no ATV. Right, Del?”

      “Brad fixed me up with a good mount.” Del glanced at Lila, an I’m-on-your-side look in his eyes. “Nice big buckskin.”

      “Hombre,” Brad told Frank. “Figured you wouldn’t mind.”

      “Best horse on the place.” Frank grinned. “He should be ridden, and by somebody who knows how.”

      Between her father’s grin and the look in the hired hand’s eyes, Lila suddenly took heart.

      “Sounds like something I’ve heard before,” Brad said.

      “That’s what Rhett Butler said to Scarlett,” June put in.

      “Kissed.” Lila attended to buttering her bread. Attention with a secret smile. “He said she should be kissed often.”

      “I don’t get to many movies,” Del said. “This Butler, is he a cowboy? You got a horse needs ridin’ or a woman needs kissin’, you find yourself a real cowboy. Ain’t many of us left.”

      “Probably just as well,” Lila said. “Hollywood isn’t making many Westerns these days.”

      “R-e-a-l,” Del instructed. “Not r-e-e-l. The world is full of actors.”

      Lila flashed him a richly deserved smile.

      “You like that?” His answering smile lit a true twinkle in his nearly black eyes.

      “I do.”

      “What’s going on here?” Brad said. “If I didn’t know better...”

      “You’d think I was rackin’ up points with the boss’s daughter. But I can already tell she doesn’t give out easy points. I’m just trying to keep up with the conversation.” Del glanced around the table. “Lila and I witnessed a rare sight this morning.” He nodded at her. “You tell it.”

      “We watched a fight between a badger and a rattlesnake. They tore up my garden.”

      “I thought I tore up your garden,” Brad said.

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