Page 11 of Last Chance Cowboy
Cara was looking at him with a kind of quizzical expression on her face, and he was never going to answer that question. Whatever it was.
“So,” he said. “You… going out on that ride later?” He should’ve just left. He had no idea why he was trying to make small talk with her. The front door of the bakery was open, and about six guests walked in.
“No,” she said, looking back toward the guests. “Welcome in.” She smiled at him and then scurried away like she was a mouse who had suddenly realized she was standing in front of a cat.
“I ought to go,” he said.
“Oh, on the ride?”
“No. To work. My truck is outside, still running.”
Cara smiled and shook her head. “Of course.”
Then she waved at him, releasing him from the interaction. She was talking to the customers before he got out of the dining room, and his jaw was tense. He hadn’t meant to get involved in her personal life in any way. And there, he had made the stupid mistake of getting himself involved. To get nosy about her personal life, when it was none of his goddamn business.
He didn’t remember very many names, butCareystuck out to him. That was a last name he’d definitely heard before.
He was going to have to ask Cody…
Well, no, he wasn’t going to ask Cody, because asking Cody would indicate that he cared what was going on with Cara, and he didn’t. Maybe that was what happened whenyou let your life get a little bit too solitary. Hadn’t happened to him yet, but maybe he was settling into his next phase. He was going to be one of those weird old men. He knew it. If he lived down in town, he would scare the children. They would talk about old man Barton and how you had to stay away from his place because he would chase you right off his lawn, waving a broom.
But then, he supposed that would mean he’d lived to be an old man.
It was a privilege.
Though something uncomfortable began to vibrate under his skin, and he couldn’t say quite what it was. He ignored it the whole drive over to the barn, and as soon as he pulled in, that vibration turned into a fully formed thought that ambushed him without his say-so.
What’s the point of living all that long if you know that’s your future?
Getting old was a privilege, so he’d heard. He would consider it a big-ass privilege to grow old enough to be the grumpiest, scariest man on the block.
Sometimes life was only about survival, at least, his had been for a good long while. But in his book, surviving was winning.
Thriving was something he didn’t worry much about.
There were a few other ranch hands milling about in front of the barn, and he parked his truck and got out. He held back a sigh because Pike Malone was there, which meant there was going to be a conversation he couldn’t avoid because Pike would talk to anybody and anything.
He wasn’t gregarious in the way that Walker was. Walker was smooth. He had an easy time reading the room and coming to conclusions about how he wanted to act based on that room.
Pike had never read a room in his life. Pike brought theenergy he carried into the room, and everybody else had to adjust around it. Which meant that whether Zane wanted to or not, he was often subjected to Pike’s tall tales and flights of fancy.
“Morning, Zane,” Pike said.
“Morning,” he mumbled back.
“Little late for you.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah,” Pike said. “What have you been up to?”
“Nothing,” he said. But he reached into his truck, took his Caramel roll off the plate, and began to devour it in large, decisive bites.
He had a feeling that not even Pike would push him. Even he was a little bit afraid of Zane, which you wanted out of a foreman. Not that he was the foreman... not officially, but he had a feeling Cody would be asking him to do it soon enough. It was the position he was landing in as things settled in with the resort.
He had his own land. He could run his own outfit if he wanted to. He had winnings from the rodeo, money from his time in the military, and an insurance payout he’d never touched. There wasn’t much that he had to do. Which he had discovered was a dangerous thing.
He was a man who needed something to do. It was the only thing that kept him from being the scary old man at thirty-four.
