Page 50 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

“What was that about?” I asked.

“I told him not to tease you.” Dalton eased closer, his head in the hollow of my shoulder. “He told me right from the start that you were sweet on me.”

I coughed to relax my throat. Dalton’s protectiveness hit deep inside me. “He’s a smart kid.”

“Let’s go get some dinner.”

He sounded as unwilling as I was to discuss how quickly we had been drawn to each other. Not at the start, perhaps, but soon after that. For which I was very glad. Dalton had extended his PTO through Friday, and in the meantime, I needed to make the most of the time we had left together.

Chapter 16

Dalton

Moving into Walter’s office part-time didn’t make my job easier, but it did give me eyefuls of Jake when he came into the barn, and I’d scoot back and lean into the doorway to watch. I sometimes had to go to the staff building when the Wi-Fi would grow weak or when I had to pull more folders as I dug through the disaster of years of sloppy bookkeeping. But I always came back to the barn.

It made the audit less overwhelming, probably because I was looking at it bit by bit, attacking it in small chunks, rather than sitting in a utilitarian office with that row of rusting file cabinets staring at me all the time.

Of course, everything else faded into the wayside when Jake appeared. I’d hear his boots and sense that he’d just taken off his hat because he was now indoors. There were always tasks to occupy him, but he’d take a moment to sayHey, how’s your work going?in that low-timbered voice of his, his focus all on me. I’d turn to see him standing in the doorway. I could never get enough of that.

My first don’t-be-afraid lesson was Monday afternoon. I’d changed into blue jeans. Jake had brought us lunch: turkeysandwiches with double cheese and double mayonnaise. A small box of chocolate cake, with the icing smeared all around.

I dutifully ate my half because what the hell. With all my running around at the ranch, I was burning off more calories than I could count. My clothes were starting to hang loosely. Which made it easier for Jake to tug them off me, so there was no harm in that.

When we had finished eating, Jake led Snowball into the middle of the barn. She wore only a halter, and Jake held her woven canvas lead in one hand. She was white and gray, and the sunlight danced off her mane. Her hooves were enormous. When she turned her head to look at me with her dark eyes, I wondered if she was imagining whether or not to step on me.

“Come and say hello,” he said, and though I would have given anything not to be there, to not have asked for this, I didn’t want to disappoint him. So I walked close, closer to Jake than the horse, and stopped. He took my hand and pulled me a little farther.

I could have gotten away if I wanted, of course. Just shaken off his grasp and walked away. But I didn’t. I stayed where I was.

“You can pet her,” he said.

He showed me where. Along her sleek, powerful neck. Her soft nose. The spot between her shoulders, which twitched at my touch. Her long, pale sides. Her flank. Then he got me a brush. A body brush, he called it. He showed me where to use it: everywhere I could pet, and maybe a few more places. But not between her ears, too sensitive. We used a softer brush there, and on her legs and belly.

I stepped back, proud of myself, when he went to fetch a comb for her mane and tail. A chamois cloth to finish her.

“Why does her backside look bigger?” I gestured at Snowball, struggling to explain what I meant. “Than the other horses’, I mean. Buddy looks more even. Balanced front and back.”

“That’s a good question,” he said, in the manner of a natural-born teacher. “Buddy is a mix. Part mustang, part something else. Snowball, she’s a quarter horse. She’s purebred. AQHA certified.”

I nodded. Certifications meant a lot in my world, too.

“Quarter horses’ hindquarters are bigger in proportion to the rest of them,” he continued. “In the quarter mile, the first quarter mile of a race withanyhorse, a quarter horse would win. Even against a thoroughbred. These powerful hindquarters are what give them that initial burst of speed. Of course, speed isn’t the most important thing here on the ranch. Snowball can drive cattle with a cowboy asleep on her back. She can find water on her own. She can stand guard over a herd. When things go awry, she doesn’t make a fuss.” He gazed at her with admiration. “There ain’t nothing like this horse.”

“What about Buddy?” I asked, oddly worried whether Buddy might become jealous were he to hear such talk.

“Buddy’s my baby,” Jake said, a sweet flush coming to his cheeks. He looked at me. “Walter helped me buy him. Couple years back. I rode borrowed horses before that.” He handed me the chamois cloth. “Buddy’d carry me to the ends of the earth and back with a song in his heart. Now, take that cloth and polish her. From front to back, going with the direction of her coat. Watch her shine right up.”

When we were done and we’d combed her mane and tail smooth, she did shine, and she lifted her head, arching her neck to look at us as if waiting for the compliments to start raining down. Which they did, as Jake referred to her, in turn, asmy beauty,gorgeous, andprincess. I loved the way he loved horses.

When he handed me horse cookies and reminded me how to present them to her, with my palm flat, I was feeling more comfortable and not even worried about her large hooves. Which we then cleaned with a hoof pick and wiped with hoof oil.

After all that, and a kiss from Jake, the other ranch hands were coming into the barn, and a hands-on-hips talk started about replacing hay bales that were now soaked because they hadn’t been properly stacked and covered.

It was good to get back to my desk. Good to sit down and shut the door to the office halfway and praise myself for being so brave.

“You did good, Dalton,” I said out loud. I opened my laptop, and the folder on top of the pile, and sharpened my pencil. And dug into the task. I worked hard the rest of the afternoon, with little daydreams about Jake in between.

After dinner that night, beneath a clear sky, the warm air turning cooler as the sun set behind the cottonwoods, the pines, and the foothills, someone built a bonfire in the half-circle that the bunkhouses clustered around.