Page 54 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

He paused, and there was a flush to his cheeks that I wasn’t used to seeing.

“Since I inherited the ranch, I’ve stumbled, made bad decisions. Haven’t been able to get one project started before another fence breaks or the river overflows its banks. And these guys? Never once have they askedWhat the fuck are you doing?Well, okay, maybe Jesse has, but he’s the foreman. He gets to. The rest of them, they put their heads down and work, and they keep their opinions to themselves. Anyway, my point is, if you hurt Jake, these fellows will have something to say about it.They’ll be pissed—at you, and probably at me, too, for bringing you here. You see?”

It was a lot for Lucas to say all at once. Usually, he was a minimum words, maximum effect kind of guy. That I’d gotten such a speech told me how much he was coming to care about the ranch and its people. That he was protective of them. And that Jake had friends, good friends, even though he never seemed to talk to them much, or talkaboutthem at all.

“I see,” I said. “I don’t know how it started, and I’m doing my best to figure things out.”

“I know you are.” Lucas was trusting me, the way he always had. “Better get to work, then,” he said, waving me off. “Those books won’t audit themselves.”

I was smiling when I went into the barn.

I worked all morning, my ear cocked for the sound of hooves that I imagined I could identify as Buddy’s. I’d seen Snowball in her stall, giving me the stink eye because I didn’t bring her a cookie. So Jake had to be riding Buddy.

I was standing in the doorway to the office, stretching my back and wondering if I should go get some coffee, when Jake, astride Buddy, and two other ranch hands, Malcolm and Gunner, rode into the barn. The horses had foam on their necks and were tossing their heads.

When Jake dismounted, I went up to him but stood back while he unsaddled Buddy. The horse came first, I knew that much.

“Get me a brush?” Jake asked, turning to me. “Hoof pick? Comb?”

I was aghast at the way he looked, dust from head to toe. Sweat streaked his neck, and his face was a mask of dirt with lines around his mouth where he’d drunk from his canteen. He smelled of sweat, and his lips were chapped.

I raced to get the things he needed, filled my pockets with horse cookies, and hurried back to Jake’s side, just wanting to be of use. He’d carried Buddy’s saddle and blanket to one of the racks on the wall and was running his fingers through Buddy’s dark mane, untangling it. Soothing the foam of sweat along Buddy’s neck.

“You did good, my friend,” he told the horse. “Real good.Realgood.”

“Where did you go?” I took the comb back from Jake and started in on Buddy’s mane so Jake could start brushing him down. “Can I ask? You look like hell.”

His eyes were bloodshot. He’d not shaved before leaving the bunkhouse that morning. He was clearly exhausted, and still he kept going.

“A mountain lion killed one of the cows last night,” he said. “Or early this morning.” He shook his head, and his hands stilled on Buddy’s back. “We went after it.”

“Did you get it?” I asked, imagining Jake firing a rifle from his saddle like a hero in some old Western movie. I wondered if it was the same mountain lion that had followed us on our trail ride that first day. “Did you shoot it?”

He looked over Buddy’s back at Gunner, who, I now saw, was taking a long rifle out of some kind of leather sling. He opened it with a loud snap and removed two shells.

“Yes, but probably not the way you mean,” Jake said. “Gunner is a crack shot, but we don’t want to kill a creature like that if we don’t have to, so he missed on purpose. Fired two warning shots to scare the cat. We chased him into a little box canyon. Cornered him there. Then we built a fence out of logs. Threw a chunk of dead cow in to keep him a while.”

My eyes were wide. They must have ridden miles to look like they did. Like they’d been dragged through the dust.

“Animal control will come,” Jake added. “They’ll tag him and haul him out west where there are no cattle to tempt him. He’ll be able to hunt wild animals as he was meant to do.”

This all was so shockingly real, almost brutal. And very, very knee-weakeningly manly. Not that Jake would have thought so. The matter-of-fact way he described his day was like a bucket of cold water all over me. This wasn’t a story or a Western movie. This was his life.

I opened my mouth. To say what, I hardly knew. But something to let him know how he affected me. Moved me to the core. Made me want to prove myself to him. Or, at the very least, to push myself more instead of continuing to poke along in my life, complaining about my boss. Wishing things were different while sucking back an iced latte and calling my life hard.

“Get a bucket of water for him?” he asked. “Something to drink while I finish up?”

I walked fast and grabbed a rubber bucket from a peg on the wall, then filled it from the spigot. I brought it back and held it out to Buddy.

“Just place it in front of him,” Jake said with a shake of his head. “He’s still breathing.” At my puzzled expression, he added, “I walked him the last half mile, but his breath is still slowing down. I’ll give him a sip, and then I’ll walk him. Then give him another sip.”

They must have galloped a long way, and it made my head spin. I had bits and pieces of fairy-tale Westerns dancing in my head, as hard as I tried to fight it.

“Is there anything else I can do?” I asked, which seemed inadequate after what he and the others had been through.

“No,” he said. “I’ll finish up and come get you for lunch.”

“Yes, please.” Slowly I stepped out of his focus so he could take care of Buddy and not be distracted by his city friend, whichwas me, who was mentally turning everything into a romantic movie about cowboys.