Page 9 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

By the time the sun was halfway up, I knew I needed to give Jake his jacket back. I needed to take a shower and ask which end of town the nearest gas station was. Then I needed to be on my way.

I hesitated before holding the jacket out to him. He took it, sparing me a glance as I said, “Thank you. For the jacket.”

“My pleasure.”

If I’d had time, I could have asked him about the scar on his chin, the color of his eyes, and why he seemed so unhappy when surrounded by nature in that beautiful place. Instead, I walked away, thinking I might stay for breakfast, but that was it. I needed to go home and figure out why I myself was so unhappy, when I had everything anybody could want.

Chapter 4

Dalton

I’d just finished dressing after my shower and was about to suggest to Cameron and Dillon that they get up and follow my lead so they’d be awake enough for breakfast, when I heard a series of shouts outside. I opened the door and went down the pair of steps to see almost a dozen young calves, red with white faces, running past. They were sticking close to the wooden fence line, kicking up dust, and they were making a strange crying sound as they went, as though they were determined to find something while not actually knowing what they were looking for.

Near the barn, where the double doors were open wide, a man in a cowboy hat was leading a brown-and-white horse. The second the horse saw the calves, its head went up in a furl of mane, its eyes bright and focused. Its legs were bunched beneath it, a runner at the starting gate.

It was just about to take off like a rocket when the first guy tossed the reins to a second guy. Who was Jake. He sprinted with the horse for a foot or two, then swung himself astride in one fluid motion.

His hands barely touched the reins as they sped past where I was standing, my mouth open. Dust settled on my shoulders asJake lifted a sturdy, coiled rope from the saddle and swung it out in front of him. The rope did not look light, but he threw it like it was a spool of cotton.

The toss missed, and then one of the calves was coming straight at me like I was its mother. Jake quickly gathered the rope and threw it again, and this time the loop settled around the calf’s neck. Two other men on horseback went after the other calves, but my eyes were on what Jake was doing, because he was about to rescue me from my frozen awe.

His whole body tightened to stay in the saddle as the horse sat back on its hind legs, its forelegs planting stiffly in the dust like it was on tiptoes. I fully expected, as Jake got off—a swing of thigh, a balance of shoulder—that he was going to haul the calf onto its side and tie up its legs, as I’d seen on TV when I’d happened to pause on a rodeo event. He’d be all manly and cruel and yank that calf into submission, throwing up his hands afterward to demonstrate his prowess.

But he didn’t. Instead, as he walked toward the roped calf, which was bawling and pulling back, he clicked to the horse. The horse, almost instantly, stood up, easing the tension on the rope, but otherwise held absolutely still. Jake approached the calf, his strong fingers curling around the rope. Not tugging or pulling, just holding.

“Hey, baby,” he said to the calf, ignoring me completely. “Looking for your mama? She’s in the upper pasture. She’s not the way you were going a’tall.”

As he came right up to the calf, he scratched it behind the ears with one hand, still holding firmly onto the rope with the other. A perfect balance between force and gentleness.

Jake clicked again. The horse moved. The rope went slack, and the calf stood still, and that’s when Jake looked at me.

“We’re weaning them,” he said, as calmly as if we were in a schoolroom and I’d just raised my hand to ask a question.“Gently as we can, but it’s still upsetting to the calves.” He looked down at the calf and patted its young neck, and I saw that he’d left a streak of blood behind.

His hands were bare. He’d thrown that rope without gloves; that was why he was bleeding. As he went back to the horse, pulling the mostly quiet calf with him, making a circle of the rope around his elbow and along the cup of his hand, he didn’t even seem to notice the deep scores in his palm.

Getting the calf back to where it should go, that was what he was focused on. That and a hearty pat for the horse. He talked to both animals as he led them back to the barn or the paddock or wherever they needed to go. And I realized something.

The worn jeans and ratty boots made more sense now. Why wear something new and clean when you were liable to ruin it before the day ended?

He’d been covered with dust, a thin, shiny streak of sweat cutting through the dust along his cheek, a damp curl plastered darkly behind his ear. His eyes had glittered with more animation than I’d seen since I’d met him the day before.

And he’d actually smiled at me, mouth curved in a lovely way, as if to share his pleasure in this small event coming to a successful conclusion. I didn’t imagine the calves—or any animal—got loose very often, but he’d been on it, all go and no stop. Using those muscles I’d sensed beneath his simple clothes.

Behind me, Cameron and Dillon tumbled out of the cabin.

“Wow, did you see that?” Dillon asked.

I looked to see Cameron leaning over Dillon’s shoulder, both of them barely dressed in new briefs and white t-shirts, barefoot, at the top of the bunkhouse steps.

“Yeah.” I said, not hiding my admiration. “It’s a lot different up close, isn’t it.”

They were looking at me with wide eyes now that Jake and the other cowboys had gone into the barn. Perhaps for leadership or some kind of guidance.

“We ought to tell them thank you,” I said, though I was thinking specifically of Jake. “That calf nearly ran me over.”

I shooed them inside the bunkhouse to get dressed for breakfast and looked over at the paddock where the calves had been placed. Someone was hammering on the fence, repairing the break where the animals had gotten through. It wasn’t Jake, but a moment later, he came out of the barn with a bucket and poured the contents, which looked like brown pellets, into the troughs hanging on the inside of the pen.

All before breakfast, he’d been hard at work. Doing what he loved, or at least doing something that made him look less glum. Even from this distance, as he was concentrating on his work, he was tall and steady. Focused.