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“Don’t encourage him,” Beau said with a dry tone. “He’ll never leave you alone.”
“And this is the most beautiful collie I’ve ever seen.” She had the classic markings, with intelligent eyes and perked-up ears.
“She just had a bath,” Beau said as he flipped on the sink. “I need to shower, but you can hang out with the pups while I do. Shouldn’t be long.” He washed his hands and grabbed a towel from the stove. “Did you need lunch, or…?”
“Lunch?” Charlotte asked blankly, as if she’d never eaten the meal before. Maybe she shouldn’t have looked directly at Beau.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “You’re an hour early for your interview, Charlotte. I was going to eat lunch, shower, and be ready when you got here.” He turned and pulled open the bottom drawer in his fridge. “So I’m going to make pizza. I’ll put in extra if you want to eat.”
He faced her again, an inquisitive look on his face. “Maybe that’s why you fainted? You’re hungry?”
Charlotte pressed her lips together, feeling the lies building up inside her. If she didn’t speak, was that lying? Could she just nod, indicating her hunger, even if it wasn’t true?
She really didn’t want to tell him about her heart condition, because she felt a weight getting tied to her lungs. It would drag her down the way it had so many times in the past, and she just wanted to exist on even ground with someone for as long as possible.
“Sure,” she managed to choke out. “I didn’t realize I was an hour early.” And with Three Rivers Ranch forty-five minutes north of town, she couldn’t go grab something and be back in time for her interview.
“I can….” She trailed off, not sure what to offer. “Go wait in my car?”
Beau grinned, chuckled, and shook his head. “No, it’s fine. We can catch up on Mason while we eat.” He busied himself with putting frozen pizza in the oven, and then he nodded down the hall. “I’ll be back in a bit. Make yourself at home.”
He glanced over to the grandfather clock and the pictures she’d been examining before she fainted. Something crossed his features, but Charlotte couldn’t identify it before he turned and walked away from her.
She took a breath and faced the pictures again. The woman in them didn’t have her lighter blonde hair, but that hadn’t mattered. She’d been show riding, smiling for all she was worth with ribbons and roses, as Charlotte had once.
Before she’d been forced to quit, after she’d fainted while in the saddle. Her family and friends had never treated her the same after that. Once she’d been diagnosed with vasovagal syncope, a mild heart condition that caused her to lose consciousness when her heart rate and blood pressure dropped suddenly.
It almost always happened when she was stressed, in pain, or shocked. Sometimes from standing for too long or not getting enough sleep could trigger the fainting spells too.
It wasn’t heart disease, but everyone acted like it was. Like Charlotte was one step away from certain death, of never waking up again.
But she did keep waking up after her fainting spells, which she hadn’t had in a while until today. “Which is why you don’t want Mason to know,” she muttered. She was staying with him and Felicity until she could find a job, and she really wanted to get back to work with horses.
It had been too long, and she gazed at the photos with less fear and surprise and more nostalgia. She’d spent the past fifteen years being a nanny for Mason and Felicity, but their youngest would be in full-day kindergarten next month, and she wasn’t needed anymore.
“It’s time,” she whispered to herself as she turned away from the pictures of who she assumed was Beau’s younger sister. She could almost see the shape of his eyes in the pictures, though the woman wore a riding helmet and squinted into the sun.
Behind her, something clicked, and she turned that way. She didn’t see Beau, and that would be a lightning-fast shower. Of course, cowboys could do such a thing, and she wasn’t surprised the man was bathing during his lunch hour. Sometimes ranch work required that, and he’d been clearly doing something dirty that morning.
She wandered past his kitchen island, both dogs hot on her heels. He didn’t keep anything indicating children on the fridge, but he did have a couple of reminders she paused to look at. A ranch Fourth of July picnic at the homestead that had come and gone, and a church potluck breakfast that would happen next weekend.
Not much sat out, though she did spy a couple of coffee mugs in the kitchen sink. This cabin had been equipped with all the kitchen necessities, including a dishwasher and garbage disposal, and a bolt of anticipation drove through Charlotte.
She hadn’t lived alone in so long, and she pressed her eyes closed and drew in a long breath of oxygen. If she could get this job here at the ranch, she’d have a cabin like this one to live in. Nothing this big or nice, she was sure, and she’d most likely have a cabinmate.
But she wouldn’t be living under the watchful eye of her brother. He wouldn’t be making reports about her to their mother. Charlotte, at age thirty-two, would finally be free to strike out and live her own life.
Worry needled through her, but she told herself again, “It’s time.” She knew everyone around her—all three of her brothers and both of her parents—were worried about her taking on a new job, especially one with horses.
Everyone but Mason lived down in San Antonio, but she still spoke to her mom almost every day. That had been part of the deal when Charlotte had said she was going to make the move north to Three Rivers with Mason and Felicity.
They’d just bought a big ranch on the southeast side of town, and Charlotte had finally graduated from college with a degree in ranch management. She didn’t want to be a ranch manager—she wanted to be the Stable Manager here at Three Rivers Ranch.
The position came with a nice salary, as well as a place to live, and Charlotte wanted it as badly as anything she’d wanted before. Everything inside her told her that if she could just get this job, she’d have taken the first step in her quest for independence.
As she started to feel overwhelmed again, Charlotte closed her eyes in an attempt to calm down. “Lord,” she whispered. “I need this job. I’m too old to be living with my brother. No one can take care of me forever.”
She didn’t even want them to. No, it was time for her to take care of herself.
