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Beau stayed leaning against the doorjamb, a folder in his hand. “They’ll be great,” he said.
“A great new Stable Manager,” Squire said. “Why do you look like you’ve swallowed bees then?”
Beau cracked a smile then. He pushed away from the wall and sauntered over to Squire’s desk. He heaved a sigh as he sat down. “She’s perfect for it. Her brother swears by her ability with horses, though she hasn’t done much with them in recent years.”
He tossed the folder containing Charlotte’s résumé onto the desk. “But I figure that’s not a bad thing. She won’t have any preconceived ways of doing things. She’ll manage it the way you and Pete want.”
“The way you want,” Squire corrected.
“Sure,” Beau said easily. “Have you been hearin’ the pronoun I’m using?” He flipped open the folder. “It’s a woman.”
Squire glanced at the pages inside, but he didn’t’ read them. “Okay,” he said.
“Our female cabin is full.” Beau raised his right eyebrow at Squire. “Three of ‘em in there, and there’s no way we can cram in a fourth.”
Squire sighed, though his expression danced with a hint of light. “And the rest of the cabins are full too.” He looked up to the ceiling, as if the answers would be there—or God would send him a solution from heaven.
Beau swallowed, his nerves firing at him. “All but mine, boss.”
Squire’s eyes yanked back to his. “You’re the foreman.”
“The position comes with boarding,” he said. “I’ve got three bedrooms, boss. I can share. I’ve?—”
“You’re the foreman,” Squire said again.
“But I’m not married. I have no family.” Beau hunched down in his chair. “It’s ridiculous I have that big cabin anyway.”
“So we’ll move two men in with you, so this….” He peered at the paper in the folder. “Charlotte can have her own place?”
“About,” Beau said.
“Who would you move?”
Beau let his chest puff up as he breathed in. “Thus why I knocked on your door.”
“We just rearranged everyone,” Squire said. “To find the pairings that get along. So we’ll move a whole pairing, but….”
Beau let his boss work through the other men who worked the ranch. Three Rivers had eleven cowboy cabins, including his, in a row leading from the homestead to the administration building, and they were full.
All full up.
Eighteen men and three women, plus Beau, worked the ranch. Plus Squire and his family. Peter Marshall and his wife owned Courage Reins, and he employed a bunch of people who didn’t live out here on the ranch.
Brynn and Ethan Greene owned Bowman’s Breeds, a horse training facility down on the same side as the homestead. They maintained a residence in town as well, and sometimes the cowboys who worked at Three Rivers had to head over to her place to tend to her horses.
Beau had always been happy to do it, because that was what cowboys did. They helped each other when necessary.
“There is not a pairing we can move as-is that you won’t want to kill within a week.” Squire leaned forward, his smile slow and his expression challenging. “Is that about where you landed?”
“Yep,” Beau said.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I would like you to tell me what to do.”
Squire gave him a long look and picked up the folder. “She’s it, huh?”
“Better than the other four who applied.”
