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“‘Them’ means with mom, I assume. I’m guessing he’ll be hungry soon, if he isn’t already.”
Mr. Baylor nodded, then gave him an up-and-down look that seemed to be approving. And maybe a little bit surprised. And Jackson recognized the look; he’d seen it often enough in another pair of eyes that looked exactly like these.
“Thanks for rescuing the little rascal,” the man said.
“No problem,” Jackson said. Then, without any real forethought, he added, “I’d like to do more.”
“You’re already paying more rent than we’d ever expected to get out of that place,” Nic’s dad said with a grin.
Jackson couldn’t help smiling back; those negotiations had been... interesting. Richard Baylor had actually turned down his first offer, not because it was too low, but because he said it was too high.
It doesn’t matter to me that you can afford it, it’d still be gouging. I don’t hold with that.
Having come from a place where he doubted he’d ever hear those words spoken, Jackson had been struck speechless. And they’d settled on splitting the difference, which Jackson had insisted was fair because he was throwing Jeremy into the mix, and who knows what a seven-year-old boy fascinated with everything about this place could get into. Plus, the man had promised everyone on the ranch would look out for Jeremy, which was worth more to Jackson than he could express. And despite what Nic might think about his occupation and how it happened, he was used to working, and working hard. The first few days were nice and relaxing, but not doing anything long term was starting to wear on him.
“I feel like I’m just killing time, waiting for Jeremy, when there’s work to be done all around me,” he said.
“Now that’s an attitude I can admire,” Mr. Baylor said. “You volunteering?”
Jackson felt suddenly self-conscious. What was he worth around here, on a real ranch? Horses, yes, he could handle them, but from what he’d seen, they were only part of the life and work here. But there had to be stuff he could do, as just another body if nothing else.
“I guess I am,” he said. “I know I don’t know much about the reality of this life, but there must be some grunt work I can do, freeing up somebody who does know what they’re doing.”
“Well, well,” Nic’s father said, smiling. “Let’s just see what we can figure out.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“So Jackson Thorpeis really working on your ranch?”
Nic was used to the question by now. And her answer, which once might have been snide or snarky, was honest and simple now.
“He is,” she told the clerk at the feedstore as he brought up her special order of grain for Pie, who, with Jeremy, was getting a lot more exercise than he had in a while and needed more than just forage. “And he’s working hard.”
“So it isn’t all fake?”
“Not his willingness to work. Dad says we should be paying him, or at least lowering his rent.” She’d been surprised anew herself at the energy and effort he poured into it.
You’d think you’d be tired of being surprised by now. Why don’t you just admit you’ve entirely misjudged the man from the beginning, and stop?
She pondered that as she loaded the big bag of feed into her truck. She wasn’t usually so resistant to admitting the obvious. Jackson Thorpe was no Hollywood phony who didn’t like getting his hands dirty. He was a loving, caring father who’d upended his entire life and quite possibly ruined a burgeoning career for the sake of his son and ended up working as hard as any hand—and harder than some they’d had—on the ranch.
And speaking of fathers, her own seemed to have developed an annoying habit of picking the man whenever she needed a bit of extra muscle on a task, or suggesting he go with her if she had to head out somewhere on the ranch.
“He appreciates it, Nicky. Both the ranch and the opportunity to ride when it’s not in front of a camera.”
Camera or not, he could ride. She couldn’t deny there was something about a good-looking man who sat a horse the way he did that pleased her in a very visceral way. Not that there weren’t a wealth of them around Last Stand. The police chief, for starters, the Rafferty brothers, and a few others she could name. Yet none of them set her off the way Jackson Thorpe did.
Jackson Thorpe, the man she would have least expected to react to, that way. She’d thought herself immune. And she would have been, if he’d been the kind of man she’d assumed he was.
“Hey, Baylor!”
She turned to see Gary Klausen, who worked at the hardware store. “Hi, Gary.”
“Y’all get that sliding door fixed?”
She nodded. “Once we got the right part, thanks to you.”
He chuckled. “Thank your famous ranch hand. He’s the one who found it. I didn’t even realize we had it in the store. Y’know, he’s a really nice guy. Not at all snobby, like I would have expected. He helped me stack some heavy boxes and even helped Mr. Mason carry out a big load of lumber and tie it down.”
