Page 30 of The Cowboy and the Stray

As I started about my chores, mucking out stalls and checking tack, my thoughts kept drifting back to Tess. The way the sun brought out the red in her hair. The impish curve of her smile. The sweet, clear sound of her laughter.

Maybe a little trouble wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it would be worth it to hear her laugh like that again. To be the one to put that light in her eyes.

I shook my head at my own foolishness, hefting a hay bale onto my shoulder. I'd offered her a place here, and I'd honor that. Anything more was just asking for complications I couldn't afford.

Still, as I worked, I couldn't quite keep the corners of my mouth from quirking up at the memory of her, flushed and grinning in the Texas sun. Trouble indeed.

15. TESS

I stared down at the lumpy, half-browned mess in the cast iron skillet, prodding it with a spatula like it might rear up and bite me. Smoke stung my eyes and the smell of charred, erm, something, burned my nose. Panic rose in my throat. How did people do this every day? I couldn't even make a grilled cheese sandwich without setting off the smoke alarm. Of course I ruined grilled cheese. That tracked. I'd made grilled cheese a hundred times, but never on a stove like this one. I'd get used to a gas stove eventually, right?

"What in the hell are you ruining in here now, girl?" Midge's voice cracked like a whip as she stormed into the kitchen, waving a dish towel. She squinted through the haze, her faded blue eyes landing on my pitiful attempt at lunch. "Is that supposed to be food?"

My face burned as hot as the ruined food as I dropped the spatula with a clatter. "I was trying to make grilled cheese. I thought it would be easy." Famous last words.

Midge harrumphed, shoving me aside and snatching the skillet off the stove. She dumped the whole mess into the sink and cranked on the water. Steam hissed up in a cloud.

"Ain't nothing easy about cooking if you don't know what you're doing," she growled, scrubbing at the pan. "Didn't your momma teach you?"

A familiar ache squeezed my chest. "No," I said quietly. "She didn't really cook much." Unless microwaving expired burritos counted.

More like she didn't really cook ever. Most of my childhood meals came in fast food bags and pizza boxes, when there was food at all. Cooking was a foreign language I'd never learned to speak.

Midge turned, eyeing me head to toe like I was a horse she was considering buying. "Well, you're gonna have to learn if you're going to be any help around here. Can't keep having you wasting good food and ruining my pans."

Shame settled like a stone in my gut. I'd been trying, I really had. But everything about ranch life was new and strange, from the pre-dawn wakeups to the endless, back-breaking chores. I was constantly fumbling, constantly one step behind. A city girl playing dress up in cowboy boots. Cosplaying as capable. Excellent.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be. "I'll clean it up, I promise. Just show me what to do."

Midge sighed, long and loud. "I'll clean up this mess. You just go take a walk. Clear your head. Feed the barn cats or something."

She flicked her wrist toward the door, a clear dismissal. I slunk out of the kitchen, my boots seeming to weigh a hundred pounds each. Midge had taken me in, given me a place to hide when I had nowhere else to go. The least I could do was pull my own weight.

But I'd failed at that, too. Story of my life.

Blinking back stupid tears, I wandered across the gravel drive toward the big barn in the distance. The tin roof glinted in the midday sun, the weathered cedar and limestone holding fast against the rugged landscape. It was the heart of the ranch, the center of everything.

As I drew closer, strange sounds reached my ears over the endless cicada drone. A low, rhythmic grunting, almost pained. Hooves scraping, scratching. My steps slowed. Was an animal hurt?

I followed the sounds through the yawning barn doors and down the dim center aisle. The noises were louder now, more urgent, coming from a big box stall near the end.

Heart pounding, I peered over the wooden gate. And froze.

Oh. Oh no.

Calder knelt in the straw, his dark head bent, powerful shoulders bunching as his arms moved in steady rhythm. For a mad, shocking instant, I had no idea what I was seeing. Then my brain registered the rest of the picture.

The heaving flank of a paint mare. A pair of slick hooves jutting from beneath her tail. The straining muscles, the streams of fluid and blood.

My hands flew to my mouth. Oh god. Oh god, oh god. She was giving birth. Right here, right now. And from the looks of it, she was struggling. I came out here to avoid grilled cheese shame, not witness a live horse birth.

Calder's head snapped up at my gasp, his eyes blazing beneath the brim of his sweat-stained cowboy hat.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, but there wasn't any heat in it. Only focus, only urgency.

"I heard noises," I stammered. "I thought something was wrong. I didn't know..."

The mare groaned, her sides heaving like a bellows. More hooves slid free of her straining body, followed by a gush of fluid. My stomach rolled over.