Jesse (4 page)

Jesse grinned as he opened the door to Dawson's. Some things never changed and it lightened his heart. Life seemed to be passing him by out at the ranch, with his brothers settling in with the women they'd chosen to spend the rest of their lives with. It was good for them, but not for him.

A creature of habit, it was a little unnerving to have female voices added to the mix in the mornings. He missed the days when he and his brothers would wake up and either say good morning or punch one another on their way to the coffeepot. Not that they'd fight that early in the day every day, but at some point in every day, the Garahan brothers had been known to blow off a little steam. A nice fistfight usually did the trick.

But now his brothers were different. If he had to put his finger on it, he'd say they were content, happy—and smiling all the damn time! It set his teeth on edge each and every morning when his brothers came downstairs with shit-eating grins on their faces. He knew they'd both had themselves a time the night before—hell, he had ears… and their women had lungs.

Disgusted with the train of his thoughts, he focused on his surroundings and the fact that the entrance to the hardware side of Dawson's. Barrels lined up lying on their sides, each one filled with nails, screws, nuts, bolts, or washers. He breathed in and the air smelled the same. He couldn't put his finger on it, so he closed his eyes, took another sniff, and grinned. “Fresh-cut pine, kerosene, and oil, same as always.”

“Well which one do you want?” A familiar voice interrupted his trip down memory lane.

His eyes shot open and he grinned. “Actually, I'm here to pay down our bill, Miss Pam.”

The older woman waved her hand in his general direction. “I know you're good for it. You can always count on a Garahan.”

His throat tightened as gratitude swamped him. He nodded until the emotion eased up and he could speak. “You know it, but it's been too high and we've been working hard to bring it back down to a controllable level.”

“Times are tough all over, Jesse. That's why us town folk have to stick together to help out our neighbors—the ranchers.”

As if she could sense that her words affected him, she reached out and patted him on the arm. “Well, come on back to my office and we'll settle up what you've got with you today and see where the Circle G Ranch is on my books.”

He touched the brim of his hat. “Much obliged, Miss Pam.”

They made their way past the strategically stacked displays of varnish and paint, Jesse making a mental note to pick some up in a couple of weeks—that is, if Dylan's current side job paid him on time. His brother still took on a job or two as a carpenter for hire in the evenings. He grinned; that was how Ronnie had met his older brother, when he'd agreed to do the repairs to her shop after some local teenagers had destroyed the place.

When Jesse and Miss Dawson reached the back of the store and her little hole-in-the-wall office, he started to sweat. He hated owing people but knew they'd never keep the ranch going without Miss Dawson extending them credit. Shoving those thoughts aside, he said, “It's not a lot—”

“Whatever you have is fine with me,” Pam told him. “It's the principle of the thing that's important here. You and your brothers have an open tab and you're paying on it, whatever you can, whenever you can.” She crossed her arms in front of her, as if daring him to contradict her.

His momma raised him right. “Yes, ma'am.” They settled up and he tipped his hat. “Thank you, Miss Pam.”

She shook her head at him. “You know that makes me feel really old when you call me that.”

He shrugged. “Old habits die hard. My grandpa would have smacked me in the back of the head if I didn't pay proper respect to you.”

Her sad smile had him realizing he and his brothers weren't the only ones who missed Hank Garahan. She blinked and cleared her throat. “Well now. What else can I do for you today?”

He put his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his boot heels. “Could you or your sister use another clerk here at Dawson's?”

He guessed from the surprised look on her face that his question hadn't been what she'd been expecting from him. “We've only got two part-timers on my side of the store, but in a pinch, there are times I could use one more body. Why?”

He shrugged. “Just asking.”

She wasn't having any of it. Frowning up at him, she started tapping the toe of her boot. “You'd best tell me now; you know I'll find out as soon as Mavis drops by. The woman knows everything.”

That had him grinning. He'd been hoping to run into her at Dawson's. “I stopped to help someone on my way into town. Her car overheated.”

“And she's looking for work in town? A stranger?”

“She is now but didn't used to be.” He shifted from one foot to the other, unnerved by her close scrutiny.

“Well, this is like pulling teeth. Save us both the time it'd require for me to keep asking while you keep hemming and hawing, and just tell me.”

He laughed and told her what happened on his ride into town.

“Well then, she's got to be Jimmy Sullivan's niece Danielle, the one who married that bull rider a few years back. Jimmy's right proud of her, though she hasn't been to see him in half a dozen years.”

“Well, since you know her,” he began, intrigued by the prospect of keeping the curvy little blonde close by so he could get to know her better, “do you know of anybody in town with a job opening?”

“Like I said, my side of the store—the hardware side—doesn't really need too many people working at one time, but on the food side—my sister's side—well now she just might need a new cashier,” she said, tapping her cheek with her finger. “Let's go ask her.”

A half an hour later, Jesse had planted the bug in enough ears about Danielle Brockway looking for a job that the network of busybodies should be on full alert and looking. His work here was done, but now he was an hour or so behind schedule.

Thinking and driving, he nearly shot past the disabled car at the side of the road. Pulling a quick one-eighty, he put it in park and walked over to Danielle's car. As expected, the engine block had cooled enough that it was easy to see what had caused the vehicle to overheat: she was low on coolant and the engine nearly seized. Ranchers were pretty much a self-sufficient bunch; since that one time he'd cooked the engine and cracked the head on his grandfather's truck, Jesse made sure he always had a gallon of water and couple bottles of 10W40. He always took care to keep his engine running cool and lubed. It was too expensive to keep replacing the damned heads all of the time, and unless you had a connection over in Mesquite, you paid through the nose for a new one—forget about the price for a new engine block; he'd park the darned truck and go back to riding his horse everywhere rather than pay for a new engine.

He'd have to ask Tyler or Dylan to help him drop off the car tonight. It would be really late, but at least he'd more than fulfilled his promise to the ladies… well, one of his promises. He called Sullivan's Diner and left a message for Danielle that her car was good to go and that he'd drop it off later.

Life was funny; today was the first time Sullivan had spoken to a Garahan in fifteen years and all because Jesse had stopped to do a good deed. Maybe Sullivan would give him a clean slate.
Yeah,
he thought…
not
happening
. Chuckling to himself, he got out, opened the gate, and drove on through. Putting the truck in park, he let his mind drift while he got out to shut the gate.

When the ranch house came into view, he just had to stop and stare. Emily and Ronnie must have been at it again. Flowers spilled out of planters at the foot of the front steps and there were planters sitting on top of the porch railing.

He shook his head. “Man… what is it with women and flowers? Couldn't they plant trees instead? We could use the shade over by the barn where the old Red Oak died.”

No one was around when he pulled up out back, so he didn't bother going inside. Once he'd saddled up, he rode out to the southern pasture to catch up to his brothers.

“'Bout time you showed up, Bro,” Dylan called out. “We needed you about an hour ago.”

“Sorry, had to rescue a damsel in distress on my way into town.”

When he didn't say anymore, his brothers gradually made their way over to where Jesse was checking the herd. With a brother on each side of him, he felt hemmed in. Familiar with the tactic, he pulled back on the reins, but his brothers had anticipated the move and boxed him in.

Tyler grinned at him. “Is she a redhead?”

Dylan shook his head. “Bet she's got long dark hair, like my bride.”

Jesse wanted to hang on to the irritation building inside of him, fan the flames until he could work up to a serious mad, but the way his brothers started arguing over which hair color was the sexiest had him chuckling.

“You're both whipped and don't even know it.”

“No way,” Tyler disagreed.

“Who's whipped?” Dylan demanded.

Jesse just shook his head and his smile widened. “The two of you. Hell, no sense trying to pretty it up when the proof is staring you in the face. Those two women—really fine women I might add—have the both of you wrapped up so tight around their fingers it's a wonder either of you can breathe.”

Tyler's face turned an interesting shade of red while Dylan's jaw clenched.
Now
we're getting somewhere
, Jesse thought.
Both
brothers
ready
to
take
a
swing
at
me. Hell yeah! I'm ready to rumble.

But before he could tense up, preparing to fight back, Tyler and Dylan did something completely out of character for either of them—they shrugged and eased away from Jesse.
Damn.

Mumbling to himself, he urged his mount over toward the group of steer on the next rise—just part of the job, ensuring that their herd was in prime health. Every once in a while, one of their animals would show signs of lameness and they'd have to do a careful inspection of the animal's hooves, checking for the cause of the injury. Most often it was caused by a rock, a bit of wood, or a thorn. Removing the object and cleaning and trimming the hoof before using antiseptic was the rule of thumb on the Circle G. They didn't prescribe to the notion of additives in their herd's feed, so their only other choice was to call the vet—that was expensive and used for rare instances where there really was something that the brothers couldn't handle.

Breathing deeply, Jesse surveyed the land around him and smiled. They'd continued the Garahan tradition of cultivating their pastureland with a mixture of native grasses: little bluestems, Bermuda grass, crabgrass, millet, and love grass in the warm season, and cereal rye, rye, and wheat in the cool season for extended spring grazing.

They'd never really been certain about Grandpa's insistence that the love grass would encourage fertility and the millet would discourage prussic acid. But their herd produced healthy offspring every spring, and they'd been careful not to plant any sorghum or Sudan grass, both known to contain prussic acid—the deadly, fast-acting plant toxin—so there hadn't been a reason to doubt his word.

“And most folks think a cowboy's life is easy.” Still smiling, Jesse made his way through the longhorns grazing peacefully on the rise. Satisfied that everything was normal, he moved to the next section he'd been assigned that morning. Danielle and Lacy weren't far from his thoughts. Distracted, he fought to regain his balance by drawing in a breath and looking around him. A deep calm washed over him, because as far as he could see lay Garahan land. Pride filled him. They were holding on to the Circle G and contributing to the heritage of the great state of Texas by continuing to raise longhorns. They'd thought about crossbreeding, but in the end hadn't because so many of their herd's qualities were appealing; longhorns are intelligent, gentle, and long lived. The cows are productive and protective, while the bulls are strong and sturdy with lean, flavorful beef. Though he'd learned early on that they weren't pets, he had named a few when he was younger.

Even though the calving season was over, they were still vigilant, as far as keeping an eye out for the calves that would somehow manage to get caught in places they couldn't get out of. They were easy to find, because the calf's mother would either be doing her best to extricate her young or bawling like crazy to let one of them know there was a problem.

A man of the land and committed to their way of life, Jesse wondered what it would be like to have a woman by his side, just as determined. Would she be like Emily—not all that savvy when it came to raising stock but an absolute whiz with accounting and pinching pennies? Maybe she would be more like Ronnie, a great cook but also at home in the saddle.

His thoughts drifted back to the pretty little blonde and her pink, pixie daughter. Something about Danielle as an adult reminded him of her when she was younger. The sound of rapidly approaching horses drew him back to the present. He turned toward the sound. “What's up?”

“Didn't you hear us calling you?” Dylan demanded.

He shrugged.

“We're finished out here, heading back to the ranch.” Tyler asked, “You coming?”

“Yeah. Herd looks good.”

“It was a productive spring,” Tyler agreed. “Now all we have to do is keep our eyes peeled and our ears on.”

“We'll be ready for trouble,” Dylan said. “Not that we expect any, but it pays to be ready for anything.”

“Have we alienated anyone in town lately?”

Dylan grinned. “Weren't you the last one in town, Bro?”

Jesse shrugged. “I paid down some of the feed bill and what we owed at Dawson's.”