“You’ve never done this work before,” Darby accused, but he was smiling.
She grimaced. “No. But I needed a job, badly,” she said, and it was almost the truth. “You’ve been great, Mr. Hanes. I owe you a lot for not giving me away. For teaching me what I needed to know here.” And what a good thing it was, she thought privately, that her father didn’t know. He’d have skinned Hanes alive for letting his sheltered little girl shoe a horse.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Not a problem. You make sure you wear those gloves,” he added, nodding toward her back pocket. “You have beautiful hands. Like my wife used to,” he added with a faraway look in his eyes and a faint smile. “She played the piano in a restaurant when I met her. We went on two dates and got married. Never had kids. She passed two years ago, from cancer.” He stopped for a minute and took a long breath. “Still miss her,” he added stiffly.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’ll see her again,” he replied. “Won’t be too many years, either. It’s part of the cycle, you see. Life and death. We all go through it. Nobody escapes.”
That was true. How odd to be in a philosophical discussion on a ranch.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You think ranch hands are high-school dropouts, do you?” he mused. “I have a degree from MIT. I was their most promising student in theoretical physics, but my wife had a lung condition and they wanted her to come west to a drier climate. Her dad had a ranch… .” He stopped, chuckling. “Sorry. I tend to run on. Anyway, I worked on the ranch and preferred it to a lab. After she died, I came here to work. So here I am. But I’m not the only degreed geek around here. We have three part-timers who are going to college on scholarships the Kirk brothers set up for them.”
“What a nice bunch of guys!” she exclaimed.
“They really are. All of them seem tough as nails, and they mostly are, but they’ll help anyone in need.” He shifted. “Paid my wife’s hospital bill after the insurance lapsed. A small fortune, and they didn’t even blink.”
Her throat got tight. What a generous thing to do. Her family had done the same for people, but she didn’t dare mention that. “That was good of them,” she said with genuine feeling.
“Yes. I’ll work here until I die, if they’ll keep me. They’re great people.”
They heard a noise and turned around. The boss was standing behind them.
“Thanks for the testimonial, but I believe there are cattle waiting to be dipped in the south pasture… .” Mallory commented with pursed lips and twinkling dark eyes.
Darby chuckled. “Yes, there are. Sorry, boss, I was just lauding you to the young lady. She was surprised to find out that I studied philosophy.”
“Not to mention theoretical physics,” the boss added drily.
“Yes, well, I won’t mention your degree in biochemistry if you like,” Darby said outrageously.
Mallory quirked an eyebrow. “Thanks.”
Darby winked at Morie and left them alone.
Mallory towered over the slight brunette. “Your name is unusual. Morie…?”
She laughed. “My full name is Edith Danielle Morena Brannt,” she replied. “My mother knew I’d be a brunette, because both my parents are, so they added morena, which means brunette in Spanish. I had, uh, Spanish great-grandparents,” she stuttered, having almost given away the fact that they were titled Spanish royalty. That would never do. She wanted to be perceived as a poor, but honest, cowgirl. Her last name wasn’t uncommon in South Texas, and Mallory wasn’t likely to connect it with King Brannt, who was a true cattle baron.
He cocked his head. “Morie,” he said. “Nice.”
“I’m really sorry, about the key,” she said.
He shrugged. “I did the same thing last month, but I’m the boss,” he added firmly. “I don’t make mistakes. You remember that.”
She gave him an open smile. “Yes, sir.”
He studied her curiously. She was small and nicely rounded, with black hair that was obviously long and pulled into a bun atop her head. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was pleasant to look at, with those big brown eyes and that pretty mouth and perfect skin. She didn’t seem the sort to do physical labor on a ranch.
“Sir?” she asked, uncomfortable from the scrutiny.
“Sorry. I was just thinking that you don’t look like the usual sort we hire for ranch hands.”
“I do have a college degree,” she defended herself.
“You do? What was your major?”
“History,” she said, and looked defensive. “Yes, it’s dates. Yes, it’s about the past. Yes, some of it can be boring. But I love it.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “You should talk to Cane. His degree is in anthropology. Pity it wasn’t paleontology, because we’re close to Fossil Lake. That’s part of the Green River Formation, and there are all sorts of fossils there. Cane loved to dig.” His face hardened. “He won’t talk about going back to it.”
“Because of his arm?” she asked bluntly. “That wouldn’t stop him. He could do administrative work on a dig.” She flushed. “I minored in anthropology,” she confessed.
He burst out laughing. “No wonder you like ranch work. Did you go on digs?” He knew, as some people didn’t, that archaeology was one of four subfields of anthropology.
“I did. Drove my mother mad. My clothes were always full of mud and I looked like a street child most of the time.” She didn’t dare tell him that she’d come to dinner in her dig clothing when a famous visiting politician from Europe was at the table, along with some members of a royal family. Her father had been eloquent. “There were some incidents when I came home muddy,” she added with a chuckle.
“I can imagine.” He sighed. “Cane hasn’t adjusted to the physical changes. He’s stopped going to therapy and he won’t join in any family outings. He stays in his room playing online video games.” He stopped. “Good Lord, I can’t believe I’m telling you these things.”
“I’m as quiet as a clam,” she pointed out. “I never tell anything I know.”
“You’re a good listener. Most people aren’t.”
She smiled. “You are.”
He chuckled. “I’m the boss. I have to listen to people.”
“Good point.”
“I’ll just finish getting those bales of hay stacked,” she said. She stopped and glanced up at him. “You know, most ranchers these days use the big bales… .”
“Stop right there,” he said curtly. “I don’t like a lot of the so-called improvements. I run this ranch the way my dad did, and his dad before him. We rotate crops, and cattle, avoid unnecessary supplements, and maintain organic crops and grass strains. And we don’t allow oil extraction anywhere on this ranch. Lots of fracking farther south in Wyoming to extract oil from shale deposits, but we won’t sell land for that, or lease it.”
She knew they were environmentally sensitive. The family had been featured in a small northwestern cattlemen’s newspaper that she’d seen lying on a table in the bunkhouse.
“What’s fracking?” she asked curiously.
“They