was the moment of truth for Ryan. Hesitating, he wavered for just a second and then he chose his side.
“Okay,” he said, taking her hand. “Follow me.”
Taking a momentary break, Jake leaned against the corral fence. That was when he saw her, a tall, willowy woman with jet-black hair. She was dressed in jeans, boots and a work shirt. And she was heading straight for them.
“Hey, don’t look now, boss, but from the looks of it, there’s an angry lady coming your way,” Jake alerted Clint. “And if you ask me, it looks like the lady’s loaded for bear.”
Roy was already looking in the woman’s direction and she had his complete attention. “I don’t care what she’s loaded for as long as she brings it my way,” Clint’s brother declared wistfully. “Who is she?” he asked, intrigued. “I don’t remember ever seeing her around before. I would have remembered that face,” Roy assured his brother and the other man.
Jake hadn’t taken his eyes off the woman since he’d first spotted her.
“Yeah, me, too.” He glanced toward Clint, who was still working and hadn’t bothered to look at the interloper. “You know her, boss?”
“Whoever she is, Clint, she’s got your boy with her,” Roy added, still not looking away.
“What the hell are you two going on about?” Clint demanded shortly.
He’d been up early, going between the stable and the corral, and working since before his son had gone off to school. He had only spared a minimum of time for the cattle today. He was in no mood for guessing games, or unannounced guests. He just wanted to finish what he was doing and get in out of the sun.
“I don’t know about Jake, but I’m talking about the prettiest sight I’ve laid my eyes on in a long, long time,” Roy answered.
Exasperated, Clint dropped what he was doing and finally looked up just as the angry-looking young woman stepped up to the fence. Rather than ducking between the slats the way he would have expected her to do, he saw her climb up and then over the fence, jumping down on the other side as if she’d been doing it all of her life.
He was aware that his son was taking all this in with awe. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that the boy had the makings of a crush on this woman.
“Which one of you is Clint Washburn?” Wynona asked, walking until she was right in the middle of them.
Clint noted that both his brother and Jake would have been more than willing to say they were, but since he was standing right there, they couldn’t. Both looked in his direction.
“I am,” he told her, taking off his work gloves and shoving them into his back pocket. “Can I help you?” he asked. His tone of voice clearly indicated that there were a great many other things he would have wanted to do first before turning his attention to whatever it was that this woman had come to see him about.
Wynona did a quick scrutiny of the man. He had broad shoulders and a small waist. His dirty-blond hair could have used a haircut, but it was his attitude that really needed work. The man was just as unfriendly as she had imagined he’d be.
“I’m Wynona Chee,” she informed him, introducing herself. And then she added, “I’m Ryan’s teacher,” in case he hadn’t listened to any of the multiple messages she’d left—which she was beginning to suspect he didn’t.
“Well, Wynona Chee, if you’re his teacher, why aren’t you at school, going about your business?” Clint asked.
She resented the way he said that, but snapping at the man wasn’t going to help Ryan and it was Ryan who was the important one here. So Wynona bit back a few choice words that instantly rose to her lips and kept her temper in check.
“I am going about my business,” she informed him tersely, ignoring the other two men taking all this in. “Since you weren’t returning any of the countless messages I left on your phone, I decided that a face-to-face meeting with you might be the better way to go.”
“Oh, is that what you decided now?” Clint asked and she got the distinct impression that he was mocking her.
“Don’t mind my brother,” Roy said quickly, speaking up. “He gets kind of ornery when he’s been working all day. Around here, whenever rattlesnakes take one look at him, they just head the other way.”
Clint shot his younger brother a dirty look, which didn’t seem to affect the other man at all.
Instead, Roy just shrugged in response. “I just thought she needed to be warned,” the younger man told Clint.
At any other time, Wynona might have even been somewhat amused by this exchange between brothers, but she wasn’t here to be amused. She was here because she felt that Ryan Washburn needed help in coming out of his shell before that shell wound up setting around the boy permanently, walling him off from everyone around him.
Wynona opened her mouth to state her purpose, then stopped. While Clint Washburn seemed uninterested in what she had to say, the other two men with him appeared to be all ears. She had a feeling that what she had to say wasn’t something that Washburn would want the others to hear.
“Is there someplace we could speak privately?” Wynona asked Ryan’s father.
Since he could see the woman wasn’t going to just leave even if he didn’t encourage her, Clint resigned himself to hearing her out about whatever minor, imagined complaint she had come to voice. It was the only way he figured he could get rid of her.
Gesturing around at the vast area surrounding them, he said, “Pick a place.”
She felt that he was humoring her, but it didn’t matter as long as he listened to what she had to say and, more important, took it to heart.
“How about over there?” she asked, pointing to the far end of the corral, away from the horses and the other two men.
Broad shoulders rose in a careless, disinterested shrug. “Works as well as any other place,” he told her in an equally disinterested voice.
As she led the way to the spot she’d pointed out, Wynona noticed that Ryan fell into step right beside her. She didn’t want to risk the boy overhearing his father saying something negative about him.
“No, you stay over there for now, Ryan,” she instructed the boy gently.
“But you’re gonna be talking about me, aren’t you?” Ryan asked. It was obvious that he felt that since this meeting was about him, he did have a right to be there.
She had a feeling that he was always being excluded, but this time it was in his best interest.
Wynona did her best to temper her answer. “I’d like to talk to your dad alone first, Ryan. When that’s done, you can join us.”
Because she took the time to explain this to him first, Ryan felt a little better about having to be left out. Nodding his head, he stopped walking and obligingly fell back.
His uncle came up behind him and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder as Ryan’s teacher and his dad kept walking. He waited until they were a little farther away.
“You getting into some kind of trouble?” Roy asked his nephew good-naturedly. He ruffled Ryan’s hair with affection.
Ryan turned around to look up at him. “No, sir,” he answered solemnly.
“No, I guess not,” Roy laughed. “You wouldn’t know trouble if you tripped over it.” Ryan had always been a good kid, almost too good, Roy thought. A kid needed to get into things once in a while, but Ryan never did. “Why don’t you come on back and help me and Jake get the bridle bits ready for those new horses?” he told his nephew.