Chapter Three
Amanda felt Scott staring at her all the way out to the barn doors.
Had she been too hard on him? Should she care if she had been?
No, she firmly told herself. The whole week she’d waited for his return, she’d thought of ways to scare him off. The first of those plans started right now.
And yet she felt a surprising stab of guilt, and the urge to banter around with him. Ridiculous. The man had stolen her family’s heritage. He was like one of those cattle tycoons of the old days, the ones that squatted on small rancher’s land. His picture should be inserted into dictionaries under the words robber baron.
I’m going to cook you breakfast.
She’d wanted to eat breakfast with him.
Careful, Amanda. You might find yourself actually liking him.
She pulled open the giant wood doors that exposed the interior of the barn to early morning sunlight. Dust motes flew through the air on streamers of sunlight that illuminated a wall of hay.
“Wow,” Scott said. “That’s a lot of bricks.”
Bricks? She almost laughed.
“They’re called bales,” she corrected. “And there’re twenty tons of them.”
“Twenty tons?”
She nodded. “And we’ll go through most of it by the end of next month.”
“But I thought cattle grazed on grass.”
She turned to him. Her hair had dried a bit, despite the chilly morning air. She wore a gray sweater that she realized now was the wrong thing to wear. Slivers of the hay would stick to it and prick her all day. Darn. She hadn’t been thinking clearly.
“Cattle need at least ten acres of pasture grass per head. That means we’d need approximately ten thousand acres for all the cattle we have. Since the ranch is less than two hundred acres, and we’re able to lease only a few hundred more, we have to supplement with rice hay.”
“Rice hay?”
“It’s cheaper than grass, and cattle do well on it.”
“So what the hay?” he joked.
She caught the smile that almost slipped out at the last moment, going to the right and pulling down two sharp metal hooks before turning back to him.
“Planning on dressing as Captain Hook for Halloween?”
“No,” she said. “You are.”
“I are what?”
“Going to be Captain Hook.” She handed him the hay hooks. “Here you go,” she said with a bright smile. “You need to load a ton of it into the back of our one-ton.”
“I what?”
She really shouldn’t feel bad about the look on his face. She shouldn’t. But it was hard not to feel just a little bit guilty at the expression of horror he shot her.
“A ton of it,” she reiterated. “That’s about twenty-five bales.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
She shook her head, having to fight back the smile again. “No, I’m not.” She refrained from telling him that she usually helped her father load the bales. It was easier with two people. Instead she said, “If you want to be a rancher, this is one of the chores you’ll have to do. Daily.”
“Daily?”
Now he looked horrified. Poor guy. Poor what? Now wasn’t the time to start feeling sorry for him. “What’s the matter? Not up to the task? ’Cause if you’re not, we can certainly stop right now. Of course, you’ll have to give up on your plan to become a cowboy.”
His eyes narrowed. And once again that odd transformation came over him, the one she noted the first day they’d met. Like the chameleon she’d seen in the local pet store he changed right before her eyes. He seemed to stand straighter, the intelligence that always shone from his eyes intensifying until it made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. This was the man who’d formed a software company from the ground up. Who was worth more money than she would ever see in an entire lifetime. Who did not, if the press was to be believed, take no for an answer.
“I’ll do it.”
“Great,” she said. But she really didn’t think he’d make it past five bales. Okay, maybe seven. “I’ll wait here while you go get the truck.”
He gazed at her a moment longer, something within Amanda stilling at that look. She was almost relieved when he turned away, set the hooks on one of the lower bales, then headed out of the barn.
“Keys are in it.”
He lifted a hand in silent acknowledgment but didn’t glance back. Less than five minutes later, he was backing the diesel into the barn in a manner that made Amanda wonder if he’d driven big vehicles before. She’d expected him to have to struggle to fit the wide truck through the double doors, but he cruised on in as if he’d done it a hundred times.
That was her first surprise.
Her second came when he turned off the loud motor, the smell of diesel making her wave her hand in front of her face and cough. The dust motes were in action again, tickling the inside of her nose. A dove nesting in the barn’s rafters coo-cooed into the sudden silence. Scott hopped out of the truck, reached up and removed his glasses only to drop them into his pocket, then went to the tailgate. It lowered with a thud. Next, he picked up the hay hooks, one in each hand, turned to the nearest golden bale and sunk the hooks with a thunk that belied an ease Amanda would have never thought possible. He lifted the one-hundred-and-twenty-pound bale, saying, “How do I stack it?” and sounding not at all out of breath as he did so.
She was so surprised, she found herself saying, “Put it all the way in the front, up against the back window, long side against the bed,” before she remembered she’d wanted him to figure that out on his own.
He nodded, hefting the bale inside without even huffing, then climbing inside to position it correctly. And now that she thought about it, he hadn’t sounded at all out of breath after his running of the bulls this morning. In fact, he’d sounded in better shape than she.
He jumped down from the back of the truck, his legs flexing expertly as he landed. Amanda stepped back and crossed her arms in front of her.
The next one went in just as easily.
So did the next.
And the next.
He was sweating a bit by the time he’d loaded seven. The next five went in a bit more slowly, but that was because he had to lift the bales atop the others. By the time he hit twenty, he’d figured out on his own the best way to stair-step them on top of one another.
Amanda didn’t say a word.
Ten minutes later he was done. A little winded and a bit sweaty, but done. He turned to her and said, “Now what?”
Amanda had to close her mouth.
Maybe it was the he-man way he’d loaded the hay. Maybe it was the way he so casually leaned against the tailgate of the truck. Or maybe it was because he suddenly didn’t look a thing like a computer genius. Whatever it was, she had to struggle to remember his question.
Hubba, hubba, what a man.
Hubba, hubba…have you lost your mind?
“Now what?” she repeated to herself. She stiffened. “Er, ah. Now you go out to the pasture and feed them.”
“The bulls?”
“No, no…they have enough to graze on. The hundred heads of steers next to the bulls.”
“All right.” He came toward