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off the counter. “I’ll go start the grill. And
Haley?” When she looked up, he was standing close enough she could feel the
heat of his body. He grinned. “You might wanna unclench a little. If I get the
yen to jump you, I’ll be sure to let you know ahead of time.” Fire sprang to
her cheeks and he chuckled, tweaked her chin. “I do love a woman who still
knows how to blush.”

Chapter Three
     
    True to his word, Wyatt sent Carl Dooley over the next day.
He spent a couple of hours with Haley, working on getting acquainted with
Geronimo and the mare, Molly. Wyatt hadn’t lied, Dooley knew horses and both
stallion and mare took to him immediately. Haley had no qualms about offering
him the job as foreman and handing over the keys to the house where Jack’s old
foreman and his family had lived. The following day the Dooley family moved
back to the One-Eyed Jack ranch to work for the namesake’s niece.
    As a child, Haley had lived and worked on ranches from Texas
to New Mexico and on up into Wyoming. Her daddy was what was scornfully
referred to as a grub liner, a cowboy who showed up to work right around
suppertime. Ranch folk being what they were, Kent Kilpatrick was rarely denied
a job or a meal when showing up with kids in tow. He’d work long enough to earn
the money to get them to the next rodeo venue, where Haley went to work winning
barrel racing events, nearly always taking the first place purse. Of course,
the prize money always went in her daddy’s pocket and then it was on to the
next venue on the circuit. In all her life, Haley had never called any one
place home. Now, sitting on the back porch, shucking lima beans with Maria
Dooley, she marveled at how life could change in the blink of an eye.
    “You are very quiet, senorita ,” Maria observed. “Is
something wrong?”
    Haley smiled and tossed another handful of lima beans in a
pot. “No. Just thinkin’ about how quick life can turn on you. Not long ago, I
was living outta my camper, rodeoing for a living. Now here I am in Butt Crack,
Texas shucking beans on the back porch of my own place. I think it just hit me
that I really own it.”
    Maria paused, then reached out and squeezed Haley’s hand.
“Life has not been so easy for you, I think.”
    Haley laughed. “It’s had its moments but you take the hand
you’re dealt and get on with living.”
    Maria nodded. “ Sí , you are right. But you are happy
now?”
    “I’m working on it, Maria. I’ll feel a sight better when me
and Wyatt pick up the rest of my stock and I’m out from under that no-good
brother of mine.”
    Beans pinged inside the pot like hail on a tin roof. “He is
a bad man, this brother of yours?”
    “Nah. He’s just a no-account. Thinks the sun comes up just
to hear him crow.”
    “He will not be happy to see you go, I suspect.”
    Haley snorted. “He’ll have a fit and step in it, I expect.
Can’t say I ain’t lookin’ forward to seeing it though.
    “My daddy doted on Conner, much as he knew how to, him being
the only boy and all. Gave him everything he ever wanted, never made him work a
day in his life.”
    More limas pinged. “What will he do without you?”
    Haley shrugged. “Hell, he’s pretty enough that some fool
woman will come along and take care of him. He sure as hell ain’t coming back
here with me.”
    They fell silent for a while, shucking more beans and
watching the two younger children play a game of tag with Snoop in the orchard.
    “Your father, he is in the prison?”
    “Yup. Got ten to fifteen for stabbin’ a fellow in a bar
fight outside Lubbock. Lucky the fellow didn’t die or he’d a got the death
penalty for sure.”
    Maria put a hand on Haley’s shoulder. “So much sadness for
one so young. But you have a home now. You have Dooley and me, now, and Wyatt.
He is a good man.”
    Haley snorted derisively. “Yeah, well, it takes a mighty
good man to be better than no man at all.”
    Maria clucked her tongue. “Such cynicism in