Page 9 of Eighteen Bowties and Counting

He read through the paper and said nothing. Finally, he closed it, his movements slow. “You’ve got three bedrooms and two baths, right?”

“Right.”

“And a loft.”

“Yes, sir.”

Squire tossed the folder down on the desk. “Seems like enough room for you and Miss Wisen—whatever.”

Beau smiled at him and said, “Wisenhouer.”

“Make the call. See what she says. No matter what, someone’s gonna have to move in with you, and I don’t see the sense in making two men move—one of whom you only deal with when absolutely necessary—when she can just take one of the bedrooms.”

Beau picked up the folder. “Okay, boss.” He got to his feet and turned toward the door.

“Is that what you were thinking?” Squire asked.

“Yes,” Beau said. “But it sounded crazy in my thoughts, so I wasn’t sure.” He turned back at the doorway. “Thanks, Squire.”

“Do you think she’ll agree to it?”

“I have no idea,” Beau said. “I don’t know her.”

“Mm, you will soon enough.”

Beau tipped his hat at Squire, who grinned him right out of the office. He could make the phone call from the admin building, but instead, Beau made the quick trip home. He wasn’t sure how to say what needed to be said, so he fed his dogs and took another frozen meal out and got it cooking in the oven.

He showered. He wandered over to the grandfather clock and the pictures on the sideboard. “Dolly and her horses,” he murmured to himself.

Time passed, and he ate dinner without making the phone call. His bedtime approached, and he’d told everyone he’d let them know that evening. This job definitely had things about it he didn’t like, but for the most part, Beau loved being the foreman.

He made four quick phone calls to deliver bad news to the applicants who hadn’t gotten the job. The grandfather clock chimed eight times, and Beau exhaled heavily.

“Just do it,” he said, and he grabbed Charlotte’s folder so he could get her phone number. One more phone call, and he could rest easy.

He tapped in the numbers, his fingers moving slower and slower. “It’s a phone call,” he coached himself as he stared at the green button. “It’s only a phone call.”

Beau touched his screen to make the call, every cell in his body vibrating as if they were each experiencing an individual earthquake.

Chapter Four

Charlotte held up four miniature ice cream sandwiches, two in each hand, and called, “Who wants ice cream?”

It was no wonder she was the favorite aunt. Her three nieces and her one nephew all started clamoring for the treat, which their mother had approved.

“I’m the oldest,” Ella said. “I should get one first.”

Charlotte grinned at her, and she did get the first one. Not because she was the oldest, but because she stood the tallest. Charlotte could easily hand her the treat over the heads of the other kids, and then she presented an ice cream sandwich to Kennedy, the cutest seven-year-old on the planet.

Garrett got his next, and then Charlotte sat down and pulled the youngest onto her lap before she passed over the ice cream. “There you go, Alice.”

“Thank you, Char-Char.”

She had to help Alice get the wrapper off, and once she’d done that, Charlotte couldn’t help looking over to the clock. Eight-ten. Was Beau ever going to call? She wasn’t sure if no news was good news or not. Surely he wasn’t still interviewing, but she really had no idea what the hiring process was like at Three Rivers Ranch.

She’d put a show on for the kids while Mason and Felicity packed lunches for their picnic tomorrow. But really, she just wanted her phone to ring. She’d avoided Mason after returning to his ranch, which sat over an hour from Three Rivers. She didn’t want to answer his questions, and she hadn’t thought of a reason why Beau would’ve called Mason other than her health problems.

So she’d looked through the job boards, just to have a back-up plan if she didn’t get the Stable Manager position. She’d helped with dinner, and she’d thanked the Good Lord above that Mason had been distracted with a portion of the shed’s roof that had come off in the wind.

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