Page 33 of Sweet Beginnings

“This is no time for a traffic jam.” Carson shifted around his mother. “Mom says these go in the drawers she’s been emptying.”

“Ditto.” Rachel appeared on their mother’s other side. “No one said a thing about a dance break.”

Still grinning, their mother crossed the room, shoved the empty drawer back into the dresser and spun around. “Back to work, everyone.”

Another few moments and they were all traipsing back and forth across the hall, moving clothes around, stripping bed sheets, and with each crossing there was a little more swing in everyone’s step.

Content with the progress they’d made so quickly in swapping out bedrooms, Alice took a minute to run downstairs and check on the desserts she’d set in the oven.

The back door cracked open and Clint, the lone ranch hand left, stomped his feet on the mat and held his hat in his hands. “Afternoon, Miss Alice.” He paused, his head cocked slightly to one side, eyes narrowed. “You’re looking awfully spry today.”

“Spry?” She shook her head. “Why does that make me feel twenty years older than I am?”

“Sorry, ma’am.” He slapped his hat against his thigh.

“Ma’am. Oh dear, make that thirty years.”

Poor Clint actually blushed. His feet shuffled from side to side, and slowly he fully lifted his head to level his gaze with hers. “I’m sorry to have to say this. There’s a section of fence down in the south pasture. From what I can see, we’re missing about a dozen cows.”

Her breath caught in her throat as she managed to squeak out, “Ray?”

“I don’t know, but I think not. It looks like the fence just gave out.”

“Gave out,” she muttered. Even though she needed for more things to fall apart like she needed another fall on the barbed wire; at least it was way better than cut by that sniveling, thieving, former foreman, Ray.

“I rigged the fence for now, but if I could get one of your boys to give me a hand, we can find the missing cattle, then I can fix the fence right.”

Fix it right. They were so tight on money at the moment that she could barely afford to buy toilet paper, never mind much needed supplies. “About that.”

“Please don’t go there again.”

“There?”

“About my pay. I told you, a roof over my head and three square meals a day is all I need till the ranch is on sound footing.”

And there was that too. Would this place ever be on sound footing again? Along with the other ranch hands whose salary she’d been able to use toward loan payments, Clint had refused his paycheck and insisted she add it the payment. Something she hadn’t intended to make a long-term arrangement, but apparently that was her only hand’s intent. She could see some of their older hands who had been with them for decades doing something like that, but the good guys were all gone. One by one the cowhands who had spent years on the payroll had given some excuse or other for moving on, and, of course, their replacements were much younger and hired by Ray. No doubt the former ranch hands leaving, like all her other cattle trouble, had been orchestrated or manipulated by the crooked foreman. Now, Clint was their most recent hire. The man hadn’t been here but a few months before Ray and the rest of the hands slithered into the night, and yet, he seemed to have a loyalty to the ranch that had no rhyme or reason. Did it? She shook her head and reminded herself why she had reason to smile. “Not today.”

“Excuse me?”

“Preston and Sarah Sue are married.”

“Hitched?”

Her cheeks hurting from so much smiling, she bobbed her head. “Hitched.”

One side of his mouth tipped upward in a hint of a smile. “Congratulations, Miss Alice. Miss Sarah Sue is a nice gal. I’ve only met her a time or two, but anyone can see she’s good people.”

“Yes, she is. It’s about time something positive happened to this place.” Losing Charlie had almost broken her, finding out what Ray had done only made things worse, but today, today all was well with the universe.

“I guess the cattle and fence can keep till morning.”

Shaking her head, she waved a finger at him as if he were a small child. “You’re not working on the Lord’s day, Clint.”

“No, ma’am.” His eyes widened suddenly. “I mean, Miss Alice.”

His sudden backpedaling of the polite name that had made her feel horribly old a few moments ago, now made her want to laugh. “Join us for supper? A celebration of sorts.”

Heavy boot steps came down the stairs and Clint lifted his gaze in time to see Carson coming toward the kitchen with a full laundry basket in hand.

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