Page 14 of Cole's Joy
“That’s all I can ask.” Cole did walk away that time, and he walked into the barn and loved the sight before him. There werethe women helping several people on the horses, and he could tell by the grins on the riders’ faces that they were having the time of their lives. Seeing this made everything Erin and Naomi went through to bring The Broken Wheel to fruition all worth it. He looked up when he saw someone approach and grinned.
“Noomi, how are you?” It made his heart swell when he saw her actually walking toward him.
“Good, what brings you here? Not that I don’t want to see you, but what’s up?”
He grinned as he held up the folder like he had with Reid. “Quarterly reports.”
“Shit, I knew there was something I had to do.” She shook her head and had him follow her back to her office. As she settled in her chair behind the desk, she looked at him with a shake of the head. “It’s hard to believe that you’ve been here for three months already.”
“Technically, it’s been almost four. I’m a little behind.” He laughed at her wrinkled nose. “That is just your copy, the originals are over at New Double. I know I don’t have to, but it’s been such a habit over the years that I had a safe installed in the floor of my office in the barn, and have the originals there. The other copy is in the actual file drawers.”
“Yeah, keeping secrets from Benson will be a long habit and take time to break.”
“I agree.” He sat there and studied the woman sitting before him and felt proud of how she turned out.
“Was there anything else? I’m not telling you to leave, but your expression is telling me you have something you want to discuss.”
“I do.”
“Okay, what is it?” When he still wouldn’t speak, she smirked at him. “I’m not going to yell at you.”
“Oh, good, because I didn’t know how to ask this question.”
“Just ask. The worst I can say is no.”
“True, now here goes. Do you still have connections in the rodeo?”
Naomi reared back like she’d been slapped and scowled at him. “Excuse me?”
“Noomi, we need help. Serious help. I’m not saying the ladies and gentlemen that come over from Broken aren’t good, they are, but New Double needs permanent help. Benson and Big Pig fired our regular hands to bring in their thugs. I didn’t bring any of them with us because I didn’t want anyone to report back to them. The regular hands, when I reached out to them, refused to move to Colorado, and they wanted nothing to do with Benson.” Cole shook his head sadly as he settled back in the chair he had taken. “I told them repeatedly that Benson has no claim to New Double, they still refused to relocate.”
“I can understand that, and I know I’ve been neglecting to come over as often. How many hands do you have now?”
“Including me, three and a half.” He laughed at her shocked look. “Me, Clem, Ann, and Ducky.”
“Ah, are you taking care of him?”
“Yes. Clem was waiting for him to get up from his mid-morning nap and they’re heading into town. It’s Clem’s turn to pick up the carrots.” They shared a laugh and he looked at her seriously. “I don’t know if you know this, and I don’t like to talk about my personal life, but you’re old enough to understand this.”
“What?”
“I’m sweet on Lois Gibson. Since she’s moved here, if I’m not working on New Double, I’m over at her place. I try not to make a nuisance of myself, but for the first time in my life, I met a woman that Iwantto spend time with. You know she’ll be in charge of our gardens right? And the canning. I tossed somemoney at Clem to pick up some canning supplies. I thought we could start a stock of them.”
“That was a great idea,” Naomi said in agreement, then cocked her head to the side to stare at him.
“What?”
“Didn’t Ducky say something about a summer kitchen? And I don’t know if my memory is correct or not, but didn’t Grandma have one back on The Double A?”
“You’re right, she did. She canned all the vegetables from the garden. I do believe that she would can the meat from whatever your grandfather got during hunting season.” He looked off to the side and then snapped his fingers. “There were several crates that were stored in a closet at my cabin back there. I didn’t look at them, I just grabbed them when I packed my stuff for Ann and Manny to bring back here.”
“Were they labeled?”
“If memory serves, they said something along the lines of canning supplies. I’ll dig them out when I get back home to see what they contain. I told Clem to take Ducky with him because he’s the one that always talks about his wife and what she did. I figured it would make him feel more involved if he could help pick out the supplies.”
“That was a wonderful idea. Maybe you could talk to him about a summer kitchen or something.”
“I’ll do that.” He nodded then looked at her with a smirk.
