Page 22 of Austin
“To Marietta.”
“Yes.”
Ellie frowned at her and seemed about to say something, then instead she nodded at Kristen’s shirt. “Do you want something old and beat up to wear over that?”
“I probably won’t hurt it manning the clipboard.”
Ellie arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been to how many brandings?”
Kristen smiled—a genuine smile that made her feel lighter inside. “Right. If you have something I’ll borrow it.”
“IfI have something. Dear heavens.” She jerked her head toward the house, then moved toward the side-by-side ATV. “Come on. My Aunt Katherine is still at the house and I promised to give her a ride to the corrals. You can pick a grubby jacket, and by the time we’re back, the guys will be ready to start moving calves through the chute.” Ellie gave her a wry smile. “And you can meet Duane.”
“Duane?”
“The world’s yappiest dog and the center of my aunt’s universe.”
*
Kristen’s mother hadgrown up on the Marvell Cattle Company ranch, so Austin wasn’t surprised to see that Kristen was very much at home at the chutes, wearing one of Clinton’s old denim jackets and jotting information on the clipboard. What did surprise him was that she and Ellie acted like old friends.
But, like Whitney, Ellie had never met a stranger. And maybe Kristen did better with people who didn’t have a preconceived idea about who she was. She was more relaxed than he had ever seen her…unless their gazes met. Then there’d be that little jolt he was certain she felt as much as he did.
A jolt of…what?
He didn’t have that pinned down yet, but it kept him thinking as they worked their way through a hundred calves. The three younger guys, Clinton’s cousins, pushed the calves through the chute. He and Clinton clamped them onto the calf table, rotated it, taking turns branding and vaccinating. Ellie’s Aunt Katherine helped Ellie load the needles while Kristen recorded exactly what vaccinations and medications each animal received.
Midway through the day, they broke for lunch and Katherine got her little poodle dog, Duane, out of the playpen where he’d been barking all day while they worked. Austin didn’t know what it was about ranchers and small yappy dogs, but he knew a lot of bona fide ranch guys who carried the little beasts around on one arm. He didn’t get it.
When he left the AEBR tour and got a dog, it would be a real dog. A dog with some size to him and some baritone to his voice. Duane had a high-pitched yip that made Austin’s shoulders go tight every time he heard it. And he heard it a lot that day.
After the break, they went back to the branding. Kristen was all business as she did her job. He knew because he didn’t seem to be able to keep himself from watching her. Clinton caught him a couple of times and gave him a look that clearly said, “You sure you’re only traveling together?”
Austin kept his mouth shut, because he knew the dangers of protesting too much. But the truth of the matter was that he was surprised that Kristen seemed to fit in with his friends. She fit in better than Sierra had a couple years ago…and maybe that was it. Anyone would have fit in after Sierra’s behavior that day. It wasn’t the last time he’d dated an urbanite, but it was the last time he’d brought one to a ranch.
Now he was here with Kristen, whom he wasn’t dating at all, but who kept drawing his eye, just as she had in high school. This was different though. He was studying her because he was trying to figure her out. She didn’t mind being touched, but she wasn’t used to it. That’s what she said anyway. Yeah. It had him thinking.
“Any time now,” Clinton said.
He brought his attention back to the calf, slid the needle under the skin on his neck and pushed the plunger.
“Four more,” Clinton said as they tipped the table together. The calf had a low tag number—one of the first born that season. Heavy guy.
“I could use a beer,” Austin muttered.
“Or four.”
He laughed. “Maybe not four. Three. I’m in training.”
Clinton grunted an acknowledgment just as Katherine let out a shriek.
“Get him!” Ellie yelled, pointing toward the white streak heading straight for the pen where the cows were mothering up with their babies. “Those ladies will stomp him into the mud.”
Austin doubted that ‘those ladies’—the cows—could catch him, but if they got lucky, Katherine would be inconsolable. Both he and Clinton dived for the dog, who swerved away, and the last thing he saw before going down was Kristen dropping her clipboard. A split second later a cheer went up, and he raised his head to see Kristen lying on her stomach in the dirt, her hand wrapped firmly around squirming Duane’s hind leg.
She was instantly surrounded by a crowd—Ellie helping her up, Katherine scooping up Duane and nuzzling him and then throwing an arm around Kristen and hugging her close. Clinton smiling and helping her brush off—although some of the stuff she’d landed in didn’t brush easily. Only Austin and the teenage boys in the pens didn’t mob her. But across the distance their gazes locked, and then she looked back at Katherine, who was trying to hug her again. Austin went back to the table, groaned as he tipped it upright and released the calf.
Kristen laughing—genuinely laughing—was an amazing sight. She was covered in cow shit from the knees down and her chin was dirty from where it had hit the dirt, but she looked beautiful.
