Page 19 of Due North
She had been on my mind since she was in my cabin on Wednesday. The things she’d said gave me a lot to chew on yesterday, both about my grief and hers. I wanted to run from it, pretend it didn’t exist, act like it didn’t matter, and leave it all in a box on a high shelf out of sight. Cece wanted to face it head-on, absorb it, live it, and look at it every day in little Poppy. She was half my size and stronger than I could ever be. She might disagree, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
“Hey, Tex,” Tobi said, jogging up the path from the north gate. “I think I have everything in its place for a few minutes. It’s nice having a break from guests right now. I’ve been able to catch up on work and not cater to grown men trying to be something they aren’t.”
“I know the feeling,” I grunted. “When Heaven first brought the idea to us, I was excited at the idea of teaching guys how to be cowboys. Now, a year later, it’s more like expensive playtime for these guys. They aren’t interested in learning to be a cowboy. They just want to say they did it.”
Her nod was immediate. “I agree, but it pays the bills. I just checked on Miss Dolly. She’s sure taken to Heavenly Lane.” Tobi wore a grin on her lips that would make most men stop for a beat.
I forced my mind away from comparing her to Cece and back on the conversation. “She sure has. I’ve enjoyed getting to know her. Honestly, Dolly is a dream come true for me. I’ve always wanted a Haflinger to train as a therapy horse.”
“A therapy horse?” she asked, turning to me.
“Yeah, they’re the perfect horse for it, but the breed has always been too expensive for me to touch. They probably still are since Blaze and Heaven bought me Dolly. Regardless, I’ll use her around the ranch for work, but I hope to train her at the same time to be a horse we can put the little ones on as they learn to ride. I’d like to have Dolly ready to ride by the time Eden and Poppy are old enough.”
“Wow,” she said, nodding when I finished explaining. “I’m taken aback. That’s a great idea. Dolly would be perfect as a therapy horse. I’m sure the girls would love to test her out for you when the time comes.”
I chuckled and opened the door of the ring for us to walk through. “Since Eden loves the horses already, it’s a sure bet.” I sighed when I took in the ring. “What do you know about roping a steer?”
“Quite a bit, actually.”
“I was kidding. Wait, what? Seriously?”
“Well, yeah. I thought that’s why you brought me out here this morning.”
“No, it was to talk about some other things. Why didn’t you say you know how to rope?”
“No one asked?” Her shrug was nonchalant until she held up her hands. “I know people assume that because of my hands, I don’t have good dexterity. That can be true depending on the task, but I can still work a lasso. This finger,” she said, pointing at her right hand, “is perfectly designed for holding a rope. I don’t do it much now that I work here, but I still know how.”
Tobi’s hands were split right down the middle of her palm. She had two fingers on each side of the split. She could do just about anything other than carry something too heavy without distributing the weight equally. “I don’t think that at all, Tobi,” I clarified. “What I assumed was, if someone else were interested in helping with the roping, they’d speak up.”
“I haven’t said anything because I’m busy with the rest of the work on the ranch, but I’ve been roping since I was a freshman in high school.”
“Mind if I pick your brain about a few things then?”
She motioned at the ring. “Pick away.”
I explained that most of the recruits couldn’t get the hang of a rope no matter how hard they tried. She knew that we do our roping in stages, first inside with the bull dummies until they pass basic skills to be sure they wouldn’t get hurt, then they could advance to the motor-powered steer, and then finally to the real thing.
“The problem is,” I said as we leaned on a replica of a bucking calf, “how long it takes me to teach them the basics before they can even graduate to the horses. I’m the only one here who teaches roping because I’m the only one who knows how on the ranch.” I held up my finger. “Well, up until ten minutes ago, that is. Blaze, Beau, and Ash all know how, but they’re too busy. What I need to do is figure out a way to teach the men faster while still giving them some degree of personal attention in the beginning.”
She nodded along, her focus on nothing but our conversation. Tobi was a woman who never broke her concentration when she was engaged with another person. I liked that about her immediately. She wasn’t distracted by her phone or other trappings of modern life. When she was working on a problem with me, she was one hundred percent present no matter where we were.
“When do you start the roping each week?” she asked.
“Immediately on Monday morning,” I answered. “Sunday afternoon is spent going over what we’re going to teach them, safety protocols, and the like. Then Cece puts out a huge buffet, and we let the guys get to know each other.”
Just the thought of the camp cook made me shift between my feet. I forced my lower half to keep from reacting to the image of her carrying a tray of her delicious goodness to the table and laughing while she did it. Was it weird that I found her sexy as hell in her apron? Probably.
“Okay, so I’ll come in on Monday mornings and help with the initial roping lessons. As they pass the skills test, you can move them outside to the horses, and I’ll stay here and keep working with anyone who needs extra help.”
“Do you have time to do that?”
“I’ll have to ask my boss, but I think he’ll say yes,” she said, tongue in cheek.
I chuckled and rocked back on my boot heels. “You know what I mean. I’d have to open your schedule and have one of the other hands cover your work on Mondays. You already work here full-time, so I doubt Dawn and Heaven will have a problem with it, but I’ll have to run it by them.”
“Sounds like a perfect partnership,” she said, leaning over to give me a fist bump. “I feel like this isn’t what you wanted to talk to me about when you first brought it up, though.”
I shrugged as I stood and took a moment to make sure my leg was solid under me. “You might be right, but I have to address things one at a time here on the ranch. With a place like this, you have to take bite-sized pieces, or you’ll choke. I’m still working on a plan for the rest of it, but we will discuss it once I have it ready. Having you here to help me with the roping will take a huge time-suck off my shoulders. That will give me more time for everything else.”
