Page 39 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

Angel didn’t know how many baby blankets she had in the closet down the hall, but she sent one of those and at least two jars of preserves or jams or jellies or grape juice to every woman she heard of having a baby. Everyone getting married got a blanket and preserves too, and sometimes Momma just called the cowboys to her house and started handing out jars of jam.

Angel looked up as her father sat down at the table with a big bowl of cubed watermelon. “Shad went and picked up our groceries yesterday,” he said in his usual gruff manner. “This watermelon is actually pretty decent.”

It had taken a lot for her dad to give over the shopping to the grocery store. He grumbled about how no one could pick out produce or meat the way he could and that he might get something that he actually didn’t want, but then he’d have to take it and pay for it. Angel finally convinced him that it was far easier to put in an order over the phone or on the internet and just let her drive to town to pick it up. She didn’t have time to take him hobbling through the produce section to knock on the end of every watermelon.

“It looks good,” Angel said as she traded her spoon for a fork so she could stab a chunk. She put it in her mouth, the watermelon cold and sweet and juicy, and she moaned as she nodded. “Yeah, this is great, Daddy.” She smiled at him. He flashed a quick grin at her in return, but something seethed just below the surface. Her phone chimed with the sound that she had assigned to Henry, and her pulse went wild.

Surely Daddy and Momma would know that was Henry, and that Angel had a mega-crush on him.Not a crush, she thought.A craving.

Daddy looked at her phone too, and it took every ounce of Angel’s willpower not to reach out and flip the device over. Shewasn’t sure what Daddy saw, but Henry’s name flashed before her eyes. His text started with,I hope you’re having, and then it blipped away.

“How was your weekend with Henry?” Daddy asked, every word calculated and measured. He scooped up a forkful of his eggs and ate them.

“She already said it was good, dear,” Momma said. “Weren’t you listening while you cubed the watermelon?”

Daddy was always listening, so Angel wasn’t surprised to find him nodding.

“Yeah, I guess I just wanted more of a report.” His blue eyes bore into hers. “Apersonalreport.”

Angel swallowed, because she knew what her father wanted to hear, but she didn’t want to say it. She glanced over to Momma and reached for her hand. She folded her fingers across her momma’s and tucked them underneath. “If you must know,” she said crisply. “I was so completely overwhelmed with everything that I do around here that when I got Henry’s text about Levi being sick, I went to check on him. I thought I was fine; I really did, Daddy.”

She really wanted him to understand, but Daddy never seemed to be harried or overwhelmed. “But I ended up—” Angel’s voice gave out on her, because she didn’t want her father to hear the emotion climbing its way up her throat.

Her parents loved her; she knew that. Daddy had trusted her with the entirety of Lone Star. She could tell them.

“I broke down in front of him,” she blurted out. “Okay? I carry so much around here, Daddy, and I can’t do it anymore. It was so nice to have two days off, where someone else fed me, and someone else told me what to wear, and I got to sleep as late as I wanted.”

She took a big breath and pulled her hand away from Momma’s. “I needed a break, and Henry saw that, because Isobbed my eyes out in front of him. And he whisked me away. That’s it.”

She wasn’t ready to admit her feelings for Henry, not to her parents. A conversation about changing the rules at Lone Star was one she wasn’t ready or willing to have within twelve hours of returning to the ranch.

“I talked to Trevor last night,” she said. “We both agree that I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing.” She ducked her head and looked at her cereal, which had gone soggy. She wouldn’t eat it now, and she didn’t care.

“I want to promote someone else to a second foreman,” she said. “I carry too much, and I’m not you, Daddy.” Her voice broke on the last word as shame, regret, and guilt filled her. “I’ve tried to be.” She shook her head, feeling the long ends of her wig brush her shoulders. “But I can’t keep doing it. Trevor can see it; Henry saw it; surely you can see it too.”

She lifted her head, pulled her shoulders back, employed her faith—just the way her parents had taught her—and looked at him as she said, “God told me too. I’m not you, and I don’thaveto be you.”

Daddy gave her a soft smile and took her hand. “Of course you don’t need to be me, Angel. I’m sorry if that was the implication that you got—that I expected you to do all I did.”

“Maybe it’s a burden I put on myself,” she said. “No matter what, I need help. So I’m going to have an open promotion period, where anyone can submit an application to move up the ranks.”

“Sounds good,” Daddy said.

“Someone who’s passionate about horses and their care, who understands our culture. I already asked Trevor, but he doesn’t want to do it.” She glanced over to Momma. “We have team leads that I could pick from, but I’m also considering our master farriers.”

“Can’t be a master farrier,” Daddy grumbled. “They’re too important to the farrier team.”

“We have team leads on the horsemanship side too,” she argued back. “Our foreman is a horseman. Copper’s ready to become management, and he could move up. There are others to move into his role.”

Daddy had been retired for a full year now, and she knew more about the day-to-day operations at Long Star than he did.

“So you’re thinkin’ you’re going to take someone from the horseman side?”

Angel thought of Henry quickly. “Either side,” she said. “I think a farrier could be an excellent foreman. In fact, it’s probably what we should do.”

“Why’s that?” Daddy folded his arms, and that wasn’t a good sign.

Angel wasn’t going to back down now. “Because, if I’m running toward what I want, and that’s to maintain what we have built here—without me having to do everything—we already have a foreman from the horseman side.”

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