Page 34 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

“I like him,” she said. “Like, I want to go out with him. I want to hold his hand. I want him to kiss me. Ilikehim.” She couldn’t believe she even said the word “kiss” to her brother.

She especially didn’t like how, out of her peripheral vision, she saw Trevor wipe his hands and his face and lean back in his chair. “Well, what are you going to do about that?”

“I don’t know,” Angel said. “I’m talking to you about it. What would you do?”

“What would I do?” Trevor asked. “I don’t know what I would do.”

Angel let out a huff, scarfed down a bite, and stabbed through a piece of chicken that she’d cut. “Let’s say that I hired somebody to work out here, a girl that you really liked. She’s a really good farrier. She leads the team well. You thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. What if you wanted to go out with her?”

Trevor folded his arms. “We don’t have any women working here right now.”

Angel glared at him. “But what if we did? And you liked her?”

Her brother looked at her, searching her face—for what Angel had no idea. She put the food in her mouth so she wouldn’t say anything else. Like she’d already held Henry’s hand, and he’d already kissed her, even though that hadn’t been a real kiss and it had happened a year ago.

“Pick up your fork,” she said. “Eat.” She cut off another piece of chicken, a slow anger simmering inside her. “Is it so shocking that I like a man? That I want to go out with someone?”

“No,” Trevor said quickly, and he did pick up his utensils and start to eat. “It’s not shocking at all, Angel. It’s just…one of theguys here.” She heard the level of insecurity and incredulity in his voice.

“Yeah,” Angel said. “I mean, where else am I going to meet men?” She looked over to him. “Heck, I barely leave this place. And when I do, it’s just to run errands. It’s to pick up medicine for Momma or get groceries. It’s to go into the farrier academy and attend meetings, teach a class, or do internship selections. I don’t ever go hang out with people my own age. The people my own age are off-limits to me. And I’m just wondering what you think. Like maybe….”

She trailed off, trying to get the right thing to come. “But what if they weren’t?” This time, she had enough mental capacity to put a little bit of potatoes on the fork with her chicken. She took that bite, and she looked at Trevor, the question hanging in the air between them.

“You’re going to talk to Daddy about the no-dating rule?” he asked.

Angel really didn’t want to do that, but she didn’t see a way around it. “I don’t even know if anything between me and Henry will happen.”

“Does he like you too?” Trevor asked.

Angel shrugged one shoulder, though she knew the answer to that question was yes. “I think so.”

She focused on her food again, using it as an excellent distraction. “I had a real nice time with him this weekend,” she said. “It was an escape that I needed.”

“You work too hard around here,” Trevor said. “Everyone knows it.”

“Will you lead roll call tomorrow?” she asked.

Trevor pulled in a breath, and she looked at him. “Me? You wantmeto lead roll call?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I want someone else to start taking over roll call, and I think you can do it.” She occasionally had others lead roll call, but not often. “Who did it when I was gone?”

“No one,” Trevor said. “We just didn’t have it.”

Angel shook her head, displeasure and irritation bleeding through her. “See, that’s not okay. We need to have roll call every single day, and what if I have a headache?” She gave Trevor a glare. “What if I can’t make it out there by seven a.m.?”

She stabbed at her food again. “There needs to be someone else to lead this ranch when I can’t.”

“I agree.”

“Great,” she said without missing a beat. “Then I want you to lead roll call.”

“I don’t really know what’s going on with the farriers,” he said.

“I don’t either,” Angel said. “I would text Shad.” She raised her eyebrows, a clear challenge in the movement. “In fact, why don’t you just text Shad and ask him to do the business at the beginning, and you’ll do the inspirational or training part? And then I can talk about schedules. One person doesn’t have to do everything.”

She caught the surprise in her brother’s expression, and it flowed freely in her veins too. “I know this is new,” she said quietly. “But I think it’s time for something new.” She pushed her potatoes around her plate, wishing she was hungrier.

“Henry’s momma sent a lot of food for us,” she said. “I’ll bring you some in the morning.”

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