Page 79 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

Angel shimmied and shook, pulled the dress up over her shoulders until she could reach the zipper. She missed it a couple of times, and then managed to grab it and bring it up. She smoothed her hands down the front of her body and looked at herself in the mirror without her wig. She didn’t look half bad.

Henry had once told her that his favorite color on her was purple, so today for his graduation, she wore a lavender dress with big, splashy, golden horses running across it. It felt fitting for the graduation at Sherman Academy, where this year three farriers who worked at Lone Star had earned certificates or degrees.

She and Daddy didn’t attend graduation every year, not even when they had men graduating who worked on the ranch, so she hadn’t known if she’d be able to go this year just for Henry. The employee handbooks had been delayed, and they had still not made any announcement about their relationship, and that hadn’t helped.

Then, like she did with most things, Angel had gone to her father to talk it through. In the end, he’d gotten her to admit that yes, she wanted to attend this graduation. Yes, just for Henry.

So he’d made the decision that they’d attend, and Angel appreciated her father for carrying some of that load.

She turned away from her reflection and picked up her wig cap to finish getting ready. She definitely sensed some growing unrest inside Henry over the lack of a dating announcement, but he hadn’t brought it up again. They’d continued sneaking off-site to meet, or he’d come over to her house late at night the way he had been.

With only one more week until June first hit and everything got mixed up, new farriers came on for the apprenticeship positions, and the summer internship positions began, Angel felt like her life was about to blow up one more time.

You have help in place this year, she told herself. But everyone, literally everyone, would be new at their job—including Angel—and she simply wasn’t sure how it would all play out.

She clipped her wig in place, slipped into her heels, and grabbed her purse before she left the house. Down the road a bit and around the corner, she came to the farmhouse where Daddy sat outside in his rocking chair, a book in his hand.

Angel sweated as she climbed the steps and said, “I should have driven over; it’s way too hot already.”

Daddy smiled at her, a brief gesture that only lasted a moment before it floated away. “It’s pretty warm today.” It had been warm in the Texas Panhandle for a while now, and Angel had lived here her whole life. But that didn’t mean she’d gotten used to it.

“How’s Momma this morning?” she asked as she sat in the chair her mother had once relaxed in.

“She’s doing fine,” Daddy said.

Angel let the silence sink into her soul. While her mind ran away from her, she carefully went through her shoulders andher back, trying to relax her muscles. “You sure look nice this morning,” Daddy said.

“Thanks.” Angel threw him one of his type of smiles: brief. “I can’t believe Flint is going to be gone next week.”

Flint was married and had three kids, and he’d been working as a master farrier for fifteen years, ten of those here at Lone Star.

“A lot of change is happening next week,” Daddy said, and the tension and stress that Angel had just relieved tightened up her muscles again.

“Should we go?” she finally asked.

Daddy set aside his book and got to his feet. “Yeah, let’s go,” he said, almost like he was marching into battle instead of going to see their friends, employees, and loved ones earn something significant. Angel didn’t comment on it; she let Daddy drive off the ranch and toward Sherman Academy.

“Do you ever miss it?” she asked as the tires bumped over the gravel road.

He glanced over to her, but she didn’t have to clarify what “it” was. Daddy had taught at Sherman Academy for many years while running Lone Star. Angel did guest lectures every now and then, and she’d done a class or two in the past, but nothing for a couple of years.

“They asked me to teach this fall,” she said. “I got an email about it yesterday.”

“Is that right?” Daddy asked. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Angel said. “I don’t love teaching.” And she didn’t. She liked being outside. She liked organizing schedules. She loved being with horses. “Depends on how many riding students I can get, I guess. I’d rather do that.”

Daddy grunted, which meant,It’s not always about what you want to do.

Angel knew that having a presence at Sherman Academy ensured that Lone Star got insider information about the best farriers in their program. They got access to their grades, could read the reports on their strengths and weaknesses, and they could try to get the best men to come totheirboarding facility.

“I’m going to do that guest lecture at Amarillo State,” she said. “For the equine care and agricultural sciences program.”

“That’s great,” Daddy said. “It’s good to stay in touch with Herb.”

“Yeah,” she said. “He said they’ve got an unusually large crowd of students graduating this year who’ll need jobs next year.”

“Good,” he said. “We always need people who know what they’re doing with horses.” And that was true. Justin and Shad couldn’t be the foremen and barn managers forever. New men would have to move into those positions eventually.

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