Page 6 of Serious Cowboy

“What else do you know about him?”

Bryce shrugged, frustration starting to show on his face. “He does a good job.”

When she realized what little information she’d been able to gather, it wasn’t much. He’s a good feed manager. Only been there a few months. That was it.

She tried a few other inquiries to see if Bryce would open up any further, but it was like running into a brick wall. Either the man didn’t know much else about Zeke Knight, particularly the more personal bits she was after, or he was purposely refraining from telling her.

“Well, that’s good to know. He seems a little reclusive.” Callie pushed just a little further, hoping she wasn’t going too far. And then she realized she’d done just that.

“Hey, nice talking to you Callie, but I need to get going. See you later.” Bryce nodded and walked off probably looking for the safety of his wife. Callie couldn’t really blame him for that. She probably needed to dial things back.

But being a let it happen sort of girl had never been her. She’d struggled with patience for as long as she could remember. The truth was, she could try to restrain herself but her history said she’d still fall into that trap. She let out a long breath and lookedaround her. She stood quietly by herself while she tried to gather her thoughts.

So it seemed Zeke would remain a mystery for now.

She couldn’t go to her brother, and her sister-in-law would likely tattle to her husband should Callie dig too deeply into that line of communication. She needed another method of finding out what this Zeke Knight guy was all about, though.

Giving herself a mental shake, she had to get this guy out of her mind. At least for right now. She was with family and friends and she should enjoy that.

She was about to mingle again when she noticed the kids playing together on the other side of the room. They were having fun together, laughing and joking around. Craving a change of focus, she went over to them.

“What are you guys up to?” she asked, tweaking her niece’s nose lightly.

“Just goofing off,” said Kimmie.

“Well it looks like you’re having a great time. I think you all are the goofiest kids ever.”

They all giggled. “We are!” yelled one little boy. She wasn’t sure who he was, but he was full of energy and the others were feeding off of it.

“I think I’ll let you continue with your fun. Be sweet now.” She squeezed her other niece’s shoulder as she walked away with a smile.

She spent the rest of the reception trying to figure out how she could easily cross paths with Zeke again. She was so intrigued byhim and she wanted desperately to get to know him. That word sprung into her mind and made her cringe. Desperate. Why did she feel this way? Why was she so sure she’d have to chase him to get him to notice her?

She finally pushed the negative thoughts aside and was able to enjoy the last bit of the party. Briefly she hoped she hadn’t come off badly to Bryce, but what was done was done. She’d have to get past that worry and just move on.

Maybe she’d be paying extra attention when she went into town in case she had a chance to bump into Zeke. She didn’t want to miss any opportunities that came to her and she’d take any gift offered in that department. She couldn’t completely brush off the desire to make opportunities happen, though.

CHAPTER FOUR

At the endof his shift, Zeke hopped into his rebuilt 1967 International Harvester pickup, shivering. It’d been an especially glacial day today, the sun never once breaking through the gray overcast. It smelled like snow, too, so he knew getting home would be in his best interests.

Prior to sticking his key in the ignition, though, he flitted a hand over the dashboard and gave the old girl a friendly pat. It was a sort of ritual he liked to maintain. This truck—decades older than he was—had been his first project as a teen, and he’d never looked back.

He’d worked on it for years before it would run, and it was years after that before he put the finishing touches of new chrome accessories and a pristine ivory white paint job to complete it. In a lot of ways, this shiny hunk of refurbished metal was his baby.

He would run it through the carwash to rinse off the dust if it weren’t so cold, but Rocky Ridge in late November wasn’t for the faint of heart. Last night, it’d gotten down to three degrees, and he’d had to coax his engine to start at all this morning. Even with its many new parts and numerous improvements, it tooka minute for the Harvester to warm up enough to rumble down the road.

Since the mercury hadn’t risen much throughout his workday, he had to sweettalk his truck to life again now. It took a while, long enough that he wondered if he’d have to open the hood and see what was going on, when the engine finally caught.

That was when the sky opened up and huge fluffy flakes of snow began to fall. He’d traveled less than a mile from the ranch when it coated everything in sight, and he double checked to make sure his lights were on. He loved the color he’d painted his old girl, but it made her hard to see if not lit up properly.

The sun—already dim—had totally disappeared by the time he turned onto the main lane that led back into the city limits of the town, and it was taking all his concentration just to stay on the pavement.

That’s when he caught sight of a flash of crimson red and carefully tapped on his brakes. Regardless of his skilled ability to drive in such conditions, his tires still slid and he found himself nose to nose with a car so tiny and low to the ground it almost seemed like a toy one of the Blum children would play with.

The windshield wipers were on, so he assumed the driver was still inside. Flipping on his flashers, he hurried over to see what might’ve happened. The last person Zeke ever would’ve anticipated being out here in such an inappropriate-for-the-mountains little car—a later model of Mazda Miata, he realized—was Callie Blum.

Yet there she sat.

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