Page 4 of Christmas with Three Cowboys

“No, ma’am,” I say, feeling slightly insulted.

“Mrs. Avery—”

“Ms.”

“Ms. Avery, she just came out of a correctional facility,” Bucky says. “And her charges never involved any kind of dangerous weapons. The Path to Freedom Initiative would never—”

“Hey, I don’t give a rat’s ass about no Path to Freedom whatever,” Darla says, cutting him off again. “I watch out for my nephews and my ranch, and I ask whatever questions I wanna ask.”

“I don’t carry knives or guns or anything that could be used as a weapon,” I calmly reply. “You have nothing to worry about, Ms. Avery. I’m here to work and finish the rest of my sentence period.”

“Good. Come on.”

She heads back to the truck while I give Bucky one last smile and mouth a “Thank you” before I rush after Darla. Once we’re in the pickup truck, seat belts on, and the open road ahead, a heavy kind of silence settles between Darla and me. Traffic is bad, just as she expected. Ahead of us, all I see through the rain-speckled windshield is a river of red taillights. On either side of the road are empty pastures, fenced in to keep the cattle in and trespassers out.

“The boys won’t be expecting someone like you,” Darla says out of the blue.

“Someone like me?” I ask, hands neatly folded in my lap.

“Honestly, you’re not what I expected, either,” Darla mutters. “When Colton signed the ranch up for this whole Path to Freedom Initiative, I warned him. I warned him it could be dangerous. I don’t believe people can change.”

“Ma’am, I—”

“That being said, we all thought they were going to send us a tatted-up goon from a men’s prison,” Darla continues.

I can’t help but laugh lightly. She seems irritated and intrigued at the same time. “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to find the right words. “It’s just that… this whole inmate program is really hard to get into. You need to be a low-risk, model prisoner. They won’t let in anybody sentenced for violent crimes or for burglary and theft.”

“Right. You’re just a drug dealer.”

I feel my face burn. I stopped touting my innocence about six months into my sentence when I realized it wasn’t going todo me any good. Whether I was guilty of the crime I’d been convicted of made no difference. I had a label, and I had to own it.

“I never hurt anybody. I never stole anything. And I’ve been a model prisoner from day one, Ms. Avery. Also, I’m not a fan of tattoos.”

“Can you cook?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s why the program paired me with the Avery Ranch. I spent two to four hours a day in the prison kitchen cooking alongside the staff and catering to three thousand inmates.”

“Good. We only have seven people on the ranch, so it’ll be like a walk in the park for you,” Darla replies.

Again, minutes of awkward silence go by. She’s either warming up to me, or she’s running out of reasons not to like me. Either way, her body language does most of the talking for her. She seems more relaxed than before.

After a while, she takes a tight right turn onto a dirt road. Around us, mellow hills rise, parts of them covered in thick woods. It’s been a while since I’ve been in rural Nebraska. Even before prison, I was mostly a city person, and my life in Lincoln was anything but exciting. Jake made it exciting, and then took it to an extreme.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who are the seven people I’ll be feeding?”

“There’s Colton, Ethan, and Mitch. They’re my nephews and run the ranch. There’s me, of course. Sammy, who’s been around for decades. He’s the ranch manager. I’m the administrator. Andwe’ve got Kyle and Jason, our ranch hands. That’s all the crew we need for the winter season.”

“I see. Did you have a cook before?”

Darla gives me a sour look and releases a heavy sigh. “Yeah, me, but I can’t taste much anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve got some kind of neurodegenerative disorder or disease or whatever. My taste buds don’t work right. I can barely taste anything. I damn near slipped into a diabetic coma ’cause I couldn’t taste the sugar in my coffee for weeks on end. So, I can’t be in charge of cooking anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “That can’t be easy.”

“It isn’t. A whole life of loving sweets, and now I can’t taste them anymore. I can only chew food for the nutrients. Fuel for the body and all that crap.”

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