Page 14 of Extreme Romancing in Idaho

There sure wasn’t any slack in her rope.

Pulling up my collar against the early morning cold, I braced my legs against hay bales on the flatbed trailer being towed behind Angie’s ancient truck. She jerked the truck to the right, and I struggled to stay upright so I didn’t go spilling into the pasture riddled with cowpies. Eighty cows trailed behind us, mooing and trampling the soft ground; mud and shit splattered their underbellies. Some of them flicked their heads and sprayed froth all over their friends.

What if we humans behaved this way?

I could see foam spraying out of our mouths over our meals and splattering onto each other. Myles would go for that at dinner tonight.Excuse my foam, your food is that good.Yuck.

Angie was an independent, capable woman, and I found myself in the rare position of being intimidated by someone else. Yesterday she’d given me all the expectations she had for me to fill in for her father, and I doubted my decision to take this job.

However, this was my only window into the family who’d managed to stonewall my dad for years and find a weak link to break their refusal to sell. As an added benefit, I got to be closer to this enigma of a woman—who was as friendly as a fire ant.

She presented a challenge I’d never come across, and I couldn’t resist trying.

The truck slammed to a stop, and I flew into the stack of bales behind me. Hay covered my hair and my clothes.

I sneezed.

My first stop after this morning would be the pharmacy to buy Allegra, Zyrtec, and a whole gallon of Flonase.

Angie popped out of the truck. “I’m sorry. A calf darted in front of me.”

“I’m good.” I lifted a bale of hay with the two strands of thin orange twine binding it together and used my knees to throw it off the side of the truck bed. Now I was entirely acquainted with the term ‘bucking hay.’ I literally had to throw my hips into it to get the rectangular bales off the trailer. When Angie had demonstrated, she’d made it look easy.

The cows descended on the fresh hay.

“How many more bales do we have back there?” Angie asked, still hanging out of the truck.

I counted: one, two, three, four—“Seven more. You want to use all of them?”

“I’ll drive to the end of the field, keep throwing them off every six feet or so,” Angie said.

I gave her a thumbs up in my now-dirty, new leather gloves as she sat back in the driver’s seat and closed the door. The truck crawled forward over boulders and through divots. I managed to remain on my feet and throw hay off as she stopped at the end of the row.

One more bale was left on the trailer. I could see Angie’s eyes on me in the rearview, and I wanted to make this one real impressive. I bucked that bale as hard as I could, but when I pulled my hand back, it didn’t listen. My fingers were looped tight under the twine. Where my fingers went first, my body followed.

After being suspended in the air for a few seconds, I crashed to the ground. The impact dislodged me from the twine, and I rolled free through pile after pile of cow shit. Trying not to think of the excrement sticking to my new jacket and jeans, I stopped.

Angie’s brake lights glowed in the morning mist, the sun bright on the horizon. I’d give anything to pull a chain or flip a switch and shut off the dawn light so I could slink my way back to the flatbed unnoticed.

She strolled over to me. “You okay?”

“Yep.” I rolled onto my back and breathed in. My side and shoulder hurt where I’d first connected with the ground. For sure, I’d feel the consequences of the fall tomorrow. “I’m fine.”

I thought she’d come over and help me up or sit next to me, but she didn’t. At first, she let one laugh escape and then another slipped through her nose until she was doubled over.

As embarrassed as I was, even as pain filtered in every muscle I moved, my shoulders shook as I laughed with her. I stood and tried to dust off what I hoped was mud on my pants. That was when I noticed the cows had closed in and were looking at us with their glossy eyes. Having never been this close to a large animal, I took a couple steps back.

“You afraid?” Angie’s smile bordered on cruel enjoyment.

“This ain’t my first rodeo.” I plastered a confident smile on my face. Why was I such a moron? Ain’t my first rodeo? Where the hell had that come from?

I blamed Texas. Being raised by the son of a Texas rancher-turned-real estate tycoon hadn’t helped either.

“You just can’t stop with the lies.” She shook her head. “Go on then. Rub her head.”

“You want me to touch the cow?” At her nod, I continued, “I don’t see why this is necessary.”

“Believe it or not, genius, sometimes the cows get sick or injured, and if I’m at the hospital, I’ll need you to handle it.”

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