Page 53 of Cole's Joy
“Dad, that’s Naomi Alcott, the best barrel racer to ever live.” Becky stared at him in shock.
Naomi laughed. “I wouldn’t say that, but back when I was racing, I was unbeatable. Now I work here, for Erin and Clark Riceman.” She stepped back and introduced them. After theyshook hands she pointed to the other couple there. “This is Lois Gibson, and Cole Mercury.”
“You’re not married?” Lane asked in shock. “Sorry, that was insensitive of me.”
“She said she had a boyfriend,” Kade said.
“Duh, I wasn’t there, I was in the arena riding Brutis.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
Iris caught the look of Erin and Clark and wondered at it until Erin giggled. “Ah, siblings. Clark and I are brother and sister, and what Naomi failed to mention is that the two of them are dating. If you’ll follow me, we can go into the main house. There have been some new developments since the boys called, and I want to tell you all together.”
“Are you not offering them the job?” John asked.
“Oh, no, we are definitely offering them the job, it’s just that for the next year or two, it might be different than what they expected. That’s all my fault.”
“And mine,” Clark said. “I take full responsibility for any confusion. It’s taken the five of us this last week to iron out the gigantic details, but now we hope to move forward.”
They entered and after introducing Reid, Erin got right to the point. They used the kitchen table, and after giving the discussion with the visuals of where the ranches were located, she told them of the new developments.
“Why?” John said at one point.
“I don’t mean any disrespect, Sir,” Clark spoke. “You’re a farmer, right?”
“Yes.”
“You know about fields, and such?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ll give you the tour, but we picked this location across the street for the rodeo endeavor. We don’t know what tocall it yet, and you’ll see what I mean by telling you the land is shit for growing anything.”
“I’ll reserve judgment.”
“Okay,” Clark laughed and they used the bathroom, and there were several golf carts lined up, and they organized who was with who, and Iris and John rode with Erin and Reid. The girls rode with Naomi and Clark, and the twins rode with Cole and Lois. At the rise above Broken, Erin stopped and when the others joined her, she pointed with her stub and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Broken Wheel.” She gave her five-minute speech on how it came to fruition and where they were now. They drove down and Naomi took over to give the tour of the barn, and arena, and told them what they did there.
The group spent the afternoon touring Broken, New Double, and then across the road. At the end of the tour just before climbing back into the golf carts to go back to Erin’s Way, John looked at Clark with a smirk.
“You’re right, but I wouldn’t say the land is shit, I would say the terrain is shit.” They laughed and headed back and were told where to go to the cabin they could spend the night in. It wasn’t until they were headed home the next day that John looked at Iris with a raised brow. At her nod, he looked in the rearview mirror and caught Kade’s attention. When he saw both of them looking at him, he smiled and said one word, “Yes.”
The van exploded with glee, and John took his wife’s hand in his as they headed back home, happy to see that his sons would be happy working for Erin and Clark Riceman.” The biggest part was that they would be working with the rodeo stock, but they wouldn’t be riding them, and causing them to get hurt again.
CHAPTER 20
Two weeks later,on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Cole slowed down to pull into the driveway where he shared a house with Lois, and slammed on his brakes.
“What in the world?” Lois asked in shock as she reached out and put her hand on the front dash when Cole slammed on the brakes. She looked up and sat back in shock.
“I wonder what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Cole said as he parked beside Lorissa’s truck, since he couldn’t get past the police cars parked in the rest of the driveway. He exited, went around and helped Lois out, and decided to get the bags later, once they were parked by their house.
They walked up and saw Duane come toward them.
“What’s going on?” Cole asked the other man.
“No clue, they’ve only been here for about two minutes. I do know they are asking for the two of you.” He leaned in with a grin. “What did the two of you do?”
