Page 8 of Blazing Hot Nights
“Maybe not, but I don’t have a choice, Dawn.”
“In this case, you do. You fall off Grover one more time and you’ll have more medical bills to pay. Tex is already out riding the pasture fences. You need to rest—at least until tomorrow—since I know you won’t go see a doctor.”
If nothing else, the girl did know me well.
“I need Tex cutting hay, not riding the fence,” I sputtered.
“Tex’ll finish the hay when he gets done on the fence line. Relax. We got this,” she assured me.
Tex North was the only ranch hand I had left other than Dawn. While Dawn worked as the cook, housekeeper, and horse caretaker, Tex was all I had for the grunt work like cutting hay and mending fences. I had to let everyone else go when Daddy got sick. We’d been running this ranch on a shoestring for four years, but that wasn’t sustainable forever.
Tex was young, eager, hardworking, and never grumped about all the extra work. He’d always wanted to be a real Texas cowboy and ride the range, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave Wisconsin. His real name was Caleb, but he insisted that wasn’t a fit name for a cowboy. I would call him anything he wanted as long as he stuck around and kept my ranch running.
Blaze tried to steal him away for years but finally gave up when Tex wasn’t even the tiniest bit curious about the grass on the other side of the fence. If Tex ever did get tired of all the work here and wandered over to see if it was greener on Bison Ridge, Heavenly Lane would cease to exist. There was no way Dawn and I could run the place alone. Hell, the three of us could barely do it. The time had come for me to do something. I just had to decide what the best decision was for all three of us.
“What would we do without him?” I lowered the ice pack to the table and groaned when the light hit my eyeballs. I closed them instinctively while she sighed.
“Come on, girl, you need to lie down for a little while. I’ll be outside, but I’ll check on you every hour on the hour. Beau says you have a concussion.”
“What does Beau know?” I asked as I let her help me from the kitchen and down the hallway to my bedroom.
“He knows a lot,” she said defensively and then cleared her throat.
This girl thought she was hiding her crush for Beau Hanson. I bit back the laughter bubbling up in my chest. Too bad she didn’t know it was more evident than the nose on her face.
“In this case, he’s probably right,” I allowed. “I need to shower. I have creek goo in places I shouldn’t have creek goo.”
“Creek goo,” she repeated, chuckling. “Do you want me to stay?” She handed me my bathrobe from the back of the door with her brow raised.
I took it and remembered not to shake my head. “I’ll be fine. Go ahead and finish with the horses. I’ll work on business stuff once I finish in the shower.”
She took my right shoulder and aimed me toward the bathroom. “Or maybe you could take a break and lay down for a few hours. You shouldn’t be conducting business when you can’t keep your eyes open or concentrate for more than a few minutes. You took a hard knock to the head, Heaven. Take a break, okay? I’ll put some ibuprofen and an ice pack on your bed. It’s only two in the afternoon, so I want you to rest for at least a few hours.”
I flipped the light on in the bathroom and sighed. “I’ll take the ice pack. Blaze already insisted on the ibuprofen before I left his place, but a couple more couldn’t hurt. I’ll rest for a few hours so I can get rid of this headache. Then I need to deal with the truck and the disaster that has become my life.”
Dawn hugged me gently and pushed me through the bathroom door. “Sweetheart, Blaze is dealing with the truck. He’s going to bring it over if it starts up. As for the disaster your life has become, you can’t fix that by snapping your fingers. It’s going to take time.”
I moaned low in my throat at her words. “Blaze is dealing with the truck? Great, now I owe him for something else.”
“You don’t owe him anything. You gave everything to his ranch while trying to keep your own afloat, and what the hell did he ever do for you in return?”
She was angry, as she always got when we discussed Blaze McAwley. Dawn insisted he was a pompous cowboy who didn’t care about anyone but himself. To a degree, she was right, at least in business. He would snatch this ranch out from under me without batting one of those deep chocolate eyes. I’d been fighting it for years, but I couldn’t hang on much longer if my luck didn’t change.
“We’ll get there, Heav. Heavenly Lane Ranch has been around for three generations, and it will be for at least three more,” Dawn promised quietly, her voice tight. She loved this ranch as much as I did and didn’t like to think about it falling into Blaze’s hands.
I let my chin fall to my chest. “You’re assuming there’s going to be another generation of Lanes after me. Maybe I’ll die an old maid.”
“Not if Blaze McAwley has anything to say about it,” Dawn said as she closed the door and walked away, her laughter floating on the open air.
I cranked the faucet over in the shower and stripped my muddy clothes off, tossing them in the hamper. Over my dead body would the next generation of Lanes also be the next generation of McAwleys. Not after what I’d seen today. Blaze was all hard lines and harder … male specimens. I didn’t have the experience or the balls to dance with a guy like him.
Besides, I already knew the real Blaze. I’d seen his true colors. He was nothing more than a rotten black snake in a pair of fancyWranglers.
Three
“Is that a snake?” I yelled to Beau, who was standing on the shore.
“Dude, are you still afraid of snakes?” he called back, laughter in his voice.
