“Okay,” Ted said, touching one hand to his chest. “I’m Ted. I’m sorry, I didn’t learn everyone’s names yesterday.”
The man had a good air about him, and Ted liked him already. “Oh, right. I’m Spencer Rust.” He extended his hand toward Ted, and they shook hands.
“Nice to meet you,” Ted said. “You’ve worked here for a while?”
“Oh, at least fifteen years now,” Spencer said, and that surprised Ted. He didn’t look that old, but Ted knew better than to ask such a personal question of the guy. Spencer glanced at Ted and opened the fridge. “I got some fruit cups too. Connor likes those.” He took out a couple of peach cups and put them on the counter too.
Ted wasn’t sure why. Surely the men who lived here could get their own breakfast.
The bedroom door down the hall creaked as it opened, and tiny feet came toward them both. Connor, a white-haired boy, appeared, carrying a blue blanket with him.
“Hey, buddy,” Spencer said. He swooped in to pick up Connor. “I got your breakfast here, and you’re coming with me this morning.”
Connor grinned at Spencer and then looked at Ted. “What’s Ted doing?”
“Ted’s going with Jess for a little bit,” Spencer said, glancing at Connor. “And then with your dad to town. When they get back, you’ll go with your daddy, okay?”
“Okay.”
Spencer put Connor on a barstool and picked up a box of Cheerios. “These?” He touched the Lucky Charms. “Or these?”
“Yellow,” Connor said, and Spencer started pouring the Cheerios. He opened one of the peach cups and handed it to Connor. The child dumped the peaches—syrup and all—over the cereal and then waited for Spencer to pour on the milk.
The normalcy of it all astounded Ted, and he looked at Spencer as Connor lifted his first spoonful of breakfast to his mouth. “What time is Jess expecting me? She never said.”
Spencer glanced at the clock. “Thirty minutes, probably. She’ll want you in the stables. You can’t miss ‘em.”
“Nate showed me on the way over here last night,” Ted said. He grabbed the other peach cup as he went back toward the hall that led to his bedroom. “Thanks, Spencer.”
“Anytime.”
Ted showered, wishing he could stand in the hot spray for a lot longer. In prison, he got ten minutes, tops, and the water was never hot. Half the time, it wasn’t even warm. He had to wear shoes in the shower at all times, and Ted stared down at his bare feet as the water ran between his toes.
Twenty minutes later, he left the house and crossed the back deck. The sky held shades of orange and gold, and Ted took a deep breath, getting a nose full of pollen and the scent of freshly mown grass. He sneezed, but he didn’t care.
He was outside. Free. Alone.
He walked toward the stable in the distance but quickly pivoted to go back and get his hat. Ginger had said he’d be working outside in the hot sun almost all the time, and he really shouldn’t try to do that without a cowboy hat.
Properly attired, he retraced his steps toward the stable, but it looked like no one else had arrived yet. All the doors were closed, and Ted honestly had no idea what to do. A ranch wasn’t anything like a dry cleaning shop, a law firm, or a low-security prison facility. Since those made up the bulk of his experiences, he had no idea what to expect from a ranch that housed almost ninety horses on a daily basis, planned riding lessons for every day of the week, and provided physical care for that many animals.
Jess had said he’d be needed and he’d have to work hard, and he’d said he could do it. He hadn’t felt anything looking at the tall, dark-haired woman. He could admit she was pretty in an exotic kind of way, but one look across the room to Emma Clemson, and Ted’s heart had crashed against his ribcage like a pair of cymbals.
Emma was stunning, and while Ted felt sure he’d seen her face somewhere before, he wasn’t going to ask again. He’d figure it out eventually.
One door on the end of the building stood open, and Ted heard a radio playing from inside. He figured he had nothing to lose, so he went through the door and into the stables. The scent of straw and horse flesh met his nose, and while he’d never smelled anything like it before, and it wasn’t exactly pleasant, he took another deep breath. Anything was better than the scent of fifteen other men who’d all been living and sleeping in the same room as him.
A dog joined him, already panting, and Ted bent down to pat it. “Hello,” he murmured, somehow comforted by the cattle dog. As far as he knew, they didn’t have cattle at Hope Eternal, but this was definitely a blue heeler.
Someone sat on a low stool halfway down the row, and the light from the doorway entered behind him, casting the person in shadows. It was definitely a woman, because her hair tumbled down her back, and she said something in a sweet voice to the foal in the pen where she sat.
Ted drew closer to her, expecting her to turn and look up at the sound of his footsteps. She didn’t, and Ted realized it was Emma in front of him. He pulled in a tight breath and stopped.
“Oh, you’re so hungry this morning,” she said, her voice full of adoration for the baby horse. She turned toward the dog as he lay down in the straw at her feet. “Where did you come from?”
She looked up and Ted had the luxury of seeing her face in some of the sunlight spilling through the doorway behind him. Fear filled her eyes, and she sprang to her feet, the baby horse’s empty bottle in her hand. She opened her mouth and screamed, launching the bottle at him in the next moment.
“Whoa,” he said, ducking out of the way. The plastic bottle clattered on the floor, and Ted held up both hands, shocked at Emma’s reaction. “It’s me. Ted Burrows. It’s okay.”
Emma looked like she might pick up her stool and fling it at him next, and Ted fell back a step and then another. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, I thought you heard me.”
“I didn’t hear you,” she said, her voice still full of panicked air.
“What’s going on?” someone else asked, appearing in the aisle on the other side of Emma. “Are you okay?”
It was Jess’s voice, and Ted shrank back another step, as if he’d be able to hide. Jess reached Emma, and the two of them looked at him like he was a monster.
“I’m fine,” Emma said. “I just got surprised.”
“Sorry,” Ted said again, though he’d not really done anything wrong.
Jess looked back and forth between him and Emma, and she said, “We’re meeting around the corner in about ten minutes.”
“Okay,” he said.
Jess nodded and left the two of them standing there. Ted turned and took a few steps to where the bottle lay on the ground. He stooped and picked it up, turning back to Emma. He approached her slowly and asked, “Why do they have to be fed with a bottle?” He took in the three foals in the makeshift pens and looked at Emma.
Every moment brought more light into the stables, and someone opened the door on the other end of the aisle, and Ted could see her clearly then. She took the bottle from him, though it was empty, and said, “This one is a twin, and his brother is a little bit of a bully, so he doesn’t get as much milk as he should. So he just needs some extra. His name is Second Best.”