Ryan nodded in thought. “Yep, they’d go for that. And if we make it known that we still need volunteers, with all these new ideas, maybe numbers will go up?”
Heads bobbed in nods around the table. “Worth a shot,” Ford grunted.
“What are you gonna do, Ryan?” West asked around a bite of green beans. “No offense, buddy, but I know you’re unable to compete.”
Normally, talking about this would make Ryan shut down and change the subject, but at the moment, he only felt a twinge of discomfort. He’d been thinking about this himself, after all, and as long as he didn’t dwell too much on the “they versus him” situation, he’d be fine.
Hopefully.
He shook his head. “Not sure. I thought about being a pickup man, since I probably wouldn’t pass as a barrelman, either. Better to be on the horse supervising and escorting the animals back to gates than keeping an agitated bull distracted, right?”
“Now that’s a solid idea,” Lars praised, his eyes widening. “You know they’re always looking for a good pickup man. Your average rancher would work well enough, but a skilled rodeo man would always be a better candidate.”
“Why not run the thing, Ryan?” Reid suggested. He shrugged, making a face of consideration. “You’ve been around the circuit enough—you could run the Lost Creek rodeo.”
Ryan hissed, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve got a ranch to run, and Kellie’s last manager didn’t know a hammer from a hay bale.”
“He wasn’t that bad,” Kellie grumbled, looking down at her plate and going slightly pink in the face. “I didn’t have a say in hiring him; he’d been running it for Mom and Dad before I bought them out, and it had been okay up until then.”
“Kells, stop,” Ryan told her as gently as he could from across the table. “That wasn’t a jab at you. The guy was practically a crook, and you couldn’t have known how bad things were when you’re focused on the important stuff here. Those few months you did both jobs after firing him almost killed you. If you had a clone of yourself, you’d be able to run both the retreat and the ranch flawlessly, but you’ve got me, and I call ’em like I see ’em.”
Kellie looked up, meeting his eyes with a fond smile. “Which just proves my excellent taste in hiring you.”
Ford cleared his throat and leaned forward, looking up the table at Kellie. “We can pitch in, if it would help, Kellie. If we’re gonna be in town for a bit anyway, we might as well be useful.”
“Absolutely,” Lars echoed, nodding fervently. “I’d love to take a look at the place for real, give my two cents.”
“I’d take five cents if you had them to rub together,” Ryan muttered, shaking his head. “She owns the place, but I run it, and I know what I’m doing.” He pushed up from his chair, plate in hand. “Kells, did you set pies out to cool?”
“Of course.” She nodded, gesturing toward the porch. “Just sitting out there, as usual.” She got up as well, taking her plate. “I’ll get these dishes in the sink to soak, and you can go get those.”
Westin was up like a shot. “We’ll do the dishes, Kellie. You stay right there.”
“What?” Kellie said with a laugh. “No, Westin, you’re my guests, I can’t have you do the chores.”
“No, ma’am, I’m with West on this one,” Ford agreed as he picked up his own plate and reached for hers. “No guests here, and we can do the washing up in return for that meal.”
“You’re both terrible,” Ryan informed them, setting his plate in the sink. “I’ll never live any of this down, you know that?”
Reid perked up. “Oh, are we making Ryan look bad? In that case, I’ll do the drying.”
“Unbelievable.” Ryan shook his head and headed for the porch. “I’m uninviting every one of you.” Still shaking his head, he pushed open the screen door and strode out into the evening chill. There was a bench their dad had built for their mom specifically for cooling baked goods, and Kellie had kept the tradition alive in her own way.
Whistling to himself, Ryan turned to the two pies cooling there and tapped the pans with a finger to test the heat.
“Perfect,” he murmured when he wasn’t singed by them. He picked them up and was moving back to the door when he stopped, looking farther down the porch.
Talia was there, leaning against the railing and looking up at the sky as stars began to appear. A breeze caught loose tendrils of her dark hair, though most of them were still contained in her braid from before. Still, the hours had loosened and relaxed it all, and there was something about this more casual look that he liked better.
Twisting his lips, he changed direction and moved out toward her. His footsteps brought her head around, and she straightened up.
“Sorry, are you guys coming out here?” she said quickly. “I can go back inside. I just wanted to see what the stars looked like so far from a city.”
“No, you’re fine, stay here,” Ryan insisted, inclining his head back toward the railing. “You should look at the stars, they’re great.” He hesitated a moment, then asked, “You’re from a big city?”
She nodded, moving back to the railing. “Chicago.”
Ryan whistled low, squinting out at the darkening horizon. “Wow, yeah. That’s a big city.”
“You ever been?” she asked.
“Nope. Been to Dallas, though, which is kinda the same thing. Less windy, though.”
Talia looked at him in confusion. “What?”
“Windy,” he said again. “You know … Windy City?”
As he’d hoped, she rolled her eyes and looked back out at the sky. “That’s bad.”
Ryan smiled to himself. “Yeah, sorry. Bit out of practice. My sister banned my jokes.”
“I can see why.” She glanced back at him, leaning her arms on the railing. “You should get back to your guests. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take you away from them. I was trying to be super quiet and not disturb anything.”
“Disturb?” Ryan laughed once. “Did you hear us in there? Ma’am, you could have run a bulldozer through there and not disturbed us.”
She smiled just a little, but it was enough to encourage him. “I mean, I did come out here for more quiet, so …”
He hissed through his teeth, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you just holler at us to keep it down? I do apologize. Reid has a mouth the size of Texas, and Eric can’t shut up anymore, now that he runs his own YouTube channel.”
“You don’t have to call me ma’am, you know,” she said, either avoiding his statement or not hearing it. “It’s cute, and it’s sweet, but really, just call me Talia.”
Ryan’s smile returned at that, and he nodded once. “Can do. I’d shake your hand now that we’ve been informally introduced again, but they are presently occupied. You can call me Ryan, unless you’re more inclined to follow my sister’s path, in which case you can just whistle like I’m one of the cows.”
Talia laughed softly, and it had a warmth to it that Ryan loved, though it was faint. “Well, I don’t know how to whistle. Not like that, anyway. I can whistle a tune, but I can’t do the really loud, really piercing whistles.”