“Really? You talked Hadley into that?”
“He volunteered,” Dallas said.
“Next thing, you’ll be telling us Finn Donovan has signed on.” Which sounded like a private joke about the county sheriff. Maybe, with Finn’s smaller ranch, they didn’t think of him as a cowboy.
“I haven’t talked to him. But I will.” The sheriff might know about permits.
“No wonder you ride bulls. You guys are gluttons for punishment.” Another common reaction that Dallas was used to. Logan’s arms were crossed as he leaned against the colt’s stall. He glanced at Sawyer, who stood in the middle of the barn aisle, tongue in his cheek, probably trying not to laugh. Well, let them. “What do you think, Tom?” Logan asked, the name another private joke between them, apparently.
Sawyer gave his brother the side-eye. “I haven’t been in an arena except the one here since I was out of high school.”
“Me either,” Logan said. Dallas knew he’d led an interesting life. Rather than stay on the Circle H, Logan had become a test pilot, but he gave that up after he’d remarried to ranch with his twin and their grandfather. He’d recently added an airstrip to the property, just to keep his hand in, Hadley had also told Dallas, but more importantly as a safety measure. During a spring flood years ago when the ranch road had become impassable, Logan had nearly lost his first child, who’d been ill with pneumonia, and he wasn’t taking that chance again.
Logan clapped Sawyer on the shoulder. “Let’s do it.”
Dallas blinked at them. “You want to enter?”
“Two for the price of one,” they said in unison.
His roster was growing. Dallas left the Circle H wearing a grin.
THE DAY AFTER her pity party in the might-have-been-nursery, Elizabeth had talked to Sawyer’s wife, Olivia McCord, at her antiques store, and now, thanks to Jenna’s suggestion, she had a job. On her first day here, she’d been training with Olivia’s young assistant, but that didn’t seem to be going well for Elizabeth or Rebecca Carter.
In the center of the showroom floor, Becca fussed over a Brussels lace tablecloth with an Olivia McCord Antiques price tag that could have bought Elizabeth a high-end salon treatment. Showing her the way to fold the cloth, Becca couldn’t make the sides match up neatly. Olivia must have seen the girl’s fumbling attempts, because she marched from her office. “This is delicate, Becca, so please be careful. One of my clients who collects lace, Bernice Caldwell, is coming in today to take a look at it. She’ll be here any minute.”
Elizabeth stood back with Becca while Olivia refolded then set the cloth on a wooden rack with bars that held similar items.
“Do you want us to inventory the glassware next from that estate sale last weekend?” Becca asked.
Olivia was now flying around the room, straightening things that Becca had shown Elizabeth before, her mouth set. She lined up some gleaming silver plates, then spun around. “I’ll take care of the estate items. You can tidy up the front counter. When I came in this morning, there were papers scattered everywhere.”
Becca sent Elizabeth a rueful glance. Blond ponytail swinging, she hurried toward the front desk. “If you need help, Mrs. Barnes, just call.”
“Thank you, Becca.”
Hands on her hips, Olivia gazed after her young employee. “I promised her poor father I’d instill a good work ethic in that girl, but I wonder,” she whispered. “There are times—many of them—when even I despair.”
“She seems to be trying hard, Libby.”
She sighed. “Becca shows up on time, but she never quite grasps the truly important stuff. Like finding just the right item for someone. Rather than call me in to close a sale, she talks up the completely wrong chest of drawers or occasional chair to someone, and I lose money I could have made. Our numbers are down this month. I’m hoping you’ll be able to help raise them.”
Elizabeth studied the slender girl, who was now on the phone across the room, talking with her hands as she spoke to the caller. “Maybe Becca just needs more coaching,” she said. And I will too. Had Olivia given Becca a job out of the goodness of her heart? The woman wasn’t as tough as people thought. Had she felt sorry for Elizabeth as well?
“If only coaching would help,” Olivia said. “Becca’s had a number of jobs since she graduated from high school, but none of them stuck. She wasn’t interested in college, still lives at home on the Carter farm outside of Farrier, and lately she’s taken up with a man of whom her father doesn’t approve.”
Elizabeth felt sorry for the girl. “Once she settles in, she may be okay.”
“She’s been working here for six months.”
“Olivia, I’m about to make a hundred mistakes. I can run my home without effort because that’s my territory, my comfort zone—” my refuge “—but it’s been a long time since I worked for someone else. I’d hate to ruin your business or our friendship.”
Olivia shook her head. “No, Becca’s different. She’s a failure to launch. I’ve given her antiques books to read. I’ve spent hours trying to school her about our inventory, urged her to showcase the pieces that have been sitting too long on the floor so we can move them even at a discounted price, but Becca hasn’t improved. Please don’t ask her for advice. If I hadn’t promised to take her under my wing at least until September, I’d let her go. She’s certainly a challenge.”
Elizabeth watched Becca skim through the store, straightening a lace doily on a nineteenth-century drum table, righting a ceramic figurine of a Parisian lady, running a hand over the top of a mahogany sideboard to check for dust. “Conscientious, though,” she said just as Becca banged into the delicate-looking Louis XVI vanity chair in the center of the room and knocked it over.
Rushing to the rescue again, Olivia said under her breath, “Reminds me of my son Nick when he was seven years old.”
Elizabeth refrained from
