But if Sal wasn’t really into ranch life… where did that leave him?
“You… taught your horses tricks?”
“Why do you say it like you’re so surprised?” he retorted, quick as anything. There was the confident side of him, coming out again.
“I mean, to be perfectly honest, I’m surprised that you’ve managed to house an elephant here without me noticing it.”
“An elephant?”
“Sure, that’s about the only creature I can imagine you riding without damaging a poor creature’s spine.”
“Oh har-har, you’re hilarious.”
“But seriously, what tricks did you teach your horse?” She didn’t know why she was so caught on the idea, but it was definitely jarring to imagine the juggernaut in front of her doing loops or jumps on a stallion’s back.
“Ah, nothing that impressive.”
There was a soft laugh from just beyond the pens as the twins rounded the barn, walking their horses. “Don’t let Sal fool you. In his high school days, Sal used to run a lot with the show circuit,” Sterling said.
“Did all sorts of feats. Difficult stuff. Stuff that made Mom cover her eyes,” Silas added with a chuckle. The brothers certainly had uncanny timing.
“Wait, is that true?” Nova asked, knowing her eyes were wide and not even caring. “You were doing shows?”
“They make it sound more exciting than it was.”
Oh geez. He wasn’t even trying to deny it! Salvatore Miller, the giant with muscles the size of her head, once did horse tricks for pony shows and rodeos. Holy halibut.
“I… You… why did you ever stop?”
But Sal shrugged, a faint color atop his cheeks. “Just one of those things.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“No, I did.”
“Liked it?” Silas called as he and his twin rounded another corner by the end of the pens, the one that would lead them to the stables. Oh right, she was supposed to warn them about that. “He loved it.”
“Hey, Elizabeth said to take your mounts over to the spare stable. She mentioned she tried to call but you didn’t answer. She thinks there might be a case of rain rot with one of them.”
“Rain rot? That’s not good.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Alright, thanks, Nova. I forgot my phone in the house,” Sterling called, and then they were disappearing from sight between some pieces of equipment.
“So you loved it,” Nova affirmed, studying the man in front of her and trying to picture all of it. What did he look like in high school? Was he always a jacked lad, or had he grown into his form? It was hard to imagine him as anything other than ripped, but she was pretty certain that he hadn’t popped out of the womb with a six-pack.
“I was enthusiastic about it.”
“If you loved it, then why did you quit?”
Another shrug. “I couldn’t really find a reason to justify it.”
What? None of that made sense. “Isn’t loving it enough of a reason?”
He just blinked at her, like she’d really started talking in another language. When it became clear that he didn’t have a response to that, she cleared her throat.
“Uh, anyway, I better get back to work,” she said.
“Can I help you?”
His words came almost too quickly after her own statement, all mushed together in one breath. “Come again?”
“The, uh, tags. You want help? I could. Could help, that is. If you want.”
She gave him an appraising sort of once over, but the expression on his face did seem genuine, if not a tad nervous. “You’re probably going to get that nice, clean outfit right messy.”
“It can be washed.”
“Alright then, if you don’t mind it, I don’t mind showing you what to do. I figure you’ll be real good at holding the squirmy ones.”
The smile that broke across his face was truly something else. It made him look younger, unguarded. It was suddenly much easier to imagine him teaching a mount how to canter or barrel run.
“Alright, what can I do?”
She showed him and he listened. Really listened, not half-listened like so many people did when she tried to explain things to them. Namely, her family. They always seemed to think that she was incompetent, and Nova couldn’t help but feel like they were patronizing her more often than not.
The task began to fly by. Not that it was difficult before, but it sure was a lot easier with another set of hands. Especially when those hands were as large and as capable as Sal’s were. For not being much of one for ranch life, the calves all seemed to like him plenty, some of them even gracing his face with licks. And of course, it wouldn’t be a weekday if Gwendolyn didn’t try to eat his hair. But Sal handled it like a champ, laughing and changing his grip so that the girl couldn’t give him an impromptu bald spot. Nova wished she could have met this Sal first. Maybe everything would have been a lot different if their initial interaction hadn’t been her trying to stop him from killing an innocent snake.
Oh well, what was done was done, and there was only moving forward.
“You’re pretty good at this, you know,” she said when they were almost done, trying to sound nonchalant. She had a theory in the back of her head and she wanted to test it out.
“Am I?” He grinned again, his cheeks coloring slightly.
“Yup. Wouldn’t have known this was your first time.”
“Thanks.”
There it was: more pink spreading across his cheeks. How often did anyone compliment the guy on something that wasn’t his looks? Did his brothers say anything nice about his abilities, whatever they were? Did his father? It seemed unlikely, especially judging by how Sal had quit a hobby he’d been into because… she actually wasn’t sure about why. Was it not “profitable”? What did “not being able to justify it” mean? She didn’t have a clue.
“Keep on going, and I just might kidnap you from the house to help with all my grunt work,” Nova said.
“Is that so?”
“Oh yeah, totally.”
“You know, I am one of your bosses.”
“Yeah, yeah, help me get a hold of Persephone. She’s a drama queen too.”
He tsked at her jokingly but did as she asked. They fell into a sort of rhythm, and Nova enjoyed the company. She’d gotten so used to being on her own for the past few years that she had kind of forgotten what it was like to have companionship for a few hours. Sure, she worked with Elizabeth plenty, and while the veterinarian was nice, that wasn’t exactly what Nova would call quality hang-out time.
An hour passed, maybe a touch more, and then they were all done. Nova was almost remiss about it. She couldn’t remember the last time she had talked to a human at such length. And she really had done most of the talking. Sure, Sal answered and quipped with her, but he didn’t start most of their conversation in the calves’ pen, like he was still finding his footing.
“Look at that, we’re done pretty early. Thanks again, mate. You helped quite a lot.”
“I’m glad I could. I’ll see you this Thursday at ten a.m. at the manor?”
Oh right. She was going to have to be in close quarters with the Mrs. Miller in their fancy mansion. Yikes. “I’ll be there, alright.”