The Cowboy's Twins (6 page)

Jax was muttering, too. Something else.

“I'm fine,” he insisted, snatching his hand out of her grip. His thumb was throbbing, and all he could think about was how soft and supple her palms and fingers were and how it was a shame ranch work would ruin them. Something was really messed up about that.

“At least let me get a bandage for you.”

He uttered a sound that was half a laugh, half a scoff. “I don't need a bandage, Faith. Nothing's broken. The hammer didn't even pierce the skin.”

Her expression fell, and only then did he realize she was offering a bandage because she wanted to do something for him. Because she felt sorry for him.

He hated it when that happened. Pity was the worst, even if it was over something as stupid as him being careless with a hammer and slamming it on his lousy thumb. He barely restrained himself from growling in frustration.

“I'm
fine
,” he said again and then figured he'd better distract her before she ended up threatening to put his whole arm in a sling. “What's next after the hay?”

If she said
horses
, he was going to burst something.

“First things first. I need to fill the troughs with water from the pump.”

He gaped at her but she didn't notice.

Did she realize how many trips it would take to fill a large trough with buckets of water from the pump? And that was to say nothing about the strain of doing all that pumping or hauling heavy buckets of water.

He sighed. This was going to be a long afternoon.

But apparently she was just getting warmed up.

“I figure I'll put hay down and hang an oat mixture in a bucket in the corral and then leave the gate to the front pasture open for easy access. I know the horses will need plenty of room to run, especially since they'll have been cooped up in a trailer for so long by the time they arrive here.”

She pointed to the gate that led to a small meadow. Her plan would work in theory, if it wasn't for the terrible condition of the fences. The fence next to the road was in the worst shape. Wooden beams had been knocked about and some of the poles were completely unearthed.

Repairing that part alone would be a lot of work, but she could take her time with that—if she'd given herself time. The land wasn't going anywhere and neither were the fences. The problem was, there wasn't any time and there were a lot of fences. If the ones closest to the house were in this bad of condition, he dreaded to see what the rest of the thousand acres looked like.

Faith was a smart woman—she'd just never had to work on a ranch in such poor condition before. She still didn't understand just how much effort it would take to fix up this dump. She'd no doubt soon realize that his help alone would be nowhere near enough, even if he continued to help her, and at this point, he couldn't see how he could
not
. It wasn't in him to walk away from a lady in distress, even if the woman in question had bitten off far more than she could ever chew.

She'd said that she didn't have the money to hire any help, but he'd say she needed two wranglers at least. Worse, even if she had the funds, she might discover it was difficult to find a wrangler willing to work a horse farm—especially a sanctuary with wild horses. Serendipity was cattle country. Jax was one of the few who raised horses, and he trained his herd for cattle ranching.

Unlike many areas, the ranchers around Serendipity didn't necessarily object to horse farms. They just knew cattle. A wild-horse refuge? Some would believe it was a sad waste of good grazing land. There might be some resentment, although Jax hoped her neighbors would be better people than that.

Maybe she could find a teenager willing to do some work for her after school and on weekends. A youth working part-time wouldn't charge as much as a full-time professional wrangler. He had a couple of girls in mind who were especially good with horses. Before he brought his idea up to Faith, he decided he'd speak to the girls and their families to see if they were interested.

It would have to be soon, if Faith had horses coming in immediately.

“You're planning to fix the house up before you get too busy bringing in too many horses, right?”

He hadn't even seen the inside of the place, but based on everything else he'd viewed so far, he imagined it would be far from livable. “Are you staying at the Howells' Bed-and-Breakfast until you're ready to move in?”

It was a reasonable guess, seeing as there was no hotel in Serendipity. The Howells' B and B was the one and only place for guests in town to stay.

“Oh, I'm already moved into the house.” She waved a hand as if to dismiss the thought. “I brought everything I needed to live on in my SUV.”

He'd been thinking about the condition of the house itself, but moving her belongings was yet another hurdle to jump. She couldn't possibly have fit everything she owned into her SUV, even if it was one of the bigger models. What about her furniture? Dishes? Sheets and towels?

A toothbrush?

There might be a functional appliance or two inside the house, but Jax doubted Faith had found much in working condition. He imagined it would take weeks to put together anything remotely livable.

If she hadn't hired a moving company yet, he'd probably have to help her with that, as well. There was no way she would be able to move big furniture on her own, and even if she could, he wouldn't let her. He supposed he could always get his brothers to help with that. Their thick muscles were good for something, even if their thick heads were not.

“So you have the rest of your stuff left in storage somewhere?”

“Oh, no. I sold or gave away everything I wasn't bringing with me. I've got everything I need. I towed a horse trailer in with me. It's old and not pretty to look at, but it's reliable.”

That was better. Not ideal, but better. He wouldn't have thought of moving his belongings in a horse trailer, but whatever worked for her. “I see. So you brought your furniture in your horse trailer, then. How bad is the interior of the house?”

She gazed at him as if he'd just grown a horn in the middle of his forehead. It wasn't as if he'd asked her to explain the theory of relativity—just how she planned to live in a house that raccoons and field mice probably rejected.

“Of course not. Why would I bring furniture in a horse trailer? That was for all my horsey stuff.”

Horsey
stuff?

It was all Jax could do not to burst out laughing, or smack his palm against his forehead or both. This woman had clearly tied her good sense to the top of her SUV on her way down to Texas and it had come loose from its binding and bounced off to the side of the road. On second thought, since no sane person would have bought this run-down ranch in the first place, maybe her good sense was something she'd lost a long time ago.

And didn't it just figure that
he'd
be the one to get caught up in this totally implausible and thoroughly ridiculous project?

As if he didn't have enough
totally implausible
drama brewing in his own house.

Had he stepped into some nutty alternate universe where everyday life was upside down and backward?

She hadn't really answered his question about the condition of the interior of her house. He was afraid to ask again, but he did it anyway.

“So you're—what? Camping out in your living room?”

Her smile was so fast and genuine that he found himself almost completely drawn into it.

“Pretty much. The Dennys left some furniture. It's not anywhere close to new condition, but I don't need much. I brought my sleeping bag, and the old couch is comfortable enough for now. There's no air conditioner, so it gets pretty hot in the daytime, but I'm outside most of the time anyway, so that won't matter. I open windows at night. I have plenty of food in the pantry. God is good. I have no complaints.”

Maybe
she
didn't, but he did.

“Nevertheless, don't you think we ought to start by repairing the house?” It wasn't a suggestion, it was a rhetorical question, but Faith apparently interpreted it as if he were asking.

“Oh, my. No,” she exclaimed, waving her hands in a dismissive motion. “I don't have time to worry about myself. My living conditions are just fine. I need your help to fix the front pasture.” Her teeth nipped out and grabbed her bottom lip again as she thoughtfully surveyed the meadow in question. “I think we can lodge the horses in that field until I have enough time and resources to repair the other fences. I know the hay field is a disaster and I'll need to rotate the herd so they can graze, but one step at a time, right?”

Horses? Herd?

Jax felt as if he was tripping over those
steps
she mentioned.

“I can help mend fences,” he offered cautiously. “But you're right. The perimeter is going to take a while to fully secure, not to mention the fences between pastures. The Dennys didn't happen to leave you a swather for the hay field, did they? It's severely overgrown. You should take care of that soon—you know, in all that free time you'll have because this place will be so easy to fix up.”

He was teasing.

Kind of.

Her gaze widened in alarm, but when he curved his mouth up, she chuckled. “I thought you meant it needed to happen right now. Today.”

“I'm sure we can borrow a swather from one of your neighbors when the time comes. Not today.”

She nodded. “And the fence? How fast do you think you can help me fix the loose beams in the front meadow? I know I'm asking a lot out of you, but is there any possible way you can take care of it today?”

“Today?”
he repeated, his voice tightening. He'd come over to see how she was settling in. She hadn't even been expecting him. And now she thought he was somehow going to be able to mend her impossibly unfixable property in a single afternoon? Did she realize how labor intensive fence-mending was? And what would she have done if he hadn't shown up? Tried to handle it all herself? “Faith, you can't just—”

“But it's important,” she interrupted. Red splashed across her cheeks. “You see, I've got a mare and her foal coming in this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?” he roared, caught completely by surprise. When she'd said she was expecting horses to arrive right away, he thought she meant this month, or this week.

Not
today
.

Her eyes widened epically, and he realized he'd hurt her feelings, maybe even scared her. He took a mental step backward, lifted his hat by the crown and ran a hand through his hair.

“Look,” he said, carefully modulating both the tenor and the tone of his voice. “I understand how important this is to you.”

“Do you?” She folded her arms in a defensive gesture and narrowed her gaze on him. “Do you really? Because honestly, that's not what I'm getting from you.”

He frowned and settled his hat back on his head. “Is that right?”

“Yes. I'm getting more of a grizzly-with-a-thorn-stuck-in-his-paw vibe. So if that's all you have to offer, then thank you, but I'd rather figure this out on my own.” She was looking toward him but yet not really looking
at
him, her gaze just slightly averted.

Jax cringed. For a moment he'd thought Faith might be different. That she might be able to look beyond his scarred face to the man within. There had been a few minutes at the picnic when he'd thought they'd shared something, if not special, then at least normal.

But at the end of the day, she called it as she saw it—saw
him
.

A grizzly.

“If that's what you want,” he muttered.

Even as he said the words, he knew he couldn't just walk away from Faith and leave her to do it all on her own. At the very least, there were plenty of fences to be mended, over many acres of land. He could do the work somewhere far away from the house and she wouldn't even have to know he'd been there.

If she didn't want him on her property, he wouldn't be able to fix up her house for her, at least not directly. But he would find others who could, people he trusted to do their best work and give her a good deal for it.

“Go.” She choked out the word and pointed at his truck. “Just go.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He nodded and tipped his hat, conceding as graciously as he knew how. His gut tightened painfully but he ignored it. “Best wishes to you with your hobby horses.”

* * *

Hobby horses.

Hobby
horses? Had he just referred to her future mustang rescue as a
hobby
?

“Jax.”

He was halfway to his truck and didn't even bother to acknowledge her.

“Jax,” she said again, her tone urgent as she hurried to catch up with him.

How rude of him to outright ignore her. Hadn't his mother taught him manners? She grabbed his elbow and yanked him around to face her.

“How dare you make fun of my work!”

He blew out a breath, ran a hand across his jaw and then lifted his hat and threaded his fingers through his thick dark brown curls.

“Look. That probably came out all wrong.”

“Ya think?”

He held up a hand in surrender. “I didn't mean to insult you.”

“Well, you—you—” she stammered. Tears welled in her eyes, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand.

Why, oh why did she have to cry when she got angry? The wetness gleaming in her eyes probably just reinforced everything Jax was already thinking about her—that she was a fragile, foolish woman who bawled at the drop of a hat and couldn't possibly be successful running any kind of ranch, much less a wild-horse refuge.

When she finally dared to glance up at him, she didn't find judgment or censure in the chocolate depths of his eyes.

He looked as uncomfortable as all get-out and downright flustered.