Page 19 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

STEVEN

Steven

You good?

Steven

Hey

Two unanswered texts, sent twenty-four hours apart, was where I drew the line. A third would be an invitation for her to block me. Maybe she already had, and I was too dense to get the hint.

“She’s fine,” I muttered to my phone. Stevie plopped her head in my lap and I absently rubbed the silky spot between her ears.

“No pigs at the table,” Amy said, pushing Stevie aside as she placed a stack of pancakes in front of me. Stevie whined in protest, which worked on me, but Amy had a heart of stone. “Who’s fine?”

“Just a…” Friend? No. “Just a person I know. I offered to help her with something, but she didn’t text back. That means she’s fine, right? She doesn’t need help.”

“That means she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Amy said bluntly. “Someone else is probably helping her.”

She had a point. Chloe had friends. The kind of friends who knew her favorite flower was a pink peony and gave her hand-embroidered shoes. The kind of friends she held a grudge for. She didn’t need me. I was just the guy who happened to be awake at 3 a.m.

I should have been relieved. Chloe was fucking pregnant . I didn’t need to be a part of that mess. I should be glad she didn’t text back. Instead, I was fucking pissed.

Anger is a mask .

I heard Chloe’s voice clear as day, like she was sitting right next to me, and if I closed my eyes, it was a sure bet I’d see her withering green stare branded on the back of my eyelids. I solved that problem by not closing my eyes.

Alright, fine. I wasn’t actually pissed. My feelings were hurt, and I’d break every damn plate in this house before I’d admit that out loud.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “She’s got plenty of people to help her.”

I pushed my plate away, then pulled it closer again.

Big breakfasts weren’t my thing. I preferred to start the day with a banana and a large coffee and then have a solid lunch after I’d worked up an appetite.

But if this was what Amy needed to do to feel okay about living here and taking my money, then fine.

I’d eat the fucking pancakes and anything else she made me.

“Who’s the girl?” Amy asked.

I cut a deep triangle through all four pancakes and shoved the whole thing in my mouth, then shrugged and gestured to my face like, oh, well .

She smiled sweetly, but her eyes glinted. “I can wait.”

I chewed extra slowly. She raised her eyebrows, unimpressed with my effort to stall her out.

I swallowed the mush in my mouth with a gulp of orange juice. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve only been here a couple months. You don’t know anyone.”

Her eyes narrowed speculatively. “I know people. And I’m beginning to think I know her , or else you would tell me her name.”

I smirked. “Maybe I’m not telling you her name just to annoy you.”

“Or maybe you’re not telling me her name because you have a big ol’ crush on her,” Amy sing-songed. “Oh, that’s it, isn’t it? You have an unrequited crush.”

I scoffed and swallowed another bite of pancakes. One more and I could get out of here without hurting her feelings. “I’m too old for crushes. But I’ll never be too old to annoy my baby sister.”

I folded one last pancake into my mouth and pushed to my feet. “Gotta go. Be good at school.” I ruffled her hair to prove my point and smirked when she swatted my hand and jerked away.

“Bye, honey,” I cooed, cupping Stevie by her fat cheeks. So fucking cute. She snorted affectionately. So did Amy, with considerably less affection.

“This isn’t over,” she warned as I scooped my lunch from the counter and pivoted toward the door. “I’m going to figure it out.”

Oreo snuffled the sugar cube in my palm with flaring nostrils, but she didn’t take it straight away.

I waited patiently for her to recognize it as something tasty.

The fact that she showed any curiosity at all was leaps and bounds ahead of when I’d last seen her.

That was thanks to Bernadette, the woman who ran Sunshine Rescue.

Still, when the mare finally lipped it up, it felt like I had accomplished something.

“That might be her first sugar cube,” Bernadette noted, tucking a frizzy gray curl behind her ear.

She reminded me of a bristlecone pine. Weathered and gnarled, but strong.

Like she had seen some shit and wasn’t too impressed by it.

“I usually stick to carrots and apples. Too much sugar makes a horse founder. Except for kisses.” She planted a loud, smacking kiss on Oreo’s cheek. “Isn’t that right, baby?”

Oreo nickered and bobbed her head like she was agreeing, but since horses didn’t speak English, I suspected she was really asking for another treat. I held up my empty hands, fingers spread wide. “No more.”

“Let’s get her moving,” Terry said. “I expect we won’t do more than a trim and new shoes today, but I want to see how she’s coming along and make sure there isn’t anything we need to be concerned about. Walk her around the ring and then straight down the middle.”

Bernadette nodded and clucked her tongue. “Let’s go, sweet girl.”

Oreo ambled forward. The pep in her step was new. Her flank had filled out nicely, too. No more jutting hip bones.

“Hard to believe it’s the same animal,” I remarked. “You’re a miracle worker, Bernadette.”

She waved off the praise. “Team effort. I couldn’t have done it without you boys. It’s hard to summon a will to live when every step hurts like hell. Once the pain stopped, she woke up a bit.”

At the top of the ring, Bernadette turned Oreo down the center like Terry had requested, steering her straight for us so we could get a head-on view of her gait. “But you know what really lifted her spirits? The chicken.”

For one horrifying moment, I remembered Stevie’s baby bird incident, and thought she meant Oreo had been eating baby chicks for protein. “The chicken?” I repeated cautiously, squatting down so I was level with the mare’s knees.

Bernadette nodded. “Henrietta. She gets bullied by the other hens and one day she hopped up on Oreo’s back to escape them.

They’ve been thick as thieves ever since.

Oreo doesn’t like wide-open spaces—they make her nervous, I think—so we keep her in the small pasture by the garden, which also happens to be next to the chicken coop.

When Henrietta gets chased away from the garden bugs by the other hens, she hitches a ride with Oreo out in the pasture and gets her fill of bugs there.

Sometimes Oreo will find a sunny spot to rest in and they’ll take a nap together. As I said, team effort.”

Terry scratched his jaw. “Seems like there’s a lesson in there somewhere,” he mused.

“You would think that because you’re a sentimental old fool.” Her tone was full of fondness despite the insult. “I don’t anthropomorphize animals, so don’t go spouting nonsense about world peace. Even chickens and horses need a friend, that’s all.”

“Everybody needs a friend,” Terry echoed. He grinned. “Well, no lesson there, eh? Everyone needs a friend…or partner.” He raised his eyebrows at me.

Subtle, Terry. Real subtle . I had told him I needed some time to think aver his partnership offer. Honestly, I already knew what I wanted to do. It was Chloe who needed some time to adjust to the idea.

Bernadette snorted. “If you are just now learning that everyone needs a friend, after sixty turns around the sun, well, Terry, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. Look both ways before crossing the street, I guess.”

Terry chuckled. “I’ll do that.” He pulled out his phone and tapped something into it. “I gotta remember to tell my daughter about Oreo and Henrietta. She’ll get a kick out of it.”

The reminder was a sudden smack upside my head.

Chloe.

His daughter.

His pregnant daughter.

And since he hadn’t said a single word about that, I would hazard a guess he didn’t know that part yet. Fuck. Fuck .