Play It Safe(95)

Then there were fences that needed to be run to make sure they were in good repair seeing as Jeb Sharp owned livestock and, although he had fences too, Gray told me, “Shit happens and it’s happened.” Gray didn’t want any of Jeb’s cattle on his land so both tended their own fences. Not to mention, Gray rode the land and inspected the trees often in order to exercise the horses, make sure there were no poachers or squatters and that the peach trees were doing whatever they had to do.

Then the outbuildings needed to be kept in good repair, so did the tractors and mowers.

Then you had to go into town and buy and haul back feed and hay for the horses, stuff for the trees, shit like that.

Some of this he told me, some of it I saw him do. Although it was a lot of work, one could not say that watching Gray on a horse or driving the ginormous tractor with the thingie on the back that cut grass, the back of his tee stained with sweat, a tattered baseball cap on his head and his tanned-brown arms glistening in the sun was not engrossing.

It was.

Very.

As I knew years ago I would never get used to his beauty I knew then I would never get tired of watching Gray work his land.

Ever.

That said, it was clearly a lot of work.

So much Gray worked part of the day Saturday but he took off Sunday then worked all day Monday from six thirty to quitting at five.

Flat out (except for lunch).

Ten hours.

Jeez.

Even before I knew this, we talked on Saturday morning as I’d broached the subject that I was there, unemployed and I could help. Unfortunately, I had suitcases and boxes full of designer clothes and high-heeled shoes and you couldn’t muck out a horse stall in Christian Louboutins. Or you could but you’d be an idiot. So I missed helping out on Saturday seeing as I didn’t have the proper gear. Though Gray did teach me how to feed and water the horses which wasn’t very taxing except you had to remember which horse was which since he had eight mares in foal and they needed different food than the others.

But you still couldn’t do it in high heels.

Therefore we took a trip to Hayes department store in town on Saturday afternoon so I could stock up on durable western wear. Then we moved onto a big, somewhat frightening and rickety tin building on the outskirts of Mustang so Gray could stock up on horse food.

Then Monday morning, wearing my new duds, I gamely followed Gray to the barn, mucked out one stall and decided it was definitely not for me. Serious visions of Green Acres except Gray was never an attorney who gave up the big city to force me into a life of torture on the farm.

Luckily, Gray thought this was funny and I knew this when he roared with laughter like I was hilarious before his gloved hand hooked me around the neck and he tugged me to him for a hard kiss which was still hard even though he laughed through it. Then he let me off the hook. His roar of laughter had some to do with me clearly not wishing to spend my days shoveling horseshit but it had more to do with me faking being taken over by the spirit of Eva Gabor.

So I went into the house, cleaned it, did laundry, unpacked the rest of my stuff and made sure he had a good lunch and dinner, activities which took most of the day.

Lash took over my cooking lessons so now I had a full repertoire though Lash didn’t make casseroles and I wasn’t sure how Gray would feel about me making lobster thermidor. But I could do a sandwich and I did, a big, grilled, delicious one at that. After lunch, Gray went out to do macho man rancher cowboy things and I did a quick inspection of the cupboards then took a not-so-quick trip into town to buy groceries and I made him my fabulous, homemade beef stroganoff for dinner.

Dirty plates still on the table and us sitting around it finishing our beers, Gray complimented me on the culinary strides I’d made since he last ate my food and then I decided we needed to get down to the nitty gritty of life.

So we started talking about money.

This was a bad idea. Very, very bad.

Not, surprisingly, when I told Gray that I was living with him and I wanted to kick in, not only finding something that didn’t involve horseshit to help out but also financially. I didn’t entirely wipe out my savings (though it was vastly depleted) and I had a healthy checking account so I wasn’t destitute. I could help and I could also find a job. Gray easily agreed to me being responsible for getting and paying for food and household items. I agreed he’d pay household bills. And the ranch account would pay for things for the ranch (like horse food).

That part was easy.

No, what got us into a sticky situation was Gray being honest about his finances in so far as telling me when he recently was looking to raise money to keep afloat, he sold four horses (that meant he’d had twenty-four!) but that was not what riled me.

He told me he also sold some furniture from the house and was looking to sell more.

Now that…

That semi-riled me.

And it got worse because somehow we veered from talking about him selling stuff in the house to his uncles and they…

Well, they would rile anyone.

It was just that they really riled me.

* * * * *

It went like this.

“You sold stuff from the house?”

That was me sounding horrified and mentally inventorying my memory of the place from seven years ago to see if I could figure out what might be missing.

“Yeah.”

That was Gray, nonchalant like everything in his house wasn’t a treasure which it was.