Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“How come you’re so skinny?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I ain’t skinny. Really. I just work really hard, and when we’re busy, I either forget to eat or don’t get a chance.”
Slow nod from him. “And you run too.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve seen you running at night.”
“How?” I asked, noticing he’d relaxed his death grip on my arm and it wasn’t bad anymore. And also, whether he realized it or not, his thumb was sliding back and forth over my bicep. “Aren’t you in bed at, like, nine or so since you gotta be up by four?”
“Sometimes. Other times I can’t sleep, so I drive over by the resort, and I see you running after midnight, or roller-skatin’.”
“Rollerblading,” I corrected him.
“Rollerbladin’,” he repeated with a trace of a smile, “with your horse.”
Strange that he would know it was me in the dark, but he was right: I ran when I could, and got out my skates to exercise Juju. I would skate on the road, and she would run along beside me in the grass. People always asked, when they saw us in the day, how I’d trained her to stay right beside me, or even when she ran ahead, how I got her to come back. But it was just her. She’d always been more dog than horse.
And funny that he brought up the weight just like Zach had, but whereas Zach had attacked me, Mac was actually asking a question. Because yes, I’d dropped a lot of heavy muscle for a leaner frame, but that was ages ago. He simply didn’t see me often enough to realize it had been a gradual change, not an overnight one.
“I—”
“That ain’t good to be workin’ that horse at night. You’ll screw him all up.”
O-kay.
This always happened. I let my guard down for a minute and…wham! Hit with a ton of bricks right in the face.
I was so stupid. For a split second I’d been about to speak to him like he was a normal human being, not a complete asshole full of nothing but judgment, like my cousin and my brother. “She,” I corrected angrily, “is fine. But thanks for your concern.”
He shook his head, like I was stupid, and still didn’t let go of my arm.
“And I promise I ain’t sick or nothin’. I used to work real hard to be as big as my dad and Zach, and even Rand. When you work a ranch, you don’t stay skinny for long.”
He nodded because it was true. There were too many demands on your body. Just to throw bales of hay around bulked you up. But between everything that had changed in my life, I looked and felt different. I was healthier now because I ran and also swam in one of the pools at the resort, which was more natural for me and burned off my nervous energy. Skating while Juju ran had helped tone my body as well. It all went back to proximity. Because my brother and Mac never saw me, they didn’t know about the changes inside and out.
“I do a real different job now from you all,” I reminded him. “It makes sense that would change how I look, you reckon?”
He just stared at me, and it was unnerving and, more than that, annoying.
“Never mind,” I grumbled, trying to pull loose. “I don’t know why I even—but you don’t need to worry, all right?”
“Say thank you.”
“For what?”
“Keeping you from falling.”
“Oh yes,” I bit off. “Thank you so much.”
He shoved me away, and I stumbled before I got my footing. Of course I turned and scowled at him, and then headed back to the truck. I checked on Juju first, and she yelled at me for being back in the trailer, but when I reached up, she lowered her muzzle for my hand, so she couldn’t have been that mad. Getting into the cab of the truck, I survived a few taunts about my wet pants, flipped them all off, and went back to sleep.
I had read somewhere that if you could sit for fewer than five minutes and nod off, then you might be sleep-deprived. I wondered what less than a minute meant.
THREE
Green Leaf was, in my opinion, not a good name for a ranch. Tea? Sure. A nursery? Yeah. But not a ranch. So when we finally rolled up on it, I was thinking we were stopping someplace to eat again or visiting a health-food store for some ungodly reason. But no, it was a dude ranch, which made a little more sense, but still, I was amazed.
It was dusk by the time we arrived, so we weren’t going anywhere. We would start, as normal drives did, before dawn the following morning. Mr. McNamara was thrilled to see Rand and had everyone out back, behind his house, his men and his guests sitting down together for a meal, and he’d also insisted that the guys who’d only come along to drive the trailers back home, like Slater, eat before heading back to the Red.