The Trouble With Cowgirls. Amanda Renee

about Antonio every five minutes. She laughed inwardly. She remembered asking herself the same question about Lane years ago. The problem was he had never been far from her mind. She didn’t think a day had gone by that she hadn’t thought of him and wondered what he was doing. She’d envisioned him married and still living in Wyoming. Clearly she’d been wrong about Wyoming, but what about the married part? She’d been so wrapped up in her own world that she hadn’t thought to ask him about his family or his life over the past ten years.

      “I can do this. I need to do this.” The mantra had given her strength on the darkest of days, reminding Lucy that she had the power to rebuild their lives. She braced for another day with Lane as she stepped out of the car. It had pained her to lie to him yesterday. But he didn’t need to know about her first pregnancy. Nothing would change the fact that she’d lost their baby. Partying in Texas combined with the inordinate amount of stress she’d been under from her family and the whirlwind marriage to Antonio had proved too much for their baby.

      She’d been devastated by her miscarriage. After she’d heard her baby’s heartbeat for the first time, she couldn’t imagine loving anyone more. She had wanted that back. Antonio had remained by her side and cared for her through the entire ordeal, promising her another child when she was ready. Six months later, she was pregnant again. Carina was the greatest gift Antonio had ever given her.

      Lucy took a deep breath and entered the stables. After meeting briefly with the night barn manager, she attempted to track down her employees. It was a daunting task since she didn’t know where anyone was. She hadn’t seen Lane or Nicolino and wasn’t sure where she was supposed to begin the day.

      Waiting inside her office, Lucy tried to familiarize herself with the numerous charts, log sheets and binders that filled every inch of space in the room. Morning meetings would be the first thing she implemented into their daily routine. It baffled her how they’d ever survived without them. It was basic employee management.

      If Lucy had checked her phone once, she’d checked it a hundred times by ten o’clock. No call from her daughter was a good sign. She knew none of the changes over the past year, especially the move, had been easy for Carina. For her own sanity, Lucy phoned the school. She began to relax when they reassured her that Carina was fine and in class. As she hung up, she noticed Lane standing in the doorway of their office, concern etched upon his face.

      “Is everything all right?”

      “Yes.” Lucy smiled so big she thought her lips might split. “My daughter is in class and she’s doing wonderfully. Thank you for asking. Do you have any children?” Lucy wanted to ask him if he’d ever married but feared it would be too forward. She held her breath waiting for him to answer, praying he’d say no. If he’d never had kids, then her reasons for keeping her secret all these years might prove valid—perhaps he’d never been ready.

      Lane’s eyes grew large at the question. “Ah...no.” He laughed. “No kids, no wife. Just a few surly bunkmates. I live on the ranch, too. Bunkhouse A.”

      The elation that grew at Lane’s response confused her. She wouldn’t let herself care one way or the other about that little fact. Lane was her employee. “How is your mom?”

      “Still here, God bless her.” Lane removed his hat. “She’s a little older, but aren’t we all?”

      Why did he do that? The sight of his thick dark hair made her fingers itch with the desire to run through it. “Glad to hear it.” Lucy refocused on her notebook. “Listen, I’d like to organize a daily meeting with everyone beginning tomorrow. Something brief so we can run down what’s planned for the day. The earlier, the better.”

      “Um...okay. That might cut into some people’s schedules, though. Everyone arrives at different times. Plus, the schedules rotate weekly.” Lane pulled a binder from the bookcase and opened it on the desk. Lucy fought to ignore the way his arm brushed hers as he pointed to the first page. “We briefly touched on this yesterday. The current one is always on top. It’s just a printout from our stable-management software. Curly found using a printout faster than logging on to the computer every time he needed to see who was working where.” Lane rapidly turned the pages, creating a slight vibration against her skin. “If you look through the previous months, you’ll notice a pattern in the rotation.”

      Lucy tried to make sense of the pages Lane flipped through, but his closeness made it difficult to concentrate. She flattened her palms on top of the binder, causing him to retreat. Thank you. “I’m capable of reading a schedule. How am I supposed to know what’s going on around here without a daily meeting?”

      Lane propped an elbow on the filing cabinet and rubbed the side of his jaw. “Lucy, this is a quarter-of-a-million-acre ranch. We have employees coming in at daybreak who have very specific feeding times to adhere to. You can’t ask them to stop what they’re doing to attend a meeting. It’ll set off a chain reaction that will affect the meds, turnout and muck schedules. This is a huge operation and we’ve painstakingly planned it to maintain balance. I understand your reasoning, but not everyone works in or near the stables. You have employees out in the pastures, too. Everyone has a two-way radio.” Lane crossed the tiny office in three strides. He unplugged one of the radios and handed it to her. “You can get in touch with the people who aren’t in your immediate vicinity on here. Try not to tie up the frequency band with long conversations, though. Call them on the phone or take a utility vehicle out to wherever they are instead. If you want to see who’s clocked in or out, you can pull it up on the computer.”

      Lucy ground her teeth together. She pulled her hair back at her nape and loosely knotted it while she attempted to formulate a response. This was exactly what she’d meant when she’d told Nicolino she didn’t have the practical experience for the job. Someone who’d apprenticed for years under a barn manager would know these things.

      A sting of heat rose to her cheeks. “I will take your suggestions under advisement. Thank you.” She wished he’d leave so she could review the schedules without him watching her every move.

      Lane lowered himself onto the chair next to her and set his hat upside down on the corner of the desk. “I’m going to offer you a little unsolicited advice. Instead of focusing on what you feel needs to change, concentrate on what you don’t know.”

      “Such as?” Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she was certain being alone with him in the small room was making it increasingly difficult to breathe.

      “When was the last time you rode with a Western saddle? Better yet, when was the last time you saddled a Western horse?”

      Lucy tapped a pen against her notebook. “The last time I was here.”

      “Then that’s where you need to begin. There will be days when you’ll need to saddle a horse and get out there with the rest of us. I’ll pair you up with one of the grooms and they’ll walk you through the entire process of saddling a cutting horse and get you accustomed to riding Western again. You should shadow some of the trainers and ride a few of the cutting horses. You need to understand what we do and how we do it in order to run this facility.”

      These were all things she’d thought about last night. She just hadn’t wanted to hear them from the man she knew still wanted her job. “Thanks, but these things are already on my list.”

      “Okay, then.” Lane rose, grabbed his hat and strode to the office door. “I’ll leave you to it, boss.”

      Boss? Great—attitude. She hadn’t expected anything less, and if she were honest with herself, he gave as good as she did.

      After fumbling her way through the majority of the day, Lucy ran into town to pick up a phone for Carina. She couldn’t wait to get home to hear how her day had gone.

      Shortly after Lucy arrived at the cottage, Ella stopped by to drop off Carina. When Lucy opened the front door, Carina made a beeline inside without a word. Lucy thanked Ella for bringing her daughter home, then said goodbye and closed the door, trailing after Carina. She yelped, practically tripping over a backpack on the floor. Usually her daughter wasn’t so