A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas. Maisey Yates

over weathered, worn wood. Making something new out of something old. It was more than just cleaning, it was transforming. She and Grant worked in relative silence, nothing but the sound of the air compressor, which blended into white noise and became somewhat meditative as she worked through the lower sections of the barn. They worked until her arms ached, and she was hungry.

      “Why don’t we take a lunch break?” Grant asked.

      “Sounds good to me.”

      He covered her paint roller in plastic, and then the two of them walked back down the trail toward the mess hall. This time, when they walked by one of the covered arena areas, there were horses, and a girl with dark hair was riding one around a set of barrels.

      “That’s my sister,” he said. “Jamie.”

      McKenna found herself glued to the scene in front of her. She walked over to the fence, draping her arms over the top, and just watched. Grant went to stand next to her, a silent, tall figure at her side. “She’s pretty good, isn’t she?”

      “Amazing,” McKenna answered.

      “You want to ride sometime?”

      She turned her head toward him, her expression contorting into one of shock. “I don’t know how.”

      “I can teach you,” he said.

      “You could teach me?”

      He hesitated. “Or Jamie could.”

      She wanted Grant to teach her. And if he had been a different man she might have said that. Hell, they were talking about him teaching her to ride. If it had been a different man she probably would’ve made an innuendo out of it.

      But then, if it had been a different man she wouldn’t have felt like it. There was a reason she hadn’t been with anyone in a couple of years. She was sick of all the ridiculous nonsense that came with men. The way that a nice relationship turned into a series of transactions, and then faded out into boredom before the guy abandoned her. There was always hope in the beginning. That was one of the things she hated about herself. She could never quite squash that out. She knew women who could. At the last diner she’d worked at, there had been a whole crew of women on swing shift who had been shiny and sharp like obsidian.

      Pretty, but hard.

      Every client that wanted something extra with his meal was met with laughter and a cutting jab, and McKenna could hold her own there. But then, they also were all in relationships, and McKenna had recently sworn off them.

      She remembered talking to the shift manager, Ruby, about that.

       “Why don’t you have a man, McKenna?”

       “Too much trouble,” McKenna said.

       “Sure,” Ruby had replied. “But they don’t have to be. If you know what you’re getting into.”

       “That’s the problem,” McKenna responded. “Part of me always hopes that I’m getting into something else.”

       Ruby had laughed and blown a smoke ring into the cold, early-morning air. “Oh, I quit hoping a long time ago, honey.”

       “Something in me always does.”

       “Give it ten years. Give it ten years and you won’t hope anymore. You’ll just be glad for a place to sleep.”

      Part of McKenna had envied that. That grim resignation.

      Another part of her had been afraid of it.

      She wasn’t sure she wanted a life without hope. And she supposed that coming to Gold Valley, and holding out hope there was a right way to tell Hank Dalton that she was probably his daughter, was a testament to that fact. That she wanted hope. That she carried it somewhere inside of her.

      But then, if there wasn’t hope at all, she didn’t see the point in walking on.

      If what she had so far was representative of what she would have in the future...

      Well, she might as well go lie down on that arena dirt next to Jamie Dodge’s next barrel and let her horse trample her to death.

      But McKenna didn’t want to be trampled.

      She wanted to live for better.

      “That would be nice,” she said.

      “Yeah, she’s the best, too. She’s starting a job at the Dalton ranch soon, training horses that used to be in the rodeo. The Daltons are, like, rodeo royalty.”

      McKenna’s breath felt like it had been sucked from her body.

      All that air had been replaced by hunger. A hunger to know more. These details about her family were something she’d had no idea she’d been desperate for.

      But she was.

      “Oh, yeah?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “Rodeo royalty, huh? What does, um...what does that look like?”

      “I’m not totally sure. I don’t know them that well. Wyatt knows them better. He used to ride with the brothers in the rodeo. Hank, though, the father, he’s as famous as a cowboy gets.”

      “Really?” she asked.

      “Yeah,” Grant said. “Back in the eighties he did some big campaign for cigarettes or something. Famous advertising.”

      “Wow.”

      “Yeah. But I hear he settled down in recent years. I guess you have to eventually.”

      “Why is that?”

      “He has a reputation. Of course, so do his sons. They’re cowboys and smoke jumpers. So, you can imagine.”

      “They get a lot of play? Is that what you’re saying?”

      “By all accounts, yes.”

      “I mean, firefighting cowboys are pretty compelling, even I have to admit.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “What does what mean?”

      “That even you have to admit they’re compelling.”

      “I’m not easily compelled by men,” she said.

      He gave her a strange look. Like he didn’t know quite what to do with her. Or like she was an alien life form that had dropped down from another planet.

      “Shall we go get lunch?” she asked.

      “That would be good,” he responded.

      The two of them turned away from the arena and walked the rest of the way toward the mess hall. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I think you’re a good babysitter.”

      “Thanks,” he said, giving her a slight grin. Friendly expressions from that man were worth their weight in gold, and as she was a woman short on gold, she would take those smiles. She wasn’t sure why it mattered. Maybe because she couldn’t remember the last time she had made another person smile. She’d been in a particular kind of poverty for most of her life. But it was the poverty of connections that was starting to get to her. Living without things she could endure. But this little bit of time she’d spent with Grant—with the entire Dodge family—made her realize how starved she was for the rest.

      “So,” she said. “Riding lessons, huh?”

      “If you’re up for it.”

      “I think I might be.”

      She had no idea if she was or not. But what she knew was that she desperately wanted to spend more time with him. Whatever that might mean.

      “Tomorrow after work, then,” he said.

      “Tomorrow after work.”