Chapter 28
Henry Marshall finished shoeing the tall black beauty and bent to gather his tools. In moments like this, he wished his daddy could see him, see how hard he worked, and see that he was more than a twenty-five-year-old flirt.
He did like going out in the evenings, and no, he hadn't had a serious girlfriend for years. That didn't mean he was a bad person, or a player, or that he couldn't run his own farrier business. With the number of ranches and farms and horses surrounding Three Rivers—and the scarcity of farriers—Henry was actually very sure he could.
He was also very surprised he wanted to stick around Three Rivers, the small Texas Panhandle town where he'd grown up. But after a few years away, Henry had realized that having a family was better than not having one. When he wasn't in Three Rivers, he missed out on family events, seeing his cousins and aunt and uncle.
His farrier training was nearly over, and then he'd complete a twelve-month apprenticeship at a participating facility. "Gotta find one of those," he muttered to himself as he arranged his tools in his leather flap-bag and folded it all up.
Then he turned back to the horse named Blackeye who'd just gotten new shoes, and he took the equine out of the crossties that had held him in place and made him behave while Henry got his job done. His mind buzzed over his apprenticeship assignment.
His training took place in Amarillo, and he'd been living on-site since he'd started. They encouraged people to find their own apprenticeships and then get the paperwork signed. They'd had the greatest success that way, but it created a problem for Henry.
He didn't want to ask his daddy or his uncle if he could apprenticeship at Three Rivers Ranch. He didn't want to use their connections to find a farm or ranch in Three Rivers either.
No, Henry craved adventure, and he wanted to carve his own way in the world. He didn't want his father's friends reporting on him, talking about him to his daddy, any of it. That meant he'd been trying to find a ranch with enough horses to keep him busy for twelve months. It had to be a certain size to maintain that, and he'd have to talk to the owner or foreman, explain how the apprenticeship worked, beg for a place to stay, and get them to sign the paperwork.
He'd put his name on the placement list with his training program, but they didn't guarantee spots. If he didn't get one, Henry would have to delay his graduation until he found a place and could complete the apprenticeship.
And that only got him to the exams he needed to take. Sometimes farriers stayed on in an apprenticeship for a few more years, and since Henry wanted to work with horses as a career, he imagined himself with specializations, advanced training, and continual professional development.
So maybe he'd do a longer apprenticeship, or several of them.
"And does someone with their head in the clouds do that?" he asked as he led Blackeye back to his stall. Then, he gathered his tools and went to find the man who'd sign his form and earn him his hours.
With that finished, Henry loaded his tools in the back of his truck and got behind the wheel. With the engine running and the AC blowing, he sat there, a sigh falling from his mouth. "You've got to move past the things your daddy has told you," he said. "He believes in you."
His momma and daddy were paying for his farrier school, after all. His father had said he'd be glad to have Henry at Courage Reins once he became certified.
His shoulders and back ached while he tried to get himself to get the truck in gear and leave the boarding facility that allowed the farrier students to come work on their horses. His stomach grumbled for food, and that got Henry to move.
He headed back toward the city, and he stopped by the fancy grocery store to go through their salad and hot bar. He could fill two containers with food—and Henry liked his cold food to stay separate from the hot—and head back to his dorm room.
Another wave of exhaustion pulled at his neck, and he rotated his right shoulder. His dominant side always worked too hard, and he paid the price of that every evening. He could have his roommate rub some icy hot on it when he returned that night.
"Can't believe you live with a roommate," he grumbled next. Something inside him fired salt through him today, and he wasn't even sure why. But he'd gone to a couple of years of college before he'd dropped out, wandered—lost and wondering why it was so easy for everyone around him to know what to do with their lives when he had no clue—worked, and finally found his calling as a farrier.
He went into the grocery store, the scent of herbs and lemon greeting him. He veered right and picked up one of the large containers to fill with salads and fruits and other chilled items. He smiled to himself as he thought about taking a picture and sending it to his mother.
See? I eat veggies, he'd tell her, and she'd send back several emojis cheering him on. Clapping hands. A New Year's Eve popper. A birthday toy horn that looked like it was blowing. He could see them all now.
"What are you smiling at?" someone asked, and Henry looked up.
A stunning blonde stood on the opposite side of the bar, a small container in her hand. "You know you're looking at broccoli, right? Nothing to smile about there, cowboy."
"Angel White," Henry said, the name sort of biting out of his mouth. "What are you doin' here? Doesn't your family grow all their own produce?" He took a peek at her container, which definitely had lettuce, grape tomatoes, and green peas in it.
"My mother isn't feeling well," Angel said with a hint of falseness in her voice. "So I'm getting her some of her favorite things."
"Fair enough," he said, a twinge of guilt pulling through him for giving her attitude. "Being sick in the summer is the worst."
"It's October," she reminded him.
"It's still hot."
"Cooling off now, though."
Henry hummed, because he didn't want to argue about the weather. "How's your daddy?"
"Good," she said, and her gaze came back to his. Looking through the sneezeguard, his eyes hooked onto hers too. She looked like she had something to say, and a pretty pink flush stained her cheeks.
"What?" Henry asked.
"You're a farrier, right?" she asked.
"Kind of." He moved down the bar and put on a couple of healthy spoonfuls of croutons. He loved them drenched in ranch dressing, and his mouth watered, telling him to wrap up this conversation so he could eat.
"How are you kind of something?" Angel stepped down her side of the buffet too.
"Because I haven't graduated," he said. "I don't have my certification yet."
"But you know farriers."
"Yes," he said slowly, watching her take his favorite thing on this buffet—the mayo-based potato salad. He took that, the sweet pea salad, and the frog eye salad. He didn't mind if they got a little ranchy with his lettuce and veggies, and the cold food stayed with the cold food in the same container.
"Any who do have their certification?" she asked.
"Why don't you just come out and say what you want from me?" he said. "It'll be faster."
She gave him a blue-eyed glare that sent bolts of lightning through his bloodstream. He had to learn how to breathe all over again every time he looked at Angel White, and he wasn't even sure why. They'd met once or twice over the past year while he'd been in his farrier training, as her father taught one of their courses.
She handled horses expertly, and Henry told himself that was why he liked her. He could tell himself a lot of things if it kept him out of trouble, and he needed to stay on the right track here.
He'd had schoolboy crushes on plenty of women. One date usually fixed that, but he hadn't asked Angel to dinner yet. Part of him was worried that the way he had to reinvent himself every time she looked at him would go away if they went out. So if they didn't….
"We're down a farrier," she said. "We need someone—quick."
"Your father is the most connected man in the Texas Panhandle when it comes to horses, husbandry, and farriers." Henry watched her. "He's having trouble getting someone?"
Angel blew out her breath with a noise of frustration. "He doesn't think we need someone, but he can't keep up. I've seen him after he works all day in the shop, and he simply can't keep on the way he is."
Henry ladled ranch dressing over his lettuce and veggies. "Call the school. I'm sure James would announce it in class."
"Daddy won't take a student."
"We'll have new apprentices ready in January," Henry said. "If you can hang on for a couple more months." He closed the top flap on his cold container and moved the ten feet to the end of the hot one. He picked up another container and glanced over his shoulder to Angel.
She wore a pair of long jeans in the lightest color denim came in and could still be called blue. A white—snowy white—pair of sneakers sat on her feet, and she wore a purple blouse that made her eyes seem violet when she looked at him too.
Henry ducked his head and started down the hot bar. The grocery store homemade everything here in-house, and he loved their beef short ribs, the brisket, and the barbecue chicken tenders. He'd only gotten one protein before the soft, feminine scent of Angel met his nose.
She moved to his side, her small container closed over the things she'd gotten for her mother. "Listen, could you talk to James for me?"
"Sure," Henry said. "Apprentices in January will satisfy your daddy?"
"Should," she said. "And if James needs to place people, Daddy won't turn them away."
"And he won't have to pay them," Henry said.
"He pays his apprentices," Angel said. "It's not a huge amount, because they live for free. But they have to eat, don't they?"
"Yeah, farriers have to eat," Henry agreed.
"Are you taking dinner to your dorm?" she asked.
He paused in adding the baked beans to his container. "No, but thanks for suggesting I'm a hog." He cut her a grin and moved down to the scalloped potatoes. Since he'd never met a potato he didn't like, he took some of those. Only a single spoonful though, because he'd yet to get to the brisket and sticky chicken fingers.
"I wasn't suggesting anything of the sort," Angel said.
Henry chuckled and nodded good-naturedly. "Should I have James contact you or your daddy for the apprenticeship placements?"
"Daddy," she said. "And it would be best if he made it sound like he didn't have anywhere else to send them. Then Daddy won't be able to say no."
"I'll talk to him," Henry promised. "But Angel, I won't lie to him about it."
"Of course not," she said.
He took enough brisket to feed the men living on the third floor with him, but Angel didn't comment on it. "Got myself in a spot of trouble when not telling the truth," he said. "Now, I don't do that anymore. Makes life easier."
"I agree," she murmured.
"Angel," another man said, and she spun away from Henry. Another cowboy stood there—not her brother or her father—and she squealed in a way that would've made Henry's heart rejoice had she been prancing over to him and throwing her arms around his neck while he chuckled.
As it was, sharp jealousy tore through him as he studiously moved down the buffet to the poultry. He took his barbecue chicken tenders and added a slice of smoked turkey for good measure. He couldn't cook in his dorm, but he and his roommate did have a half-sized fridge and a microwave.
So he'd eat well in the morning too and not have to think about food again until lunchtime tomorrow. As Angel and her boyfriend walked away hand-in-hand, Henry sure wished he could stop thinking about her by lunchtime tomorrow.
"Or right now," he said darkly, not even the delicious food in front of him enough to distract him from watching the woman who sparked something deep inside him disappear around the corner with another man.