Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

A ngel turned in a slow circle as Willow galloped around the arena on her horse. “Pull her head up,” she called to make sure the girl had her grip on the reins right. Willow wasn’t a new rider, which Angel was grateful for because she wasn’t sure if she had the patience to deal with a brand-new rider this summer.

The girl and equine continued to move, and Angel enjoyed her time in the sun, calling instructions and watching as horse and human learned to work together. The horseback riding lesson ended, and Angel went to take the reins as Willow got down. “You’re getting really good,” she told the girl, a fourteen-year-old who lived only a few minutes outside of Stinnett.

“Thanks so much,” Willow said. She grabbed onto Angel and hugged her. She always had sunshine and spirit pouring from her, with a wide smile, pale blonde hair, and the skinniest arms and legs that Angel had ever seen on a human being.

“Next week, we’ll see how she does with the jumping, okay?” Angel said.

“All right,” Willow said.

“In the meantime, make her keep her head up every day when you’re riding this week,” Angel said, beaming at the girl as she stepped back.

“Okay.” Willow took the reins from Angel and led the horse toward the stable. She’d brush her down, and her daddy was probably waiting for her by now. Willow brought her horse with her, but all of Angel’s others used horses right here at Lone Star.

Angel cleaned up and headed back to her house for the evening when she got a text from Levi. Huge shipment for you just arrived , he said. I thought about putting it in your office and then realized it was probably too big.

“A huge shipment?” she wondered aloud. She texted him quickly. What do you mean a huge shipment?

Oh, not all of this is for you. Never mind, but there are still a few boxes. It says it’s from Sundown Printing.

Angel’s heartbeat shot through her body, ricocheting off the sides of her veins as adrenaline pumped through her. “Sundown Publishing,” she said to herself. “Those are the employee handbooks.

Oh, I know what those are . Her fingers trembled as she typed out each letter. They can go in my office if they’ll fit.

Yeah, there are only three boxes , he said. These others are for something else.

Angel should care what else was getting delivered to the ranch, but she didn’t. It wasn’t her job to care anymore, and she had good, competent people over every aspect of Lone Star. She didn’t have to know what every little thing was—or where to put it.

I’ll put them in your office , Levi said.

Great , Angel said. Thanks, Levi.

She did take her training tools back to her house, but she only tossed them onto her back deck. She wanted to see this new employee handbook as soon as possible. Despite the urgency hammering through her to get to her office, she took a few moments to text Henry.

Can you come to my office right now, please?

He didn’t text back, which meant he probably had a horse in his bay. Angel forced herself to take normal-sized steps at her usual pace as she went back to her office in the blue and white barn she loved.

Levi had been there and gone, and the boxes stood stacked on the floor near her desk. She grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk and sliced through the tape on the top box, an actual tangible hum filling her ears as she did. She wasn’t even sure why. She just knew the arrival of this employee handbook felt like a pivotal moment, and she’d been waiting for it for months.

Only one of them fit in the box, and she turned it, so she could look at it the right way. The cover bore a beautiful aerial photo of Lone Star Ranch that had been taken a couple of years ago. Above that, Angel had put “Lone Star Ranch and Boarding Stable,” and below it, “Employee Handbook.” The cover had a faded, almost transparent Texas flag behind it. She turned it sideways so the Texas star burst out from behind the words Lone Star at the top.

She smiled at it, because she’d worked hard on this booklet over the past few months. She’d give these out to every man who worked at Lone Star and expect them to follow the rules and procedures contained inside. She picked up the book, which had been spiral bound with a blue plastic cover on the back.

This book meant so much more than just new rules and new leadership here at Lone Star—her leadership. It meant she and Henry wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore.

Someone knocked on her door, and Henry said, “I’m coming in.”

She turned toward him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

She held up the book, feeling fizzy and bubbly inside as she searched his face. He took a few more steps, looked at it, and studied the cover. Then he stopped just in front of her.

“The new employee handbook came,” she said. “Just now. Levi texted me right after my lesson.”

Henry folded his arms, and he didn’t smile. Angel wasn’t sure what he had going on inside, but it looked like something raging and loud.

“How does it look?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen everything,” she said. “But I know what it looked like before it went to the printer.”

He reached for it and took it. “Well, it looks good.” He flipped through a few of the pages, clearly not reading them. “She sure has a nice horse.”

Angel blinked at him, trying to catch up to what he’d said. “You watched my lesson?”

“I happened by.” He glanced over the book to her and went back to it.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve been kind of, I don’t know…distant.” She wasn’t sure if that was the right word or not, but Henry definitely hadn’t been as close as he’d once been. He sighed, slapped the book shut, and tossed it onto her desk.

“I sure did like sitting next to you at church earlier this week,” he said. “And Alex and Nicki are hosting an outdoor game night on their ranch next week, and I’d sure like you to go with me.”

“That does sound fun,” she said. “What kind of outdoor games?”

“I don’t know, croquet or something,” he said in a disgusted voice and looked away from her. He heaved another sigh as he said, “I told them we might make it, but we might not.”

Angel stepped over to him, very aware that the door stood open. “Why wouldn’t we be able to make it?”

“Because,” he said, “I don’t want to go if we can’t tell everyone that we’re together.” He looked down at her, ignoring her touch as she ran her hands up his chest and around to the back of his neck. He’d never simply stood there so still when she’d touched him like that before.

“I thought you told your friends about us.”

“I did,” he said. “I want everyone to know.”

“You mean everyone here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean everyone here.”

Sometimes her father stayed grumpy no matter what Angel said or did, and Henry sure seemed like that right now. Still, she smiled at him. “Are you going to be like this all night long?”

“Like what?” he growled.

“All moody and upset that we haven’t told everyone here at the ranch.”

“I am upset that we haven’t told everyone at the ranch,” he said. “I just hadn’t figured out how to tell you that yet.”

She stepped back, feeling some of the coldness coming from him. “Well, you just did. I told you I was waiting for the employee handbook.” She picked up the one he’d thrown on the desk and put it back on the top of the box. “And now they’re here.”

“So we’ll tell everyone?”

“I’m thinking Monday,” she said.

“But why?” He pressed in a step closer to her, moving in behind her. The scent of his cologne mixed with leather and the scent of metal he used in the horseshoes, and Angel loved the smell of Henry.

“Why do we have to wait until Monday?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It just feels like a good time.”

“Tomorrow’s a good time,” he said. “Roll call.”

“I just thought maybe we’d have a plan first.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “The plan is to stand up there and tell them, ‘New employee handbook. Oh, and PS, it doesn’t have a no-dating rule, so date anyone you want.’”

“That just doesn’t make any sense,” she said with a smile. “I’m not going to call attention to any of the other rules in the book.”

Henry let out an exasperated sigh. “I know, Angel, but this one has to be addressed. Because we are dating. Because you told your daddy you would.”

“I know. You’re right.” She leaned back into him, and Henry finally put his arms around her. “I just—maybe we can use the weekend to make a plan.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll see if I can sneak over tonight.”

“You haven’t come one night this week.” She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “You’ve been so mad you haven’t been able to come over at all.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not mad. I’ve just been thinking about a lot of things.”

“Yeah, you said that at church too. And when I texted you about it, you never said what was on your mind.”

“Sometimes a man likes to work through some things before he tells everyone.” A half smile kicked up the side of his mouth. “You’re so nosy.”

He leaned down and touched his lips to hers. Angel remembered that he had not closed the door when he’d come in, so she didn’t kiss him long. “It’s not being nosy,” she whispered to his collar. “It’s called wanting to know what your partner is thinking.”

“Oh, is that what we are?” he said, his head ducking as he moved his mouth along her neck. “Partners?”

“Yes,” she said stubbornly. She couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice from his touch.

He straightened. “Okay. I’ll try to get away tonight. And just so you know, it hasn’t been my choice that I haven’t been coming. The new housing situation is still….” He paused for a moment, obviously trying to find the right word, and said, “Don and I are still trying to figure out how to live together.”

A lot of the transitions that Angel had made at the beginning of the month had not been easy for everyone. Henry had a new team with one man who didn’t particularly like him, and Levi had moved into Flint’s cabin, which meant Henry had gotten a new roommate. Don was one of their summer interns, and he still had three semesters of coursework left at Sherman Academy before he would even be eligible for an apprenticeship. He was inexperienced, and in Henry’s words, “whiny and needy.” Angel wished she’d known that before the random generator had picked his number.

“Well, I miss you,” she said, revealing as much as she dared to reveal right now.

“I miss you too, my angel.” He kissed her again, somehow knowing that she didn’t want to go on and on. He pulled back after only a few strokes. “I’ll text you once I see how things are tonight.”

“Okay,” she said.

Henry backed up a couple of steps, said, “Okay,” and turned and left her office.

She waited until she couldn’t hear his cowboy boots against the cements, and then Angel strode back over to the box of employee handbooks and picked up the top one.

She was going to go ask Trevor what he would do, and then Daddy, and show them the employee handbook at the same time. They’d both be interested. And maybe, just maybe, they’d both have some great advice for how Angel could stand up in front of everyone and tell them that she and Henry had been dating since February.