Erin's Way. Laura Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ speaking, his subconscious was screaming at him. What was he thinking?

      Erin stared at him. “Of course. What exactly did you want me to do? Cook? Clean?”

      Sam blinked. Have her in the house? That would be too close for comfort. “I need help with the livestock. You’d have to check fences, water troughs. Ride out during the day when I have to be at work. Help feed and muck out.”

      Erin wrinkled her aristocratic, little nose. “You want me to shovel cow shit?” Her voice rose on a note of incredulity as she finished.

      Sam grinned. “And horse manure too. How long do you plan to stay?”

      Erin shrugged. “A few hours, a few weeks. I don’t know, Sam. I guess until I’ve worn out my welcome. Last time that didn’t take long. In fact, I think it was worn out before I even arrived.”

      “Are you on vacation from that job on the ship?” She never had given him a straight answer about why she’d returned.

      “You could say that.” She avoided his eyes, continued her prowling.

      Sam clenched his teeth in frustration. She was as forthcoming with information as usual. “Isn’t this your busy time?”

      Erin set her cup in the sink with a distinct click of ceramic against porcelain. “I’m tired. If you want help, I’ll help, but let’s leave examining my life out of it, okay? It’s not part of the deal.”

      “Right.” Sam stood and came up behind her to put his cup in the sink next to hers. For a moment their bodies touched, and it was like the completion of an electrical circuit; sparks shot between them. Sam jerked away. “I’ll show you what to do over the next couple days. Then I’m back to work on Monday.”

      She nodded warily, shifting away from him. So she felt it too, and it made her nervous.

      * * * *

      Erin caught the coveralls and baseball cap Sam tossed at her the next morning. “I’m going to ride out and check fences. While I’m doing that, you can muck out stalls.”

      Erin wrinkled her nose at the heavy, insulated coveralls. She preferred softer materials, but she knew this would keep her warm.

      “Try some of the boots near the back door. You might find a pair that fits.” Sam ducked out the door so fast Erin had to believe he was trying to get away from her. Her mouth twisted. Nothing new there.

      After finding a pair of boots that would actually stay on her feet, Erin slogged across the barnyard. She paused inside the door and inhaled the familiar scents. She’d spent a lot of time in the barn at Richardson Homestead as a kid…until Daddy had put her pony down. Her gaze skittered around the storage area just inside the door. Erin grabbed a manure fork and the wheelbarrow and began shoveling the soiled bedding.

      About mid-morning, she heard a vehicle pull into the farmyard. The nervous flutter in her stomach was beyond her control. The wheelbarrow was full, so Erin pulled the cap low over her eyes and pushed it outside, partly to empty it, partly to see who was there. With the cap on, chances were excellent no one would recognize her immediately. That might be the advantage she needed if… No, she wasn’t going there. She was safe here.

      “Hey, kid!” a voice she hadn’t heard in years called. “You seen Sam? I brought his truck back. I need to pick my sister up and get him to drive us back to my parents’ house.”

      Erin let the wheelbarrow drop to the ground and pushed her cap back. Evan’s gray eyes, so like Daddy’s, widened.

      “Erin? What… What the hell are you doing?”

      His tone, as much as his words, put her on the defensive. She stuck her chin out pugnaciously. “You’re the freaking brain, Evan. What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m shoveling horse shit.”

      “Why?” Evan’s brows pulled together. “Did Sam force you to do this?”

      She shrugged nonchalantly. “I wanted a job. Sam gave me one. It will pay him back for busting his fence.”

      Evan arched one thick brow. “Wouldn’t it be easier to write a check?”

      “He needed help. I’m helping.” Not even a full day home, and both Evan and her father were questioning her every move.

      Evan followed her into the barn where she picked out the next stall. As she worked, he watched her curiously, as if she were some kind of strange experiment. Hell, maybe she was. He didn’t know her. Probably didn’t know her as well as he knew the new darling of the family, their half sister, Tabby.

      Since they had reached their teens, Erin’s encounters with him and the rest of her family could only be described as brief and painful. Most of the time she had been in one scrape or another, or out of her head on booze or drugs.

      “I’m supposed to bring you home. Mother and Daddy have opened the guesthouse for you.”

      She had her back to him. Good thing too. Erin pressed her lips together to contain the angry words that bubbled up inside her. The guesthouse. Not her childhood home, not the room she’d had growing up. She was relegated to the guesthouse. Erin had stopped in mid-scoop with a forkful of shavings and manure. She finished tossing them onto the wheelbarrow.

      “How thoughtful of them to put their daughter in the guesthouse. Tell me, Evan, is that where the perfect Tabby stayed while she lived with them?”

      “That was different, Erin. Tabby almost died. She was recovering from a serious accident.”

      Erin leaned the fork against the wall and turned to look at her brother. She tilted her cap back and simply stared at him. He looked imposing, successful. He looked like a younger version of their father. She wondered if his tongue was as sharp and suspected it could wound exactly like Stoner’s.

      Erin wasn’t ready to face that.

      “I’m not ready to go. I’m not done yet. Sam rode out to check the herd in the back pasture. I said I would finish this and I will.”

      But Sam rode back in at that point, his cheeks flushed from the cold. As Evan turned, Erin quietly returned to work. She heard Sam dismount and lead his mare into the barn. His dark gaze narrowed as it shifted from her to Evan.

      “You’ve done enough today, Erin,” Sam commented. “Grab your things and I’ll run you and Evan over to the Homestead.”

      Erin wanted to tell him no. She wasn’t ready for this, but she wouldn’t beg.

      Sam’s gaze gentled as he continued quietly and evenly. “You have to see them, Erin, sooner or later.”

      Her chin rose. “You’re not my therapist.”

      Sam ignored her. “I have to go to town anyway before the farm store closes, so I can get posts and boards to start making permanent repairs to my fence now that the tow truck’s pulled your rental out.” Sam stepped up and took the pitchfork from her. “I took the rest of your joint out of the ashtray. Get your stuff, Erin. Go home. I said you could work here…not live here.”

      She hated the way he saw right to her vulnerabilities. He’d always been able to do that.

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