Around two o’clock, judging by the angle of the sun, Wyatt saw Erin’s black Honda pull in. He was surprised, because the last time he’d talked to Buck at the Timing Light, he’d been told the car would be out of commission for at least another week. He half expected Erin to walk over in a temper and chew him out for putting the estimate on his credit card. Instead she went straight into the main house. He guessed maybe she’d come to tell her uncle about quitting her job. He figured Slade and Vickie would take it pretty well. Unlike Erin’s parents, all they really wanted was for Erin to be happy.

Two hours later, Wyatt was mucking out stalls when he saw Erin finally emerge from the house. She made a beeline for him. He leaned on the pitchfork handle and struggled not to smile. She had hangover written all over her. When she drew close, he said, “Looks to me like you need some hair of the dog.”

She rolled her pretty blue eyes. “I’ve sworn off wine forever, amen. First, let me say thank you for paying the repair costs on my car.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Second, you can start holding a portion of my wages back to pay for my half.”

Wyatt thought for a moment that he’d misread her lips. “Come again?”

“You read it right. I asked Uncle Slade for a job, and he gave me one. That makes you my boss now, I think. He sent me out here so you can get me lined out.”

Wyatt could have groaned. A picture of her in sexy underwear flashed through his head, and the first question that entered his mind was where in the hell she was going to sleep. The bunkhouse wasn’t set up for unisex use. There wasn’t a privacy screen in the whole place, and except for a spare toilet for emergency use, he and the other men shared a full bathroom.

“You don’t look overjoyed to hear that I’ll be working under you.”

Wyatt wouldn’t have minded her working under him. Scratch that. He couldn’t allow himself to think about things like that. He realized he was scowling and made a herculean effort to relax his forehead. “I’m sorry. I have to admit I’m taken by surprise. I never got the impression that you even like horses and cows.”

“I like them. From a distance. And, um, I kind of left one part out. Uncle Slade left the final decision to you. About hiring me, I mean.”

Wyatt was relieved to hear that. But a fat lot of good it did him. If he nixed the idea, he’d be the Shithead of the Year. Definitely in Erin’s eyes, and his boss might not like it all that much, either. “Erin, you can’t admire the horses and cows from a distance. You’ll be up close and personal with them a dozen times a day, and even well-trained horses and docile cattle can be dangerous.” That wasn’t a stretch of the truth; it was fact. He didn’t want to scare her, but he didn’t want her to get hurt, either. “You know next to nothing about livestock.”