Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Mama sighed. “Folks always act like making a simple roux for gumbo is some kind of voodoo magic. Pure foolishness. How’s your job? Are you getting along okay with your boss? They’re his horses, LJ, and you know that means you got to do things his way.”
“He mostly stays out of my way when it comes to the training.” On the fourth try, Snap released the bit without a fuss. LJ swapped bridle for halter and patted the horse, thinking of the whack his uncle would have given the colt for throwing his head. “You should see the stock they have up here, Mama. Did I tell you Andra loaned me her horse for the rodeo? King Cash and Allure bloodlines, and she didn’t bat an eyelash. She’s got that mare tuned up something beautiful, I tell you.”
She laughed. “You never met a horse you didn’t like, even if it was cross-eyed, knock-kneed, and mean as a stepped-on snake. And what do you mean, ‘when it comes to the training’? Are you butting heads with the owner on something else?”
LJ gritted his teeth. He should have chosen his words more carefully. “He, ah . . . he’s not so hot on the idea of me hanging around his daughter.”
“Lyndon Johnson, tell me you’re not risking your good job over some pretty girl.”
He swallowed a groan as he clipped Snap into the crossties. “Mama, please don’t call me that.”
“I’ll call you that as many times as I have to so you can remember the great man I named you for. I guarantee President Johnson didn’t get to the White House without learning to pick his battles.”
“Actually, he ramrodded through anything he wanted, from civil rights bills to the Vietnam War. It’s part of what—”
“I am not done speaking. I know you think you don’t need to take orders from any living soul, son, but until you can pay your own paycheck, you got to swallow down that pride of yours and behave.”
LJ jerked the cinch loose and hauled the saddle off the colt’s back. “I’m only giving her cooking lessons.”
She snorted. “You think he don’t know what two young folks get up to, alone in a kitchen? Mind your manners and stay away from that girl if that’s what your boss wants. You wanna be exercising horses for a hundred dollars a week and arguing with your uncle over the right way to do every blessed thing? Well, then keep it up.”
“You told me to teach her to cook!” LJ’s voice spiked enough that Snap balked, throwing his head and yanking on the crossties.