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sure you have friends you keep in touch with by phone, but if you ever want to talk to a live person, I'll be happy to listen or talk and I'm sure Consuela will, as well."
    " Thank you."  She stared at her hand, still in his, feeling the gentle, lazy circles he traced with his thumb and wondering what it would feel like to have his hands around her.  Startled by the turn her thoughts had taken, she blurted out the first thing she could think of.  "Consuela seems really nice."
    " She is.  She's a gem.  She did a lot for Carol and me when our parents died."  He looked over at her as he said, "She likes you, you know."
    " I hope so.  I like her, too."
    " No, I mean she likes you for real.  I'm not sure how, but she's a good judge of people.  It usually takes her awhile to warm up to people because she has to feel they're a good person first, but she's really taken to you."
    Sam thought about that and some of the things she'd told her before Trevor came in.  That would give her something else to think about tonight. 
    " So how much am I going to pay you and how soon do you want to move in?"
    She grinned at him, thankful for changing the subject.  "Well, I did some checking as to how much other ranches pay their bookkeeper.  Most of them do not include a place to stay, though.  I wrote down the amounts that I found, both with and without a place to stay." 
    She handed him a piece of paper with this information on it.  "Letting me live on the ranch means a lot to me and if I don't have to pay rent I don't really need a lot to live on, so maybe we can help each other out.  If you give me free rent, the lowest amount there is fine with me, especially while we see how that works.  A year from now we'll have a better handle on how much the ranch can afford and how much work I'm doing, how long it takes, so we can talk again then."
    Grinning, he asked, "And when are you moving in?"
    " As soon as you say I can, Boss."
    " Let me look over these figures tonight, if that's all right.  I'll let you know tomorrow what I think would be a fair wage for you.  I'll get a couple of the men to do some scrubbing on the guesthouse tomorrow.  Why don't you and Consuela wash up the sheets and things?  You can move in as soon as it's clean."
    " Thank you, Trevor.  I appreciate both the job and the house."
    " Thank you for being the godsend I've needed."
    Something suddenly occurred to Sam and she chuckled.  He looked at her, puzzled and she said, "I just realized, I never gave you my resume."
    " I don't need one.  You made friends already with my computer.  That's good enough for me."
    " Do you at least want some references to check out before you let me live on your ranch?"
    " No, that's okay.  Consuela likes you.  That counts more to me than what anyone in Texas that I've never met could tell me.  But the fact you offered speaks volumes to me, as well."
    " Okay, if you're sure."
    " I should ask you the same thing, though."
    " What do you mean?"
    " You've just agreed to live here and you know nothing about me."  He frowned at her briefly.  "Is this something you do often?  Do we need to have a little talk about how safe that is?"
    Surprised at his words, she added them to the long list to think about later.  She had a lot of thinking to do tonight. "No, it's not something I do.  And I do, too, know something about you.  Sally assured me you're a good guy.  She said she grew up with Carol."
    Trevor smiled at the thought of Sally and Carol.  "Yes, they did.  Sally used to stay here sometimes.  She's a good lady, but boy could those two drive me nuts when they were younger.  As you work here you'll probably hear a story or two of them together, picking on Carol's big brother."
    " So you're older than Sally?  I thought you two seemed about the same age."
    " Actually, we are.  They were only a year behind me in school."
    " So you and Carol grew up close, I'll bet."
    " Definitely.  We've always been close."
    " I