Read Star Bright for Free Online Page B

shook his head. “My full-time stable hands get forty, and none of them have a college degree.” He noticed her incredulous expression and grinned. “There’s a method to my madness. I detest rapid turnover, so I pay a livable wage to keep my employees happy. In the end, I come out the winner. I’m not trainin’ new people all the time or constantly hasslin’ with idiots who don’t know what they’re doin’. Someone with your education and experience deserves to start near the top of my pay scale. My foreman gets eighty a year, twice what the hired hands get. He’s invaluable to me when it comes to daily operations. You’ll be invaluable when it comes to the business end of things. I think sixty a year is fair. Over time, with annual raises, you’ll make what my foreman does.”
    Rainie couldn’t believe he’d just refused to pay her less. “Is there a money tree in your backyard or something?”
    With a chuckle, he pushed to his feet. “Somethin’ like that. You ready to take that tour?”
     
    Rainie breathed in the fresh, sun-drenched air as she accompanied Parker Harrigan across the gravel parking area to the big metal building she’d noticed earlier. It was much farther from the house than it had appeared to be from inside her car. The smells out here were different, she realized, some of the scents unidentifiable. A faint pungency underscored the sweet smells of grass, clover, and wildflowers. She thought she detected a piney odor on the breeze as well. Overall, it was a pleasant blend.
    As they walked, he gestured around them.
    “Those are the outdoor stalls,” he informed her, pointing off to their right at a flank of enclosures sheltered by a long, corrugated-metal roof. At the far end, Rainie saw two women giving a reddish brown horse a bath. “We only use them as holdin’ pens durin’ the day.”
    Within the structure, three men worked with shovels. One of them, a small, wiry man of about thirty with brown hair and blue eyes, waved at his boss.
    “That’s Jericho Steelman,” Harrigan explained. “Did the rodeo circuit for several years as a clown until he injured his leg. Now he’s got a permanent limp and can’t do clown work anymore.”
    “That’s too bad.” As the young man resumed work, Rainie studied the stalls, which looked perfectly fine to her. “Why do you only use those as holding pens?”
    “Unless we’re workin’ with ’em, I like to keep my horses inside the stable.”
    “Don’t they prefer to be outdoors?”
    “They’ve got paddocks outside their stalls, so they can go out whenever they want durin’ the day. And they’re exercised regularly.”
    Some of the larger pieces of gravel poked through the soft soles of Rainie’s slip-ons, hurting her feet. She made a mental note to get a sturdy pair of shoes or boots. “I noticed what looked like infrared cameras at the gate.”
    “And all along the fence line,” he informed her. “Good eye. Most people don’t know what they are. If you accept the job, I’ll give you a sticker for your windshield. There’s a camera at the gate that reads the bar code and automatically lets you in.”
    “Is so much security really necessary way out here?”
    He chuckled. “Probably not. But I’d rather be safe than sorry. My sister had some horses poisoned not that long ago.”
    “Oh, how awful.” Rainie shivered and rubbed her arms. “Is her ranch near here?”
    He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. With the movement, his blue shirt drew taut over the bunched muscles in his upper arm. “Right over there. See the green metal roofs?”
    Rainie squinted against the sunlight. “My goodness, she’s close.”
    “My whole family is close,” he explained. “Originally, this was a twelve-hundred-acre ranch. My dad subdivided it into six separate parcels, keepin’ one for himself and givin’ one to each of us kids when we turned twenty-one. Samantha was the first of us to go with high security. For reasons of his own, my