“Nervous?” I asked her nonchalantly.
Her knees stopped bouncing. “Uh, no. Are you?”
“Not even in the slightest,” I said coolly.
“That’s good,” she replied.
“It’s great,” I said, teasing her.
She shook her head but didn’t say anything.
“You look just like your great-grandma,” I said, changing the subject.
She faced me and smiled. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry. Was that too intimate a compliment for work colleagues?” I needled. “I wouldn’t want to cross any boundaries.”
She pursed her lips, huffed and faced the open space again.
“How do you think Patches is doing today?” I baited. “I know Ellie found an abscess in his right hind hoof.”
“He’s fine. Pop Pop treated him. He’s resting.”
“That’s good news. Who is Drew riding then?”
“I don’t know,” she puffed.
“When do you think we’ll be able to turn the cows out to summer pasture?”
“If we’re lucky, the end of April.”
Her short, bland answers were cracking me up.
“That’s superb,” I answered sarcastically.
She nodded.
“Hey,” I began.
“Spencer! Stop talking to me about the ranch!”
“Oh, so I guess we can’t talk about anything at all then? Awesome! What awesome company you turned out to be.”
She sighed and her head fell. “I’m sorry. I-I just needed some boundaries with you. We were getting close, if you catch my drift, and it was disrespectful to Ethan.” She faced me. “I just needed you to know that it needed to stop.”
“That’s fine,” I lied. I mean really, really lied.
She regarded me and opened her mouth to say something, but a loud clang came from the front of the schoolhouse.
“What the hell was that?” I asked. “Stay here,” I ordered her.
I jumped down and made my way toward the front, Eugie tight on my heels. No one was there, but when I made an attempt to look outside, the weather had taken a drastic, dangerous change. The wind was so strong I couldn’t open the door more than a foot. Snow blew so strongly and so heavily, I couldn’t see but a few inches in front of me.
I shivered from the cold that had seeped through and met Cricket back at the edge of the stage. “You should probably come see this,” I told her.
She hopped down and she beat me to the door. “Holey. Moley.”
“Will it calm down any?”