February Snow

Chapter 1

As I walked in the house, my sister & her husband were the first to greet me.

"Eli! Look at you! You look great!" shouted my very slim and athletic built sister basically yelled into my ear as she was beginning to suffocate me.

"Thanks Aly, but I haven't been able to keep a great body on the road, gas station food is always the best." I laughed as she started nagging at me to start eating healthier.

Personally, I thought I was getting fat. I was 5'11 and 150 pounds. All of my workouts consisted of unloading and loading feed and hay. And exercising the horses on my days off on the road.

My sister was never one to rodeo. She preferred hair, make-up, and ballet dancing. I never understood her.

I turned to her husband, AJ. He was 6'4 and built like a body builder. They went well together.

"Hello, AJ. Happy to see you."

"Eli, always a pleasure being in the same room as a champ." He laughed as he pulled me into a hug. AJ became the brother I never had when my sister & him started dating about 5 years ago.

As I stepped away from AJ, my mom came busting through the door and hugged me to death(not literally).

"Well hello to you too, mom" I coughed.

"Elizabeth Bayley! You never told me you were coming! How's life on the road?" She was never okay with me leaving home as soon as I graduated high school to pursue my dreams of being a big rodeo star, but she's starting to come to terms with it 4 years later.

"Its great mom, I'm off for about 2 weeks before I head home to hit the Texas Circuit rodeos."

"Great, that means you'll be here to help get the new ranch hands up to speed!"

After she said that, my step-dad walked in with all the food. I immediately ran up and hugged him.

After my grandfather became sick, my step-dad would fly out to wherever I was and helped me when I needed it. I was always close with Tim. He's been in my life since I was 5. I'm 22 now. Needless to say, he has been my father figure for awhile.

We all started to sit down and started making our plates of food. We ate in a comfortable silence.

Since it was one of the hottest days of the year here in New Mexico, we decided to go out to the lake that was on the edge of my parents large ranch. I saddled up one of my old horses who stayed here at the ranch, and waited on everyone else to get on the other horses.

When we reached the lake, I immediately took off into the lake. It was nice being able to relax and not have to worry about missing a check in time.

Mom & Tim grabbed the floats from the storage shed just off of the bank and started floating. Aly and AJ were swimming off of the dock while I just swam around.

Finally, everyone was ready to leave, so I grabbed my horse and started riding back to the house.

When I reached the house, the new ranch hands were in the process of moving into the loft above the barn.

While I was unsaddling Spook, a FINE looking man was having trouble getting his bags up the stairs. He sure does not look like he belongs here. I sat the saddle down and walked up to him.

"Need some help?"

"If you wouldn't mind.." He kept his back to me.

I pushed past him and grabbed two bags and started carrying them up the stairs.

"Eli?" I froze. I knew that voice anywhere. It made me want to run away. I slowly turned around.

"Trent. What are you doing here?" I asked with as much anger as I could.

Trent was what you would call my 'bully' in high school. He always made fun of me for being the 'horse girl' who would do nothing but spend all her time with horses her whole life. Its not a lie, but he is now working for my parents.

"I work here now, what are you doing here? I thought you lived in Texas still." He asked.

"This is my parents place, and yes, I have a ranch in Texas. I'm just here for my mothers birthday." I quickly turned away and walked up the stairs.

I set the bags down and quickly walked out of the loft. I finished putting the horses up and feeding.

When I went inside the house, I quickly stormed up to Tim. It was like he knew what was coming.

"Eli, calm down. He's just here because he's with the rest of the workers coming off the same ranch in Texas."

"You should've told them to leave him back in Texas. He doesn't belong anywhere around a ranch."

"He's one of the best in that outfit from what I've heard." Tim tried to reason with me.

I gave him the finger and walked up to the guest room and went to sleep.