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the newbie, learning the trails, the horses, the soap-opera dynamics of the people she worked with.
    “Teeny!” a deep voice barked.
    She groaned at the annoying nickname of her youth. “Where the hell you been, girl?” The voice came from a cowboy so old and bent by time that he had to peer up at her. She saw the smile behind his eyes, his brown skin darkened and wrinkled from years in the sun and couldn’t deny him a hug. She snapped his red suspenders as they pulled apart.
    “How’r you, Sol?”
    “Still dodging the question, I see. I knew your daddy made a mistake listening to Leo about going to school. Can’t see what they have to teach you that you haven’t already learned from us…”
    “How are my mules?”
    “Yeah, I figgered that’s why you were back. Not for us geezers. C’mon.” He tugged at his battered baseball cap and limped across the yard.
    Kristine gave Brian instructions for putting up the stock and joined Sol down at the mule corral. She scampered onto one of the felled trees that served as the corral and gazed out over the stock.
    “Suuuuuuuzy-Q! Scooter!” Out of the thirty head in the corral, four long, dark ears swung her way. The pair broke from the herd and strolled over to put their faces in Kristine’s lap, snuffing for treats in her chap pockets. Most of the mules in the corral were bred and trained by Kristine’s father, but Kristine considered Suzy-Q and Scooter her babies since they were the first her father had let her train on her own. Amazingly, they had not forgotten her.
    “You been spoiling this year’s foals, too?” Sol grumbled.
    She shoved him with her shoulder. “I don’t have the time to live down at the corral like I did when I got these guys. I grew up with them. I learned a hell of a lot having free rein with their training. They taught me about boundaries, so no. No more spoiling. Don’t go telling my dad he was right.”
    Sol worked the chew in his lip a minute his eyes still on the mules in the corral. “How’s the old man?” he finally asked.
    “Same pisshead he’s always been.”
    “You watch your mouth, girl,” he growled.
    But Kristine laughed at his attempt to scold her. “And who taught me about pissheads?”
    He hmphed and joined Kristine in scratching the ears of the mule in front of him. “Clifford might be an asshole, but he sure breeds a fine mule.”
    “You’re the only person in the world I know who calls him that.”
    “You talk him into doing a draft horse cross, get something a more respectable size?” he asked. “Get a Belgian mare and one of those Mammoth jacks. He’s got more than those bitty donkeys now, right?”
    “We picked up a Mammoth jack stud.”
    Sol rubbed his hands together. “A cross like that would make a fine mule.”
    “Only problem is how attached we are to our Morgan mares on the ranch. They’re always going to throw a smaller mule, and there are plenty of people who agree that it’s a great cross. Not everyone thinks bigger is better,” Kristine said even though Sol was one of the few packers who agreed with her. She straightened Suzy-Q’s forelock. “They all need haircuts.”
    “Unlike you.”
    Kristine hid her smile by tilting her hat, shading her face from Sol.
    “You got any hair under that hat, or’d someone scalp you?”
    “Not scalped, Sol. Just grown up.”
    “You sure about that?”
    “Hell, I’m not even sure you’re grown up, old man.”
    He laughed then, his eyes disappearing into his weathered face and chins multiplying. “C’mon, young ’un. You can call me anything you like…”
    Kristine smiled and couldn’t resist completing the sentence. “But don’t call me late for supper.” She swung her arm around Sol, always thankful for his support. She’d missed the gruff cowboy and felt guilty for the years she’d let pass without at least contacting him. Her mules a close second, he’d been the hardest part to leave, especially since she’d lied about why she had