Wrangler by Dani Wyatt

keep my eyes on the road. 
    She drops the few roses she’d picked up back into the basket and gives me a sympathetic half grin.
    “Yeah.”  She sneers and pushes her hair off her forehead.  “Fucker.  That guy was an entitled asshole.  He still is an entitled asshole.  Have you seen him lately?” She clicks her tongue. “That whole family thinks they’re better than everyone else.”
    “I don’t know why I was the one that whole crowd picked on. They started on me in first grade .  Not just him, but he was the worst.” Even the memory makes me shiver. He asked me out, then left me sitting there waiting, all dressed up. Never showed.  “You know, I used all the money I’d saved for my whole life to buy that stupid dress. And for what?” I shake my head. “That was a shitty year.”
    “He’s a shitty human.  I see him now and then in the bank.  He walks through, doesn’t ever talk to anyone.  I mean, he needs a few lessons on leadership.  I know I’m no one special, but my little business is taking off and someday I’m going to have heaps of cash in that bank. Then we’ll see who’s who.”
    I chuckle. Tabitha has been an entrepreneur since as far back as I can remember.  She started out selling sock puppets to our fourth grade class.  They were cute too; she embroidered eyes and noses on each one, they all had a name and a little story about where they came from.  She’s good at marketing and selling.  People are drawn to her.  She makes friends like showers make you wet.  It’s effortless for her.
    Right now she has a growing online business where she sells virtual assistant services.  It started out with her offering her services through some other website with more of a reach – one that has all sorts of freelance services for sale.  But Tabitha is sharp; she priced herself well, provided more than she was asked for and in less than the time allowed.  She studied the market and found a niche with writers and authors.
    She learned everything she could about that industry, went out and helped out some writers without asking for any compensation, showed them what she could do and before you knew it, she had more work than she could handle.  Now, she has five employees.  They are from all over the world, including one in South Africa and one in Israel.  She has her own website now and has to turn away business.
    “You already have heaps of cash in that bank.  At least by my standards.”  I stop at the red light. 
    Traffic is light this time of night, but working in a bar makes me well aware of how many people drink and drive.  I’m amazed at how many people still do it in this day and age.  Boggles my mind.  I cut people off at work all the time, but I’m not always sure who is driving home so it is hard to determine who to serve and who not to serve. 
    Crutch tells me not to worry about it, but I’ve seen him take keys away from customers heading out to the parking lot before, so I know he cares just as much as I do.
    “Are you spending the night?”  Tabitha digs in her purse and pulls out her phone to check her texts.
    “No.  I need to get home.  We have so much work to do at the farm.  I have bags of feed in the back for the goats and sheep. They’ll have fits if they don’t get fed at five in the dang morning.  And I’ve been trying to work with Rooster every morning as best I can.  Man, he’s cranky.”
    “He’s a sweet boy deep down.  He’ll come around.  You worked wonders with Tomahawk.”
    Tomahawk is the other horse I have.  He’s near thirty-seven years old now.  Just hangs out in the pasture with Rooster.  He and I got together when I first came to Jessie’s.  He’d been there for years before, but neither Jess nor Uncle Dan were really horse folks, so for the most part he was just a pasture decoration until I came along.  Uncle Dan passed years ago.  I didn’t know him, but Jessie told me they got Tomahawk from a neighbor, but