Emmett
I’D GET Aboner for any woman bent over in front of me.
It’s been over twenty-four hours since I had Julia Silva bent over in my kitchen and I’m still repeating those words to myself as I drive my quad to the back quarter to check on the yearlings—my favorite herd.
Old Bailey, their guardian horse, whinnies when she sees me pull up and trots in my direction, leading the entire herd toward the gate.
Eager for the distraction of something wholesome, I give my old chestnut mare a hearty scratch behind the ears while pressing my forehead against her wide, white blaze.
“How’s my girl?” I murmur, watching the thick lashes over her eyes flutter down as she sighs. She’s got gray on her face now, but she still reminds me of happy times. Long days out on the trail, swimming in the lake, and my parents. They bought her for me on my seventh birthday.
I don’t want to do the math on how old that makes her. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to be sad about her being geriatric right now.
I pull some carrots from my back pocket and check her over, whispering sweet nothings as I go. She’s in great shape—sound and happy—and that’s good enough for me right now.
Moving on to the rest of the chores, I fill the water trough for this pasture and inspect their round bales. I do a quick scan of them all for any injuries, and before long my brain circles back to Julia.
I stew over her.
It’s a funk I can’t shake as I continue to make my way to each pasture on the property.
My call time to be in hair and makeup is 1 p.m. today, and at least that is something that hasn’t lost its humor for me. Getting professionally done up to look like a farmer is fucking hysterical.
The road curves, and the old building comes into view. I stop for a beat to admire the setup. It’s impossible not to appreciate how much better it looks with a little TLC.
“Looks good, right?” Parker’s voice startles me as she approaches from behind. “I was thinking that when the show is over, we could use the bunkhouse to generate extra income. Retreats or something like that. Office people love to dish out a load of cash to play homestead for a few days in the name of team building.”
I nod at that. “Solid idea. Julia did a good job.”
No, agreatjob. And telling her she could have beenany womanwas a real dick thing to say. But it’s also the kind of thing I fall back on when I’m just a little too vulnerable or when things get just a little too real.
“What are you doing lurking around, Parks?” I ask my sister, again feeling the uneasiness that comes with blending my family with this farce.
“Stretching my legs and giving my eyes a break from the spreadsheets. Figured I’d wander down this way and check on my brother.”
I shoot her a suspicious glare.
“What? The first rental payment came through to the business account, and it’s already made a big difference. I’ve been scouring Western Canada for hay cheaper than what’s produced in the valley but was coming up empty. I was going to have to turn to pea hay for the yearlings and two-year-olds to make it through winter—much to Riley’s dismay—but a fed horse is better than a starved one. This is a game changer, Em.”
My nose wrinkles. An exclusively pea hay diet is not nutritionally ideal for young, growing horses. But desperate times, and all that.
“That’s great,” I say, and while I mean it, it doesn’t sound like I do.
“Why do you sound like you’re marching to the gallows? How are you really?”
“Parks, stop worrying. I’m a big boy.”
“Am I not allowed to wonder how you’re holding up with…” She gazes around, rolling her hand in a way that tells me she’s searching for the right words for what she wants to say. “All of these feelings?”
Feelings. Yeah. Just not the feelings I was expecting. And something tells me Parker knows me well enough to recognize that.
“You know how it is,” I reply, dodging the question while checking to see if there are any cameras lurking to capture a moment I’d rather they not.
“I do.” She nods, shoving her hands into her pockets and rocking on her feet as though expecting me to elaborate.
And she does know. We’ve both experienced firsthand the heartache that comes with loving and losing someone. As the two oldest, we watched our grandparents grieve our parents. We watched our siblings grieve them too.
That shared loss brought us all closer together. Petty spats or long-lasting hard feelings were few and far between growing up—because we all knew with certainty that any time you see someone it could be the last.
