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“If it had been a branding day, I’d be sitting here with a beer in hand.”
Chance twisted his forearm around, but I didn’t need to see the old scar to understand what he meant. Ever since the brander had slipped and bumped part of the brand into Chance’s forearm, who had been holding down the calf, Chance had been a little jaded about branding day. Conn had been the brander that day.
“Too late in the season for calving,” I said, tapping my chin.
He nodded. “Calves are all happily calved.”
“You would have already gotten all the weak spots in the fences fixed from winter, and if you were just doing a count of the herd, you wouldn’t look so beat.”
Chance tugged off his other boot, sighing as he stretched and wiggled his toes. “And to think you were some big city girl who didn’t know the difference between alfalfa and straw.”
I laughed. “You would have thought I’d committed high treason when I dropped that bale of straw in that cow’s pen.”
“In the cow’s eyes, you had.” Chance laughed with me.
“Okay, okay. So back to why you were a no-show at dinner. Does it have anything to do with the cattle?” I didn’t think so, but I wanted to make sure I was on the right track.
“Nope. Not the cattle who got me up before sunrise and kept me out past sunset today.” When he yanked off his socks, he balled them up and tossed them in my direction, but he missed.
Chance always missed when he threw his stinky socks at me. I used to think it was due to bad aim, but I’d figured out the opposite was true. He had just as good of aim as his two brothers, who had no problem flinging their stinky socks in my face. Chance just chose to be a gentleman instead of a jerk.
“So you were with the mustangs.”
“Getting warmer,” he said, twisting around to look at me.
“Were you moving them into a different pasture?” I collected Chance’s socks and balled them together to remember to toss them into the laundry later.
“Wrong. Although we’ll be moving them soon if that’s any consolation.” Chance glanced at the star-spattered sky. One of the first things I’d come to appreciate about the country were the starry nights. We didn’t have anything close to them in the city I’d grown up in. “Those things burn through grass like Conn burns through a liquor cabinet.”
I’d forgotten all about Conn and our “amiable” catch up not even five minutes earlier, but at the mention of his name, I glanced down the porch. The glow from his cigarette was gone, but that didn’t mean he was gone. Conn could hide in the shadows like no one else I’d ever known.
“Introducing new members to the herd?” I guessed again.
Red Mountain Ranch had hosted several thousand mustangs for over a decade, and that number had grown over time. It was part of a deal with the Bureau of Land Management, and while the payout of a dollar plus a mustang daily seemed to add up to a nice sum at the end of the month, the overhead was so much that there was barely ten percent profit in the whole venture. But Chance didn’t do it for the profit. He did it because it was the right thing to do, and in his eyes, letting the wild mustangs roam the same land that had once been their home was the right thing to do, pathetic profit percentages aside.
I scanned my brain, searching for other alternatives that had kept him so busy today. “You singlehandedly braided every last mare’s mane in the herd?”
He was still looking at the stars when he started laughing. “Considering they’re all mares, save for the few stray colts born this year, I would still be out there braiding horse hair.”
It was his answer, combined with him hoisting himself off the porch with a slow wince as he rubbed his side, that gave me my answer. “You were sorting the colts out from the herd.” I didn’t need to cap my guess with a question mark because I was that confident.
“There’s the countriest city girl I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.” Chance winked as he walked closer to me. “What gave it away? My wince or my walk?” Now that he was up, he was moving just fine, but he’d gotten stiff enough sitting for just that short amount of time to give away he’d taken a beating out there.
“Both,” I answered, stepping closer. I pulled his shirt free from his jeans before hoisting it up his side.
“I think you’re like supposed to buy me a drink first. Or I’m supposed to buy you one first. Or something drink-related before you start ripping my clothes off.”
I wasn’t looking at his face, but I heard the smile in his voice as I traced the giant purple bruise that stretched from the middle of his ribs down to the tip of his belt. “It looks like you’ve already had your share of getting nailed today. I’ll spare you.” I glanced up to find him looking at me with a look in his eyes that I wasn’t used to seeing there. It made my fingers freeze and the back of my throat go dry. I averted my gaze, dropped his shirt back over his side, and stepped back. My head felt strange, light and heavy at the same time. While that wasn’t a foreign sensation, I’d never felt it over this brother. “If you’re working with the mustangs again tomorrow, try not to get kicked, okay?”
“Not getting kicked is my primary objective every time I work with the mustangs.” Chance tucked his shirt back into his jeans. He seemed to be as concerned about looking away from me as I was from him. “Chance . . .” I wasn’t sure how to start. How did one apologize for giving someone they cared about the brush-off for seven years? How did I explain why I had? How could I tell him that while he’d made me believe I could do anything, another Armstrong son had made me feel as though I was worth nothing and at the end of the day, I went to bed remembering the bad? I supposed there was really only one way to start that apology—just like any other kind. “I’m sorry.”
Chance shook his head. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I get it. I understand. Really.” When I exhaled, he added, “You had to do what was right and best for you. I’ve never blamed you for that. It’s the same thing anyone would have done in your situation.”
I lifted an eyebrow. I felt strange keeping a safe distance from Chance as well, but after that shared look and the feeling that followed, maybe distance wasn’t the worst idea. “Not everyone, Chance Armstrong. In fact, I’m pretty convinced that you’ve never done anything with yourself in mind first.”
He slid his hat back into place and looked at his hands, which were creased with dust and dirt. “You’re wrong, you know. If I hadn’t thought of myself first, I wouldn’t have left a couple of hired hands to finish sorting the last couple hundred mustangs.”
My forehead creased. “You actually left a job before it was done?”
