“I don’t want to, either. Not that I expected Ransom to leave me anything, but it sounds like there’s nothing.” At least I’m not starting with a broken heart like after I broke up with Tanner. “I’m going to hang on until the end.” I let determination fill the emptiness that was in me a minute ago. “I owe it to Ransom and my sister for caring for me when I had no one else.”
“Now you have me. We have each other.” She lifts her can in the air. “Cheers to us.”
I ting my can against hers. We chug our beer, but when the cans are lowered, we aren’t smiling.
TWENTY
CALDER
The next morning, I keep checking my phone in case Meredith calls or texts. Why she would need to—or want to—I don’t know. When I got home last night, she wasn’t at the house, so I buzzed through town and found her car parked outside Sawyer’s house. Satisfied she was okay with her best friend, I met Bowen at home and got fucking grilled about me and her. The conversation was short. There is no Meredith and me. Last night was a mistake on the verge of happening.
Then why did I wake up with my stomach chewing through my abdominal wall?
“Does Carlos know?” Bowen walks with me down to the barn. “About the financials?”
“I’ve just told Meredith.”
“Christ, Calder. Is she your confidant?”
I shoot him a glare. “I wanted to see her reaction.”
“Is that all you wanted to see?”
I aim another scowl his way, but he only smirks.
“Best not to tell anyone else our plans until we know what the fallout is.” He stops and frowns at the pasture. “Whose horse is that?”
“Want to ride one instead of that sports car of yours?”
“It’s not mine, jackwagon, and I told the attendant exactly what I’d be driving on.”
“The gravel roads are going to love that thing.” I find more humor in his vehicle ordeal now that it stands out like a…well, like a Camero in a farmyard. “The horse is Styx, short for Pixie Styx, rescued by Holly. Meredith rides her.”
“I don’t recognize a single one,” he mutters. I know how he feels. All the horses are different now. “Is there a Highland cow somewhere too?”
I snort. “No, surprisingly. Just on the walls of the house. Two donkeys, though.”
“Heard they’re good for mountain lions.”
He’s been keeping updated on the ranch or all the ranching practices? If I ask, he won’t give me a straight answer. He’s better than Landry, but not by much.
“Doubt the coyotes are too friendly with them.”
He adjusts the new Crossroads Ranch ball cap he took from the mudroom. He raided the boxes in the basement like I did. In the same situation I’m in, he’s wearing his normal jeans with old boots and a stretched-to-the-seams shirt. The wind kicks up dust around us, blasting dirt into our exposed skin. Neither of us fucked with our cowboy hats.
“Landry call you?” I ask, tipping my head down to keep from getting a face full of grit.
“Hell no.” He grumbles and starts for the barn again. “He’s always been bad about falling offline, but since Dad started reaching out, he’s worse.”
“He has a ten-to-one ratio. I have to bug him ten times before he answers.” But he’ll always answer eventually. Dad’s death has changed things. I just don’t know how they’ll shift going forward.
We’re hoping we can sell and go back to our lives. Will it be so easy to return to the concrete jungle? To sit in an office all day and endure meeting after meeting? I’ve had hours of emails andtexts to answer every day, but my assistants have handled the rest. In Scandal, I can close out my email account and be done. Outside is right out the door, and not ten floors down.
“I sent him a new phone last week,” Bowen says, yanking me out of my head. “Added a note that said the keyboard on his must be broken.”
Times like this make me miss their bickering. Mama used to say they fought like jackrabbits in a pillowcase.
“Maybe with his marketing skills, he could resurrect Jules Creek and the ranch.”
