"Feed store," I muttered to myself as I typed it into the Google Maps app. When the results popped up, I scowled. "Lancaster Feed and Supply. Of course."
I climbed in the driver's seat and set off on my twenty-minute drive into town, unsure of what I'd find. One would assume it was the same Lancasters. Larkspur was a small town. Surely, they were family.
A few songs later, I pulled up in front of a decent-size cinderblock building with a sun-faded sign that readLancaster Feed & Supplyin peeling red paint. A row of dented aluminum trash cans sat off to one side, lids rattling in the breeze, and a stack of hay bales and salt blocks were shrink-wrapped on pallets out front. The gravel lot was pitted and dusty, scattered with pickups that had seen better days, most of them with gun racks or mud-splattered tires. A few hundred yards away sat a well-kept white home with red shutters that matched the paint of the sign.
The bell above the glass front door gave a half-hearted jingle as I stepped inside. The place smelled like ground corn, molasses, and dust—comforting in its own way. Rows of stacked fifty-pound feed bags lined one wall, neat as bricks, while shelves sagged under horse wormer, fly spray, and tubs of mineral blocks. A pegboard behind the counter bristled with tools: fencing pliers, coils of baling twine, lead ropes in every color. The linoleum floor was worn to a shine where countless boots had tracked across it, and the air was hazy with straw dust caught in the streams of light filtering through narrow windows.
Behind the counter sat a squat coffee pot that had probably been there since the Reagan years, and a corkboard plastered with handwritten notes—used saddles for sale, a babysitter wanted, ranch hands offering day labor, someone's missing border collie. The whole place buzzed low, steady, like the heartbeat of the county.
It was fucking delightful.
A tall, broad man walked out of a back office, and I did a double take.
A Brody lookalike.
A brother, if I had to guess.
"Ma'am." He nodded my way, and I resisted the urge to cringe.
He was grumpier-looking than Brody—but that wasn't hard to do. When Brody wasn't brooding over the drama of his current life state, he had all the personality of the golden retriever on the front of the bag of dog food at the end of this aisle.
I'd kill for a dog.
"Haven't seen you 'round here before."
"Just started working over at Wild Acre," I said, stepping toward the counter. "Rhett sent me down for some fencing."
The other Lancaster gave me a slow perusal from my feet up. By the time he reached my face, it must have been the arched eyebrow that told him I didn't miss that look. His cheeks brightened and he scrubbed a hand over his mouth.
"You met my brother yet? Brody?"
"Looks just like you? Personality of a boy scout?"
He grunted what I was gonna call a laugh and I grinned. "Yeah, that'd be the one."
"He older or younger?"
"Older. By ten months."
"Ah, Irish twins." I waggled my brows. "Parents must've been busy."
A scowl took up residence on his face—no less handsome than Brody but justlesssomehow. I wasn't going to pause to examine the reasoning behind that little observation.
"I'm Calvin." I extended a hand across the counter.
He shook off whatever foul mood had momentarily overtaken him and gripped my hand.
"Luke. Nice to meet you, Calvin."
"Well, it's been real great meeting you, Luke. How 'bout you ring me up for a couple rolls of barbed wire and a sack of staples, and I'll be on my way."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Luke," I said. He paused hand-writing Rhett's order that would be added to his tab and peered up at me. "If you know what's good for you, you'll never call me ma'am again."
He smirked and gave his head a small shake. "You're gonna be trouble, aren't ya?"
"Only a little." I pinched my thumb and forefinger together, leaving just a smidge of space between them. "Promise."
