Page 22 of When The Dust Settles

It took a second. “What?”

Immediately he was scowling at me. “You heard.”

“Why am I being sent home?”

“’Cause you can’t ride when you’re all tore up. Don’t be an idiot.”

Of course. As usual, I was the idiot. Sitting up, brushing his hands away when he tried to stop me, hold me down, I asked when Everett was coming.

“He’ll be here around midday, I reckon.”

“And you all just decided this.”

He pointed at my side. “No, Glenn,” he said crossly. “The gash in your side decided this.”

I shook my head.

“You didn’t even want to be here,” he reminded me. “You hate the ranch and driving cattle and everything else. Now you don’t have to have nothin’ to do with any of it.”

But that wasn’t the deal I made. “I made a promise to Stef.”

“Rand said that you don’t make no promises to family. You shouldn’t have to.”

“Stef’s not my family.”

“The hell he ain’t,” Mac griped. “He’s married to your brother, you damn fool.”

It took everything in me not to yell. Idiot. Fool. All the different names he applied to me that basically all meant the same thing.

Mac thought I was stupid, plain and simple. It could not be made any clearer.

“Why are you here?” I hoped my tone was as cold as I felt.

His glare was icy, any tenderness he’d felt for me evaporated like it was never there. “I have no idea.”

It felt different in the tent when he stormed out a moment later—like all the heat went with him—but I didn’t care. It had just been demonstrated to me again, for the billionth time, that I had no place in the world of the Red Diamond.

What did it matter if Mac was gay? He certainly wasn’t for me. He found me lacking, just like my family did, just like all the hands did, just like anyone attached to the ranch did. I was useless, plain and simple. All the things Rand had said while I dozed, and Zach too, they only did so because they thought they had to, or because they felt sorry for me. There was no real affection, no kinship, no love or respect or genuine feeling. And even though they’d thought I was asleep, and I could have assumed they were speaking from the heart, clearly they hadn’t been. Because my real worth came down to what kind of cowboy I was, and since I didn’t want to be one, I was of no use to any of them.

I couldn’t wait for Everett to come get me, because I was never showing up at the ranch again after this. I was so very done.

Chapter 4

I COULDN’T sleep.

Thinking about Mac and Rand and Zach and then Stef’s hope that there would be bonding and my own bullshit getting in the way—as well as all of theirs—it came to me that something had to give.

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. So in the early hours of the morning—the illuminated display on my G-Shock Mudmaster told me it was just after two—I finally gave up wrestling with my conscience and got up from the bedroll I was sleeping on. I gave Juju an absent pat that made her grunt like she was irritated—probably because I woke her up—and walked back toward the circle of lanterns. Other people might have worried about snakes, spiders, scorpions, or other critters bothering them, but with my horse standing vigil over me—even though she’d been sleeping—I didn’t. Her hearing was better than mine and I’d seen her crush a lot of creatures under her hooves over the years. She was bloodthirsty even though she was a vegetarian. Herbivore. Whatever.

I pretended to sleep through dinner so no one felt the need to speak to me or check on me, but now that I knew it was only hours before I’d be leaving, and God only knew when I’d be back out to the Red… if ever… I felt the urge to make amends.

My brain had not turned off overnight. Over and over, again and again, I had thought about what Rand and Zach had said. The reality was that like it or not, we were family, and the bond of blood was a real one. It would keep us in each other’s lives forever. I needed to get that through my thick skull. I also needed to pull my head out of my ass and realize that just because the ranch wasn’t my life, that didn’t make it bad. I didn’t need to vilify them to make what I did better. The fact of the matter was that the people in my restaurant were just like the ones on the Red Diamond, each set depending on either me or Rand. We weren’t as different as I made it out to be.

It had been Mac telling me who he was that made me recognize the truth. For better or worse, Mac spanned the gap between Rand and me. I could have fit Maclain Gentry into my world, but he already had a place at the Red Diamond. We could all coexist if I would stop being so defensive and angry and just breathe. Not that Mac and I would ever be anything more than passing acquaintances, but still, there could be a ceasefire. It all started with me, I was the one carrying the banner into battle, I had to be the one to call the truce. It was what Stef had wanted the whole time, for bridges to be built and crossed. Communication had to start somewhere.

Walking around the camp, I checked the tents and finally found the one Rand and Zach were in.

Slipping inside, I moved over to Rand’s bunk and knelt down beside his head. Beau was sleeping under the cot, but he didn’t stir even when I had my knee down next to his nose. I shook Rand gently and his eyes fluttered open.