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“I could have done it for you, or one of the twins,” Beau chastised me.
I scoffed. “Then one of the twins would be in the fucking hospital, and you would still be out there trying to break in the damn horse.”
His father laughed, throwing his head back. I shook my head, smirking as Beau glared at me. “Bastard,” he muttered under his breath.
“Where are the boys? I’m fucking starving,” I said, leaning back in the chair.
When they got here, we would all migrate downstairs to the dining room. The eight-seater table used to be filled with food every night, surrounded by warmth and laughter every holiday, now, it was occasionally occupied by a bunch of cowboys with broken souls.
“The rodeo is in town. Tonight’s the last night. They’re probably trying to fuck a buckle bunny or two,” Beau said. Mags scoffed, folding his arms over his chest while Jigs chuckled again.
My jaw tightened, and I looked over to the wall. There was a huge painted canvas, done by a local artist, of the ranch. It was beautiful, a wedding gift for my parents. After my mother died, my father didn’t have the heart to see it hanging in the living room anymore, so, he moved it up here. This room used to be her studio.
My mother was a photographer. Pop transformed this room into a darkroom for her a few years before her passing.
It remained untouched until after I got back from my deployment. Mason didn’t even want to come in here. When we were kids, he said he could feel her in here.
I didn’t feel her in here.
I felt her outthere,on the ranch. She was in the wind, the rain, the dirt, and sunshine.
Anyways, I found the painting and hung it there. Conveniently, it also served as a hiding place for my safe where I kept about twenty grand in cash, a few of Pop’s old guns, and all of Mason’s newspaper clippings.
My brother, Mason Langston, was the top professional bull rider in the world. Ever since we were kids, that fucker wanted to be on the back of something that could kill him. I never knew what he was chasing. The thrill. The adrenaline? Maybe, it was the pussy that it attracted.
Hell, I never knew but I never stopped supporting him.
Not once.
Even when he spat in my face and told me he hated me. Even when he turned his back on me and this ranch. I never stopped. His biggest sponsor is Evergreen Feed. That’s just a cover name for Hallow Ranch.
I was his biggest sponsor, and he would never know. His manager knew, but I made him sign an NDA.
My brother hated me, but I would love him from a distance.
Headlights in the distance drew my attention away from the painting.
All of us stood, hungry and ready for a hot meal, then a shower and fucking sleep. I was the last one to head down the stairs, stopping to poke my head into Caleb’s room. His bed was made, and his toys were put away. He was such a clean kid. I had a gut feeling he inherited some of my OCD.
He was nothing like his slut of a mother, thank fuck for that.
Cathy was blonde—dyed more now due to her the gray coming in—and her brown eyes were now dull. She was waitress at the local titty bar, Tinkles. She was too ugly and old to get on that stage, not to mention that she had fucked half of the fucking town.
No, I don’t approve of my son’s mother being the biggest slut in town or working at a titty bar, but it was the only job she could get. She only got to see Caleb one week out of the month during the school year. During the summer, I tried to give him more freedom to choose where he wanted to stay, since he was getting older. Cathy lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the far side of Hayden. The furniture in Caleb’s room was mine, the toys in his room were mine and the clothes on his back were provided by me.
Cathy was too poor to raise a son.
All the money she had was spent on cigarettes and cheap hair dye.
He will be back here tomorrow morning. He had a science test at school yesterday, and we would need to go over that. School was ending in a few weeks, and then he would be out for the summer.
I quickly closed his bedroom door and went downstairs.
I expected to find my cowboys already digging into their food at the dining room table. What I found instead was my cowboys standing around the butcher block island in my kitchen, looking pissed.
My body instantly went on alert, noting the look of violence in Mags eyes.
What the fuck?
