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“What did they have to say for themselves?” Garrett demanded.
Sawyer shrugged. “What do you mean? There was a hole in the fence. The cows got out.”
“I don’t think that’s all there is to it,” Garrett said. “You should’ve seen the way that one guy talked to me. As if nothing was wrong when there were cows running in the road.”
The other brothers began to gather in a circle as Sawyer spoke. “There was something wrong, but it’s fixed now.”
Garrett shook his head as he turned his back to his brothers. “I knew we should’ve never gone today. We can’t leave things without at least some of us here. This is our ranch, our home, our cattle. We can’t just trust them to somebody else.”
Sawyer’s voice echoed through the barn as he responded. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve never had cows get out? Have we never had a hole in the fence before?”
“No, I didn’t say that,” Garrett said as he spun around. “But we know how to handle it. We know our cows. And we had to come back and clean up the mess they made.”
Jenson spoke up then. “Come on, man. They were doing the best they could. They were working on it, and if we hadn’t shown up, they would’ve gotten the cows back in.”
Garrett shook his head. “I don’t know about that. Seems like we did most of the work ourselves. Which is how it should be anyway. I just wish I’d never gone.”
Sawyer sighed, and his face softened as he moved toward Garrett and put his hand on his shoulder. “Listen, I know you’re tired, and you had to come back from a fun day and get back to work. I’m sorry about that. But right now, I think you need to cool off. Go home and see your wife. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. But I think you really need to consider that this isn’t anybody’s fault and cows just get out.”
Garrett couldn’t look at any of them. He made his way out of the barn and to his truck that was still parked out front. He drove to his house, much slower than he had driven here just a short while earlier.
At the house, he threw his car into park, jumped out, and moved quickly to the front door. He opened it and, without thinking, let it slam behind him. As the sound echoed, he glanced up to see Elise startle from where she sat on the couch.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “Is everything alright?”
Garrett shrugged. “I’m going to take a shower.” He moved through the bedroom and into the bathroom. He heard her reply as he shut the door without looking. The cool water running over him probably wasn’t the cooling off that Sawyer thought he needed. But what did Sawyer know? He was the one who planned this whole day anyway. No, Garrett wasn’t cooling off. Why should he?
After his shower, he yanked open drawers and slammed them shut as he pulled out a T-shirt and athletic shorts. He collapsed onto the bed with the light still on.
* * *
Elise had sat silentlyon the couch for several minutes as she heard the sound of the water running in the bathroom. Following that was the sound of drawers opening and closing at a high level of intensity. When that stopped, she waited several minutes for Garrett to appear in the living room. When he didn’t, she began to wonder if she should go in or leave him alone.
She sighed as she let her face fall into her hands. They had had such a wonderful day today. The lake had been a wonderful break from all of the work—both hers and Garrett’s. The boys had a great time playing on the water, and she thought that she and Garrett were finally acting like a real married couple. Well, almost anyway.
Now, if she was going to be a real wife, she needed to go in and find out what was the matter with her husband. Slowly, she stood and crept to the door. She opened it gently and saw him lying on the bed.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Are the cows all right?”
Garrett crossed his arms. “They are now.”
“What happened?” Elise asked.
“Fence needed to be fixed.”
“Oh.” Elise said. Was that all? Wasn’t that a common occurrence on a ranch? Why would that upset him so much?
“We just can’t trust the ranch to people that aren’t family!”
“What do you mean?” Elise asked.
Garrett sat up. His jaw was set, and his nostrils flared as he spoke with a clipped tone. “It’s just the day workers. We shouldn’t have day workers. We never have before. We’ve always worked the ranch ourselves.”
Elise took slow breaths in and out trying to think of the right thing to say. “It was just for one day. It’s not like you abandoned the ranch.”
“But we’ve never taken a day before. Why should we start now? We don’t leave the ranch without the brothers here. It’s our job. If we had been here, this never would’ve happened.”
“But it has happened to you before, hasn’t it? I mean there’s been a hole in the fence, and the cows have gotten out before, right? I seem to remember that happening all the time when we were in high school.”
