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Hazel had a huge grin on her face. “Hey! I was just going to come up and ask if you wanted to help us make cookies. Now that the power is on, we can actually eat something other than disgusting canned food and shit.”
“Language,” her mother reprimanded. “But we would love for you to join us. It’s nice to have another woman in the family. Now we’re not outnumbered.”
I laughed. “As much as I’d love to, I’m going out to take care of Roanie. I thought she might like all the ribbons and bows out of her hair.”
“He really went all out.” Hazel giggled, shaking her head. “I knew you said he did, Mom, but I didn’t realize it wasthatbad.”
“Oh, I meant it.” Her mom joined her. “He’s got it bad. I’ve never seen the man spend that much time on how a horse looks. But you have fun, Cheyenne. We’ll try not to eat all these cookies before you make it back inside.”
“Thanks.” I laughed, my heart feeling light as I headed out into the mudroom, slipping on my boots. As I opened the back door, there was a gust of cool wind, thunder rumbling in the distance. I stepped out, peering into the distance. There didn’t appear to be any storm at the moment, and I shrugged it off, heading for the barn.
I opened the door of the barn, peering around. It lookedempty, but I figured that Wade had to be somewhere inside—didn’t he say that he had to do paperwork? I shrugged as I walked toward Roanie’s stall, peering in and seeing that there were no more ribbons in her hair.
Oh.
“Dude, I can’t believe he got her knocked up,” I heard a voice from inside the tack room, spilling out into the rest of the barn. I froze, tuning my ear into the conversation.
“She probably cut a hole in the condom herself,” another voice burst into laughter.
“Yeah, she’s only hanging around for the money. I can’t blame her, but I don’t know how Wade can’t see it. He’s fucking blind.”
“He’ll come to his senses. You just have to keep telling him. I mean, hell, all he has to do is go after her for being unstable, and he can take the baby.”
“Yeah, no shit. The girl is out of her mind. She almost cost him his best horse, all for some nitwit dog.”
“Gold digger, for sure. All she sees is a walking wallet.”
My heart dropped, the little bit of comfort that I had slipping away.
I’ll never fit in.
And suddenly, the urge to drive was more than I could handle. I spun on my heel, heading right for the barn door—and the Tahoe sitting outside of it.
ChapterThirty
Wade
“Thanks for helping me bring up these dang colts,” Dad grunted, driving the UTV through the open gate. “They just don’t come to grain like they used to. I don’t think Ryder has been feeding them the way I told him to. I know that the pasture is good enough to just have a roughage diet, but the grain is important.”
I chained the gate and climbed into the passenger seat of the Polaris Ranger. “Yeah, he really seems to have a stick shoved up his ass lately, doesn’t he?” I adjusted my cowboy hat, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“Uh oh, what problems have you been having with him?” Dad shot me a look.
“Ain’t been anything with work. He was just running his mouth about Cheyenne, and I don’t know why. It’s like he was trying to convince me not to be with her or something—and since when is it his business what I do? I always thought he was like a brother, but I don’t know.”
“I think something is going on behind the scenes with him.” Dad’s thin lips turned into a frown beneath his handlebar mustache. “I don’t usually pay much attention to what the hands do outside of work, but something is wrong with him. I don’t know if he’s mixed up in something, but Bob said he’s been missing work, too—and there’re rumors floatin’ around that he’s got something going on with some guys in town.”
“What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Illegal shit,” Dad grunted. “I don’t know the specifics, but when I talked to Sheriff Stillwell, he said there’s a bunch of hands getting involved in some old-fashioned cattle rustling.”
“You think that’s where our missing cattle went? Or do you think they really ended up in the river?”
Dad shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to believe that Ryder would actually get involved in anything like that.”
“I don’t want to either, but you know, son, we’ve had stranger things happen around here. This damn weather is for sure one of them.” He hit the automatic door opener for the garage on the east barn, set about a quarter of a mile away from the main barn.
