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Two hours later, my ass hits leather with a thud when I throw it down on Colt’s office couch and toss my hat beside me. I want to tower over him, stand in front of him and lean down over the desk to tell it like it is. But I’ve been up since three a.m. and looked in on over forty horses. For once, the workers left things halfway decent, and there wasn’t much to do, so there’s a lot of fight left in me, but not much standing.
My brother gives the briefest of glances and continues working. He taps a key with a stiff index finger and spins the few degrees it takes to face me. “You’re up late. Or should I say early?”
“Colt…” I warn, shaking my head. I’m not in the mood for antics. Hell, I’m never in the mood, but he couldn’t have picked a worse time to try. “You went over my head.”
He glances at his screen again, slides his mouse around, and clicks. It’s clear by his lack of urgency he was expecting me. Of course he was.
He lets out one of those sighs that flaps your lips. “I gave you plenty of opportunity, Dash. I told you a million times to hire someone. I mentioned Molly as a prospect months ago. Is this really a surprise?” He tilts his head to the side like I need to think harder. “We also agreed to bring in extra horse stock a few weeks ago. Doubling our horse stock to expand changes things significantly. We need more permanent workers, and you need a manager or you’ll have even less time than you do now. You don’t do much living as it is.”
“I like my life.”
“Horses aren’t humans.”
“No. They’re better.”
My brother shakes his head and rubs his fingers in his eye sockets. Here Colt goes again. He was single for over a decade, and now that he’s found his soulmate, he thinks there’s one for every one of us and is constantly projecting his love of companionship on me. I don’t need it. We’re different.
He’s wrong about me needing time to socialize but he’s right about one thing. Ihaveknown about our expansion for a long time. No matter how hard I wish it to be untrue, I can’t take care of eighty horses. I know it. Colt knows it.
Only two things matter to me in this whole damn world. My family. And the horses. Cowboy blood runs deep in the Hunters, and horses unite us. They also provide us a livelihood. All I want is to perform my duty, hang on to the only identity I know, live my quiet life with my horses… but to do that, there’s a catch. In order to fulfill my duty to the creatures, and do it well, I need a partner. And that is very muchnotwho I am. I’m a solo act, not a circus.
A frustrated sigh escapes, and I rake my nails through my hair. I know I need a stable manager but how on earth am I going to live with someone? And not just any someone.Molly.A woman who, even though I never had a good look at before today, and boy, was it agoooodlook, has an undeniable positive presence in the stable yard. I’ve always known the ones that fuck up, and it’s never been her. I noticed she does a good job around here but I didn’t pay attention to what she does. I noticedhowshe does it. Like a warm breeze. I’m not one to say how I feel but I do respect the way she works. Coupled with the momentary but intense urge to disrespect that tight space between her glorious tits, well, she’s the last roommate I’d choose.
I could move back in with Jolie. But then, I’d be too far away to keep a close eye on all the change.
Colt continues. “That’s why I’ve been on your case for months to choose a stable manager.” He sighs and shakes his head, throwing his hands up, exasperated, like he often is with me. “Or you could have trained someone up if you didn’t think anyone’s up to your standard.”
I rub my palms against my jeans hard and fast until they’re warm. Colt gave me plenty of time, and I’m not one to argue for the sake of it.
When all my siblings were in town last, we had one of our quarterly meetings for Purple Mountain Enterprises, a conglomerate of several businesses our father started. All the siblings have a stake in something, and Colton, the oldest of us four, has been CEO since Dad passed. It might piss me off from time to time that he always has the final say, but much as I like to think otherwise, nobody, not even my mom, was prepared to take the reins after my dad died.
Colt is level-headed in a way that none of the rest of us are. He can deny himself for the sake of others in a way most people can’t. So I listen to the words I already know are coming. We’ll both agree Molly is staying, but I’m not keen to admit I was a fool even though I know it.
I only have the same twenty-four hours in a day everyone else does. I’m pissed at myself. Maybe I could have asked my friend, Mateo, to work with me and I would have kept the apartment to myself. Maybe I could have cast a wider net throughout Starlight Canyon, asked our family friends, the Danes, for some referrals. But now, I’m stuck with my brother’s decision because there isn’t anybody remotely close to Molly’s work ethic within hiring distance.
Colt’s blows are softer than the ones I give myself. “I know how much you care about the horses, Dash, and I get that it’s in your blood to micromanage something you care about so strongly. I’m like that with my daughter, so don’t think for a minute I don’t understand you.”
Colt is always empathetic, which is annoying because it makes it even harder to be mad at him and see this as his fault. I dig deep for a way to fight him, but he’s not doing this to piss me off. He plays his role. And I’ll have to play mine no matter how uncomfortable this gets.
He continues to drive his point home. “I know you think you do the best job of anyone, and for the record, I agree with you. You’re amazing with those animals. I’ve seen you save more than one or two lives on this ranch, but there are only so many hours in a day. You’re like thirty going on a hundred with those dark circles under your eyes. No man alive can care for eighty-plus horses on their own.”
He folds his hands together on his desk, waiting to hear my retort. I turn over all the happenings from the past couple of months, digging for just one good reason Molly shouldn’t be stable manager, but I can’t because she does a good job with the horses, and the other ranch workers seem to like her, too. Worse than giving up some control over the horses, though, is the necessary evil that comes along with it. The stable manager needs to live above the stables just like Molly said. It’s not just a perk, it’s protection.
We need eyes on those beautiful beasts, and having been up many times myself checking in hourly on a horse with colic or waiting for a foal to be born, I know you can’t do that from twenty or thirty minutes away in town.
I just don’t want her living in my house. I don’t want to be around anybody but definitely not someone so opposite of me. I am the clouds; she is the sunshine. I’ve seen it more than once. She makes people smile. They’re always happy around her. She touches people on the arm when she talks to them. I don’t want anybody touching me on the arm.
Especially not one who smells like that delicious strawberry-mint cloud wafting out of the bathroom this morning.
I chew on all the events leading up to this while my brother waits for me to speak. He didn’t exactly pull the wool over my eyes. I was an idiot not to take Colt more seriously, for not taking the future of the business that’s supposed to be my responsibility more seriously. For not having the foresight that could have had me a small log cabin built by now.
And yet again, I’m the one who put myself in this crappy position. I proposed bringing in more horses. The horses bring in the high-paying tourists, not the Michelin-star restaurant in the resort. Not even the spa. Unsurprisingly, people go to dude ranches to be dudes. And dudes need horses. At our last business meeting, the budget was set.
A few weeks back, Colt showed me the plans for the new barn going up in the upcoming months, and we’ll double our stock of horses over winter. This should not be as surprising as the words I read in Molly’s dirty book for the few minutes I waited for her to come out of the shower. I should have seen the problem coming. Now, the problem I ignored lives in my home.
I still have to put my irritation somewhere. “So did you make the first move? Or did Molly?” I’m not sure if I’d rather blame my blood or my employee. Both are shitty options. Both I can’t escape.
