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I took too deep of a gulp of wine and choked on it when someone else slapped me on the back. The music got even louder, and people began to scream over top of it to be heard. Sacha yelled to someone to invite another group of people over to “make a night of it.”
Usually, I would have been right there next to him, singing and laughing—the life of the party. This was the kind of scene I used to live for: bodies packed together, energy brimming, an endless stream of new and interesting people. I just didn’t have the heart for it all the way I used to.
I ran a hand down my face. James had once told me not to let my father or money define who I was or what I wanted. The problem was, without my father and his money, I didn’t know who I was, and I certainly wasn’t sure what I wanted.
But I knew it wasn’t this: night after night of endless parties and empty days. Couch surfing from friend to friend, just as directionless as before.
What was my endgame?
I pulled out my phone and swallowed my pride.
Richard: Can I borrow money for a plane ticket to Wyoming?
He made me wait a full half hour before responding.
Oscar: I’ll do you one better. Meet my pilot at Teterboro tomorrow at eight.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Here went nothing.
3
BOONE
The day was finally slowing down. I was covered in shit, blood, and sweat, so exhausted from a night out on the trail that my brain had stopped making sense, and I was relying on muscle memory to keep me upright, but I told myself it was fine. I was only five minutes from being able to step into my big, blessed shower and throw myself into bed.
Then Hank Picoe’s faded orange truck came bumping down the drive.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
Jed squinted in the truck’s direction. “You order any marijuana, boss?” he teased. “I hear tell the man can hook you up. Along with Amway, Tupperware, and whatever the hell else he can get his hands on to keep from having to get a real job.”
“You don’t think he wants work, do you?” I asked wearily. Hank was a nice guy but not the most reliable sort. Still… I was desperate enough to consider it after the day I’d had. Being shorthanded was starting to wear me way too thin, which was fine, but it was weighing heavily on Jed now too. And when someone as unruffleable as my foreman got ruffled, it was time to take drastic action.
As soon as the half-broke truck squealed to a stop, the passenger door flew open, and a stranger hopped out, talking a mile a minute. Birdie’s tail started thumping wildly, but she didn’t bother standing up and investigating. The patch of cool grass under the shade of a nearby tree was too sweet to abandon.
“Thank you so much for your assistance, Mr. Picoe.” Hardee’s wrappers tumbled out of the truck behind the man like they were trying to jump ship and save themselves. The stranger ignored them and carefully picked his way across the gravel to the tidy patch of green grass in front of the house, where he brushed himself off. “It was very kind of you. I’d assumed arrangements would have been made for me, but no matter.” At this point, he noticed Jed and me standing nearby, watching the events unfold. He cleared his throat. “I guess that’s not the kind of service provided out here in…” He looked around at the vistas surrounding us on all sides. The Wind River Mountains stood to the west, the Bighorns to the north, and the Absorokas nestled between them farther off toward the horizon. “… Wyoming?” he finished with less certainty than one would expect.
The man was tall and fit with wide shoulders and lean hips that I couldn’t fail to notice, even in my tired state. His hair was a wavy blond, tousled from the drive from town with the window rolled down, and his skin was a deep tan from days spent outside in the sun. Given his physique and appearance, I might have mistaken him for an honest-to-god cowboy. But then I took note of his clothes. Pristine blue jeans with a crisp crease down the front as though they’d been recently ironed, a tight white long-sleeve T-shirt that molded to the slender muscles in his arms, and a sleeveless suede coat lined with shearling and decorated with tassels.
It was his boots that really gave him away: they were bright red and black calf hair, like someone had dipped a baby calf in a vat of Kool-Aid and then made ankle boots out of it. They looked soft and comfortable and wholly inadequate to life on a ranch. There wasn’t even a speck of dirt on them. Those boots hadn’t seen a day of hard work in their life.
