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I wonder if his hand wanders too.
CHAPTER FIVE
GERARD
Westin Quinn, my oldest friend and manager, calls me at night, right as I’m getting undressed for the day. As soon as his name appears on my screen, I know it’s bad news. I answer, reaching for my pants and pulling them back on.
“There’s a break in the fence,” he says. “On the Garrison side.”
“Fuck,” I say. “Any cattle out?”
“No, but there’s one stuck in the fence. They think, anyway.”
He hangs up. I shrug into my flannel and push my boots back on. My black hat sits on the desk, the Sovereign Mountain insignia burned into the leather. Settling it on my head, I move downstairs and out the front hallway, grabbing my coat on the way through.
It’s fuck-all cold. That’s what Westin calls it. Even though it’s only September, I can tell we’re in for the kind of winter that makes me question my sanity living out in northern Montana. The leaves are golden, the grass is pale brown. I can smell weeks of snow on the horizon.
It’ll be a hard winter, but if everything goes according to my plan, I won’t spend it alone.
I stride towards the barn. The thought of Keira Garrison in my bed has sat at the edge of my mind since the night we met.
I’d gone to Garrison Ranch expecting to have a brief business transaction. I hadn’t expected to walk away on fire.
Now I’m so much closer to making her mine.
One look at that pensive little redhead and I was fucked. I’m not a soft man, most of my emotions are covered with thick calluses. Out here, where the sun burns in the summer and the winter wind can take the tips of a person’s fingers off with frostbite, I’ve learned to love the silence and isolation.
I’ve learned to become part of it. Then I saw her—my enemy's wife—and I felt something.
A splinter in my steel facade.
I barely remember what we talked about—although I recall drizzling whiskey into her mouth in the kitchen. The clearest memory I have is stepping out of the house when the meeting was done and realizing that I’d never in my life wanted anything as much as I wanted Clint Garrison’s wife.
But I’m not a fucking cheater.
I look up, broken from my thoughts as Westin walks Shadow and Rocky, our geldings, out into the yard. They’re already tacked up and ready to go. I catch Shadow’s bridle and swing up, settling my weight. Westin does the same and we head through the yard and out to the path that leads to the west side of the pastured fields.
Neither of us speak until we locate the break in the fence. This area is too rocky to be accessible by truck, so we have only the electric lantern to work by. There’s a shed several yards away where we keep supplies for repair. I walk the fence line while Westin drags wire and cutters out and tosses them to the ground.
“I don’t see any cattle caught in the fence,” he says.
I lift my head, inhaling. There’s no scent of coyotes, but we’re downwind. I scan the dark horizon. I don’t worry often about wolf kills, but it can happen up here in the mountains. It’s possible something got to the bull first and dragged it off before we arrived.
“Could be dogs,” Westin says.
“Could be,” I agree.
We had an attack earlier in the year. Dogs from the Garrison farms had broken through the gate and taken down one of our calves. I went to Thomas Garrison’s farm with the remainder of the animal’s carcass and a shotgun.
“I’ll shoot anything that comes over that property line again,” I told him. “Man or animal.”
I don’t like the way the western pasture feels tonight. It’s the only pasture that borders the Garrison Ranch. It provides direct access to my land as well as a shared source of water that comes down from the mountain.
Westin shrugs and starts unraveling the wire. I join him and we work in silence. Bringing the broken portion of the fence together and pulling it tight. When we’re finished, we head back down the mountain, both barely awake.
“What happens if she never replies to you?” he asks.
Westin is the only person who knows everything. When I got home after meeting her, I couldn't sleep. So in the early morning, I went outside and he found me sitting on the porch staring at the silhouette of the mountains. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him that come hell or high water I was going after Clint’s wife. He didn’t judge me, just like I don’t judge him.
