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My eyes slide shut, and I sink to the bed. “Youcalled the police.”
Of course he did. Of course it wasn’t Walker.Walker’s dead. He’s not your fucking guardian angel, Case.
Pax butts into my self-flagellation. “You didn’t get charged for anything, did you?”
“Nah. I think I pled ‘angst.’ I figure it’s a onetime get-out-of-jail-free kind of thing. Plus your parents love me too much to charge.”
“Christ, you really went to my house?” He whistles low. “Lucky guess on my part.”
“Yeah. Closest farm for miles. I might’ve been feeling reckless, but I didn’t feel like traveling far.”
Pax squints one eye, considering. “He meantgrain bin, didn’t he?”
I nod.
He chuckles. “For a rodeo kid, Walker didn’t know shit about livestock.”
That makes me snort. I used to say Walker was the most citified rider on the circuit. He broke in his boots at my ranch. “No kidding. I probably should have thought of that before I climbed up the thing.”
Pax nods slowly, clearly not knowing what to say. Eventually, he settles on, “We’ll get out of your hair.”
I pass him the thermos and soften my voice. “Thanks for caring, man. And for calling the cops. I was kind of stuck up there.”
He clears his throat, and I try not to think about how things were never this stilted with Walker. I’m relieved when Pax twists open the lid and inhales deeply. “Mm-hmm. Kerry’s coffee.” He takes a sip and grins as if we weren’t just tiptoeing around death and misery and my dumbass late-night mistakes. Like he’s already shaken it all off.
I bite back a sigh. Must be nice.
“Now get out of my house before my dad comes back and finds you two and I’m stuck mucking stalls until I’m thirty.”
By the time I refill my coffee (adding a generous pour of the special oat milk Kerry hides in the back of the fridge for me, toxic masculinity be damned) and steal four pieces of bacon from the stove top, I miss my dad doing his morning rounds by a good forty-five minutes. I didn’t plan it that way, but I ain’t mad about it.
It’s been years since I’ve gone down to the stables this early. Even during my heaviest rodeo training periods, I’m more likely to be in the arena late and nowhere near the actual livestock. Mucking stalls is one of the few punishments Junior has in his arsenal. Essentially, go clean up horse shit and think about what you’ve done. It probably has something to do with how he and my uncle were raised to work hard and get their hands dirty, and because they did thatso well, I haven’t had to follow in their footsteps.
Well, joke’s on him. I was fixing to come down here regardless.Not to shovel horse shit and think about my life choices, but that’s as good an excuse as any.
I’m comfortable on horseback and this is a working ranch, but it’s different from how it used to be. Cowboys ride four-wheelers, and our horses are mostly relegated to adventure trail rides. Wealthy weekender tourists come in from Dallas and Austin and want the real “ranch experience,” so they get a lesson in roping sawhorses, climbing the rocky trail at sunset, and overpriced Swiss chocolate s’mores paired with even more overpriced Hill Country wines. Every now and again, I’ll get asked to jump on a mechanical bull when an avid rodeo fan comes to stay, but I’ve made myself pretty scarce in the year since Walker fell sick.
This ranch has been in our family for generations, but my dad and his brother, my uncle John, were the ones who brought it into the twenty-first century and made it the tourism empire it is today. As Uncle John likes to say, “Cattle come and cattle go, but ‘Home, Home on the Range’ will last forever.” And, look, I appreciate that everything I have—which is a substantial amount—is because of this place.
It doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life working for Case Jr.
The sun is a late-winter watercolor version of itself, still low in the sky. I relish in the crunch of the grass under my work boots as I cross the yard toward the stables, and inhale a deep, cleansing breath of crisp March air. It’s tinged with the aroma of manure and leather polish. This isn’t all bad. Honestly, I should do this more often. Not the chores or whatever, but it wouldn’t hurt to get up with the sun and maybe get some training in. My sometimes-coach Brody wouldn’t know what to do if I pitched a switch to early-morning workouts. Might be worth it just towatch his expression while he seesawed between shock and dubiousness.
I stroll down the paved center aisle of the stables, greeting the horses as I pass, regretting I’m empty-handed. Next time, I need to remember to ask Kerry to slice apples or carrots for me to share.
“Hello, beautiful,” I murmur, approaching an imperious Apaloosa mare. I glimpse at the chalkboard name placard. “You new around here? Queen Mab? Haven’t seen you before.” I hold out a hand toward her nose in offering. She shakes her head, shifting backward and letting out a snuffling snort—obviously unimpressed with my lack of gifts.
A clear, melodic drawl behind me warns, “I wouldn’t if I were you. Mab’ll bite off your fingers and then kick ya for not saying thank-you quick enough.”
I spin to face the owner of the voice. It belongs to a pretty, dark-haired girl about my age wearing dusty jeans, work boots, and a too-big barn jacket. She looks familiar, but I’m struggling to place how.
“I ain’t afraid.”
The girl rolls her dark brown eyes. Her lashes are thick and inky, and I must be tireder than I’d thought because I lose myself tracking their flutter. She interrupts my preoccupation and flashes a bright smile. “I bet not.” Her front teeth have the smallest gap between them that braces could’ve probably fixed. I’m glad they didn’t. “Still,” she muses, tapping her chin with a gloved finger, “it’s hard to hold on for eight seconds when you can’t grip the rope cuz you’ve lost your fingers to a cranky mare.”
My shoulders straighten. A rodeo fangirl, then. Cue swagger.
I shift my weight, casually, crossing one boot over the other. “I can hold on forfar longerthan eight seconds, when needed.”
