I step into his arms, and it doesn’t feel new. It feels like the place where I belong, and am only late arriving to.
2
Wes
Present day
“Which one of you fuck faces didn’t count the herd yesterday?” Harsh and angry, my voice slams through Cowboy House and into the ears of the sleeping cowboys.
Josh scrambles from bed, reaching for his boots without a thought to the pajamas he’s still wearing. Denny, Bryce, and Markham (who everyone calls Ham, instead of Mark), are slower to sit up, but even they are moving, pushing up from bed and rubbing at their eyes. It’s Troy who’s still in bed, and I’d bet my last shiny penny he’s the asshole who left a heifer in the field. How the wolves didn’t get to her, God only knows.
With narrowed eyes locked in on Troy’s sleeping form, I stride forward. The wary gazes of the other men bounce off my blue and yellow flannel shirt. Here in Cowboy House, I’m the wolf.
Troy’s closely cropped blond head is all that’s visible. The rest of his body lies nestled beneath the standard-issue Hayden Cattle Company navy blue blanket, as if his mother came and tucked him in. Snug as a bug in a fucking rug.
I flick his ear with my middle finger, the same way my dad did to me and my brothers when we were younger. Difference is, we learned to stop being idiots. I don’t know that Troy ever will.
Troy yelps and his eyes fly open. He takes me in, and I watch the understanding dawn in those ridiculous blue eyes of his.
“Get up,” I growl at him.
Even this he does slowly, and my irritation soars. When I wake up at five every morning, I get out of bed like a man, not this pussified joke stretching out his arms in front of me right now.
“Were you the one to count heads yesterday?”
I see him swallow, his fingertips on his right hand nervously tapping against his bare thigh like he’s playing the goddamn piano. The guy sleeps in his underwear, and for a quick second I make a mental note to add a T-shirt to my choice of sleepwear so I no longer have anything in common with him.
He nods reluctantly, but I see the lift of his chin, however slight it may be. Instead of angering me, I find his quiet defiance a relief. Weakness on the ranch has consequences. Empires have fallen for less.
“You left one out in the pasture. I came across her this morning.”
He runs his hand through his hair, his shoulders dropping an inch. “At least it wasn’t a bull.”
Behind me, one of the cowboys sighs, knowing Troy’s mistake immediately.
I step closer, but it’s awkward because Troy is still seated on his bed, not standing on his own two feet like a man should, which makes his face just about dick-height to me. To remedy that, I grab his shoulders and haul him up.
“Every head in that herd matters. Got it?” My voice is low, but my words carry meaning.
Troy nods once, stiff and sharp, the defiance gone. He knows what a loss it is to lose even one cow.
Now that I’ve made my point, I pat his upper arm roughly and step back. “Let me know if you need a calculator. I’m sure the Merc carries one.”
I turn back to the collection of cowboys in their various sleep clothes. “About time to get to work.”
They go in separate directions, and I head out of the low, long building that houses them.
I’m striding up the yard toward the homestead, morning dew leaving behind beads of moisture on my boots, when I hear an old, wrinkled voice say, “What time did the sun rise this morning?”
A smile breaks onto my face. The owner of that voice never fails to cut through my layers of bullshit and reach the person underneath, the person I was before I spent two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
“Coffee on the porch this morning, old man?” I climb the stone-lined steps of my parents’ house and settle in a chair beside my grandpa.
“Brought extra for you,” he responds, his wrinkled hand gesturing to the tall, scratched, green-speckled thermos and empty cup.
“Is this thing older than me?” I ask, gripping the thermos and lifting it off the table between us.
“That thermos is like me—old and ugly, but it’s still got some use.”
“Nah”—I shake my head—“you’re pretty as a picture.”
He cackles and slaps his thigh.
I twist off the top and pour the steaming hot, black liquid into my mug. It’s almost to my lips when I catch sight of the front of the cup. Kiss me, I’m the ranch wife.
I chuckle to myself. Gramps either didn’t realize which mug he’d grabbed or did it on purpose. Knowing him, it’s the latter. I sip the nearly scalding coffee, wincing not at the temperature but at the strength of the brew.
Gramps must know what I’m reacting to, because he murmurs, “One guess who made it.”
“Warner?” My younger brother never measures and always over-pours the grounds. Funny though, I don’t mind his lack of precision when he’s making us a drink in the evening.
“Damn straight.” He looks out at the green lawn, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he smiles mischievously and lifts his cup. “This jet fuel just might have me doing a cartwheel.”
I laugh as I lift my mug for another drink, the air streaming from my nose pushing away the rising steam. “Please don’t. You know it’s a half-hour to the hospital.”
Gramps grows quiet, then says, “You didn’t answer my question.”
I hold in my sigh. When he asked me what time the sun rose this morning, he wasn’t actually seeking the information. It was his way of ascertaining if I’d been up earlier than usual, if my sleep had once again been plagued by nightmares.
“Early, Gramps. The sun came up early. And it’s a damn good thing I was out too, because a jackass cowboy missed one and she was out there by herself all night.” As I say it, I look out in the direction of the field where I found her, though I can’t see it from here. My family’s land is too vast.
“Troy?” Gramps asks, immediately knowing the culprit.
“Yeah.”
“What did Troy do now?” My brother, Warner, steps from the house. He’s tall like me, and just about as broad-shouldered. I’m two years older, and as I constantly remind him, far more handsome. Once upon a time, Warner was deliriously in love with his high school sweetheart Anna. They were married before they could legally buy alcohol. A few years later they had a kid, and a few years after that they had another. One day not too long ago, Anna decided she needed space to find herself, and she left Warner and their two kids, now nine and twelve, behind. Apparently to find herself, she needed to lose everything else. She settled a couple hours away in Phoenix and still hasn’t served Warner with divorce papers, and he’s too hung up on her to initiate the proceedings himself. He tries to stay upbeat for Peyton and Charlie’s sake, but I can tell he’s hurting badly inside.
In my book, Anna and Troy are about on the same level. Two people whose collective common sense doesn’t add up to a whole lot.
“He left a heifer out overnight,” I answer Warner, my gaze sweeping away from him.
“Shit,” Warner mutters. “Wolves get her?”
“No.”