Chapter One
Koby sat his phone down on the desk like it was a snake and stared at it, not sure he wasn’t dreaming.
“What’s wrong?”
He blinked at Tom across their shared office, his piles of neatly organized papers a contrast to the huge screens marking off his husband’s workspace. “I think I hired somebody to work that job at the Johns ranch.”
His lover blinked at him again, then he threw his arms in the air and crowed. “No shit? I didn’t think anybody was ever going to take that job!”
He hadn’t either. He’d been working it for over six months, ever since that poor son of a bitch from Denver had inherited the land. Talk about a mess.
Victor Johns had been a complicated man at the best of times and, especially once the cancer had gotten ahold of him, a manipulative asshole at the worst of times. But when it all had been said and done and everything had blown out, the man had left his ranch to his grandchildren and...well, shit.
“This guy says he’ll take it.”
Tom blinked at him, want lines creasing his forehead. “Does he know how much work it’s going to be? That he’s not going to get a damn bit of help from anybody in this town?”
The midsized ranch wasn’t in the best of shape, and neither was the house, apparently. Victor had been more interested in travelling than ranching before his wife died, and after? Victor hadn’t been interested in a whole hell of a lot.
After six months of it sitting empty until Ichabod Miller-Johns could sell his house in Denver, and being deserted by every cowboy in Pitkin County? It was gonna be an even bigger situation.
“He says he’s interested. He wants to start something up from scratch. He worked at the Four Sixes, for chrissake.” And Koby didn’t have to worry about that. He wasn’t going to hire the dude. He simply ran the want ads page.
“A Texan? No shit?”
“Native Colorado. Guess he got tired of the humidity.”
Tom grinned at him. Being a Texan himself, he understood things. “Uh, either that or he got too tired of the Texans, yeah?”
Koby shook his head. “No. I know about Texans—kind of biblically. They’re good folks.”
The simple fact was that this was God’s country and everybody knew it. Nobody in their right mind ever left Colorado permanently.
Tom seemed willing to let that go. “Well, I’m glad for Ichabod. He needs some help.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve been hanging out with him quite a bit.”
Tom shook his head and grabbed his cup of coffee. “He’s trying to fit in here. Everybody’s been kind of chilly on the cowboy front. You know, the man’s a ceramicist. What does he know about cowboys and ranches? And then he’s got four kids…”
Koby thought about asking questions, asking about the hows and whys and wheretofores, but the fact was he didn’t care. That whole thing was complicated, and there was a reason he didn’t have extended family or inheritance issues. “Well, one way or another, I’ll let him know this guy can interview with him in a couple of days, and maybe it’ll be a fit.”
Tom snorted. “Shit, at this point I think Ichabod would take the devil himself to have a chance to do anything else. That house needs work. The ranch needs work. I don’t even want to talk about the fences, and then there’s all the rest of it. So many fucking moving parts.”
Koby wasn’t sure why the dude had taken the ranch on. “I’m surprised he left Denver.”
Tom shrugged. “I am too. I think he kind of is himself. But I don’t know that we’ve discussed it. We’re not that close.”
“Well, if I can get this job closed, this will be the longest ad we’ve ever had that didn’t close, that didn’t hire. I feel sorry for the guy. He’s not gonna be popular around here.”
Tom stared. “You’re such a cowboy. You act like Aspen is— That the only thing here is cowboy culture. Hello. He’s a fancy-assed sculptor dude. He’s gonna do gallery shows, and he has kids, so he’s gonna do school stuff. They’ll meet people. He’s going to make friends.”
Koby arched one eyebrow. “Sounds like he already has.”
Sounded to him like someone was feeling a little bit like an outsider again. If Tom was honest with himself, which he normally was, he could admit he worked for that outsider image. But Koby wasn’t going to bring that up.
In fact, that didn’t sound like something he wanted to do at all.
“You got plans for this afternoon?”
