I wander around the barn as I nurse my coffee, enjoying the crisp morning air and the familiar scents of home. The ranch hands are already up and at work, if the scuffling sounds inside the barn are anything to go by. As much as I’ve always wanted to get off the ranch and live my own life, the normalcy of home is soothing. There’s nothing around to surprise me here.
Or at least, there usually isn’t.
“Morning, Jenny!” Lucas says with a bright smile as he rounds the back corner of the barn and comes face to face with me. “What are you doing out here so early?”
I stop in my tracks so abruptly that my coffee sloshes dangerously high in my mug, threatening to spill over the rim.
Fucking Christ, I was hoping all of that was nothing more than a bad dream. Looks like I’m not getting rid of Lucas that easily. He stands there with that stupid smile, broad shoulders straining against his shirt, boots already scuffed to high hell and covered in dirt. The sun’s barely over the trees, but it looks like he’s been at it for a while.
I narrow my eyes hatefully at him, grunting instead of responding with words.
If he’s smart, he’ll know a warning when he hears it.
I have no intention of being any sort offriendlywith Lucas Cross, and I make that very clear when I walk straight past him without a word, carrying on like he didn’t say anything. Just because he’s apparently here, in my fucking space, doesn’t mean that I have to pay him any attention. If I just ignore him, it’ll be like nothing’s changed, and I’ll forget he’s even around.
He hasn’t existed in my mind in years, and I see no reason to change that now.
I down the rest of my coffee and mindlessly check on things I’ve been worrying about since I left. The fences are fine, a couple new posts here and there to replace old ones that rotted through. There’s no flooding in any of the nearby pastures, but I should go on a ride later and check out the ones closer to the river. All of the water troughs are full, feed already put out for the cattle and the pigs. Things are almost annoyingly perfect, and the itch to findsomethingto nitpick is growing steadily stronger in the back of my mind.
Dad could barely even keep the lights on before Mary showed up, but now that she’s here, it’s hard to find things to do other than my actual accounting job. I’m so used to filling in and taking care of a million different tasks that Dad couldn’t afford to hire anyone for. But it’s not like that anymore.
In fact, it feels uncomfortably like I’m not needed anymore.
I grit my teeth at the very thought. I’ve kept this place afloat for so long, there’s no way they can just manage without me, even if things have been going better financially than I’ve seen in my entire life.
There’s still the new calves to check in on. Surely, noteverythinghas been handled already. Katie’s off for the day to spend some time with the baby. I should call her tonight and check in, make sure Wayne’s not being a fucking idiot and the kiddo is doing alright. With her off, though, that means someone needs to do a head count and make sure the heifers are taking care of the little ones. It’s early enough that they should still be in their overnight pasture, but when I get there, it’s completely empty.
Hoofprints in the dirt tell me that they were here not too long ago, the edges still crisp and a little damp around the edges from the morning dew, but the calves are nowhere in sight. They’resupposedto be in the larger pasture by the back of the barn afterthey get moved, but I already walked by there, and the horses are out grazing in that pasture.
So where the hell are the new calves?
“You looking for something?” Lucas asks from behind me.
I donotjump, thank you very much, but I do whirl on my heel to face him. He’s too close for comfort, close enough that I can smell the same sandalwood cologne he wore in high school, and the memory curdles in my gut.
“No,” I hiss, refusing on principle.
He’s the last person I want helping me. I’ll just call Dad and check with him. Hopefully the old man actually has his phone on him.
“Seriously?” he asks, his voice full of dry amusement. “Come on, I’m just trying to help. Don’t make things so difficult.”
I scoff at him, disbelief and long-buried anger coursing like fire through my veins.
“Help? That’s funny,” I sneer. “You think you know this ranch better than I do?”
Lucas rolls his eyes at me, a familiar grin tugging at his lips. It’s the same one he always wore when I was being stubborn in high school, when he knew that I’d win the argument, but he fought back just for the fun of it. I hate that I still recognize it — but not as much as I hate that it still gives me butterflies that he’s so obviously still fond of me. Why can’t he just be the asshole I’ve thought of him as for the past several years, instead of a real person? Why can’t he leave me the fuck alone?
“No one knows the ranch better than you, Jenny,” he says, sounding like he’s just humoring me. “But Everett and I made some changes while you were gone. You may be smart, but you’re not a mind reader.”
No, I’m not. If I was a mind reader, I’d have known that he was planning on leaving me high and dry after I gave himeverything I had. It would have saved me a hell of a lot of heartbreak if I was.
“Why don’t you just run along and do your job? All you’re doing is wasting my time and annoying me.”
And I can’t stand to keep looking at him, to keep remembering exactly what his hands felt like on me, how that annoyed grin tasted against my lips.
I don’t want to remember any of it.
He chuckles, shaking his head, and I can’t help but watch the way his hair shifts with the movement. It’s longer than he ever kept it when we were younger, just barely curling at the ends.
