“Trev needs the help today, with Liz being on desk duty. You’re welcome to swing a leg over as well. I heard you have before?”
Jake nodded. Despite feeling out of place with his fashionable, too-clean clothes, it was a chance for another bonding moment between himself and Brady. “I did. Very different than this.”
“I need to get this guy in and get his gear off. I’ll see you later,” Brady said amiably, and turned with the horse toward the stable, plopping his hat back on his head. “Also, if you’re going to kiss Liz like that, you shouldn’t do it in front of a window where other people can watch. Quite the show you two put on. Stopped us all in our tracks. Surprised you couldn’t hear us cheering!”
“Yeah! Thanks!” Jake choked out, surprised. They’d been caught. Yup, today was going to be full of drama. Because if Brady knew, that meant the other, grumpier brother would, too, soon enough.
* * *
The wrinkled ledger smelled like dusty copier ink as Jake thumbed through it, standing in front of his laptop, which was balanced delicately on top of file folders stuffed to the gills with paper.
Discouraged that he couldn’t make heads or tails of a few entries, he switched to looking out the cobwebbed window at one of the cattle pens, his mind tumbling everywhere but into the spreadsheet in front of him.
Several crew members were sending what looked to be smaller cows through a chute. Jake watched fascinated as a little cow was frog-marched into a small cage, bawling loudly. It settled when they lowered a U-shaped bar over its neck to keep it still. One man—Jake thought it might be Harry—removed an orange tag from its ear, shouting numbers at Tanner over the noise of the cows in the pen behind them. Another younger man he didn’t recognize jabbed a big needle in a flank then turned to ready another dose from a cooler bag hung on the side of the fence while Tanner ticked off something on a clipboard with a fat marker.
It was muffled through the window, but Jake caught Tanner’s deeper voice as he shouted, “A dash twenty-three dash one dash fourteen,” and flipped a square yellow tag with the number on it to Harry, who caught it expertly. A second later the tag was in the cow’s ear and it was released from the cage to buck forward into a pen on the other side.
Jake had no idea what they were doing, but it looked difficult and unending as they cycled through cow after cow, the men working in tandem like a well-oiled machine, dirt on their overalls and dust in the air.
“Back to work,” he muttered and turned away. These records wouldn’t straighten themselves out.
He’d made lunch with Peony, and she had shooed him out when he’d offered to bake pies with her. She was busily rolling out pastry when she threw abuzz offlook at him, then smiled and patted his cheek when he’d worriedly asked her if she needed help. Her hands had trembled as they held the heavy marble rolling pin.
“I’ll take my time, young man. Now scoot. I like being in here by myself sometimes, just like you.”
So he’d left and come here, to the barn office, hoping it would be empty, given the weather was good and everyone would be outside doing whatever it was they were doing out there.
He needed time away from everyone and space to think about what had happened with Liz. But instead of her, thoughts of his mother and the things he’d learned about her life in opposition to what he’d understood about it were swirling. As he mulled that, the inevitable comparison to Peony invaded.
He pulled at his lip, thinking about both women as he poked numbers into his spreadsheet. Of all the people here, he’d bonded with Peony the most. Their time in the kitchen reminded him of his mom in her more sober, happy years. Simple, down-to-earth, and independent to the core, not taking shit from anyone.
The comparison ended there; they were polar opposites otherwise. Peony was strong. She had a will of steel but it was wrapped in velvet, her kindness something he never saw in his mother. His mother had unashamedly used people to get what she needed, which he had always excused as a survival instinct from being poor in New York; one he sometimes couldn’t blame her for while at other times he despised her for it.
Jake had tried his best not to go down that path of hardness, hating the destruction and bitterness that came with it. Even as he got older and she would use him the same way, he would turn a blind eye. She was his mom; how could he say no? He said yes every time, until one day he couldn’t anymore.He’d put her in an Uber to a rehab place up in the Hudson Valley, sending both her and his money into an unknown outcome.
That was over a year ago, and he hadn’t heard a thing from her except confirmation of the transfer clearing.
Peony’s shaking had brought him up short, the memory of his mom’s tired, bony hands trembling uncontrollably when holding a prep knife. The images of her strung out in the back kitchen of a restaurant, barely able to prep veg, Jake stealing in to take over so she could sit and mainline coffee—or worse, gin straight out of a faceted blue bottle that flashed in the fluorescent lighting every time she tilted it up. He could still hear the slosh of the liquid in his memories sometimes, remembered furiously chopping carrots and peppers for a dinner rush, hoping not to get caught by the kitchen manager.
He’d been ten when he’d started covering for her. Kicked out of more kitchens than he could count by the time he was thirteen, he’d started working as the prepper, and his mother was the one who would steal in the back door of wherever he was working, squatting in the corner, asking for handouts.
She was no longer his burden, and to compare the vibrant Peony to her was unjustified, considering his mother had utterly failed whereas his father’s widow had not. His need to help Peony was instinctual from the years of being the responsible adult to the one parent who had kept him.
Peony telling him that Brett had looked for him was throwing his resentment into a new, utterly foreign direction, and that was spurring this overanalyzing of everything that was happening now. His mother had kept him from a family that had wanted him. He hadn’t felt that kind of hurt in a long time, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it, thankful that the pain felt less sharp than it did as a kid. Perspective, understanding, and age would give it depth, perhaps.
“Fuck,” he swore softly as the edge of the paper cut the side of his thumb, halting the tumble of thoughts. He put it into his mouth to stem the bleeding, the taste of copper sliding over his tongue. Worn out from the constant drama invading his mind, he let his eyes slide shut for just a moment.
The image of Liz backed up on the desk, rumpled, bruised, and biting her lower lip entered his brain, and he groaned as he took his thumb out and examined it.
He liked punishing himself, it seemed. That was another situation he had to figure out. Liz was not a frivolous woman, and kissing her had consequences. Including Tanner’s well-aimed fist if he took it the wrong way. Well, not if. Hewouldtake it the wrong way.
Jake was not looking forward to that stare down.
After kissing Liz this morning, the kitchen had provided a distraction. But now, he was trying—and failing—to distract himself by attempting to make heads or tails of the accounts for the ranch. If he was here for a while before they could give it all back to Tanner and Brady, he needed to get familiar with it. One, so he could sign things with an idea of what they were, and two, so Tanner would stop rubbing it in his face that he knew absolutely nothing about running a ranch.
It couldn’t be that much different from running a restaurant. Ins, outs, salary, staffing, equipment, and supplies. So far, he had input the salary for the past three years, and was now working his way through property taxes, mortgage payments, and lease fees for what looked to be fields nearby.
He flipped the page in the logbook, his own fingers touching the smudged fingerprints of his father along the edges. Scanning the list, he noticed the last mortgage payment written in was April. It was late July now. Brett had died at the beginning of July.
