“Barbarians,” I reply, savoring the buzz of caffeine already skipping through my veins.
“You need anything today?” she asks like she does every day.
My mind flashes to the broken washing machine in my trailer. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed for months, but it was so easy to use Bill’s that I never got around to it. I swallow the thought. I’ll figure it out, like I always do. There’s bound to be a YouTube tutorial on how to fix it. “I’m all good, thanks.”
Mama watches the paddocks and sadness colors her expression. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing horses here again,” she says. “Before my husband, Harry, died, they were his life. Seeing them on the ranch again… It’s…” She trails off. When she speaks again, her voice is steadier, with a forced brightness. “Jake and Chase are going to Flagstaff, Arizona, for training camp next week. I’m throwing a family dinner on Saturday night. You’ll come, I hope?”
My thoughts flash to Mad and a tightness grips my chest—love and guilt and a humming anxiety that never fully goes away. I canceled our plans last weekend when it became clear I’d be running this ranch solo. Mad wasn’t happy, and the disappointment is still eating me up. I feel like I’m failing. Again. I can’t cancel a second weekend in a row. I won’t.
“That’s very kind, but… I’ll have a guest with me this weekend.”
“Bring them,” Mama says. “Chase usually brings a friend, and Jake and Harper come as a pair. Let’s say seven on Saturday.”
I want to refuse again, to say thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need a dinner, and I doubt Dylan will be pleased to see me at his table considering the efforts he’s made in avoiding me this week. But Mama is already turning on her heels and heading back inside.
“There’s always coffee in the kitchen. Come by anytime,” she calls over her shoulder like she does every morning.
“Thanks,” I say again, then dive back into the work. Feeding, watering, checking hooves, patching fences.
Eighteen horses for one full-time ranch hand is doable. But only just. And that would be on a ranch that hasn’t been neglected for twenty years. I’m stretched thin and yet still a part of me is relieved to be here, doing what I love.
I told Dylan on that first afternoon that I had plenty of other offers for work. It was a lie, and one I thought for a moment he’d seen through. The truth is, I need this job. Even before Bill got the warning from the doctor last Christmas, he’d started scaling back, selling off horses and breeding less, shrinking our stock from thirty to eighteen. The sale to a big outfit in Dallas happened too fast. Bill fought for me to stay on, but they had their own hands. Even if they’d offered, I couldn’t have left. Not with Mad.
When I first heard the horses were staying in Denver and I’d be with them, I can’t deny I felt a spark of hope. I thought if I worked hard enough, proved myself, there was a chance I could stay past the six weeks Dylan agreed with Bill. But that hope has crumbled and died this week.
I’m here for five more weeks, or until Dylan bails and sells them. Which, judging by the barefoot hangover he greeted me with last week and his disappearing act, feels like it could happen any day. The man is not serious about ranching. As soon as he faces up to his mistake, he’ll sell the horses and I’ll be heading back to a life I barely survived the first time around.
But if he thinks I’m going to spend the next five weeks sacrificing everything, keeping this place running alone just so he can give up when he realizes he’s a failure anyway, he’s all kinds of wrong. The next time I see Dylan Sullivan, he won’t know what hit him. It’s time to set things straight.
SIX
DYLAN
I’m drifting in that place between asleep and awake, fighting to keep my thoughts out of my head for one more minute. But my bedroom door is opening with a familiar creak, followed by quick footsteps.
A second later, the curtains are pulled back and bright sunlight floods the room. I groan, pressing my face into the pillow. The taste of last night’s bourbon is sour in my mouth. I stayed up too late again, like if I just drank enough, I could pretend none of this was happening.
“Rise and shine, cowboy,” Mama says. A moment later she’s crossing to the bed and placing a cup of coffee on the nightstand before sitting heavily on the edge of the mattress.
“Mama, seriously,” I mumble, throwing an arm over my eyes.
“Do you know what time it is? It’s past eleven,” she continues before I can reply.
“So?” I reply, wishing I didn’t sound like a surly teen.
“SoI’m going to say something, Dylan. And you’re going to listen.”
I bite back a sigh. Whatever is coming, I already know I don’t want to hear it.
“When your father died, I know it hit you hardest as the oldest. You saw my grief in a way your brothers didn’t, and it shaped you. No one asked you to step up and look out for your brothers and for me, but you did it anyway. You didn’t take a single day for yourself.”
I close my eyes harder, not wanting to hear any more.
“Even when the doctors said your career was over, you didn’t fall apart. You worked your ass off, every single day, proving them wrong.”
“Turns out they were right though, weren’t they?”I spit out.
“Don’t do that,” she says. “You played at the top of your game for one of the best teams in the NFL for nine years?—”
