“Yes, ma’am.”
“It’d be a shame,” I say calmly, “if we had to inform them of how incompetent and disrespectful your company had been. I bet your boss wouldn’t be too happy if he got a call from Holland Ludlow.”
Holland Ludlow is the billionaire owner of the neighboring cattle ranch, Ironhorse. We sold them a thousand acres of our land last year because Holland decided that he wanted to break into thoroughbred racehorse ownership.
Silence stretches between us, broken only by the distant nickering of horses and the idle hum of machinery.
Finally, he nods once. “I’ll make some calls.”
“You do that,” I say. “And shut it down for now.”
He gestures sharply to his crew. The jackhammer dies. The whirl of the cement mixer halts.
I turn and walk away before he can say another word, my pulse still pounding, hands trembling just slightly with leftover adrenaline.
When I reach the round pen, Sylvia looks at me, wide-eyed.
“Are they done?” she asks.
“For now,” I say. “You handled that spook really well. I’m proud of you.”
She smiles, relief easing her shoulders. “Thanks.”
I lean on the fence, watching her walk the gelding, my gaze drifting back toward the house.
Matty lifts a hand in a small salute. Grandma gives me a nod.
I smile to myself.
Let them pour concrete wherever they want—as long as they remember whose ground they’re standing on. This is Storm land. And when you deal with Storm land, you deal with Storm women.
Iclimb the last step of the front porch slower than I need to, like if I draw this out, I can control what comes next.
I left this ranch after I graduated high school. That was almost eight years ago. Since then, I’ve been back exactly three times. The first two, I stayed drunk pretty much the entire visit. The final time was last year for Caison’s surprise engagement to Maitland Storm.
Caison and I grew up together. His father and mine were great friends. We spent most summers together. His father would bring him from their farm in Jackson Hole to a cabin they owned in the Teton mountains, not far from Wildhaven, after school let out each year, and I’d tag along. We’d hike and fish and spend quality time together. Those weeks are among myfondest childhood memories. Caison went on to college in Texas and stayed south until his father passed. That’s when he came home and took the general manager position here at my family’s ranch, Ironhorse.
I didn’t have a plan when I left. I just knew I had to get this place and the weight of Holland Ludlow’s expectations in my rearview mirror. I spent the first year on the rodeo circuit, moving from town to town, roping steers and living off the measly winnings, drowning myself in cheap booze and cheap women. Eventually, I landed in Las Vegas—a place where men like me go to get lost. I worked every job the place had to offer—from male dancer to blackjack dealer to nightclub bouncer. None of it slowed the flow of cheap booze and women. In fact, it intensified as I began to turn to stronger ways to dull the self-loathing. Hell, six of the last eight years are nothing but hazy memories of parties, fights, evictions, and the inside of a jail cell. All courtesy of my dabbling in Sin City’s illicit cocktail of pleasure—drugs, alcohol, and sex.
The house looms behind the big white columns—three stories of white-trimmed colonial pride, black shutters framing tall picture windows, the porch stretching wide enough to hold half the town during a barbecue. It’s the house I grew up in. The house I ran from. The house I swore I’d never come back to.
But here I am.
Ruby’s hand is swallowed up in mine, her fingers tiny but strong, gripping me like a vise. She’s quiet—too quiet for a four-year-old who usually chatters on about horses and clouds shaped like bunnies and how many chickens she thinks live on a ranch. Her long blonde hair falls down her back in soft waves, the brown bow clipped neatly at the side of her head.
I’ve gotten good at bows these last few months.
She looks up at the house, then up at me.
Her bottom lip trembles, then disappears between her teeth as she chews on it hard.
“What if they don’t like me?” she whispers.
The question hits me square in the chest.
I stop walking. Just stop, right there on the porch, the old wood groaning beneath our boots. Her brown cowgirl boots—brand-new, because I wanted her to feel like she was becoming part of something—are planted together like she’s bracing for impact.
I crouch down in front of her so we’re eye level.
