Not that his family didn’t love it there. Most of them did. His oldest sister Diana had gone to college, married a woman, and never moved back. Susan might escape. A few of the cousins had escaped like he had, using the rodeo to springboard out. But really, the bulk of them had stayed right there in town.
And man, could they give a cowboy a guilt trip.
His phone rang again, and he thought about ignoring it, but just in case it was his momma, he picked it up and answered, not even looking at who it was.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Bubba.” It was his brother, Ramsey.
“You call me to tell me I should come back to town and take care of Mitch too? Because I already talked to Momma and Leanne about all that, and I’m coming down after the rodeo is finished this week.”
“Nope. I called to see if you could get me tickets for the family section of the Cody Stampede. Leanne just texted me to tell me that’s where you were going to be this weekend. I thought I would bring the kids up. They love a corny dog and a rodeo.”
“Where’s Lizzie going to be?” Ramsey’s wife wasn’t big on the rodeo. She was an emergency room nurse, and she thought roughstock riders especially were stupid because they got hurt all the time.
“She’s going to do a spa weekend with some girls over in Colorado Springs at that big fancy Broadmoor hotel place. It’s just me and the kids.”
Yeah. All seven of them—two sets of twins and one set of triplets. Fuck.
“I’m not going to watch your kids for you while you run around and do asshole things.” Not that Ramsey would ever cheat on his wife or anything, but he would get drunk as a lord and try to ride a mechanical bull someplace and lose money.
“Nope, I’ll bring Susan for that.” Susan was the oops baby, coming seven years after Kacey. But she was eighteen, graduated from high school, and she would be plenty good enough at watching the kids one night in the hotel room. “You know how much she loves watching the bull riding.”
“I do. She’s still dating that fella from over in Montrose?”
“The bronc guy? No, they broke up. I think she’s holding out for one of them little bull rider fellas.”
“Goodie. Maybe I can get her tickets to go to Cheyenne this year.” Cheyenne Frontier Days was later in the season, and hopefully this whole thing with Mitch would have blown over by the time he needed to drive up there. He was twelve years older than Susan, and hanging out with her kept him young.
“She would love that. She’s never been up there even though it’s not that far up the road.” His family ranch was near Alamosa in a little town called Mountainside.
“Yeah, you just make sure you don’t leave her without transportation, okay?”
“Shit, once we get there, I’ll leave her with the truck and I’ll Uber it or something.”
“All right, I’ll see you then.”
Ramsey paused to clear his throat. “So are you coming down then? After, you said? To help with Mitch?”
“Yeah. Momma and Leanne wore me down. I’ll come down. I’ll talk to him. He’ll probably kick me out, and that’ll be the end of that. But at least I’ll have done what they asked me to do.”
That got him a warm chuckle. “What is it they call that? Malicious compliance?”
“You know it, bro. If you can’t beat them, pretend to join them and then get the hell out of Dodge when it doesn’t work out like they want it to.” The more he thought about it, the more he figured that was the best thing to do. Just go down, talk with Mitch, get his ass kicked out, and then leave.
“Well, good deal. I’ll see you up in Cody tomorrow then. Get those tickets.”
“I’ll call my sponsor right now. Love you, bro. See you tomorrow.” He hung up rubbing the bridge of his nose because his head was starting to ache, feeling big as a rotting melon. He would make that call to a sponsor though.
Whether it was his momma or his brother or whoever, there was one thing Campbell hated, and that was letting his family down.
Chapter Two
“Daddy, I made you breakfast.”
Mitch forced himself to keep his smile on his face, even though he could tell from the smell it was going to be burnt eggs and burnt toast.
Burnt eggs and burnt toast he was going to eat, because damn it, Bekka was a little sweetheart.
