“Kid, I swear you’re gonna give me gray hair before I’m thirty-five.”
Throwing his head back, he laughs, and I can’t help but join in.
“Okay, now that we got that outta the way, why don’t you go take a shower while I finish up cleanin’ this kitchen,” I say. “I’ll let you pick a show when you’re done, and I’ll make some popcorn.”
His eyes widen, and he jumps to his feet. “Bet!”
“Double bet,” I call out as he disappears down the hall.
I chuckle when I hear him heave a sigh. “Remi… No.”
Finishing the dishes, I replay the conversation we had earlier. Emotion clutches at my chest again because Lukas said yes.
I’m adopting him.
Holy shit.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited.
Thirty-One
Gentry
“Fuckin’ goddamn stupid fences,” I growl under my breath.
“Hey, you called?” Hollis asks, jumping out of the side-by-side and jogging over to where I’m standing, my hands on my hips as I scan the far pasture.
“If it ain’t one thing, it’s a-fuckin’-nother.”
Finn hops out next and comes to stand next to me. “What happened?”
“The goddamn heifers found the one fuckin’ weak spot in the fence and broke through,” I grumble, gesturing in that direction. We just fucking fixed this, and now it’s broken again. “Just fuckin’ look at ’em. It’s like they got a fuckin’ sixth sense for inconvenience and pissin’ me off.”
Hollis squints against the late morning sun. “Fuck,” he breathes out, shaking his head. “This is gonna take hours.”
You’re goddamn right it will.
We have to walk them back onto our property and patch the fence, all while listening to Christensen blabber on about liability like he didn’t fucking lose half his herd a couple ofyears back to an open gate that he blamed on the wind. This is a fucking disaster. I scrub a hand over my face, dirt and grit working its way onto my palm.
And it justhadto be today. They couldn’t have escaped tomorrow when I’m not responsible for keeping track of a teenage boy.
Glancing to my right, I heave a sigh and ask Finn, “Lukas still at your place?”
He shakes his head. “No, Tripp took him to explore.”
I pull my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose. “Explore?”
Finn holds his hands up and shrugs. “Tripp’s words, not mine.”
“Of course,” I mutter as I start moving. “Come on. Let’s get this shit over with.” No point in sitting here pissed off. Cows don’t care about a man’s mood, and the fence won’t fix itself. Stewing over it is only going to prolong how long we’re out here.
I spot Christensen before we even reach the fence line, leaning on his truck like he’s got all the time in the world. With his arms crossed and his hat tipped back, the annoying fucker smiles. That alone adds ten minutes to this mess, maybe more, depending on how chatty he is today.
“Mornin’,” he says, a little too chipper for my liking, like my cattle haven’t been munching on his pasture like an all-you-can-eat buffet since last night.
“Didn’t plan on visitin’,” I mutter, already unlatching the gate.
He chuckles—chuckles—gesturing vaguely toward the pasture. “Yeah, well, things can get a little tricky when cattle cross property lines. Just want to make sure we’re on the same page about where your responsibility starts and mine ends.”
