Page 9 of When The Dust Settles

He was weird and that was certain. “She’s only a dog, Stef.”

“That’s what she’d like you to believe.”

Snorting out a laugh, I brushed by him and left the house through the kitchen door, Bella trailing after me. I stopped quickly, gave her a slice, and then continued on, walking around the side of the house to the picnic tables set out under the huge English oak. Normally the tree gave off an amazing amount of shade and the temperature could be counted on to be several degrees cooler beneath the canopy, but at the moment, so early in the morning, it was simply cool everywhere. Rand’s men yelled greetings as I put the platter down, and people reached for it, adding bacon to the eggs, biscuits and gravy, grits, hash browns, fried green tomatoes, and country ham. There were lots of pitchers of orange juice and pots of coffee. It looked like a special occasion, but it wasn’t. The hands ate there daily, and every Sunday Rand and Stef had breakfast for everyone who lived on the ranch. It was a family on the Red, and while I appreciated that, I had my own. Finally.

I turned to go back to my truck but was yelled at to stop. Pivoting around, I found Rand Holloway himself standing there, arms crossed, scowling at me, looking big and somewhat scary, with the extra four inches of height he had on me.

“And where are you scuttlin’ off to?”

“To my truck,” I said shortly, leaving him there.

As I walked, I looked up at the hills and saw the silhouettes of the wind turbines I knew were there. Between those and the solar panels on all the houses on the ranch, The Red Diamond was completely self-sufficient, no longer dependent on the county grid for electricity. I didn’t know the difference between a windmill, a wind pump, or a wind turbine, but Rand did. And of course since I had to know, I had asked him what if it rained every day for a month and the solar power went kaput, and what if his pinwheels couldn’t spin? What were they going to do then?

Apparently energy could be stored, and more importantly, he was working on using the waste from the stockyards for methane gas that would aid the wind power he already had at his disposal. That was next on Rand’s agenda, and fruition was apparently imminent. Rand was always thinking, and he had Stef to do the cost analysis and basically help him make whatever dream he had into a reality. They made a great team, and while I had been very thankful for Stef’s help myself, it was disappointing that I was going to have to pay for it with three days of sheer torture.

“I thought you didn’t drive stock anymore.”

My day was getting worse and it hadn’t even really started yet. First Rand, and now, somewhere behind me, talking, giving me shit so goddamn early, was Mac Gentry.

And honestly, his smoke- and gravel-filled voice, sultry and sexy at the same time, would have gone right to my dick if he wasn’t the biggest asshole I knew aside from Rand.

“Glenn?”

I ignored him, continued on to my truck, got out my duffel, pulled on my shearling-lined denim jacket, put my phone in the glove compartment, and closed the door. I knew I didn’t have to worry about the truck while I was gone. On the Red everything was safe.

When I turned, Maclain “Mac” Gentry was standing in front of me. He was tall like Rand, six five, and 240 pounds of hard, heavy muscle. I knew that because I overheard him tell one of the other men once. It was funny; it never bothered me to have to look up to Rand, but it bugged the hell out of me that Mac was bigger, more thickly muscled, with broader shoulders and a wider chest. I felt small in comparison to the foreman of the Red Diamond, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Move,” I groused, meaning to brush by, only to have him take firm hold of my bicep. I snapped my head up and my eyes met his smoky gray gaze.

“I don’t want you on this drive if you’re going to whine the whole time.”

Even though he was giving me the same grief he always did, I found myself focusing on the way the faint light from the porch caught in his dirty blond hair, sparking over the stubble on his cheeks and upper lip, caressing his brows and the tips of his long lashes. With the dark hair and eyes I shared with all the Holloway men, I was lost in the shadows. But not him, not in all his golden glory.

“Don’t worry,” I snarled, mad at myself for even noticing how roughly handsome the man was, yanking my arm free with much more force than needed. “I swear that none of y’all will hear a word outta me.”

He scowled and I walked away. I didn’t have time for his regular macho bullshit. We had established from our initial meeting, when Mac looked at me like I was the most useless person on the face of the planet, that we would never get along. Zach he liked because he worked on the ranch with Rand. My father he liked because he owned a ranch just like Rand. But me, the guy who quit ranching to own a restaurant, me he didn’t understand, and so didn’t like. Not that I cared. Maclain Gentry was a dick and I had no use for him either.

Returning to the tables, I put my gear down by everyone else’s and took a spot at the end so I could eat. It was going to be a long drive and I at least needed sustenance.

I DIDN’T ride with Rand and Mac and Zach because I didn’t want to get into it with any of them. Instead, I rode in the truck with Pierce and Chase, Tom, Dusty and his son, Rebel—I swear to God, only in Texas—who was driving the truck and horse trailer back to the Red after dropping us off. I had no idea who was driving Rand’s rig back.

We were missing one of Rand’s best guys. Everett and his wife, Regina, were brand-new parents and he wanted to stay with her and their new baby girl. Since his daughter was just three days home from the hospital, Rand said of course he could stay behind. I was sure he remembered bringing his own son home and what that felt like.

Rand’s half sister, my cousin Charlotte, had given him the gift of an egg, and he and Stef had a surrogate carry the child for them. Wyatt James Holloway was born in the middle of July and just celebrated his second birthday a month ago. I didn’t see him often, as I was not much for being at the ranch, but it was cute how he waved good-bye to all of us as we got into the trucks. He was an adorable little boy, even if he did look just like a miniature Rand with his same jet-black hair, but with the dark blue eyes Charlotte shared with her father, not the turquoise Rand shared with mine.

I could tell the leaving was hard on Rand. The tightness in his jaw, the way he held his son and clutched at Stef… he didn’t like going one bit. I knew that Rand would stay home all the time if he had his druthers; it was his favorite place to be. Being away from Stef was always hard for him, and now there was his son as well. All things considered, I was looking at pain when he turned to leave with us.

When Stef called him back, he whirled around and ran. They made a nice picture there on the porch, Stef with his hand on Rand’s chest and Rand’s on his cheek, the toddler between them as Rand bent and kissed Stef’s forehead. He seemed better when he finally joined us, but then everything was gone—sadness, yearning, all of it—as his mask slid into place. He was the kind of man who wouldn’t let anyone see him vulnerable, except Stefan. He was all walled up before we got underway.

Since I didn’t have to drive, I pulled my hat down over my eyes and took a nap. I woke up when we stopped an hour later, surprised when I looked out the window at the large transport van that a few people were being loaded into.

“The hell is going on?” I asked Dusty.

“Well, since not all the guests were already out there at McNamara’s ranch, Rand volunteered to pick ‘em on up along the way.” He told me cheerfully.

“So we’re makin’ a few stops?”

“We are makin’ a helluva lot more’n a few,” he snickered.