Page 61 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

Dylan shrugged, unbothered, and settled in for what he clearly expected to be a nap with his eyes open. It amazed me how little the passage of time had changed him, how he retained the same anti-authoritarian streak that landed him in the principal’s office at least once a week, back in the day. And yet, for all his bluster, Dylan had been the first to sign enlistment papers after graduation, and the first to come home after serving his country, a little less reckless and a lot more careful about how he spent his anger.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Dylan had seen things that none of us would ever understand in war zones. He hid it well, beneath layers of bravado and sarcasm, but every so often I caught him staring off into the distance, as if daring the world to throw something at him he hadn’t already survived.

As Damon pressed on about expanding guest capacity and the need for standardized checklists, my attention drifted to some of the other department heads ringing the table like suspects in a murder mystery. There was Noah Carter, the guest relations manager, a former cruise ship director who wore pastel suits and talked with his hands so much I always half-expected him to levitate. Walt Walker, ranch manager, an old-timer who looked like he’d been carved from a single block of sun-dried beef jerky, contributed only grunts and the occasional “yep” when prompted. Charlotte Winslow, the tasting room manager was a recent hire—a woman from one of the pinot-centric wineries up north—who had already instituted a dizzying array of “sensory flight” options that I found pretentious, but was clearly not the intended audience.

The spa director of operations, a stone-faced woman named Brenda Sterling, listened with the serene patience of a Buddhist monk. Still, I’d once heard her reduce a vendor to tears over an unsatisfactory shipment of Himalayan salt. Catering manager, Ricky Alvarez, was in a constant state of panic, as evidenced by the tremor in his pencil and the flop sweat darkening his collar. Wes Bennett, maintenance supervisor, a curly-haired guy who dressed in a rotation of salmon-colored polos, spent the meeting tapping out texts with the speed of a court stenographer.

I’d been to enough of these meetings to know that the real decisions happened outside this room, usually after hours in the kitchen or during impromptu gatherings at the back fence line. Still, Damon believed in the theater of consensus, and so there we were, all fifteen heads of the respective sub-kingdoms in the Lockhart Ranch land, plus me, whose title was technically CEO but who’d rather be hip-deep in manure than neck-deep in bureaucracy. Actually, I’d rather be at the hospital with Buddy and Sadie.

It struck me as almost funny, in a sick twist of fate, that after years spent drowning myself in Lockhart Ranch work to avoid the Shepards, now all I wanted was to drop everything and go be with them. I pictured him in a hospital bed, still managing to look bigger than the furniture built to contain him, every inch the stubborn old bastard he’d always been. But his stubbornness wouldn’t mean shit this time. That stroke, heart attack, and subsequent bronchial infection were game-changers, and even with the best prognosis, he’d be out of commission for the entire season. Maybe longer.

I reached for my coffee and realized I was squeezing the cup so hard I was crushing it. I forced my grip to relax and took in the scene around me. Damon was laying out the expansion timeline with a laser pointer in hand, aiming it like a sniper at a floor plan projected on the wall. The other department heads all scribbled in their notebooks or clicked away on tablets, but no one looked up, this was just another round of the same old song and dance. My brothers both sat on the opposite side of the table, Dean hunched over his iPad, and Dylan—having downed his energy drink—was now constructing an elaborate tower out of Styrofoam cups. If Damon noticed, he didn’t let on.

I was only half listening when I heard, Lydia, our events manager—the one person on the ranch who never, ever took days off—announce she was taking early maternity leave. She’d been with us for five years, and I’m pretty sure she’d attended every wedding, anniversary, birthday, and corporate retreat held at the ranch since she was hired. Now she was about to disappear for up to a year, and the mere mention of this caused a wave of mild panic to ripple around the table.

Damon tried to sound upbeat about it stating—“We’ll hire someone and until then, we’ll beef up the admin team, we’re a family and we’ll pull together”—but I knew from experience that any work not directly assigned to someone got lost in the black hole of competing priorities. There wasn’t a person alive who could keep up with Lydia’s all-hours, all-emergencies approach. Her shoes would not be filled, at least not in any way that didn’t involve duct tape and prayer.

It came at a shit time. As much as I loved the ranch, I might need to take some time off and dedicate some time to help Shepard Farm and Buddy. At the very least, I was going to need to split my time. I wasn’t going to bring it up now, not in front of everyone. I’d speak to my mom and brothers later, in private. I knew they’d give me a little shit, at least my brothers would, but they’d understand.

I was so lost in my own head that I barely registered when the meeting adjourned. Damon gave his usual closing speech—full of “action items” and “takeaways” and “synergy” bullshit—and then everyone stood, stretched, and began the typical post-meeting shuffle toward the doors.

As I stepped out and headed for the stables, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Gio. Actually, it was around the sixth text from Gio I’d received over the past few days. The first had shown up shortly after he’d taken Sadie to the Cupid’s Arrow. I hadn’t answered any of them.

I thumbed the phone and read the latest.

Gio

Call me as soon as you can. It’s important.

I considered ignoring it, but I knew I’d needed to deal with it. Whatever else he was, Gio had been my best friend for over twenty years, and if he wanted to talk, he probably had a good reason. Probably. The memory of Sadie laughing at something Gio said played in my mind’s eye. Irritation bubbled up inside of me as I shook my head and did my best to erase the image like an Etch A Sketch.

The day was gray and overcast, the kind of weather that made you want to go back to bed, but I was wide awake, heart pounding in my ribcage like something trying to bust free. I inhaled the cool, cedar-scented air. I made it halfway to the stables before I heard my name.

“Lockhart!” It was Gio, but his voice sounded more stressed than usual, less like the cocky smartass who’d once gotten us banned from the Bluewater Inn for setting off fireworks from the roof and more like the dumbass who almost missed taking his MCATs because he partied the night before and overslept.

The look on his face, the anxiety I saw there, made me wonder if I’d misjudged his reason for reaching out to me altogether. What if he wasn’t messaging me about him taking Sadie out for a drink? What if it was something more serious?

I stopped in my tracks. “Is Buddy okay?”

Gio nodded as he strode towards me. “What? Yeah he’s⁠—”

“Giovani Russo! Are you making house calls now?” My mom appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, Minnie curled up in her arms. She looked at Gio with a mother’s x-ray vision.

Gio smiled and to anyone who didn’t know him well, it would look like a relaxed, casual grin. I could see the effort it took. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of this one and he wasn’t answering my messages.”

My mom’s eyebrows lifted as her eyes volleyed between us. “How’s Buddy?” she asked, her stare landing on Gio and pinning him like a searchlight.

“About as good as he can be, all things considered. They’re keeping him for observation, but he’s not cooperating. He keeps trying to escape.”

I nodded. That sounded like Buddy. I could almost hear him, demanding to be discharged so he could check on the irrigation pumps.

“Who’s this?”

“Minnie,” my mom and I chorused.

“Dawson rescued her,” my mom explained. “But she’s spending time with Grandma while she gets better.”

“Grandma?” Gio grinned as he glanced over at me.