Sun Up To Sun Down (Fallen Meadows Ranch #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Maddox

“Did you become a monk and forget to tell us?”

“Hey, don’t walk away from me. We’re not on the clock, Mad.”

I scoff at that. He may not be on the clock, but I’m always on—from sun up to sun down, and everything in between. As long as my eyes are open and my heart is pumping, I’m a prisoner to this land.

“It would do you good to get away from this place. Cut loose. Have a beer. Find yourself a pretty girl to take home, one who likes a man with dirty hands and doesn’t mind if he has a grumpy disposition so long as he gets her off.

” He pauses for a beat as I continue to charge toward the house.

“You remember how to get a woman off, don’t you? ”

My boots freeze, and my fists ball at my sides. I’m going to kill him and bury him at the edge of the property. Lots of coyotes out there. They’ll take care of his remains.

“Oh, it looks like I struck a nerve,” he taunts. “Good.”

Turning around, I meet his lopsided grin with a glare. To his credit, he doesn’t even flinch. That stupid grin remains firmly in place, and his light eyes twinkle with both mischief and satisfaction.

I used to think the men on this ranch couldn’t respect me unless they feared me, but it’s quite the opposite.

The men who work this land do respect me as their boss, and that’s because they can relate to me.

We’re family, and family calls one another out on their bullshit.

They goad each other, and occasionally, they remind them that they’re human.

That there is more to life than work, and every man has needs.

“While I appreciate your concern over my capabilities when it comes to pleasing a woman, it’s not needed, nor is it wanted. I get by just fine,” I growl, flicking the rim of my Stetson so he can get a better view of my glare. “Just ask your mother. She didn’t seem to have any complaints.”

Wyatt’s grin falters for a split second, then he wags a finger at me, his lips turning up a fraction higher.

Such a smug motherfucker.

“That won’t work with me, Mad. The bitch who bore me has more mileage on her than all the tractors and trailers on this land combined. You could be my daddy for all I know.”

A low whistle sounds from behind me, causing me to glance over my shoulder. My ranch manager, Tyler, leans over the railing of the front porch, shaking his head at me, a bemused expression flitting across his face.

“Should we get a DNA test? Are you Wyatt’s daddy?”

“Fuck off,” I hiss.

I’m thirty-one, and even if I had a thing for older women, Wy is in his twenties. The math don’t math. Besides, I’m not stupid enough to go ungloved with a woman. The last thing I need is someone or something else trying to tie me down.

“Think about it. We’re leaving in an hour,” Wyatt shouts. “The night is young, boss man, and your hand can probably use a break.”

He saddles his horse and tips his hat toward me before he takes off, leaving a plume of dust in his wake. I shake my head, knowing very well he’ll be back in an hour, and I won’t answer the door when he knocks on it.

“What was that about?” Tyler questions as I make my way up the stairs. I reach the landing and remove my hat.

Releasing a sigh, I comb my fingers through my overgrown hair and narrow my eyes at him.

“Like you don’t know.”

He leans against the railing, bracing his hands on either side of him as he crosses one boot over the other, and shrugs a shoulder.

“I’m just trying to figure out if you’re acting like someone pissed in your grits this morning because the guys are going out tonight, or because they asked you, their boss, to join them.”

“We have a new herd of cattle being delivered tomorrow,” I point out, my jaw clenching slightly. “I ain’t looking forward to babysitting a bunch of hungover men when there’s shit to be done around here.”

He pushes off the railing and crosses his arms over his chest.

I’m familiar with that stance, and I know all too well what comes next.

Tyler and I have been friends since we were kids, and when Granddaddy got sick and handed me the reins to Meadows Ranch, there was only one guy I trusted to be my right-hand man, and that was Tyler.

He’s loyal to a fault, but he’s not afraid to put me in my place, and he’s two seconds away from handing me some hard truths.

“That ain’t fair, Maddox. Our guys work hard.

They deserve some downtime. Burnout is real, man, and the only person who knows that better than me is you.

” He pauses for a beat, cocking his head to the side as he studies me with a blank expression.

“Permission to speak as your friend, and not your employee?”

Not liking where this is going, I sink into one of the Adirondack chairs that line the front porch. “Have at it, brother.”

Do your worst.

“You ain’t doing anyone any favors by keeping yourself secluded on this land.

I know you feel you have some pretty big shoes to fill, and you do, I’m not discrediting that—your Granddaddy bled, sweat, and suffered for everything you work so hard to preserve, but even he would tell you that you can’t keep going on the way you are if he could. ”

If he could.

Those three words pack more of a punch than any other part of his spiel.

I know I work long hours, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m slightly obsessed with the grind of everything.

But I owe it to my grandfather. Without him, I’d be nothing.

It doesn’t matter how long my days are, or how ragged I feel; it’s not enough.

I’ll never be half the man he is.

The proof is in the book. I thought the expansion of Meadows Ranch would put us in the black, but the cost wound up being higher than I expected, and the operational costs on the ranch skyrocketed while the profit margins shrank at a significantly rapid pace.

We’re drowning in debt, and every night when I lay my head on the pillow, I worry how long I’ll be able to keep men like Tyler, and Wyatt on the payroll.

Hell, most days it’s hard to look them in the eyes.

They have sacrificed just as much as I have, and the thought of putting them out of work makes me violently ill.

I draw in a deep breath, rubbing my sweaty palms over my denim-clad thighs. “Like I told Wyatt, I appreciate the concern—”

“Fuck off with that shit. I’m not Wyatt, Maddox. You can’t pacify me. I know the ranch is in trouble, and I know you’re doing everything in your power to keep this ship from sinking, but what you’re doing ain’t working. You need a reset.”

My gaze snaps up to him, and I clench my jaw. “Getting my cock wet ain’t going to fix what’s broken, brother. Pussy is pussy. It ain’t all that majestic.”

The corners of his mouth lift, and he shakes his head at me.

“The fuck it isn’t. Maybe that’s your problem. You’ve been getting mediocre pussy for too long, and it’s fucked with your head.”

I roll my eyes. I wish that were the case, but I can’t remember the last time I got laid.

“You should go out tonight. Release some tension. All your problems will still be your problems tomorrow. You’ll just be able to attack them with a much clearer head.”

The man is as hard-headed as they come. I need a different tactic.

“Betty’s daughter had the baby, and she’s out of town for the rest of the week,” I explain. “The agency sent over a temp, but it doesn’t look too promising.”

That’s putting it mildly.

My gaze darts toward the house, and my nostrils involuntarily flare.

I stopped in to see Granddaddy on my lunch break, just as I always do, and I found him in the great room, staring at the blank screen on the television because he couldn’t remember how to turn the damn thing on.

The replacement aide was nowhere to be found.

Ten minutes later, when she finally decided to do her fucking job, she stalked into the room and threw her phone on the couch, muttering a stream of curses.

I should’ve fucking fired her right then and there, but the arrival of the new herd tomorrow has my hands tied.

“So that’s why you’re not going. You don’t want to leave William with the new aide.”

This place doesn’t function without Betty, and that’s mainly because I can’t function without having peace of mind that Granddaddy is cared for before I even walk out the door.

A year ago, a doctor diagnosed the man I admired most with Alzheimer’s. I should’ve realized things were off long before that. I mean, looking back now, the signs were all there. I was just too naive to notice, and I made excuses for all the mishaps.

When he forgot to put his horse away in the stable, I told myself it wasn’t his fault. We had men on staff who should’ve done it. And when he called me by my father’s name, I blamed the uncanny resemblance as the culprit.

The day he drove his pickup truck into a tree—that was on me too. He would’ve been able to stop if I had changed the brakes like I was supposed to.

Denial at its finest, but I was still finding my footing as the man in charge after his sudden retirement two years prior, and while he may not have been part of the daily operations anymore, he was still a steady force in the background, lending a supportive ear when needed.

But that was Granddaddy for you.

I can’t remember a time in my life when he wasn’t there for me and my sister, Della. He was our rock after someone killed our mother, and he was the glue that held everything together when our old man disappeared on us.

And I couldn’t handle the thought of him slipping away from us… from me.

I thought I could take care of him myself—I owed him at least that much—but I soon learned I couldn’t.