Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rhett
Mom watched Travis storm out, her eyes revealing her surprise.
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “I guess he’s unhappy with my plan. Does anyone else have anything to say about me hiring Jimmy back?”
“Did you find out why he stole?” Cheyenne asked, surprising me by being the first to speak up. I liked it. It showed she was still comfortable with my family despite whatever was keeping her from being honest with them about us.
Mom nodded. “I think so. He said he was trying to help an old foster sister run away from a terrible situation. He needed the cash for her. I get that, even if he made several big mistakes. Stealing, obviously. Not going to anyone else for help.” She shrugged. “He’s not used to trusting people though. I think it will take him time to know he can fully trust us. Despite that mistake, he’s always been a hard worker. He loves the horses and the job.”
Cheyenne nodded in agreement. “He’s been asking me to talk to Travis for him, but I didn’t want to give my opinion when it hadn’t been asked for.”
Mom’s face softened. “Oh, Cheyenne, your opinion is always welcome here. You should know that. You’re one of the family.”
I squeezed Cheyenne’s knee again, letting her know I agreed.
“I think I’ll go talk to Travis,” I said, pushing away from the table.
Everyone looked up at me in surprise.
“Really?” Claire’s eyebrows rose. “You’re acting as the family peacemaker now?”
I rubbed my knuckles over her mess of blonde curls. “Maybe I am.”
“Weird.” She laughed. “That’s Beth’s job.”
Beth smiled. “I’m happy for you to be the one to talk to Travis. He’s been a bear lately.”
“I can tell. I’ll try to help him pull that giant stick out of his ass.”
“Rhett!” Mom said, choking on her water.
I winked and gave her a kiss before heading out—and winked at Cheyenne, too, when no one was looking.
Travis was sitting at the desk in his office, doing something with the books in between shoveling down bites of food.
I plopped down into the chair in front of him.
“Yes?” He gave me a wary look.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You were pushing the line back there with Mom. And why do you have such a problem with Jimmy anyway?”
“He stole from us.” Travis threw his hands up like it was that simple.
“How much? What are we talking here?”
“A couple hundred bucks.”
I scoffed. “Is that all? You’re willing to lose good help over that?”
“It’s not good help if I can’t trust him,” Travis growled. “Now Mom’s forcing me to work with him, and I’ll have the added stress of feeling like I’ve got to keep all the petty cash locked up, and keep an eye on him all the time.” He ran his hands over his face, the anger vanishing, replaced with a bone-deep weariness. “I don’t need any extra stress right now.”
I studied my brother. He looked ten years older than he had the last time I’d visited. New lines were etched around his eyes. Early gray was starting to pepper his temples. Beyond that, he seemed sad in a way I’d never seen him before.
“What’s really going on?”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to tell me that it was none of my business and to get lost. But he finally relented, burying his face in his hands.
“It’s everything. Trying to keep this place in the black is … stressful in the best of times. It’s a seventy-hour a week job as it is. Then we lost Jimmy. Add Dad being down, and my workload doubled.”
“That’s rough.”
“I’ve tried to keep it from affecting everyone else, but I feel like I’m losing my mind over here trying to make everything work. Trying to be in two or three places at once. Trying to be everything to everyone. Then, you got hurt—not your fault, I get that—and we were down Mom, too, and then Cheyenne. Rhett, I’m tired.”
Tired was the understatement of the year. He was broken down and exhausted, and I felt terrible about it.
“I hate that I made things worse instead of better. I came here because I really wanted to help.”
“I know,” he said, leaning back in his hair and shaking his head. “And I feel like a total ass complaining about my work load when you nearly died.”
“You’ve been acting like an ass.” I gave him a little grin.
“That’s what Missy says,” he muttered.
Missy. I had a feeling she figured into this somehow. “What’s going on there?”
His face went stony. “She’s not following our custody agreement. She’s keeping the girls from me and not bringing them around. Tries to say it’s because I’m too stressed, too busy to be a real parent. But, Rhett, you know I love those girls more than anything. I drop everything any chance I get to be with them. Besides, they love being here on the ranch.”
He choked up. “I’m missing my girls’ lives and I don’t know what to do about it, except take Missy to court. But to do that, I need some help around here. Because if I take a day off, it feels like the whole world is going to burn down.”
“I get it. The weight of the world is on your shoulders. It’s one reason why I never wanted this place.”
“You and I are different that way,” he admitted. “I love it. Love the work, love the land. But Mom’s right. I’m drowning. I can’t do it all myself.”
“Well, you don’t have to. Mom’s right. Bring Jimmy back. And I should be able to work a couple hours tomorrow, doing whatever you need me to do. We’ll keep doubling the time until I’m working full days again. Schedule a court date or whatever you need to do. I’ll stay on until you get things handled on that front.”
He swallowed hard. “Thank you. Really. That means everything to me.”
“The girls matter.” It was as simple as that. “As far as keeping an eye on Jimmy, let me handle that. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Why do you care so much?”
“You’re my brother, you dopehead.”
He rolled his eyes. “I meant about Jimmy.”
I paused, knowing I was about to reveal something personal about myself. “Because I know what it’s like to want a second chance.”
He eyed me. “You talking about the ranch or are you talking about Cheyenne?”
“Both. Sort of, anyway. But I figure I should be straight with you.” I looked away and took a deep breath before looking him in the eye again. “I don’t plan on making the ranch my permanent job. I’ll stay on while Dad recovers and you get things settled with custody, but I have plans after that.”
Travis scoffed. “I’m shocked. Heading back to Austin?”
“No. I’m staying in Wildwood. But I’m starting my own thing.” Telling my dreams to Cheyenne had been one thing. Admitting them to Travis was another. It made me feel nervous, afraid to fail. Afraid to do one more thing that made me a loser in his and Dad’s eyes.
But the look on his face was curious, not judgmental. “What are you planning on starting?”
“Home renovations. Same kind of thing I’ve been doing down in Austin, only this time, I’ll be working for myself. I’ll take the kind of jobs I actually care about, do some historical restorations. Build homes for real people instead of commercial spaces and temporary rentals.”
“Why here?” He looked puzzled. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be glad to have you back. We all miss you. But it seems like you’d have more opportunities elsewhere.”
“Maybe I missed your ugly face.” I grinned.
He shook his head. “Nah. That’s not why. It’s Cheyenne, isn’t it?”
“Partly, yeah.”
His face turned serious again. “Whatever happened between you two? No one ever really talked about it.”
I toyed with the plaque on his desk, not knowing how much to reveal. “I left. That’s what happened.”
“Duh. But why? You two have some sort of blowup or something?”
I shook my head. “No. I had to leave to find myself. Figure out who I was outside of Dad and all this. Dad was pressuring me to take on a bigger role and I didn’t want it.”
Travis gave a look of understanding. “Dad knows how to put the pressure on for sure.”
“Damn right. I didn’t fit here the way you did, didn’t grow up knowing my purpose the way you did. I had to find it. But I did, and now, I want to be here. Want to see my nieces grow up, want to be around to help. I even miss these damn mountains.”
“And Cheyenne.”
“And Cheyenne,” I agreed.
“Think she’s going to give you that second chance you’re looking for?”
“I sure hope so.”
This time, he grinned. “She’d be a fool not to. You’re a good guy, Rhett. Even if I give you a hard time sometimes.”
“I get it,” I said, chuckling. “It’s the brother code.”
“So, we’re cool?”
I nodded. “We are. But listen, I want to talk to you about something else.”
“What?” He frowned, sensing the change in my tone.
“Has Dad talked to you yet?”
“Not today.” He looked puzzled. “I’ve been out all day though. What’s up?”
“You think Thomas could have sabotaged Dad’s ladder?”
His face blanked. Then awareness slowly dawned. “You think his fall wasn’t an accident?”
“I’m wondering. Where’s the ladder? I’d like to take a look at it.”
“I threw it out.” All the color leached from his face. “It was a hazard. I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt. It’s gone now.”
I grimaced. “Damn. Well, at least in good news, Thomas is in jail. So if it was him, he can’t get to any of us now.”
Travis was quiet for a minute. “What if it wasn’t Thomas?”
“What do you mean?”
His eyes bored into mine. “Dad’s accident was two days after I fired Jimmy. Jimmy was desperate to get his job back. What if he thought putting us down a man would make us bring him back on?”
“Shit.” I leaned back in my chair and let out a breath that was half groan, half growl.
“If Jimmy sabotaged the ladder, then…”
“Then Mom just hired back the man who hurt dad.”