Chapter 5
KATIE
“What a jerk!” Lainey said, hands on hips, pissed for me.
She was standing in front of my closet scoping out my clothes. As if something cute and worthy for a night out to pick up men was in there.
I’d been telling her about what happened with the drunk guy at work from the night before. I hadn’t mentioned Bray. Okay, I mentioned that he’d been there and punched the guy, but not the part where I’d climbed in his lap and kissed him. Or that he’d carried me over his shoulder out of the place.
I spent all night in bed tossing and turning, realizing I could’ve just asked Bray to pretend to be my boyfriend without the need to maul him.
If the situation was reversed–which was a very unlikely scenario–he’d be arrested for assault if he just started making out with me.
All through my morning chores of mucking stalls, mixing each animal’s custom feed, and all the other million and one things that were needed to take care of eight horses, I thought of Bray.
How I responded to him calling me good girl.
He’d been surprised to see me, then even more surprised that I’d climbed him like a tree and then put my tongue in his mouth. Stunned!
Me. Little Miss Mouse taking the lead.
At least Bray played along. That he was experienced enough with women to make it look realistic. Of course, the punch to the face probably got the point across to the guy better than making out with me.
“Total jerk. Other guys aren’t much different,” I told her, sitting on the edge of my neatly made bed.
This has been my bedroom since I moved in with my grandparents when I was six.
The dolls and boy posters were all gone, but the sage green paint on the walls hadn’t changed, nor did the matching striped comforter.
Lainey texted a few hours ago, having competed at the county fair in the barrel race preliminary round, and told me we were going out tonight and that she was coming over to get ready after I finished my afternoon chores in the stable.
With Taylor no longer helping, it took twice as long as usual these days.
I’d replied back that I was too tired to go and got back to brushing down one of the horses, but to her, that wasn’t an excuse and showed up anyway.
That was why I was in only my robe, fresh from my shower.
My family’s land had once been a thriving horse property.
When my grandparents were younger, it was well known and a prosperous stable in Devil’s Ditch.
Then Grandpa got sick and we had to sell our personal stock to pay the bills.
Then, a few years after he died, Grandma got sick.
To make ends meet, she and I decided to take on boarders.
Not people, but horses. Now, it was only me and I had all I could handle alone.
People without land or a stable of their own paid us a monthly fee to house their animal.
The owners came to ride and take care of their horses, but I was responsible for everyday tending.
Currently, I had eight horses to take care of. That meant a lot of work. Morning and night.
Conrad Trout, a rich rancher who had one of the larger ranches in Devil’s Ditch, had tried to get us to sell the land for years. Grandma refused. I refused for her. When she passed last year, he’d gotten crafty, trying to push me to sell when I continued to tell him no.
Blocking the water upstream so I didn’t have creek water for the grazing horses.
Cutting the fence line so the horses got out, which made their owners upset.
Suing me for–God, so many things. Lainey had told me how Mr. Trout had settled a debt with Lance Mann in exchange for marrying his daughter, Ellie.
When Lainey’s brother, Trig, married her first, Mr. Trout had been furious.
Since then, he’d turned even more of that fury to me.
At least he wasn’t trying to marry me and I tried to remember that when I was eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and dinner.
He’d pretty much forced me to take the job at The Roadside. I had a mortgage. And a second. Repairs to damages he’s caused but I couldn’t prove. Lawyer fees to fight him.
My life was working in the stable all day, then working as a waitress at night. I got a free meal during my shift, so that helped even more.
In my quiet time–ha!–I liked to stay home and read. To bake. To just be.
Being friends with Lainey meant that she tried to get me out for fun as often as possible.
Like right now.
Not only was I not interested in socializing, but I didn’t have the extra cash to splurge on a night out. I offered Lainey a glass of water so she didn’t see the practically empty inside of my fridge. She’d quickly know just how far I was stretching my money with PB&J, ramen, and beans and rice.
“It was nice of Bray to watch out for you like that,” she said, pulling out a blue top and studying it.
I pictured him the night before. Tall and solid in jeans and a snap shirt. The sleeves had been rolled up showing off deliciously muscled and veiny forearms. Tanned, too. His blue gaze on mine. His hands on me. His mouth.
God, everything about him made my heart race. That was all before the gentler kiss in his truck that felt very real instead of pretend.
“Mmhmm,” I replied, touching my fingers to my lips as I remembered how it felt.
“I can’t believe you don’t own a dress.” She shook her head in disappointment, putting the shirt back.
“Where am I going to wear a dress?” I countered. I ran a hand through my damp hair. “Mucking stalls?”
“You do more than muck stalls.”
“Yup. I brush down horses. Wash them. Feed them. Shovel hay. Work at The Roadside. Somewhere in there I get groceries. Shower. Sleep. If there’s free time, I read.”
I sounded grumpy, but I was just tired. Tired of no sleep. Tired of never having enough. Of barely getting by. Of trying and trying and only sinking deeper into debt. Into trouble with Mr. Trout.
It was only a matter of time before I lost the ranch that had been in the family for generations. I was tired from carrying the heavy load.
She sighed, knowing I really was that busy. “You could wear a dress out with me. Tonight. Dinner, then drinks after. People from the rodeo circuit will be out. It’ll be fun.”
While the county fair wasn’t anything impressive besides a midway with games, rides and funnel cakes, it was also an annual stop for the pro rodeo. That brought people from all over the area to the local bars and restaurants. While mingling with strangers was fun for Lainey, it sounded awful to me.
I flopped back on my soft bed, stared at the ceiling. The summer sun dappled off it as it came through the cream curtains. The windows were open because there was no air conditioning, not that I had money to pay for it if I did. Thankfully, even in July, it didn’t get crazy hot in Montana.
“All I want to do is throw on some comfy clothes and read a book. Nap. Then read some more.” And not spend money I didn’t have. “Don’t you want to do that, too? Between competing and the family ranch, you’re busy.”
“I hear you. It’s been a crazy week, but I won the preliminary round!” She looked so excited, I couldn’t help but smile and be proud of my closest friend.
“Sometimes you just need to go out, and tonight’s one of those times,” she continued.
“Besides, it’s my treat since I’m manifesting that I’m winning this week.
Plus, I’m forcing you.” She set her hands on her hips.
“No matter what my eyes tell my stomach, I can’t eat a whole tray of nachos by myself. Well, I can, but I shouldn’t.”
It was time to resign myself to the fact that I was going out. She was going to get her way, because she always did. The extrovert forces the introvert out into the world. But I was holding firm on one thing. “I don’t want to go to a place for drinks. I serve drinks thirty hours a week.”
She gave me a look, one she’d used in the past often enough, like when she was deciding if I needed bangs–I did not–in seventh grade.
“That is a good excuse,” she admitted. “Nachos and burgers then. We’ll call Molly and see if she has the night off.
Ellie, too, since she’s prego and we’re not gonna drink.
You should see her eat these days. She can eat Trig under the table and that’s impressive.
Come on, you need to get out. Do fun things. Meet someone.”
I laughed at the last.
“Meet someone? I’m not you, Lay,” I reminded. “No one’s interested. Trust me.” I had to make her own big brother pretend to be my boyfriend. Pretend! “If we’re together, they’ll only see you.”
She was so pretty with her blonde hair. She had it pulled back in a loose braid that was over her shoulder. Long tendrils framed her face in a way that looked simple and natural. If I did that, I’d look like I’d been through a tornado.
Her personality, bright like the sun, drew people to her. She was liked by all. Popular, but she was also kind. Generous and patient.
Proof of that was being friends with me.
She abandoned my closet and came to sit next to me on the bed. “First, that’s total bullshit. I’m just as single as you are.”
“Only because Chris Gomez was a dick ghosting you like that and you’re better off without him.”
She waved a hand as if she was well over the guy who she’d dated a few times then disappeared, only to reappear and hide behind an end cap of canned peaches to avoid her.
“Second, you’re the amazing Katie Camden. Horse whisperer. Even if you have to wear jeans out tonight.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I can talk to horses. So exciting. People want me to talk to them, which doesn’t work out so well.
” Case in point the night before and me mauling Bray in front of a bar full of people, and worse, his two friends.
“I even have horse colored hair. I probably have the scent of them embedded in my skin.” I tipped my head and sniffed my shoulder.
She eyed me. “Your hair is gorgeous. I’d give my right boob for hair like that.”
I laughed as I put my hand up to the wet mass that hung down my back.
“Lai, I–”
A huge crash came from downstairs, making me jump. Lainey gasped.
We stared wide eyed at each other for a second before we flew out of my room and down the stairs to see what happened.
“What the hell?” Lainey said, skidding to a stop in the living room.
The large front window that looked out over my grandmother’s flower bed was shattered. Glass was strewn everywhere. In the center of the floor, right beside Grandpa’s old recliner, was a huge river rock.
“Careful!” she said. “You don’t have shoes on.”
Diverting away from the mess, I went to the front door and flung it open. Hauling down my driveway was a dark pickup, but it kicked up so much dust behind it I couldn’t notice anything else about it.
“I’m calling Colt,” Lainey said, pulling out her phone to get in touch with her brother who was the sheriff.
As I stood in my open doorway, all I could think about was that I could never escape my problems. Not only did I have to wonder who hated me enough to break the window, I had to figure out how I’d pay to fix it.