2. Logan
logan
The fresh Colorado air whips through my trusty pickup’s windows as I enter the long drive of the Three Rivers Ranch. The Trevors family has owned this plot of land for as long as anyone can remember, going back at least four generations.
CT is one of my best friends, and last year brought me and my brother Stetson on as permanent help for him and my cousin Dani, who is soon to be his wife.
It wasn’t what I ever pictured my life would be like, but not a lot about my life is what I dreamed it to be.
I always thought I’d join some rodeo circuits, travel the world, ride some broncs, and win some money.
The reality is, when I was nineteen, a beautiful baby girl showed up on my mom’s doorstep, where I was still living, with a birth certificate and a note saying she was all mine.
The news had hit me pretty hard, and I hadn’t been able to form actual words for a minute there, but the proof was in that little girl’s face.
She looked exactly like me.
Luella was the light of my life, and I would do nothing to change how she came into it.
So, at nineteen, I said goodbye to any kind of rodeo work and set about training new horses for locals and as far as fifty miles from home, while on the side, I worked odd jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.
I lived with my mom for a while, letting her help me raise Lue so I knew what I was doing, but after I was twenty-two, and Lue was two, I knew it was time for me to find us something else and start to take care of what was mine.
A few months ago, CT offered me a job to help him out on the ranch, and ever since then, I’ve been doing so much more than I ever thought I could want.
I pull into the spot in front of the barn and hop out. There’s a car next to mine that I recognize as one of my cousin’s clients.
Dani is an equine therapist and recently got a grant for the ranch to get specialized equipment for her work, so she could take on more clients with bigger needs.
The ranch was blossoming into something really great. Between CT and Dani’s show records in reined and working cow horses, CT’s client list building, his cattle ranch booming, and Dani’s therapy work, they were a power couple.
Something in my chest twists at the thought of it.
I’ve always wished and hoped for something like what they have. Even when we were teenagers, and they were together, everyone knew they’d be the endgame. There’d been no doubt.
But for me, I’ve never been in love. I’ve never even found someone I wanted to seriously date .
My life has been dedicated to work and raising my daughter as best as I can.
Thea’s face drifts through my thoughts, and I frown.
Ever since Thea Weaver moved to town a few years ago, her presence has always gripped me in a way that was unfamiliar. We’d become good friends, always asking after each other and making sure the other was doing well.
But something beneath the surface with her worried me. Not about her, but about her past. There was a shadow in her eyes that never fully cleared, worry piled on her shoulders nine times out of ten, and I wished I could take that burden from her.
Even if that wasn’t my job.
But it may be now. Something serious was going on with her, something she wasn’t even telling her sisters.
I was eager to get to the bottom of it.
I enter the barn and take in the smell of fresh bedding and the sounds of horses shuffling around in their stalls, eating leftover hay from breakfast.
Sometimes, I’m in early to do the morning feed, but I had a parent-teacher conference this morning, and Stetson took over for me this morning.
I hear Dani encouraging her client from the open doors that lead to our indoor arena, and I peek in. On the horse is a little girl named Laura, and her mom, Sharee, was standing at the gate, watching with a proud smile.
Sharee peaks over her shoulder, sensing my presence, and gives me a smile before turning back to her daughter.
The clients who come to this ranch become somewhat like family. Most of them come nearly three times a week to give their child something that they loved to do, and with grant funding, Dani could offer her work at a good rate so anyone could come, regardless of their financial situation.
“Yo.” I turn and see CT leaning against the wall of his tack room, and I wander over to him. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” I say, going to the stall across from him where Dani’s horse, Lady, has her head poked out. Giving her head a rub, I look back over to CT. “What’s going on today?”
“Got a client coming at eleven.” CT hangs the bridal he was rubbing clean on a hook above the door of the tack room, stretching out the long reins and running a cloth over them. “How’d Lue’s conference go?”
I smirk at my future cousin. He loves to pretend he doesn’t care about anyone but Dani, but the truth is, he has a heart of gold and needed to know that everyone in our family is doing well.
I was thankful that Dani and he had worked out their shit because it was hard being friends with him, knowing that Dani was still having trouble trusting him.
“It was good. Her teachers sang her praises.” This wasn’t a lie.
Lue was terrible at one thing—math. But as far as everything else, she excelled.
And not only that, she is one of the kindest girls they’d ever had in their classrooms. My girl went out of her way to make sure everyone was feeling okay and to make sure everyone felt welcome in her school.
It was one of her best traits, and I hope this harsh world never takes away her kind heart.
“Of course.” CT nods like this information was what he expected.
“Just gotta get her math grade up.” I watch CT crinkle his nose.
“I fucking hate math. ”
“Who does your books?”
“Dani, thank God.”
I frown. “Who did your books when Dani wasn’t around?”
“I did, and if you recall, I damn near lost the ranch.”
I click my tongue. Man, that feels like forever ago. “Well, thank God you got your head out of your ass.”
“That, and my brother and I are with women who like to take over the finances of the ranch. It works out.”
CT was referring to his brother Graham, who works as the local handyman, and his fiancée Quinn, who runs and operates the ranch’s yearly festival with the help of their dad.
“It does indeed,” I say absentmindedly, my mind wandering again and wondering what I could do to make that happen for me. I shake my head and refocus. “Where’s Stetson?”
“Out on a ride.” CT smirks. “He said he needed to feel the wind in his face.”
I crack a smile at the remark. Completely sure that my brother would say exactly that.
“Hey, what are we doing about pasture three?”
“We gotta move them, they’ve damn near mowed it down.”
“Tomorrow? I can get here early.”
“Yeah, let’s do it. We gotta beat the storm coming in.”
It was nearly spring now, and those spring storms were some of our worst ones.
That also meant that somehow, between work, school, and holidays, Thea had been avoiding me for months.
I grind my teeth at the realization.
I can’t believe I let her avoid me this long.
But tonight, I was going to get some answers.
Whether she likes it or not.
Bottle Grounds, after it closes, has an eerie feeling. I knew it was only Thea here now, given that those were her specific instructions because Annmarie and Juniper were gone early on these nights.
Her stipulation to me helping her so far was that her sisters cannot know what was going on. So, of course, that raised my hackles even more.
I dropped Lue off at CT and Dani’s apartment for a movie night, and I told CT I had to take care of something. When he asked what it was, I told him I didn’t know yet, but I’d let him know if it became serious.
To say I was feeling cryptic was an understatement.
I wasn’t someone who kept secrets, and I sure as hell didn’t keep them from CT, who has been my best friend since elementary school.
I walk to the back door and knock. When Thea doesn’t come to the door, I check to see if it’s locked, and when it budges easily under my hand, I grind my teeth.
Stepping inside, I hear the crooning sound of George Strait playing out in the barroom and move toward the noise.
When I step through the door that spits me out behind the bar, I see Thea sitting on a stool with a drink in her hand, a bottle of whiskey beside her glass, and her head resting on her free hand.
“Hey.” My voice startles her, and she glances up quickly, her eyes wide and frightened for a moment before she relaxes at the sight of me.
I round the bar and take the seat next to her, my brows furrowed as I take her in .
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You need to lock your fucking doors at night. That’s not safe.”
“It’s our early night. It’s barely dark out.” It was true that on Monday nights, this town closed down early, but that didn’t make it safe.
“Have you ever thought that some douche might take advantage of that and try to knock into some businesses when the owners aren’t there?”
Her eyes are hard and determined when they meet mine. “Are you here to lecture me? Because right now, I can’t take that kind of thing. So, if that’s the case, I’d kindly like to ask you to leave.”
Her words have a harsh bite to them that I’ve never heard from Thea. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No. But please lock your doors.”
She takes the whiskey bottle and pours herself a drink. I reach behind the bar and grab the nearest glass, setting it down, and she gives me a generous pour.
Without thought or question, we clink our glasses, and I take a smooth swallow.
Thea shoots hers like she didn’t just pour three fingers into her glass.
“Okay,” I say, setting my glass down and grasping her knee, turning her to face me. “What the hell is going on?”
She shakes her head, her eyes still stuck on her hand that holds the now-empty glass. Her gaze is glazed over in a way that concerns me.
“I’m not sure what to do.”
“Just talk to me.” I sigh, leaning my elbow on the bar and trying to catch her eye. “Dorothy, fucking talk to me. ”
Her eyes finally snap up, and the torture there, the hurt, shocks me. “I’m scared.”
My initial response is to take her into my arms, hold her tight, and not let anything hurt her or scare her. But I hold myself back. Just barely. “Tell me.”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”