Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Jasper
Today’s gone to hell in a handbasket real fucking quick. Anything that could go wrong has happened, and it’s barely noon. Most of it is little shit—more annoying than anything—but the biggest, most pressing issue is the cattle.
They’re sick.
I’ve had a hunch for the last few days, but I thought maybe I was being paranoid.
A lot has happened in the last month, and it feels like all responsibility is falling solely on my shoulders and the walls are closing in around me, so paranoia really wouldn’t be that far-fetched.
But as I stand in the middle of the north pasture with one hand braced on my hip while Dr. Royal crouches beside a black Angus heifer lying in the dirt, I know it’s not paranoia.
She hasn’t stood for almost an hour. That alone is enough to make my stomach churn.
“How many?” I ask, my voice tight with stress. The wind cuts across the pasture, carrying the smell of dust and manure.
Dr. Royal heaves a sigh as he stands, pulling his gloves off with practiced precision. “Five showing symptoms. Maybe more by morning.”
My heart plummets. “Jesus.”
“You caught it early.”
“Sure as hell doesn’t feel early,” I mutter.
He glances at me with a pinched brow. “No. Probably not.”
I scrub a hand over the back of my neck and stare out into the pasture. The cattle spread across the hills; thousands and thousands of money, responsibility, and risk standing beneath the winter sun. Or collapsing beneath it.
“Give it to me straight, Doc.” I look him in the eye. “How bad are we talking?”
Dr. Royal pauses for long enough to piss me off. “Could go either way,” he offers unhelpfully.
Chuckling stiffly, I say, “How reassuring.”
“I’m serious, Jasper. If treatment works quickly, you’ll lose a few head at most. But if it spreads…” He exhales a harsh breath while I hold mine. “You’re looking at a problem going into breeding season.”
Breeding season.
Fuck.
My chest tightens because he’s right. We’re only a couple of months out, and if the herd’s weak going into it, next year’s numbers will tank too, which means lower calf counts, lower sale weights, and lower profit. And Lord knows that’s all we need right now.
“You’ll need to quarantine the sick ones,” Dr. Royal continues as if this is my first rodeo. “And Jasper?”
When I meet his gaze, he adds, “You can’t afford to lose focus.”
I huff through my nose. It’s a little too late for that. My focus has been shot for weeks. Ever since the reading of my grandfather’s will and finding out this place is now mine… And Chesney Jennings’.
Fuck, even thinking his name has irritation sparking deep in my chest. I haven’t heard anything from him since I showed up on his family’s front porch.
No call, no solid answer, no agreement. Nothing.
It’s infuriating. He shut it down the night I went to his house, but Truett called me the next morning and told me to give him a little time, that he may come around. So much for that.
Dr. Royal pats my shoulder once before heading back toward his truck. “I’ll call tonight after the lab results come in.”
I nod. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Once he leaves, the sick heifer lets out a weak sound behind me, and something ugly twists in my gut.
I hate this part. It never gets any easier.
People think ranching is all sunsets and horses and cowboy hats.
But the truth is, most days, it’s just stress layered on top of exhaustion while you pray the numbers work out to survive another year.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember why I keep doing this year after year.
There was a drought two years ago that nearly killed us.
Nothing’s been the same since then. Feed prices doubled and still haven’t evened out, and there were equipment failures and rising operating costs that have made our already-tight pockets even tighter.
Then last summer, we lost a contract we’ve held for years after one of the bigger meat suppliers merged with another company and cut smaller ranches loose.
That’s how it always goes, though. Everything these days is about mass production and Uncle Sam sucking as much money from the people as he can.
It’s becoming harder to make a profit because we can’t compete with the big corporations.
There’s a part of me that thinks it might be better to just let it all go.
Sell it now and cut my losses. I’d walk away with nothing, but maybe it’d be better than whatever the hell this is.
But I don’t even know who I’d be without Wind River Ranch.
Without the early mornings and the late nights.
This is all I’ve ever known. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.
I live and breathe this place, and the thought of possibly losing all of it scares the hell out of me.
Everything seems to be stacked against me lately, and between all that and my grandfather’s death, it’s been…a lot. And I’ve basically been handling it all on my own. My uncle is still just as pissed as he was the day at the lawyer’s office, and he makes it known any chance he gets.
“This place is yours now. Better figure it the fuck out.”
“Surely you can run all this by yourself. Dad sure as hell thought you could do it better than me. For the life of me, I can’t see why.”
Pete Smith has always been a mean, petty, grudge-holding man, much like his father. After all, you don’t exactly carry on a decades-old feud being level-headed.
A few minutes later, I hear an engine approaching.
Glancing up, my uncle’s truck appears across the field.
Speak of the fucking devil. It’s funny… I can count on one hand the number of times he’s been on the ranch in the last five years.
Yet now that he didn’t get his way, he keeps finding reasons to come here and harass me.
Pete climbs out slower than he used to, his age showing more and more as the days go by.
“You talked to the vet?” he asks gruffly.
I nod. “He just left.”
“And?”
“Not great,” I say before running through everything Dr. Royal said.
Pete mutters a curse under his breath and stares out toward the herd. “You hear from the Jennings kid yet?”
Knew that was coming.
My muscles tense instantly. “What do you think?”
His jaw tightens, disdain written all over his face. “He gonna come back or not?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him.”
“You should know,” he bites out, flashing me a look of disappointment. Or maybe disgust. You never know with him.
Frustration settles in my chest as my pulse kicks up and my eyes narrow on him. “You think I haven’t tried?” I’ve left message after message on his voicemail, to no avail.
He scoffs. “The kid left almost twenty years ago. Sounds to me like he already made his choice. What the fuck was my dad thinking?”
Maybe he did, but part of me keeps thinking about the look on Chesney’s face when he opened that door. There was anger, sure, but mostly, it looked like somebody dragged him backward through time against his will. Like being here hurt him. Like seeing me hurt him.
Not my problem, I remind myself. What he’s doing or how he’s feeling shouldn’t be my concern.
Pete spits onto the dirt. “We don’t have time for him to figure his shit out. This is fucking bullshit. Should’ve never been this way.”
I don’t bother answering. Instead, I stare out across the pasture again and try not to do the math in my head.
If we lose cattle now, breeding numbers drop.
If breeding numbers drop, next winter will be ugly.
And if next winter gets ugly, there might not be another year, even if, by some miracle, Chesney takes me up on my offer.
A story unfolds in my mind about what could happen if things don’t get better. A story about Wind River being sold off piece by piece to land developers who carve the property into neighborhoods and luxury homes for people who’ve never worked a sixteen-hour day under the blazing, unforgiving sun.
It makes me physically sick to think about.
Eventually, my uncle heads back toward his truck, but I stay behind. Watching, thinking, and trying—and failing—not to imagine Chesney Jennings standing beside me in this pasture.
By the time I get home, the sun’s already dropped low behind the mountains. I’m fucking exhausted. The kind that settles into your bones and stays there. But there’s no way I can sleep right now; there’s too much noise in my head.
Dust coats my jeans and boots as I kick the latter off by the front door.
Sweat dried stiff against the back of my shirt hours ago, and my shoulders ache from wrestling fencing and sick cattle all damn day.
I feel disgusting and could use a long, hot shower.
But I don’t have the energy for that, so I’ll have to settle for a quick in-and-out one after I get some food in my stomach.
I toss my keys onto the kitchen counter and lean both hands against it, staring blankly at the dark window above the sink. This house used to feel bigger when I was younger. Now, it mostly just feels empty.
Grabbing my phone out of my pocket, I scroll to my friend’s contact. Magnolia. She’s my closest friend, even if life ensures we don’t get to hang out often.
My thumb hovers over the screen for a second, then I hit call before I can think better of it.
It goes straight to voicemail, but I’m not even surprised.
She’s probably working. With everything going on, I could really use my friend.
I hang up without leaving a message and toss the phone onto the counter harder than necessary.
Three minutes later, after I put some leftover lasagna in the oven, I cave and text her instead.
Me: You alive?
Nothing.
Opening the fridge, I grab a beer, cracking it open and guzzling most of it in one go. It’s not until I’m about to sit down to eat that my phone buzzes.
Magnolia: Barely. LOL
Relief floods my system at seeing her response, even if it’s minimal.
Me: Haven’t heard from you in like two weeks. I was starting to think you were kidnapped.
Three dots appear, then disappear just as quickly.
Magnolia: LOL it’s been maybe two days, you drama queen. *eye roll emoji*
Me: Eh, same thing. Could really use some advice, though.
She doesn’t respond right away, so I start eating. Reheated lasagna isn’t my favorite, but there’s no way I was going to cook tonight after the day I’ve had. My phone buzzes as soon as I put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher and press start.
Magnolia: That bad?
I laugh under my breath. If only she knew the half of it.
Me: Vet says part of the herd might not make it.
Magnolia: Oh, Jasper…
That nearly breaks me because I can practically hear the sympathy in her tone. I type out half a dozen responses, deleting every single one before settling on the cliff notes version. Magnolia’s family owns a goat farm, so if anyone understands the struggles, it’s her.
Me: My uncle is a ticking time bomb, the ranch can’t afford sick heifers, and Jennings still hasn’t gotten back to me.
Magnolia: Jas, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how it feels carrying all that. Maybe Chesney will come around. Maybe he’ll come to his senses. But if you’d like, I will happily drive down to where he is and key his car for you. *angel emoji*
I chuckle and shake my head. The image of that in my mind is oddly satisfying.
Magnolia’s been my best friend since third grade, which means she’s well aware of every stupid thing I’ve ever done.
She knows about the time I tried to ride a bull at twelve.
She knows about the one time I skipped school to sneak into a rated-R movie.
And she knows about Chesney.
Me: Appreciate the offer, Mag. But let’s not catch any charges tonight.
At this point, I’m not sure which scenario pisses me off more—Chesney returning to Sweet Briar or him turning his back on it once again.
Magnolia: Ugh. Buzzkill.
A knock sounds at the door, and I freeze.
Nobody comes around here this late, especially unannounced.
For one ridiculous second, I think maybe it’s my uncle, back to terrorize me some more.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Another knock comes, this time firmer.
Setting my phone down, I shove off the counter and head for the door, annoyance already building inside me.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” I mutter as a third one sounds.
Flipping the deadbolt, I yank open the door and immediately forget how to breathe.
Swallowing thickly, I blink, like maybe I’m seeing things.
But nope… Chesney Jennings is most definitely standing on my porch, a dark gray t-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, a ball cap pulled low, and a duffel bag hanging from one hand as he regards me with his signature scowl.
Ocean-blue eyes meet mine beneath the porch light. He looks tired. Guarded.
Surprised doesn’t even begin to cover it. Neither of us says anything for a moment, the night air hanging between us. Then Chesney shifts slightly, jaw tight like being here physically pains him.
“I’m here about the ranch,” he says, and somehow, I know everything’s about to change.