Chapter 3
Chapter three
Connor
HIDING OUT WITH HIGHLANDS
“Put Miss Moo in her mom’s section, she’s too big to be with the minis and babies now, so she can share with her mom,” I tell Poppy, and she leads her beautiful peach-colored cow into the cuddle cove, and past the mini zone to the space set aside for some of the larger cows.
I thought having an eleven-year-old girl move onto the ranch was going to make things harder, but turns out, Preston’s kid is a real asset.
Dean and Nial have a full team of people helping make the ranch run, and now that the town vet, Preston, moved into the big house with Dean and brought his daughter, our helping hands grew by four, and I scored an apprentice cow cuddler.
“Can’t she have her own space?” Poppy asks, her lips all downturned and pouty like she’s amping up to try to convince me to change my mind about something. Eleven-year-old girls are great at getting their own way with a single look.
“I’m going to be adding on a new section soon so that we can have more of our bigger beauties for the grown-ups to snuggle with, but she can share today.”
“Alright,” she replies, leading her cow in with its mom. She wraps her arms around her cow’s head and hugs her tight. “I’ll be back in a little bit, Miss Moo.”
Then she climbs out of the cuddle zone and runs off.
The cuddle zone is a large, fenced area set up with straw and fresh hay and sectioned out to create individual zones for the different cuddly animals we have on the ranch.
I added a roof a few winters back, which I am thankful for now, as it helps keep the warmth inside the cove.
We lay down plenty of straw to keep the animals and people warm, but it’s still winter, and judging by the bitter chill in the air, it won’t be long before we see our first snow.
In the cove, the mini Highlands have their own space, as do the baby goats, or kids, including the two pygmies we now have living here.
One adorable, perfect little Lulu, and one hyped-up crybaby ironically named Cuddles.
Okay, he is pretty cute, too, but his taste in people leaves something to be desired.
I still don’t know how he prefers Dean over me.
I spot Atlas walking Loki my way, and I freeze.
Loki is a deaf rescue horse that has a habit of pretending to die of fright if he is remotely spooked.
Atlas has been working with him every day since he arrived, and he seems to be making progress.
Hence, I am freezing in place right now.
If I stand still until he comes up to me, then he will usually let me pet him and not fall over stiff as a board.
“How is our god of mischief going today?” I ask, and Loki nudges me with his nose, which is his approval to go for the pat.
“He’s doing great. We made it all the way past the guest cabins without a single incident.”
“Did any of the guests come out?”
“No, but I’m sure if they did, he would have been fine.”
“Yeah, cause this guy is totally cool with surprises.”
“He’s getting better.”
“Is he, though?”
Poppy runs back around the corner, only this time Loki spots her. He brays, head jolting to the side, then his body goes stiff, like the way goats do when you scare them, and drops to his side in the muck. His nostrils flared with heavy breaths.
“You know we can hear you breathing,” Atlas tells him, like he can hear a word he says, and I just shake my head.
“So much better.” I laugh, and Poppy jogs over and pets his head.
“It’s okay, Loki. Sorry I scared you,” she says, looking up at us. “Sorry, Uncle A.”
“No worries, Poppy, he’ll get back up in a minute. Are you helping out with the cuddle cove today?”
“Yep. There are at least three girls from my class coming today, too. They are so jealous that I get to cuddle them all the time, and they have to pay.”
I grab one of the brushes from a bucket hanging over one of the posts and pass it to Poppy.
“You can cuddle Miss Moo after you brush down the mini Highlands, okay?”
“Sure thing, Uncle C.”
Loki stirs and Atlas crouches beside him.
“Come on, boy,” he says in what would be a soothing tone, and if the horse could actually hear it, he might be soothed, but he just stares blankly at him. I mean, I think he’s looking at him.
“In about twenty minutes, there’ll be about fifteen children climbing all over this cuddle zone. Do you think you can get him up by then?”
“I hope so. If he’s down for too long, the cold ground will drop his body temperature too low. He just needs a minute. You’ll see.”
I leave Atlas to it and head into the mini barn behind the cuddle cove to start bringing through more of the animals.
I knew all about cattle before arriving on the Beaker Brothers Ranch; being the heir to one of the largest beef empires will ensure that.
But being in the Richmont family will also ensure you grow up an entitled dick, partying and fucking your way through every city you land in, looking for something, or someone to fill the giant hole in your soul.
I was in the headlines weekly with a new actress or model on my arm, and then my father died, and my grandfather informed me that it would all go to me sooner than I expected.
But there was a catch. I would only inherit if I married before I was thirty-five.
I had only just turned twenty-three and had zero desire to settle down, but I wanted the family business.
More importantly, I wanted the money that came with it. It’s funny how quickly things change.
“Mommy, look, there they are!” a child squeals, and I wrangle the last of the baby goats into their section and close the gate, picking up Lulu for a quick snuggle.
“Now, you behave and stay in here with your friends,” I tell her, and she headbutts my chin in reply.
“Welcome to the cuddle cove,” I say as the child climbs the rail to look in at all the animals waiting for their playtime with today’s guests.
“Can I pat them?” he asks, and I nod.
“Sure thing, kiddo, climb on in.”
He makes a beeline for the mini Highlands where Poppy is still brushing their soft coats.
“Can I brush them, too?” he asks her, and she hands him her brush.
It’s why we keep a bucket of them in here during sessions.
“I’m going to cuddle Miss Moo,” Poppy calls, climbing out of the section just as more children slip free from their parents’ hands as they walk down the drive and bolt toward the cuddle cove.
“Give her a good squeeze from me,” I say, and then the two-hour session flies by in a blur of noise and laughter and fun, and as I lead Lulu and Cuddles up to the house for dinner after another successful day, I glance back at the ranch that has become my home.
The sun is setting over the mountains, casting a beautiful warm glow over everything.
“Are you coming in?” Atlas asks from the doorway of the main house.
“Yeah, I’ll just be a minute,” I say, not wanting to give up this view just yet.
The mountains and rolling hills, the lands of hard-working people just like my new family here on Beaker Brothers, bring a warmth to my chest like nothing else in my life ever did.
While my family was in beef, we didn’t actually run ranches.
We paid people to do that for us. We did visit struggling farms looking to sell.
Looking back, I hardly recognize the person I was, and while that hole I was chasing to fill has shrunk down to a marble, it’s not completely gone.
But at least it’s not all-consuming either.
That’s what made me run in the first place.
The hole used to be all-encompassing blackness that I could only drown out with drunken nights surrounded by noise and women and parties and play.
The only problem with that was that the hole was never really filled.
It was masked, and as soon as the effects of the antics wore off, it was just as big and dark, and that’s why I made the decision that ended up becoming the catalyst to my running away from it all.
I went on television. A Millionaire Matchup, the show was called, and over the course of six weeks, I flirted and fooled around with twenty women, all hand-picked to be my perfect match.
If my grandfather was going to make me marry, I was going to make the process as uncomfortable for him as I could.
But then I met Joey, a young producer, and he opened my eyes to a truth I’d inadvertently been running from my whole life.
I couldn’t find my match in the women I met because it wasn’t a woman I was looking for; it was a man.
Joey wasn’t the one, if there is a one to be found.
I couldn’t choose between the final two women at that last jewelry ceremony.
Offering them expensive jewelry to continue through to the next week through the series was culminating with a diamond ring at the final live-streamed episode.
The producers told me who they wanted me to pick, who the fans wanted me to be with, but as I stood there, her small hands in mine, I couldn’t bend to my knee and offer her a future I no longer wanted.
I didn’t think about the camera and the people at home watching.
I was just looking at this hopeful woman in front of me who had found a place in my heart.
I loved her, I really did, but the way you love a friend, not the person you want to spend your life with.
I told her I was sorry, but that if I were to ever choose a woman to spend my life with, it would be her, but that I couldn’t.
Her eyes welled with tears as she looked over at the producers, confused about what was happening.
I pulled out the ring box and put it in her palm, laying my hand on top of it, and told her that she deserved a man who could love her completely, and then I told her that I now understood that I was searching for the same thing.
Then I kissed her on the cheek and walked away.
Joey ran after me, angry, screaming at me to get back there and propose like I was meant to.
But I couldn’t. My phone was blowing up with messages and tags online.
I couldn’t handle it, so…I ran. I disappeared, made my way through small towns and middle-of-nowhere America, hoping for a new start, but sooner or later, someone always figured out who I was, and the media storm that followed had me running again.
Beaker Brothers is where I’ve found my passion, found myself.
And while I know they need to promote the ranch to keep the place going, I’m terrified that one day a reporter who’s doing what probably started as a puff piece will recognize me and it will turn into a whole thing about finding the missing millionaire.
I’m not a millionaire. Not anymore. My access to the family money stopped the second the news broke about me.
My grandfather was pretty clear about his views.
I think it was less than a week after he’d named my cousin Gareth as his successor.
I didn’t care. I don’t want that future.
I didn’t want their name. I became Connor Walker, and yes, that last name came from watching old television shows.
Connor is my middle name, so it was pretty easy to get used to hearing it.
The name I left behind was far longer, and every time it appeared in the news, they made a point of putting the whole fucking thing in there, too.
The writers probably get paid per word, so I get it, but fuck me, if I had to see Theodore Connor Brewer Richmont the Third one more time take up my phone screen, I was going to explode.
That’s the life I left behind in order to find the one I have here.
With the Beaker Brothers. With Atlas and his weird horses, and Skye wrangling llamas from the pool.
I want to sit around the table with them all while we eat Sally-May’s home cooking and listen to Perry, her husband and longest-working guy on Beaker Brothers, tell us all stories about how it used to be back when he was a young’un working the ranch with Dean and Nial’s gramps.
I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep my past a secret, because leaving this place would crush me.
How could I ever leave the only place that ever really felt like home?