7. Christian
CHRISTIAN
C assandra looked so fucking pissed. It was cute.
She threw that oversized bag into the floorboard and grappled at the seat as she stepped up onto the running board.
The bottom of her high heel slid off the edge. I caught her hips as she teetered backward.
“Those are the shoes you’re gonna wear all day?” I asked as I gently pushed her into the cab.
Her eyes dropped to her feet, then lifted back to me. “I wear these every day. I’ll be fine.”
Sadie hopped into the bed of the truck to hitch a ride. I slid behind the wheel and pulled away from the house.
“I need to go into town,” Cassandra said without hesitation as she reached into the depths of her bag and pulled out a sleek, leather notebook. Lists upon lists filled the pages.
“Not on the schedule for today.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I wasn’t asking for your permission.”
“Fine then,” I said as I pulled up in front of the warehouse office. “Hope you like walking in those heels. I’ll see you in a couple days.”
I hopped out, popped her door open, and left her to stew. If she wanted to sit there and pout, she could sit there and pout.
If she wanted to attempt grand theft auto and take my truck, she could try. But Cassandra didn’t strike me as the type who knew how to drive stick shift. She’d stall out before she got to the property gate.
I had just flipped the lights on when she came storming in. “What is your deal, Griffith?”
“My deal?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m being held hostage here.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to be working a job.”
“Which I can’t do unless I have some connection to the outside world.”
I pointed to the chunky desktop computer that took up most of the space on the desk. “What do you think that is?”
“A relic that belongs in a museum.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’m not begging!” she shouted. One arm darted out and pointed to the corner. “Why is the cow in here?”
Mickey was resting peacefully on top of Sadie’s dog bed. The edge was the only thing that peeked out from under his mass.
I shrugged. “He goes where he wants.”
Cassandra dropped her bag on my desk, sending a stack of paperwork for the Texas Animal Health Commission onto the cement floor. “Why doesn’t anything bother you? There’s a flipping cow in your office!”
I pursed my lips, thankful that my beard hid my smile. It’d probably piss her off. “It’s a cattle ranch.”
“They should be outside! Far, far away,” she argued. “You do know the difference between people and animals, right? You eat animals.”
I choked on a laugh. “You can eat people, too. Particularly women. Or did your fiancé not do that for you, Princess?”
Her face turned bright red and she gaped at me. “What do you think gives you the right to?—”
I held up a finger. “One thing you should know about me. I don’t have time for bullshit. I will tell you exactly what’s on my mind. If you have a problem with that, then you’re just going to have to get over it.”
Thick lashes lowered and lifted as she looked me up and down. “That makes two of us.”
The steel toes of my boots bumped the pointed triangle of her heels. “I’ve gotta make some calls before we head out. You’ve got fifteen minutes to get your shit in order.”
Fourteen minutes and fifty-six seconds later, we were heading out of the office. “Think you can ride today?” I asked as I secured my radio to my belt and patted down my pockets, double checking that I had gloves, a knife, the cattle tag and applicator, and a multi-tool.
“Ride in an air-conditioned truck? Yes, I suppose that’ll do.”
I shook my head. “No, ma’am. Your options today are a horse or an ATV.”
Her jaw flexed and I could almost make out the chalky sound of her teeth grinding together. “The ATV, I suppose.”
“You’ll get dirtier riding that than if you ride a horse.”
She chose the ATV anyway.
Not that I was surprised, but it did make for an interesting fit. I loaded up the two-seat Outlander and double-checked the fuel.
“You know,” I hollered as we ripped over the terrain. “One of these days, you’re gonna have to start dressing for the ranch.”
“I dress for myself,” she shouted from behind me.
“Yeah, I can see that. Your dry-cleaning bill is gonna be high.”
Low brush was eaten up by the tires as we crossed the plains. CJ and the ranch hands had been working to move the herd to the west pastures so the southern pastures could recover.
Cassandra’s arms were wrapped tight around me, squishing into my stomach as we bumped and bobbed over rocks and divots.
Horses would’ve been so much easier, but I didn’t have the time to spare to argue with her about it.
The ground smoothed out, but instead of loosening her hold on me, I felt her head press against my back.
I stole a look over my shoulder and caught her with her cheek resting against my spine.
I let go of one handle and gave the hand holding onto my middle a reassuring squeeze.
As much as I wanted to bitch and moan about her being here, I knew my old man was right. We needed to shore things up. I just didn’t have time to do it.
Cassandra was having a shitty time, and it was about to get a lot harder.
Cattle dotted the horizon. The herd’s movement froze at the sound of the engine.
I reached back and patted Cassandra’s knee to get her attention. She straightened, loosening her grip as I slowed and swung left to circle the herd.
“What are we doing out here?” Cassandra shouted when I cut the engine.
“I can hear you,” I said with a chuckle.
She rubbed her ear. “Yeah, well I can’t hear you.”
“A calf was born last night.”
She looked around. “Out here? Should that be done in a barn or something?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “If we know the momma’s distressed. But letting calves be born in the pasture with limited intervention allows them to behave naturally. I had two guys out here making sure everything went alright.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “All night?”
“This isn’t a nine-to-five, Cass.” I slid off the seat and offered a hand to help her down.
Cassandra ignored my polite hand, and opted to wobble off the seat like a newborn giraffe.
Now it wasn’t just cattle staring at us.
“Morning,” CJ said as he walked across the grass. He gripped the crown of his hat and lifted it toward Cassandra. “Ma’am.”
“At least he didn’t say good morning, because we all know it’s not,” Cassandra muttered.
“How’d it go?” I asked, shouldering the supply bag and following him to a shrouded area where the mother had sought coverage to give birth. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Cassandra was following. “C’mon, Ms. Parker.”
She picked up her pace.
“Nothing abnormal. Calf was born around three this morning. Momma licked him clean and let him nurse.”
“Afterbirth?” I asked as we trudged along.
“Expelled the placenta about two hours later and then ate it,” Carson said.
Cassandra dry heaved.
Sure enough, there was a newborn standing beneath the white and reddish-brown cow, latched to the udder. The momma was seemingly unbothered by me approaching, but I could sense her eyes on me.
Cassandra watched while I made quick work of tagging the calf’s ear and administering a round of vaccines to keep it and the herd healthy.
Cassandra stayed close while I checked in with the men on horseback. I studied the herd, looking for anything abnormal, and checked over the pasture.
I sent a handful of them on errands—fixing fences and repairing the storage buildings.
Everyone eyed Cassandra with distrust. Even the cows.
I didn’t exactly blame them.
“Nothing like being acutely aware of everyone talking about you in front of your back,” Cassandra said when I told her to get back onto the ATV.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“They’re pissed I brought the ATV out here.”
“Why?”
“The engine makes the herd antsy. Horses are safer for cowboys. If a cow decides to charge, it’s easier to get out of the way.
We try to keep things low-stress when we’re working cattle.
It’s a lot like life. We put gentle pressure on them, and guide them rather than forcing them to go where we want them to go.
I’ve learned my best parenting tactics from animals. ”
She blinked, unimpressed. “Yeah, this isn’t 1812. If you could stop speaking in spooky cowboy proverbs, that would be great.”
I kept my eyes on hers, rather than looking down the deep “V” of her blouse like I wanted to. “Get on the seat, Cass.”
She rolled her eyes and plopped down. “It’s Cassandra.”
I deposited her back at the office, leaving her to the near dial-up internet while I puttered around the shop, fixing machinery and making sure the vehicles were in good working order.
Cassandra deemed the one o’clock hour a working lunch and demanded a look at the books to see the kind of budget she had.
I was fine with it as long as it kept her from complaining for ten minutes.
The woman stuck out like a sore thumb, but part of me—a deeply repressed part of me—really fucking liked it.
I got Bree and Gracie settled at the house when they got home from school, then took care of my evening chores before swinging by the cabin to see what work needed to be done to get it habitable.
Everything. Everything needed to be done.
The pipes were cast-iron and corroded. I was fairly certain if I turned on more than one switch, I’d spark an electrical fire. More critters lived inside than outside.
I could get one of the more reliable boys to get in there and fix it up over the next few weeks. But for now, it was uninhabitable.
Fuck.
“She’s got a nice rack.”
The comment from good-for-nothing Jackson ate at me as I scrubbed grease from my hands under the spigot.
He was already at the top of my shit list for dicking around when he should have been working on the cabin. If he ran his mouth anymore, he was about to be unemployed.
Someone else laughed. “I bet that pretty face hides her crazy.”
“Did you see the rock on her finger? Bet she’s got some poor guy by the balls.”
“A nice piece of ass isn’t worth her bitch face,” Jackson said.
I cut the water off and rounded the corner. “What was that?”
The cluster of cowboys froze around the turnout.
I had heard the whispers all damn day. I knew Cassandra had too. Maybe that’s why she had holed up in my office, taking over my desk and color coding shit.
I raised my eyebrows. “Well. Speak up if you’ve got somethin’ to say.”
Jackson shifted his eyes left and right, waiting for someone else to be the sacrificial lamb.
“You look like you’ve got something on your mind,” I said as I rested my hands on my hips. “Wanna share with the class?”
“Doesn’t make sense, is all,” he sneered.
I beckoned him closer with a crook of my finger. “What’s that now?”
Jackson was out of grade school, but he acted like a twelve-year-old. CJ swore up and down that he was a good kid—that he just needed some guidance.
That made him CJ’s problem.
But since Cassandra was my problem, I wasn’t going to let this slide.
He scuffed the toe of his boot into the dirt. “Just don’t make sense that we can’t get raises, but you’re spending big bucks bringing in that snooty bitch to fuck around the ranch.”
A wry laugh escaped my mouth as I crowded him up against the pipe fencing that kept the horses contained.
“I don’t remember asking for your opinion or seeing any work from you that’s worth a raise.
” I fisted the front of his plaid-checked shirt instead of clocking him across the jaw. “Now. I have another question for you.”
His top lip pulled up in a sneer. Jackson had the body of a string bean with a linebacker attitude. But he didn’t make a peep.
“Is that how you talk about my daughters?”
Jackson’s nostrils flared. “No.”
“What was that?” I clipped.
“No, sir .”
I tightened my grip on his shirt. “Is that how you talk about my momma?”
He gritted his teeth. “No, sir.”
I let go of his shirt, letting him fall backward against the fence. “Then that sure as hell isn’t how you talk about Miss Parker.”
“She ain’t a Griffith,” he spat.
I pointed a finger at him. “Neither are you, son. You’d better remember that.” I eyed the cluster of ranch hands as I pointed toward the office. “She carries the weight of my name. She’s a Griffith to you.”
They nodded in agreement.
I turned back to Jackson. “If you so much as look at her wrong and she wants you gone, you’re gone. Have I made myself clear?”