3. Carson James
3
CARSON JAMES
S oot stained my fingers as I worked the charred wood between my thumb and index finger. Black dust covered my hand, but I didn’t care. The burned shard I’d held on to the last two years fueled the embers of hate burning inside me.
Hate for all the changes made without giving me a say.
Hate for how everyone seemed so damn excited about building a hotel and restaurant on my land.
Hate for the constant barrage of visitors traipsing over the grass, walking where they shouldn’t, and making noise at all hours of the night.
Hate for the lights that dimmed the stars.
The ranch was my birthplace and would be my grave. It was my solace. This land was my universe. Nothing mattered outside the fence. Not a damn thing.
That was until trouble started coming to us.
Trouble. I set the ash-covered wood on my nightstand and grabbed a handkerchief to wipe my hand. That word had been rolling around in my head for the last twenty-four hours.
Trouble.
It’s what I had called her. Lennon—the woman I’d fucked in the hallway of the Silver Spur. Trouble .
A stupid smile crossed my face. I remembered every soft gasp and desperate moan that had escaped her mouth as I held her against the wall.
The digital clock glared at me, taunting the fact that I hadn’t slept a wink, and my day was about to start.
It was still dark out, but that’s what I preferred—working sun-up to sun-down. Feeling one with the earth and the animals. Staying away from the trespassers.
But I didn’t get to do that today. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t slept. It wasn’t because I’d been reminiscing over a quick fuck in the back of a bar.
Nope. While I sat in a crowded office, forced to listen to my sister-in-law drone on and on about schedules I didn’t give two shits about, my guys were free to go out and care for the herd.
The opening and closing of doors in the bunkhouse was my wake-up call.
I tugged my jeans up, buckling my belt as I stepped into my boots. I grabbed a shirt out of the dresser drawer and pulled it over my head as I headed out the door.
Two of my guys were in the kitchen making breakfast while people filtered in and out of the bathrooms, getting ready for the day or going to bed.
I grabbed an insulated cup out of the cabinet above the sink, emptied the remnants of the coffee pot into it, then started a fresh brew for the rest of the house.
If I was going to get through this management meeting without killing someone, I needed to be caffeinated.
Fucking management.
I hated that title.
I didn’t want to be a manager. Meetings, business updates, investors...None of that interested me. All I wanted was to spend my time in the fields working with cattle.
My boots squished in the dew-covered grass as bodies floated around the ranch like ghosts. Cars packed the lodge’s parking lot as new employees arrived to prepare for the grand opening.
No cattle ranch should have a parking lot. That might have pissed me off the most.
A dust plume rose as a car with out-of-state plates sped down the path as if the driver had stolen it. That pissed me off more than the parking lot.
How was I supposed to tolerate watching outsiders disrespect my land, my family, and me? I yanked the door to the ranch office open so hard it surprised me when it didn’t fall off the hinges.
“Oh good. Mr.Sunshine is here,” Cassandra clipped as she filled a plate from the breakfast spread my mom had made for the meeting.
I flipped Cassandra the bird and sipped my coffee.
Brooke snickered as she munched on a biscuit and brushed the crumbs off her baby bump. She and my brother, Ray, had married pretty quick after she got pregnant with their first child. Now, baby numbertwo was on the way.
It was strange having little kids around the ranch again. For the longest time, it had just been my two oldest nieces, Bree and Gracie. Now, Bree was about to graduate high school and go off to college. Gracie spent less and less time around the ranch as her fifteen-year-old social schedule got busier and busier.
Charlotte, Becks and Nate’s little girl, was starting kindergarten.
Brooke and Ray’s son, Seth, had just turned two. And from the look of her blissfully happy smile as she smoothed her hand over her belly, the Griffith baby boom wasn’t slowing down anytime soon.
“Morning, honey,” Mom said as she handed me a kolache.
“Morning.”
She stifled a smile. “I swear, I used to get more words out of Ray. What’s got you so quiet these days?”
“Just work,” I mumbled as I took a bite.
“We all work,” she countered. “I saw your truck leave the other night. You were gone for quite some time. Came back real late.”
I shrugged. “Just needed to get out of town and take a breather. Too many people.”
That wasn’t true. I wasn’t entirely opposed to people. I was just opposed to people being where they weren’t supposed to be. Namely, my land.
She patted my arm. “You’ll get used to it. It’s a transition for us all.”
“Uncle CJ!”
I looked over my shoulder as the door opened and my niece, Charlotte, bolted in.
I scooped her up and propped her up on my hip. “There’s my Charlie Bear,” I said as I dropped a kiss on her head. “Did your dad feed you yet?”
She shook her head. “Daddy’s sleeping. Mom said Grandma made breakfast.”
Becks slipped in the door. “Little Miss was up at four this morning.” She yawned. “Jet lag is the worst.”
As much as I hated management meetings, at least it was mostly family. My nieces and nephew were growing up the same way I did, running free, sprouting up like weeds, surrounded by family and legacy.
“Alright. Listen up and we can get through this quickly and painlessly,” Cassandra said over the chorus of conversations. “The soft opening for the lodge this weekend went well. Abbey, the manager over there, is working with the lodge employees to iron out a few kinks before the grand opening. Most of the guests have checked out, but we do have a few staying throughout the week, so be on your best behavior.”
I withheld an eye roll. I didn’t feel like being bitched out this early in the morning.
“Uncle Christian!” Charlie squealed when my older brother slipped into the meeting fashionably late. She reached out, wiggling out of my arms and into his.
“Hey, sprout.” He gave her a hug, then guided her to the breakfast spread on Cassandra’s desk. “What sounds good?”
“Like I was saying to those who were on time,” Cassandra said, pointing the comment at her husband. “Restaurant staff will be arriving this week and begin soft launching. Chef DeRossi got here last night and will be staying in one of the cabins. The other cabins are reserved for VIP guests. On grand-opening night, we’re having a family dinner with a few investors. Everyone’s expected to be there.”
Something about hearing “family dinner” and “investors” in the same sentence didn’t sit right with me.
Christian sidled up to me as Charlotte scurried off to her adoring public. “You got back awful late the other night. Something I need to know about?”
“Everything’s fine,” I clipped.
“You don’t usually leave when you have time off. Not that long anyway.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Had some errands to run.”
A tight smile quirked beneath his beard. “Errands. Right. Any of those errands happen to take you up to that bar out in Maren?”
I chuckled. “I don’t go up there for topless bull riding anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Our middle brother, Ray, had ruined that for us when he bragged about Brooke—the newest sister-in-law—taking part in the old tradition.
“Glad you got out,” Christian said. “Have a good time?”
I thought back to Lennon. To the way she got my blood simmering in more ways than one.
I’d give my left nut to see her again, but she struck me as a tumbleweed. Not prone to sticking around.
Cassandra droned on. “Brooke has a full schedule with the equine program, and we have a field trip this Thursday. CJ, keep an eye out for any people who look lost or are wandering off. The signage I ordered came last night. Can you get some guys to put it up so we can curb people away from going onto our personal property or near the cattle operation?”
I nodded but didn’t say a word.
“Good enough for me,” she clipped. “Be helpful and accommodating to the new hires.”
I snorted. That was rich coming from her.
Cassandra pointed a raised eyebrow at me. “You got something you wanna say?”
“No, ma’am.” A smirk crept across my face. She hated it when I called her “ma’am,” but I wasn’t above a little malicious compliance.
Cassandra growled. Christian choked on his bite. Brooke and Becks giggled. Even my mom bit back a smile.
“Play nice, you two,” Christian said.
I watched the clock through the rest of Cassandra’s spiel and the annoying follow-up questions that didn’t need to be asked. I kept out of trouble by keeping my mouth full of kolaches and biscuits with strawberry butter.
It wasn’t a surprise that Ray’s first venture back into hanging out with our family was at a dinner my mom made. She was a fucking awesome cook.
When the conversation pivoted to the wedding and special event space outside the lodge, I bowed out.
My boots ate up the ground as I beelined for the stables. Anarchy was ready and waiting. Gruff blasts of air radiated from her nostrils. She was just as antsy as I was to get away from it all. I tacked her up before anyone else could show up at the barn and demand my time.
“Let’s go, Anny,” I muttered as I hopped on to the saddle and rode away from it all.