Chapter 30
“Casanova! Where’s my update? I’m dying of thirst without any tea,” CJ whines. Despite telling him no several times, he showed up at the ranch today.
“CJ, I don’t have time for this right now. I’m trying to prove to Reid he made the right choice hiring me.”
“Psh. You won’t even notice I’m here. Talk to me like we’re on the phone with your earbuds in,” he says with a dismissive flip of his hand.
“No, because when we’re on the phone I can hang up on you,” I quip, flinging muck into the wheelbarrow with a little more force than necessary.
“Stop being a whiny bitch and talk to me. Come on, you can’t tease me with hints that things are heating up with she who shan’t be named and then shut me out! Connorrrrr.”
Sometimes I forget how fucking annoying CJ is when he wants something.
I stab the pitchfork into a mound of shavings and manure, the crunch masking CJ’s incessant voice for all of three seconds. Sweat rolls down my neck despite the early hour. My lower back’s aching and I’m not even halfway through the stalls yet.
“You know, this whole brooding cowboy thing would be hotter if you didn’t smell like horse shit.” CJ plugs his nose dramatically.
“Then get the fuck out! Jesus. I’m serious, things are going well for me here and I can’t afford to get distracted,” I snap.
“Distracted from what? Shoveling shit?”
“Don’t be a dick,” I grumble, moving to the next stall. Scoop, toss, repeat.
I haven’t worked this hard, for this many years, to buy the damn white house with the blue door to lose sight of it now. It’s not an option anymore, but I refuse to give up on Delilah’s dream. I just haven’t figured out how to pull it off yet.
I must be a fucking fool to have spent my life saving money to buy a house for a woman who wasn’t even my girlfriend. I made good money with the highway, and I gave it all up to start a whole new career at Lucky Spurs Ranch. I can’t fuck up my chance.
“Daddy Reid working you this hard, or are you trying to impress someone?” CJ waggles his eyebrows.
Instead of answering him, I push the full wheelbarrow outside to dump it and return to lay down clean shavings. CJ follows me around like a petulant child offering lots of opinions, but zero help whatsoever.
“Where is Princess Delilah anyhow? Isn’t she here somewhere becoming the world’s best equine therapist?” he asks.
I warm at the mention of her name. And he’s right, she’s here working her tight little ass off. She’s blossoming as her confidence grows and her skills improve. I can never thank Reid enough for what he’s done.
Guilt mounts for going behind her back. But I’ve been making her life easier behind the scenes our entire relationship, so it’s easy enough to swallow the unpleasant sensation.
“Reid’s got her out on a trail ride. Part of her internship is learning to be comfortable around the horses, and Reid’s like the horse whisperer.”
CJ grows bored with his line of questioning and begins prattling on about the new guy he’s dating. I half listen while I check the automatic waterers and sweep the stable aisle clean.
By the time I’m finished refilling grain bins, I know far more than I ever wanted to about his new boytoy’s proclivities.
Checking the clock in the office, I don’t have much time to inspect the section of fence Reid mentioned before lunch.
God, I’m so fucking tired and it’s hot as shit today. It’s been unseasonably warm, and I’m reminded every day how much more difficult ranch work is than I expected. But the aches, pains, and smashed fingers are worth it because I love working here.
My farrier training is surprisingly interesting, and I love every minute I spend with the horses. It’s no wonder Delilah chose equine therapy as her career path. I get the same calming energy around the horses I do when I’m with her, because they’re both pure of heart.
I grab my bucket of tools and toss it into the UTV.
“Hey! Are you seriously leaving me here?” CJ shrieks from behind me.
I toss a wave over my head and start the vehicle.
I holler, “Hey! I thought you weren’t supposed to wear white after Labor Day,” to CJ as I drive past, kicking up dust onto his pressed chinos.
I laugh my ass off at his bitching and moaning before getting back to work.
“Who’s ready for boy’s night?” James claps his hands and rubs them together eagerly. Olivia kidnapped Delilah, Iz, and Harper for a sleepover at her parent’s mini mansion.
Being the ultimate hostess she is, Mrs. Andersen made homemade pizza and hot wings for the Broncos game tonight and brought them over to Reid’s cabin, before she and Mr. Andersen retired for the evening to the main house.
“Will someone put some food in his mouth and shut him the fuck up?” Greyson grumbles.
“Dude. What crawled further up your ass than usual?” James chuckles.
Reid claps Greyson on the back, moving past to load up his plate. “Aww, Greycie, are you still salty you caught James checking out Liv’s ass the other day?”
Greyson wheels around, sucker punching Reid in the gut, who nearly drops his plate.
At the same time, they bark—
Greyson with “Shut the fuck up.”
And Reid with “Party foul! You don’t mess with hot wings.”
James is cackling, dropping behind the kitchen island to avoid the wing Greyson hurls at his head.
I’m happy to sit back and observe these clowns and enjoy my beer. I don’t have one often, but it’s the perfect way to end the day I’ve had.
First thing this morning, I walked in on Delilah changing, her ass jiggling as she shimmied on her Wranglers. Mucking stalls with a hard on isn’t exactly comfortable.
Then, fucking CJ was poking around, running his mouth. I love the guy but he’s worse than a helicopter parent sometimes.
To top off my discomfort, I pinched the shit out of my hand in the fence I was repairing. Hurts almost as much as when I smashed it with a hammer the day Delilah sexted me for the first time.
Both accidents are evidence I don’t work well distracted—and I’m too close to my goals to get distracted.
When Delilah left with the girls this evening, she lingered longer than usual hugging me goodbye and I swear to god she pressed her hips into me, like my aching dick was a magnet for her cunt.
A beer can clunks down on the coffee table in front of me.
“Looked like you could use another,” Reid says, sitting beside me on the couch. The football game’s playing on the flat screen, but we’re all so used to watching sports we don’t need the volume very loud.
“Thanks man,” I say, downing the rest of my beer and cracking open the new one. “This’ll be my last one, still have to drive home tonight. Ain’t close enough with y’all to have a slumber party yet.”
“Good choice. Those two are fucking ridiculous, bickering over Olivia,” Reid says, shoving a chicken wing into his mouth whole and sucking the bone clean.
I’m tempted to fish for gossip to share with Delilah, but that’s not my style, and it’s important to me to earn these men’s respect.
We eat in comfortable silence, periodically shouting at the ref or after a good play.
Reid tosses his paper plate onto the coffee table and settles back into the couch cushions.
“You’ve been doin’ good work. Probably don’t say it enough, but things have been running smoothly since you came on and my stress levels are lower. Isabelle sure thanks you for me not being such a cranky asshole at the end of the day anymore.”
Recognition from Reid is unreal, his approval fulfilling a need I didn’t know I had. Dad’s been disappearing for so long, Mom’s been so preoccupied with his care, and Quincy’s been grieving—so I haven’t gotten much attention, let alone praise, these past few years.
Delilah’s always proud of me, and her opinion means more to me than anything, but approval from Reid is a close second. I’ve come to admire him and wouldn’t mind if I was more like him.
I catch an elbow to the back of the head, jerking me from my conversation with Reid. James tumbles to the floor behind the couch. He bumped me trying to dodge Greyson’s wrath.
“Will you both knock it the hell off? Christ. Hayes is a decade younger than both of you and he’s more mature than you on his worst day,” Reid chastises.
“Don’t lump me in with that asshole,” Greyson grumbles, righting himself and acting like he wasn’t trying to bitch slap his best friend five seconds ago.
Having zero survival instincts whatsoever, James pokes the bear. “Olivia doesn’t seem to mind my maturity level.”
He yelps and dives over the back of the couch, landing on Reid’s and my lap, fleeing from Greyson’s swinging fist.
We shove him off us onto the ground and turn up the volume on the game.
Despite dodging two thirty-five-year-old men fighting like children, I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.
Here with this family I’ve found.