Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The old square body rocked to a halt with a squeak of brakes that needed to be replaced sometime before the turn of last century. Aiden didn’t stop what he was doing, knowing full well the windows didn’t work, and Frank would have to put the truck in park and get out if he wanted to holler at him.
All in, it was a nice truck. Rode hard and put away wet, the truck was like a storybook of life on the farm. Some green hand a few seasons back managed to snap off both rearview mirrors going through gates. Another broke the tailgate and if you weren’t careful, it would drop right onto your foot.
At some point it was probably some other color besides rust, but now it was just corroded metal and duct tape.
The driver’s side door shrieked open. “Goddammit boy,” Frank huffed as he drew himself out from the seat. “Get your ass in the truck!”
Aiden looked up at him from under the brim of his hat. Frank’s mustache was bristling. Could mean one of two things—he was either in a good mood because Carol made bacon and ham for breakfast, or he was irate. There was really no telling until you spoke to him.
Unease gnawed at Aiden’s belly as he put his tools away. He’d been working on the tractor again. Isaac tended to drive it like he was being paid by the lap and was always busting the belt on the PTO.
It had been a couple of days since that night with Ethan and, much to his surprise, it didn’t seem like Ethan had told anyone about it. He’d been certain when he saw Frank next that his ass would be grass, but here he was. Still working under the shade of that prodigious mustache.
Frank was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. If Ethan had told him, Aiden would be fertilizer by now. He grinned at the thought. Jokes would be on them, he thought as he carefully dropped the tailgate so Sugar could hop into the bed. The bitterness in his bones would kill anything trying to grow.
He climbed into the cab, glancing back to make sure Sugar was situated before Frank eased the truck onto the gravel drive toward the cow pastures. He didn’t say anything, leaning against the door while he drove with his wrist, fingers tapping on the dash to the crackle of the radio. If he concentrated, he could hear the faint twang of whatever station had been playing when someone broke the knob off the radio. They couldn’t even turn the damn thing off.
Scratching under his hat, Aiden tried to relax into the bench seat, but he couldn’t help but keep an eye on Frank. His lips were pursed, mustache jumping with every bump in the road. Aiden wasn’t sure what color his eyes were—the man was always squinting. His skin toughened from a life outside, even his hair was beginning to resemble straw. Frank was part of the old guard, a man who minded is business and rarely found himself pondering the nature of anything that wasn’t right in front of him.
He was rarely chatty, it seemed today would be no different, so Aiden contented himself with slumping down in the seat and watching the scenery.
He was still tired, and his rib hurt like a bitch. He wasn’t sure if it was broken or not, but even Carol had clocked the way he was guarding it and said something. Every time the damn thing twinged he was reminded of that night. Of the way Ethan’s voice filled the space between them until he didn’t feel so alone, or how he pulled on the cigarette with a mixture of loathing and ecstasy, his mouth turning into a frown but his eyes fluttering closed.
The pain in his rib wasn’t his only souvenir from that night. Somewhere between vomiting all over his shoes and watching the sun rise from the bed of Ethan’s truck, that buzzing under his skin dissipated. That feeling of busting at the seams, too big for his skin with clumsy limbs and chattering teeth, had eased into a lingering sourness on the back of his tongue. He could breathe again. Not deep lungfuls of steadying air, he hadn’t breathed like that since before he knew that the mailbox was a bad, bad place, but breathing, nonetheless. Little, aborted breaths. Just enough to keep him alive.
Leaves skittered across the ground as the truck trundled on. Little more than two dire tracks eroded into the earth from time, the road took them up the hill from the main farmstead. If Aiden looked back down the embankment, through a mess of dead trees and tangled shrubbery he could see the Taylor’s house, the barn, and distantly the bunkhouse.
While the horses were kept closer to the house and barn, the cow’s winter paddocks were a little bit of a drive. Attached to the cow shed, stocks, and chutes, it was a third of the size of the range they spent the more pleasant months on, but it had access to shelter for the winter.
As he watched the farm pass by, he caught sight of his reflection. As a rule, Aiden didn’t spend much time looking at himself in the mirror. The only one who might have an opinion on the way he looked was Eagle, but he often had hay in his forelock so who was he to judge? It was sometimes strange to think that a face that in some ways was so unfamiliar to him was the one everyone saw. They saw the bags under his eyes, and the thick freckles across boyish cheeks. Sullen green eyes that he often thought were the same color as the scum off a water trough. Billy once said they looked like peridot rather than emeralds. Aiden had punched him for making shit up.
Frank shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Ah, Carol mentioned some unpleasantness the other day.” He looked deeply uncomfortable, and Aiden could only guess that him mentioning it at all was at Carol’s behest.
“Now, I don’t know Everett and Billy—except for what I’ve seen on TV, of course—but Ethan’s got a good head on his shoulders. Smart, ya know?”
Frank was under the belief that a college degree automatically gave you some kind of key to a higher level of society. And Ethan, the nosy ass, had two.
“He just graduated and already half the farms in the area are using him,” Frank continued. The way he was going on, it sounded like Ethan was the second coming.
Aiden felt that familiar knot in his chest tightening. Ethan was another star, a success story. Someone with a future.
“—if it’s something to do with the whole…uh…gay thing, then you’re just going to have to keep your opinions to yourself.”
He doesn’t correct him. Aiden wasn’t even sure he was wrong. Was it the whole gay thing? He supposed it would be the readily obvious reason not to like the sweethearts. But he doesn’t. Aiden doesn’t hate them for being gay, he hates himself for not accepting himself for that same reason. For feeling love of any kind, really. For never being able to kill the small bud of hope that keeps trying to bloom in the hostile soil of his heart.
Aiden cleared his throat. “No problems here, sir.”
Frank nodded quickly, grateful the conversation was over, and they could go back to their stony silence.
As they trundled over the final bump in the road, Aiden looked past the brim of his hat to see a truck parked outside the cow shed. A very familiar truck.
If he looked close enough, he could probably see the ash stains from where his cigarette burned out a few nights ago. Frank’s timing was always auspicious.
Frank threw the truck in park, oblivious to Aiden’s discomfort. Swallowing thickly, Aiden followed him out. Ethan hadn’t told Frank anything, and seemed unlikely he would tell him now. They could just pretend nothing happened and get on with their lives.
Sugar hopped out of the truck once Aiden dropped the tailgate. He took his time making sure it latched, fiddling with it longer than necessary. With a final tug, he turned to see Ethan chatting with Frank. His hair was messy, pushed back like he’d run his fingers through it to keep it off his face. He was wearing a pair of dark green coveralls, the top half pulled down and tied around his waist. The dark long sleeve underneath looked warm, too warm if the way he’d rolled his sleeves up to the elbow were any indication.
Ethan’s forearms were tanned, big hands with slender fingers wrapped around his biceps as he leaned in to listen to Frank. Just under the cuff of his right sleeve Aiden could see lines from a tattoo.
Sugar darted out from the truck, making a beeline for the vet. Ethan spotted her and his face lit up with a grin, white teeth flashing against the dark scruff peppering his angular jaw. Kneeling down, he welcomed her with open arms, scratching her favorite spot behind her ears.
“Hey good girl,” he called softly, voice low like he was speaking just to her. She nosed his pockets and he laughed, reaching in to grab a treat. She whined happily, tail swinging.
“Can you sit? That’s a girl.” He charitably gave her a treat when Sugar’s wiggling butt touched the ground for a nanosecond. She took the offering with a crunch.
It was only when Ethan’s attention drifted from dog to her owner that Aiden realized he was just standing beside the truck staring at Ethan. Coughing, he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and forced himself to move forward.
Ethan stood, dusting off his knee. With a grin that couldn’t possibly mean anything good, he nodded towards Aiden.
“I see you found your hat.”
So much for pretending it never happened.
Grunting, he moved past them and opened the cow shed. It was an open building with a trough running alongside one wall. The back walls had panels hung up, able to be taken down to create individual stalls if they needed. Right now, it was open to the pasture, giving the cattle a place to come in out of the weather.
The majority of the herd was gathered in the shed, finishing up breakfast and lazing about.
Frank gestured to the cow shed and told Aiden to help Dr. Landry check the pregnant cows. He didn’t wait for confirmation, just left them standing there. Aiden didn’t need to look to know that Ethan was watching him. He resisted the urge to adjust his hat—he really didn’t want to draw more attention to it.
Aiden had been working at Rolling J long enough that it was easy to slip into the comfort of monotony. They were lucky the herd this year was small. Frank had sold a fair few last year to put more money into Carol’s Bed and Breakfast endeavors, so it didn’t take long to work through the herd.
Much to Aiden’s chagrin, Ethan was competent. He was efficient without losing his compassion, taking a few extra moments to settle the more nervous animals. Confident, too. Even though he was young, he moved with the surety of a veteran. Aiden found his eyes lingering more than once. The way he grinned while soothing a nervous cow, or how his t-shirt bunched around the slope of his shoulders. More than once, he was caught staring by brown eyes sparkling with mirth. Like he knew exactly what Aiden was thinking.
He probably did, the nosy ass.
In the privacy of his own mind, Aiden could admit that Ethan was good looking. Not in the same flashy way Everett was. Everett was like the sun, big and bright with an orbit so strong you couldn’t help but get sucked in. No, Ethan was closer to a mountain. Solid, steady. Always on the peripheral, easy to get used to. But when you looked closely? You could spend hours watching the way the sun splashed across the eastern peak or get lost in the mesmerizing twist of shadows dancing across the craggy face.
Not that Aiden cared.
Aiden released the last heifer from the stocks as Ethan pulled the arm glove off twisting the end and tossing it into the back of his truck to throw away later. Closing the gate, he made the mistake of looking up and meeting Ethan’s eye.
“You impressed?” he brazenly asked.
Aiden sucked his teeth. “Not bad. For a city boy.”
Ethan laughed. “Worse,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “Suburbs.”
There was a kind of ease in the Ethan spoke to Aiden. Like they hadn’t shared this humongous event a few nights prior. It wasn’t just about the almost dying part—although Aiden would be lying if he said that coming back from the other side with Ethan’s fingers down his throat hadn’t affected him—it was the simple fact that Ethen knows. With one foot in his past and the other in his present, he straddled a line Aiden had hoped would never be seen by the light of day.
They say there’s three sides to every story—theirs, his, and the truth. Ethan knows two of them. That makes Ethan the most dangerous man Aiden had ever met.
“You know,” Ethan continued, ignoring Aiden’s cold shoulder. “I’m impressed you still use horses to work the cattle. Most rancher say they’re cattlemen, not cowboys.”
Aiden shrugged as he secured the gate. “Depends, I guess.” He let his eyes drift towards the fields. “Down south where it’s nice and flat, it’s easier to use four wheelers or something. But terrain is too varied around here. Too many places tires can’t go.”
Ethen followed Aiden’s gaze, joining him by the fence. Resting his elbows on the top rail, he leaned in like they were old friends settling in for a chat. “Texas is pretty flat. So how come you’re so good on a horse?”
Aiden swallowed thickly. “Who told you I was good on a horse?”
“Nobody,” Ethan answered easily, but he faltered under Aiden’s scrutiny. “Billy might have mentioned something.”
Aiden didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing. Hearing Billy’s name so close was almost like a bomb going off, and he wasn’t sure if he was quick enough to dodge the shrapnel.
“Yeah, well,” he grunted, unsure what he wanted to say. “My mom loved them.” Aiden distinctly remembered spending time in the barn with his mom, mucking stalls and cleaning tack until it was too dark to see. The radio would be playing, his mom singing under her breath as she ran her hands over every inch of her beloved animals.
She was never the same after selling them.
“Did she teach you?”
Aiden nodded. “Yeah. She used to say that no son of hers was going to slouch in the saddle.”
Ethan laughed and it was nice. He was so used to wallowing in his memories alone, sick with the bitterness of loss. It was easy to forget that it wasn’t always bad.
“Maybe you could give me a few pointers some time?”
Aiden found his lips curving up in a smile as he huffed. “Nah.” He pushed off the fence, whistling for Sugar.
“Why not?”
Aiden started walking towards the barn. He glanced back over his shoulder. “’Cause I like horses better than you.”
Leaning against the side of the barn, Aiden worried at a splinter in his palm. Beside him, Sugar was basking in the afternoon sun. Her dark coat was warm where it pressed against his thigh. It was almost too warm, but he knew long days of cold and dark were coming, so he tried to soak in what he could.
The splinter wasn’t deep, which made his inability to get it out all the more irritating. He scraped a blunt nail across the little sliver of wood lodged just beneath the crease of his palm. It hurt, but not enough to make him stop.
He was so focused on the splinter he didn’t notice the voices until they were nearly on top of him. Across the yard, Frank and Ethan were walking back from the big house. Aiden watched them from between his splayed fingers.
Of course Ethan was here. He was always here. Aiden was beginning to wonder if the bastard even worked. Surely they were not the only farm in need of his services.
Although this visit looked to be more social. Ethan wasn’t dressed like he usually did when he was working. He was wearing a pair of dark wash jeans and a grey Henley. His hair wasn’t mushed down from a hat or headlamp, and it even looked like he shaved.
“The Mulligans were too prideful,” Frank said, crossing his arms as he stared off into the distance. “Refused to diversify.”
“They shouldn’t have had to,” Ethan argued. His voice was raised, lips pressed into a thin line. If Aiden didn’t know better, he’d think that he was angry. “They were doing fine, but losing that land was the final nail in the coffin.
That made Aiden perk up. He didn’t know the Mulligans personally, but he knew of them. They had a smaller farm just south of the Rolling J. Unlike the Taylors, who owned their grazing land, the Mulligans relied on grants from the government to allow their cattle to graze on public land during the summer months. If they lost that grant, they wouldn’t have anywhere to graze the cattle.
“Mike never recovered after that outbreak a few years ago,” Frank agreed. “They’ll have to sell.”
Ethan’s eyebrows drew together. “The developers are probably already circling, the vultures. Buy their farm for pennies so they can put up a fucking storage building.”
Aiden didn’t think he’d ever heard Ethan cuss. Not that he could blame him. He knew all too well just how quickly family farms were buckling. Mass produced meat from feed lots were undercutting their prices. Aiden was no academic, but even he knew the feedlots were not only unhealthy for the cattle, but they created heavy amounts of methane. Besides that, the lots used so much water, they dropped the water tables.
But they didn’t require the same amount of land. Land that could be sold to developers to build bullshit no one really needed. Land like the Mulligans.
Like his family’s farm.
He forced himself to focus on the splinter, ignoring the uncomfortable bubble of anxiety about to burst in his stomach. Frank and Ethan’s voices faded as he worked on the little swollen tag of skin. It was turning pink and angry.
So focused, he almost didn’t hear the kick drag of Ethan’s work boots. He refused to look up, even when the dusty shoes stopped just beside his knee and Sugar woke up, whole body wriggling in excitement as Ethan greeted her with her customary scratches.
“I know you were listening.”
Aiden scowled, head down so he could use the brim of his hat to block Ethan out. “I was here first.”
“The county is trying to sell the land the Mulligan’s use to graze their cattle to a developer. They want to put up a resort.”
Aiden didn’t answer. He’d surmised that much before he tuned out. It didn’t surprise him. These developers have the means to outbid any individual. They’d build some ugly cookie cutter looking resort with cheap materials. The county would sell it to the locals as a economic boom—they’d need contractors, wouldn’t they? Not to mention any hokey tourist trap they put up will bring in thousands of people eager to pay for the chance to experience Big Sky Country.
He continued to pick at his splinter.
As usual, Ethan was not deterred. “There’s a town hall meeting. If we get enough people on our side, we can put a stop to it.”
That made Aiden pause. “You’re joking, right?”
Ethan crouched down so he could meet Aiden’s eyes under the brim of his hat. “I’d like to think I’m funny enough that if I’d told a joke, you’d be laughing.”
“What, you think a couple of signatures and some frowny faces will make the government stop? Artfully placed pictures of frolicking calves to tug on their heart strings?” he pushed himself to his feet. “It’s been done before. They don’t care.”
“Then we make them care,” Ethan said easily, like he was talking about convincing someone to get their eggs easy up instead of scrambled. “If enough people speak up?—”
Aiden did laugh then, an ugly hoarse thing that had nothing to do with humor. “I don’t know what’s sadder—you thinking you could get people to care or you thinking anyone in power gives a damn about anything other than the paper lining their pockets.”
He tried to push past Ethan, but he stood firm, blocking his way. “It’s not just pictures of cute baby animals. We can build up a team. Ranchers, professors of Ag Science, hell, even some of those animal welfare people. We can hit them so hard they can’t ignore us.”
Aiden couldn’t meet Ethan’s eyes. They were so earnest, so close. He’d sat beside him before, but he wasn’t looking at him. Now those eyes were turned on him, big and soft, so imploring it was easy to lean in. Get lost in them.
He picked at his splinter instead.
“What we don’t have is the people. People like me who grew up in the suburbs not knowing anything about their food except that it comes plastic wrapped on the shelf. And yeah, maybe they are more interested in saving money over how ethically their food is grown, but we can make them care.”
Ethan ducked his head so he could catch Aiden’s eye. Stared until Aiden had no choice but to meet them. Caught like a deer in the headlights, panicked and unable to move as certain doom came hurtling closer.
“You can make them care.” Ethan’s voice was low, like he saw Aiden as the scared deer and was trying to coax him into trusting him.
Swallowing, Aiden dug his fingernails into his palm. “How?”
“By humanizing it,” Ethan said. “For you, it was so much more than just land. It was your home. It was your family’s legacy. If you talk about that, tell them what it meant to you, they’ll listen.”
His skin felt too tight. Ready to pop at any moment. “Bullshit.”
“It’s not. Aiden, I get that it was painful, but?—”
“You get it?” he snapped. “If you got it, you wouldn’t be asking me to talk about it.” He shoved past Ethan, shoulder checking him.
He grabbed his hand, fingers pressing into the splinter. Aiden hissed, jerking his hand away.
“Think about the Mulligans! If there was someone who could have helped your farm wouldn’t you have wanted them to?”
Aiden could feel the knot in his chest becoming unbearably tight. It was getting difficult to breathe, and he’d be damned if that prickling behind his eyes turned into tears.
“I don’t give a damn about the Mulligans.”
“Then do it for you.” Ethan reached for his hand, fingers deftly sliding around his wrist so he could bring it closer. With the same gentleness he treated the cows with, he unclenched Aiden’s hand and looked down at the splinter. “Fight for this farm.”
Ethan bent down to examine the splinter; his breath hot as it brushed against Aiden’s skin. It tickled. Ethan’s long lashes quivered as he turned his hand to get a better look. Then he was bending forward, lips parting as he kissed his palm. Aiden gasped, his entire body jerking as Ethan’s pressed his lips down, tongue sliding hot along his skin for an electrifying moment before his teeth bit down.
So gently, he almost didn’t feel the little nip. More like a drag of teeth across skin, then a slight pressure, before Ethan was retreating. He spat out the splinter as he rubbed a thumb over the shiny spot on Aiden’s hand.
His lips were shiny, too. Just like his hand. Seeing that had Aiden shivering. It was tangible proof of what had just happened. He swallowed thickly, jerking his eyes from Ethan’s lips.
“Fight for this farm because you couldn’t fight for yours.” With a final stroke of his thumb over the worried skin, he released Aiden’s hand. “Fight for the kids who were just like you.”
Aiden clutched his hand as Ethan pulled his wallet from his back pocket. He slipped a simple business card from one of the card slots. On reflex, Aiden took it when it was offered. Ethan smiled once before leaving, heading towards his car.
The card read, ‘Dr. Landry’ and it had a couple of phone numbers on it. That was it. Glancing between it and his hand, he tried to wrap his head around what just happened. He should just throw out the card. He wasn’t going to call him—he didn’t even have a phone—and he sure as shit wasn’t going to talk at some meeting. It was pointless.
His attention drifted to the wet spot on his palm. The splinter was gone.
Aiden swore as he slid the card into his back pocket.