Chapter 7
7
Brax
“B
raxton! How are you, honey?”
It was a familiar voice, one I didn’t get to hear as often as I would’ve liked, that had the simultaneous effect of my lips tilting up in a grin and my balls ascending for cover. I turned and found Essie’s mom with a pie balanced on each strong, slender forearm. Essie was next to her carrying the same.
As friendly as Cat Price had been to me over the years—even after her daughter wanted nothing to do with me—there was still a part of me that was terrified of the woman. Cat might look like Essie’s older sister, but she was a mama bear through and through. Fiercely protective of her daughter against threats both real and imagined—including myself. Once upon a time, Cat had sat me down at the kitchen table, a pile of unshelled walnuts and a hammer laid out in front of her, and gave me her version of the sex talk.
You’re a good kid, Braxton, but teenage emotions are powerful stuff. I know you’re just friends now, but it’s easy to be overwhelmed by hormones and think with what’s in your pants instead of what’s in your skull. You understand what I’m saying? she’d asked while looking me dead in the eyeballs.
A cold bead of sweat had rolled down my spine. It was like she had seen into my brain and discovered the image of her daughter in a bikini branded there. Yes, ma’am .
Good. Because when boys think with what’s in their pants, it’s the girls who suffer for it. Girls are the ones who bear the consequences. But I’ll tell you this. My girl won’t bear them alone.
And then she’d brought the hammer down onto a walnut, cracking it clean in half.
My balls shrank at the memory.
At fifteen, I had thought that whatever threat I posed Essie was one hundred percent a figment of her mother’s overactive imagination. We were friends, that was all. Until the day she almost died. Then I realized how much of a threat I truly was.
“Ms. Price, I’m glad you could make it,” I said as I relieved her of the pies. “I’m doing well. How about yourself? These peach?” I asked with an appreciative sniff .
“You know to call me Cat,” she scolded. She took one of the pies Essie carried, easing her daughter’s burden. “Ms. Price makes me sound like an unmarried librarian with a million cats.”
She happened to say this right as a vaguely familiar looking woman approached bearing a large bowl of potato salad. The woman wrinkled her nose like she was trying to shift her glasses with the movement and shot Essie an amused look.
“Mom!” Essie groaned.
Cat blinked her big blue eyes. “What?”
“I’m Hannah Bell,” the woman said. “Unmarried librarian who happens to share her home with a delightful glaring of five cats.” Her lips tilted wryly. “That’s well under a million, so I’m not offended in the least.”
I turned just in time to catch Essie shape the word silently with her lips, like she was learning the feel of it. Glaring . Her eyes lit up. And I knew exactly what was happening in that brain of hers. She knew the word, but not in this context. It was unexpected. She was considering how well one context translated to another, the spirit of the verb and the spirit of cats. Watching her find a new word was like watching the sunrise crest a mountain. She fucking glowed from it.
“Where should I put this?” Hannah asked, raising the bowl higher.
It was Lodestar Ranch’s second annual summer barbecue. The tradition had kicked off last year as a way to eat all the watermelon Ben had grown in Mom’s old garden, which had gone to weeds a couple years ago when she died of cancer. This year was even bigger, as Ben had expanded his farming skills to cucumbers, tomatoes, and various peppers and beans.
My answer to Hannah’s question got stuck on the sudden lump in my throat.
Shit, Mom would have loved this.
Before it could get awkward, Essie piped up with, “Those tables over there look like the right spot.” She wasn’t looking at me when she spoke, but I knew she’d seen me choke up just the same.
That was the thing about Essie. She wasn’t nice, but she was kind. Even to an asshole like me who probably didn’t deserve her kindness. Mom had loved her, too.
With the pie balanced on one palm, Essie lifted her other hand to wave to James, who was organizing the various bowls and dishes of food on the red-checked tablecloth. James waved back. “This way?—”
“I’ll take that.” My dad hefted the pie from Essie’s palm. He aimed a grin at Cat that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time. “Cat Price, as I live and breathe. It’s been too long, darlin’. Why don’t we leave the young people to themselves and catch up?”
I blinked. Was Dad flirting with Essie’s mom? I hadn’t seen him flirt with anyone, ever, other than Mom, so I couldn’t be sure that was what I was witnessing. It was probably nothing. Essie and I were the same age, but Dad had a good fifteen years on Cat. They headed for the picnic tables, chatting like the old friends they were.
Hannah sighed and stepped after them. “I’ve never been young a day in my life, so why would I start now,” she muttered. “Have fun, young people .”
Essie laughed. “I’ll come with you.”
There was a flash of color as her ponytail swished in my face. Instinctively, I wrapped it in my fist, halting her mid-stride. Hannah kept going, not realizing Essie wasn’t with her.
“What is this?” I asked, examining the rainbow glimmering underneath her natural brown.
“The last thing you’ll ever see if you don’t let the fuck go,” she snapped.
But she stepped closer to loosen the tension on her scalp and that gave me incentive to hold on a little longer. She hadn’t stood this close to me since she’d rubbed her wet body all over me a month ago. In fact, I’d say she’d gone out of her way to avoid me. And when she couldn’t avoid me, she’d made sure to keep a horse or a human between us at all times.
I tugged again and she stepped even closer.
“Pretty,” I remarked like she hadn’t threatened my life.
I ran my thumb over the colors in order. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Essie had always liked to experiment with hair color, both natural and unnatural, trying on blonde and blue the way other people tried on clothes. But for the past year or so, she had stuck to her god-given brunette shade. This rainbow on the underside of her hair was a lot more subtle than what she used to go for. It was like a game of peekaboo, trying to find the colors.
“Stop petting me, jackass.” She swatted my hand away. “It’s not for you.”
I grinned and let her hair tumble free. “You did it for your mama, didn’t you.”
Essie’s hair color was another one of those imaginary threats that kept Cat up at night. Her mom had never expressly forbade Essie from dying her hair, but there had been a lot of head shaking, lip pursing, and dire warnings every time Cat came home to find Essie sporting a brand-new color.
Essie tossed her ponytail and folded her arms under her chest, testing my resolve to keep my eyes up where they belonged. Fucking sundress. That paired with worn-in cowboy boots was my kryptonite. And the woman wearing them? Kryptonite didn’t begin to describe it. I was the tide and she was the moon, pushing and pulling me however she wanted. I wasn’t even mad about it.
“As a grown-ass woman, I don’t consult my mother on my style choices,” she said. “I told her the same thing I always tell her. It doesn’t matter whether other people take me seriously. I take myself seriously. What other people think of me is none of my business.”
“I bet that went down as well today as it did fifteen years ago.” I tweaked her ponytail. “Like it or not, you’ll always be her baby, Essie.”
Her grimace told me exactly what she thought about that and I laughed again.
“I know she only wants what’s best for me.” Essie’s gaze was on her mom and my dad as she spoke, like she was thinking out loud and not to me specifically. “I know she’s scared I’m too much like her. But I’m thirty-two. It’s not even possible for me to be a teen mom at this point.”
“You can ruin your life at any age,” I pointed out. Lord knew I had seen plenty of adults do exactly that.
“That’s the problem, I guess. People are so goddamned afraid of ruining their lives that they created all these asinine rules to prevent that. But it won’t work, because no one ever ruined their life by dying their hair blue or pivoting to a new career path. Life isn’t that serious.”
Now, that was interesting. This was about more than just rainbow hair, then. Had Cat disagreed with Essie’s retirement from barrel racing?
“Stupid rules,” she muttered. “People too scared of living their own lives so they have to come take all the fun out of mine. Why should I have to live my life in a way that makes them feel better about how they live theirs? That can’t possibly be my responsibility.”
“That’s what I like about you, hellion. You don’t follow anyone’s rules.”
She pivoted slowly on her toes to face me, her dark brows drawn together in a deep scowl. “Don’t even think about it, Braxton Hale. I am not your manic pixie dream girl.” She jabbed me hard on the shoulder with her index finger. “Absolutely not.”
“What the hell is a manic pixie dream girl?” I asked.
“You know, the delightfully quirky side character who shows up in a male protagonist’s story for the sole purpose of making him interesting. And I’ll tell you right now, I’m too old for that shit. There’s no such thing as a manic pixie dream woman .” She poked my shoulder again. “And do you know why?”
I barely knew what the fuck we were talking about, much less the why of it all. I shook my head.
“Because they die , Brax. They die young so the boy can become a man with depth and an interesting back story. You’ll just have to find some other way to grow a personality. I’m not dying.”
She laughed like there was anything funny about her fucking dying , when there sure as hell was not. Fifteen years after the day she almost had, and I still hadn’t fully recovered. I doubted I ever would.
I grabbed her wrist before she could assault me again. “Damn right, you’re not. Don’t even fucking joke about that.”
Her laughter caught in her throat and she stared at me with wide eyes. Then she blinked and her expression twisted into something angry. She wrenched her wrist from my grasp. “Don’t pretend you care,” she spat.
She stalked off, her spine rigid with rage, and I was glad because it kept me from telling her the truth. I had never pretended to care. The only thing I had ever pretended with Essie was that I didn’t.
“What are you doing?” James asked.
I looked up from my paper plate, piled high with food. A hamburger with all the fixins’, buttery corn on the cob, and a heap of watermelon salad. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I already know what I think you’re doing.” She threw a short, muscular leg over the picnic table bench, straddling it to face me. “ I think you’ve forgotten how to communicate like an adult, so you’ve reverted to kindergarten antics to get a girl’s attention. What I want to know is what you think you’re doing.”
That was the problem with James. She didn’t miss a damn thing. My brother apparently liked that about her. I did, too. Mostly. Right now, it wasn’t my favorite trait of hers.
“I think I’m eating a burger,” I deadpanned. I took a large bite to prove my point.
“I’m talking about you and Essie,” she clarified, like I didn’t know. “You literally pulled her hair.”
“Well,” I said, after swallowing my food, “in my defense, it was shiny.”
She rolled her big brown eyes at me. “Mature.”
I thought that was the end of it, but I could feel her eyes on me while I steadily ignored her in favor of shoveling delicious food into my mouth. She was thinking things, I fucking knew it. That was how James was. Curious, thoughtful, patient. Again, mostly attributes I considered positive, until this very moment.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and gave her my full attention. “Say it,” I commanded.
She didn’t hesitate. “Essie is my friend, but besides that, we have a professional relationship. She’s an apprentice here at Lodestar Ranch. I’m her mentor. That is a huge responsibility, one I take very seriously.”
James paused like she was waiting for me to respond. I waved a hand at her to get on with it.
“At the same time, I also have a relationship with you that is both personal and professional,” James continued. “On the personal side, you’re Adam’s brother, and also—I hope—my friend. On a professional level, your dad is my boss. And now you’ve hired me to train Pirate.”
“What’s your point, James?” I asked.
She leaned forward. “My point is that none of this matters until it does, and then it matters a whole lot. If Essie has a problem with you, then I have a problem, too, because we’re all tangled up together, personally and professionally. So I’m asking you, are you going to make this a problem for me?”
Her words sank in and I wrinkled my forehead. “You think I’d ever ask you to fire Essie or take Pirate’s training and care away from her? Hell, no. Jesus, James. I’m not that guy.”
She blinked, pulling back in surprise. Then she snorted. “You sweet summer child. No.” She patted my hand. “And it wouldn’t matter even if you did. Essie has so much potential and, as I said, I take my position as her mentor very seriously. What I’m saying is that if you’re harassing my apprentice, you’re not welcome here. Training Pirate is the opportunity of a lifetime, but it’s one I’ll pass on if you can’t behave yourself.”
“You’d fire me as a client?” I demanded incredulously. “You can’t fire me. I’m the owner’s son.”
“Not only would I fire you, I’d leave it to you to tell your dad why.”
I winced, picturing his reaction. He had known Essie since kindergarten. Hell, when her dad bailed on our middle school’s father-daughter dance, my dad was the one who had escorted her, since he didn’t have a daughter of his own. He’d straight up kill me if he thought I was treating Essie with anything less than the respect she deserved.
“Damn, James. You play dirty.” I tipped my beer can at her. “Can’t say that I don’t admire that about you.” Beneath those freckles and big cow eyes of hers was a spine of steel. She was the perfect mentor for Essie in a business that tended to be rough on women.
“Of course you do.” She flashed me a cheeky grin. “But you didn’t answer the question. Do we have a problem?”
“Did Essie say we have a problem?” I countered.
She tilted her head, considering. “No. She said you were an asshole. A prig. She says that a lot, actually. Sanctimonious?—”
“I get it,” I grumbled, holding up a hand to stop her from rambling through what I was sure was a very long list of faults, as told by Essie.
“But she’s never come to me with a specific complaint of harassment,” James finished.
I shrugged. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. There’s a lot of history there. We like to rile each other up.”
“Like brother and sister?” she asked innocently .
I narrowed my eyes at her over the rim of my beer can. “Not quite.”
I expected her to give me shit about that, but she only nodded briskly, her mind clearly on more important matters.
“I’m glad we don’t have a problem, because Pirate is special,” she said, cracking open a can of lemon-flavored sparkling water. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Pirate is showing amazing aptitude for reining. His natural talent is truly incredible.”
I nodded. “He has the genes for it. It’s a miracle the last two years didn’t break his body or his spirit.”
“We should discuss taking his training to the next level and what that would entail,” James said. “The way I see it, we have two paths forward. The first is status quo. We would start showing him now, nothing too big. See how he does on the local circuit. Then we would push hard next year and aim for a national championship.”
“Sounds reasonable. What’s the second path?”
“We go aggressive.” James took a swig of water. “We do a couple shows here and maybe Texas. Use the next three months as a warm-up for the real thing. Then we take Pirate to the futurity championship in November in Oklahoma.”
I blinked. The National Reining Horse Association Futurity Championship was a three-day competition to showcase the best up-and-comers in the industry. It was only open to three-year-old horses, so for Pirate, it was now or never.
“That’s a purse of one hundred grand. Pirate would be competing against three-year-olds that have been training all year for this. He’s barely had two months under saddle. Seems risky to me. If we’re keeping him for stud, we need him to win as many blue ribbons as possible in the next two years. A poor showing at the futurity will make him less valuable as a stud.”
“Sure, but winning the futurity would make his value skyrocket,” James argued. “Essie reminded me that the non-pro division, while still competitive, could give us a better shot at a ribbon.”
I rubbed my jaw. The non-pro division required that riders be owners of the horse, rather than a professional rider or trainer. Professional riders were relegated to the open division.
The problem was that I was Pirate’s owner. Pirate might be ready for competition, but I sure as hell wasn’t. I rode horses for fun or to do a job. I didn’t know how to do anything fancy like spins or sliding stops.
“Gotta be honest, James, I think Pirate deserves better than me weighing him down. If I ride him in the non-pro division, we’d be stuck in level one or two with the baby riders. The purse is much smaller.”
James smirked. “That’s what I said. But Essie reminded me that you have a brother, and under the rules, brothers count as immediate family and can ride as the owner.”
I scrunched my forehead. “Adam? He trains horses. Aren’t trainers considered professionals?”
“She was talking about Zack,” James clarified. “Under the rules, he’s a non-pro. In reining competitions, he’s only ever entered on Lodestar Ranch horses in the non-pro division. At rodeos, he does the bronc riding—which doesn’t count for reining competition.”
“Zack, huh?” I looked around and found him pouring Essie a watermelon margarita. Their heads were closer together than necessary and both were laughing. I couldn’t say it warmed my heart to see my brother and my ex-best friend so chummy together. More like it curdled my gut. “This was Essie’s idea?”
“Sure was. She has so much faith in Pirate and really wants him to have this opportunity. And I agree with her. He can do this. It’s a big risk, but so is the reward. We could retire him from competition after one year instead of two. Imagine breeding him with Belle. How gorgeous and talented would their babies be?” She clasped her hands under her chin, her eyes wide and sparkling.
I laughed. James loved Belle, a feisty palomino who was currently a rising star on the reining circuit. She planned to breed her in the next two years and restart Lodestar Ranch’s breeding program .
“Slow your roll, darlin’. Pirate hasn’t even competed in his first show yet. For all we know, he’ll hate crowds.”
“The only way to find out is to try.” She raised her eyebrows. “So what do you say?”
I looked at Essie again. She wanted this. I knew that much. I turned back to James and clinked my beer to her water. “Let’s do it.”