Chapter 6
MATTY
The sun hadn’t even climbed halfway up the sky, and already I was sweating. Not from work. Not yet. Just from standing near the barn, watching Hudson Granger walk like he owned the place.
Like he belonged here.
It pissed me off how natural he looked. Clean jeans, scuffed boots that hadn’t seen mud yet today, a plain dark blue tee that stretched across the solid wall of his chest, and a smile he wore for Ozzie like he was the solution to the world’s food crisis.
Ivy clung to him, sleepy but smiling, one arm looped around his neck, like she’d been born knowing he’d never drop her.
Apparently, Ozzie had offered to watch Ivy while he was working.
Hudson looked way too easy on my ranch. Like we hadn’t flirted, touched, and fucked on this land. Like the memories meant nothing to him. Like none of it had ever happened.
He took the steps two at a time, broad shoulders relaxed, as he approached Ozzie. Ozzie waved, and Hudson’s grin widened. God, that grin. The kind that took over his whole face and made you believe for half a second that you were his entire world.
I’d made him laugh like that once. Pulled that deep belly laugh out of him with some stupid joke or a lick behind his ear.
Now it was Ozzie getting the sound. And I hated that I noticed.
Hated that even though I knew Ozzie was fucking my dad, it didn’t set my mind at ease seeing him interact with Hudson.
Because if he could cheat on my brother with our father, would he hesitate sleeping with Hudson as well?
Unlike me, Hudson was a versatile bisexual. But he’d once admitted I was the only man he’d ever felt safe enough to bottom for, and after that, he hadn’t missed being the one on top. I couldn’t imagine him any other way. He was mine. Built to ride me, to take me deep and come apart doing it.
The first time he let me in—his first time bottoming with any man—he’d trembled beneath me, and I’d barely lasted thirty seconds before spilling inside him.
The second time, though… the second time he’d rocked back on his heels, took every inch, and showed me how wrong I’d been to think any one of us was completely in charge.
Ozzie met him at the top of the steps, already reaching for the child. “There’s my favorite breakfast date,” he said brightly, and Ivy giggled as she leaned into him.
Hudson’s smile stretched wide, unguarded. “She woke up asking about you.”
His genuinely happy laugh punched the air from my lungs.
Not because it was loud and honest and full of something I used to get from him, but because it was for Ozzie.
He didn’t laugh like that with me anymore.
Hell, he didn’t look at me anymore. Not really.
He looked through me and past me, but never at me.
Their conversation turned hushed, and I frowned.
What did they have to talk about? They had nothing in common.
For people who’d just met, they talked for too long.
Too casually. Like they’d done this a dozen mornings already.
Ozzie brushed curls back from Ivy’s face while Hudson adjusted her tiny backpack, and all of it so damn domestic it made my chest ache.
I stepped forward, gravel crunching under my boots louder than it needed to. “We gonna stand around all day or get to work?”
Heads turned toward me. Ozzie blinked, and Hudson’s smile disappeared like someone had flipped a switch.
Hudson shifted his attention to Ozzie once more as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll be back to check on her around lunch,” he said, then looked over my shoulder. “Where’s Gray?”
“Cockburn,” I muttered. “Something about an emergency with a lawyer.”
More like rushing to get divorce papers lined up so he could get hitched to what I wasn’t convinced wouldn’t end up being Dad’s biggest mistake.
Hudson followed me. “Wasn’t he supposed to help with the fence today?”
“I’ll supervise,” I said flatly. “You’ve been working the ranch for four years. You’re not made of glass. Sure you can handle it.”
“Never said I was.”
“Mistah ’ustomer!” A high-pitched voice cut through the air behind us.
I stopped cold.
The knot in my stomach tightened.
Ivy stood in Ozzie’s arms, waving with all the confidence in the world. Beaming like she hadn’t just split me down the center without even trying. She remembered me from the bakery. I didn’t know how to react. Not when I felt sick to my stomach at how seeing this child affected me.
I didn’t turn. Didn’t wave. Didn’t smile.
Just kept walking.
Because if I looked at her too long, I’d start seeing the pieces of Hudson I used to love in her—his eyes, his grin.
And that would undo me.
Behind me, her voice faded into the morning air.
“Daddy? Why Mistah ’mer mad at Ivy?”
It gutted me.
I felt like someone had reached inside and yanked the guilt out by the roots.
She didn’t deserve that.
She didn’t know any better.
She didn’t know how to name complicated feelings.
She didn’t understand that I wasn’t mad at her.
I was furious at her daddy. Furious that he’d ruined something that could’ve been real.
Something that might’ve lasted. And yeah, it had been four damn years, but I was still angry.
Still bitter. Still not over it. Because I loved him so fucking much.
I clenched my fists, slowed in the dirt.
I should’ve turned back. Should’ve smiled. Said something kind. Something to take the sting out of her question.
But I didn’t.
Because I couldn’t look at her and not see the life Hudson built without me. The one I was never invited to. He hadn’t even given me a chance. Just found me unworthy right away.
So I put my head down and kept walking. Toward the broken fence.
Toward the work.
Because fixing wood was easier than fixing the mess inside me.
Hudson caught up in silence. Fell into step beside me without saying a word, and I hated that it felt awkward when it used to feel normal. Familiar. Like we used to be.
We rode together in the pickup down to the south fence line, me gripping the wheel tighter than necessary, him staring out the window with his arms folded like he didn’t trust what might come out of his mouth if he opened it.
I didn’t trust myself either.
Our last heavy rainfall brought a few trees down, leaving half the posts leaning and the barbed wire slack. Not enough to be an emergency, but enough to let a few curious cows go sightseeing if we didn’t fix it.
I eased the truck to a stop beside the leaning post. We sat there a second too long, neither of us moving.
Then, without a word, we both climbed out.
I slammed the door harder than necessary.
Hudson shut it quieter, like always, because I had to come across as the asshole—the aggressor—while he played the victim.
Like he wasn’t the one who’d stabbed me clean through the fucking heart.
Why the fuck can’t I let it go?
I circled to the back of the truck, dropped the tailgate, and grabbed the bucket of tools. Hammers, nails, fresh lengths of wire. All the things we needed. None of the things I wanted.
The heat was already rising, the kind that stuck to your skin and made everything feel like too much. The kind that made a man crack if he wasn’t careful.
We worked in silence. The fence was in rough shape—warped posts, rusted nails, spots where cattle had leaned too hard. I took the north stretch. Hudson moved south.
We didn’t talk.
What was there to say? The tension filled all the cracks, thick as smoke.
“Matt,” Hudson called after a long stretch of quiet.
The name hit like a punch.
To everyone else, I was Matty.
But Matt? That was him. That was late nights and shared cigarettes. That was the sound of his voice when he used to kiss my throat like he meant it. That was mine. That was ours. That was before he wrecked it all.
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
The words exploded out of me on instinct. Sharp. Harsh.
Unforgiving.
Because I could never forgive him.
He stilled, one hand braced on a post, the other clenched around the hammer. His eyes burned into the side of my face, like he was seeing through everything I was trying to hold together.
“Jesus, Matty.” He exhaled hard. “Can we stop this?”
My jaw clenched. I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
“Stop what?” I yanked a length of wire like it had personally betrayed me.
“This.” He took a step toward me. “Whatever the hell this is between us now. The cheap shots. The silence. The aggressiveness. You’re being a dick. This is not like you. This is not who you are.”
I turned slowly, narrowing my eyes. “You think you know me? Four years is a long time.”
“Not long enough when it comes to us.” He stepped even closer. “I know you better than anyone.”
I dropped the damn wire. Let it fall to the dirt like it didn’t matter, because it didn’t. Not compared to the fury knotting itself inside my chest.
“You think you have any right to say that after what you did?” I growled, closing the distance between us in two strides.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t back down. “The Matty I know is the man who interacted with my daughter at the bakery. That was real. That was you. Not the cold asshole who ignored her this morning. If you must be mad at someone, be mad at me, but my little girl doesn’t deserve your anger. That’s just fucking low of you.”
My vision blurred with rage.
I grabbed the front of his tee and shoved him back a step. “Don’t you dare talk about my character like you have a right to judge. You’re the one who fucked someone else behind my back as soon as I wasn’t around. You’re the one who chose a whole fucking family over me!”
Hudson’s breath came faster, and his chest expanded. “I had to do the right thing. Heather was pregnant. What was I supposed to do? Act like the baby didn’t exist?”