Chapter 7
Archer
“Bunk house?” Jude made the offer in a clear voice after dinner that second night at Red Hart.
I nodded, my boots already on as the rest of the ranch hands filed along the path leading to where they all slept well away from the big house. Recalling Natalie’s face when she said he refused a place in the homestead and bunked with the rest of the workers, I grinned.
“Happy to. Let me get my kit.” I grabbed my bag from the back of my truck. I hadn’t had a chance to unpack the night before when my only focus had been Eve. But now, a cold shower and a fresh change of clothes sounded just fine.
I ran my fingers over the mar in the paintwork of my truck, baring my teeth. If I ever found evidence of who had done the damage, there would be hell to pay, I swore.
“Archer. Catch." Eve’s voice drilled through my reverie.
I swung around in time to avoid being nailed in the head by a set of keys. Flipping them over in my hand, it took me a second to recognize them. The cabin.
The one I stayed in last time I was here. Huh. Maybe she wasn’t so pissed at me after all.
I raised my head, a simple, “Thanks,” on my lips, but the solitary work died a fast death as a figure dressed all in black embraced Eve on the veranda.
My blood boiled as I identified the man as Joe Brunel, but the height was wrong.
The figure straightened, and there was no mistaking that lean build.
Pierce MacQuaid.
Black Hill Boy.
My teeth clacked as he rested his hands on Eve’s waist, and she responded, talking to him softly. Her hands rose, brushing at his shirt as he laughed softly at something she said.
Get a grip, ranger. That girl has a life you clearly know nothing about.
But damn if I didn’t want it to be my business.
“Pierce’s been around most nights that I’m here. You’re lucky you got one without him ruining your peace.” Jude stood beside me in the darkness.
I dragged the heel of my boot through the dust, considering how furious Eve would be with me if I laid out Black Hill Boy in her front yard for no decent reason apart from the fact that he was still breathing.
“Fucking stalker, aren’t you?” I said conversationally to Jude.
“I do my best.”
I huffed a sound that could have been derision or a snort but that sure as fuck wasn’t a laugh.
“You need help finding the cabin?”
Pierce kicked off his boots, catching Eve’s hand as she held open the door. She looked over her shoulder at him, a question in her face. For a moment, her gaze flickered to mine, then she stepped inside and he followed her.
I slammed the tailgate of my truck closed, the sound echoing across fields.
“No. I remember the way.”
The next handful of days ran the same way.
I rose before the night began to lighten into an indiscriminate purplish haze that cast shadow over everything.
Jude met me in the yard each day without fail before anyone else was up and about.
His face was a mask, or maybe the frigid mornings made him grumpier than usual.
My own state of mind was a different matter.
For the first few hours, we didn’t talk, digging out from a fresh overnight deluge of snow to the steps and a path to the vehicles, moving the herd from barn to field as needed.
The smaller ones, birthed late in the season, became stronger as Christmas approached.
Eve’s lost doe from the day I found her fast became a pet who followed me everywhere I went.
Jude refused to let me fall into my thoughts.
We toured the fields, checking the boundary lines, ensured the animals had access to water and feed.
On the rare occasion I saw some of Joe’s men up near the mountain, but when I asked Jude about them, he just shrugged the question away and went back to work.
Our two groups rarely crossed paths except for at meal times, and even then we remained apart like two new herds orbiting each other, sniffing out the new threat.
Will Kirk worked his extra team hard. I wasn’t sure when the kid grew up while I wasn’t there, but Jude needed to watch out for his job, or maybe that was the point. One of his workers, Odin, put in the hard yards but gave him grief at the same time.
“Watch him,” I murmured to Will as we set the tractor right side up that had slipped into a hole none of us swore had been there a moment before in an attempt to clear the side of Red Hart’s long drive.
“He sounds like he’s a bag of laughs, but he’ll sabotage the authority you develop with these boys overnight if you get too friendly. ”
Will let out a grunt as the tractor bounced a little. “Back the fuck up,” he yelled, waving one hand over his head in a circling motion as he watched the ground beneath our feet, but nothing moved, thankfully.
He wasn’t the only one watching. I gave Jude a sharp nod. The foreman climbed into the tractor, starting the engine.
“This ain’t a rodeo,” the new ranch hand in question called back to a chorus of snickers from Will’s team.
“Cause you last eight seconds for anything,” Will muttered under his breath as he cleared a shrub jammed under the tractor’s rear tire and sent Jude a thumbs up.
“Hell, honey, if you want to go a few rounds, I’ll give it a try.
But usually I prefer blondes with a whole lot more in the bust area, you know?
” He looked up and shot Odin a saucy wink.
The older ranch hand stared at Will for a moment, then burst out laughing.
I hid a grin as I directed Jude out of the mess we’d made of the already slushy drive and prayed no one needed to use it for a day or more, seeing as we were already perilously low on salt. Maybe I shouldn’t have worried about Will. The kid could clearly handle himself.
“Thanks, Archer. There’s always some bully or asshole who thinks the little guy is the one they can pound down on.” Will rolled his shoulders and neck, looking up at the sky that threatened to close in on us overhead.
I considered him for a long minute, doubting that anyone would be pounding down on the barrel chested cowboy before me. “Sounds like you’ve had plenty of firsthand experience."
“I’ve clocked the hours.”
“Then you know how to manage him. Ignore the age difference. He’ll keep testing you. Give him boundaries.”
“Just like a toddler, huh?” Will’s eyes sparkled at me.
“Just a like a toddler.”
My daily wisdom thus imparted, I made my way back to the big house, following Jude’s tire tracks.
The fourth morning I stayed at Red Hart Jude met me at the barn holding the reins to two behemoths.
I had little contact with Eve apart from collecting my coffee at the kitchen bench in the big house after breakfast along with everyone else.
She barely spared me a glance when I thanked her quietly, but each morning she pushed my thermos across the bench and held my gaze with that same unreadable expression.
Like she was waiting for something.
And each day I waited for her to let me in. Because after what happened the last time I kissed her, there was no way in hell that I’d risk breaking her unspoken rules.
And so I stared up at a tall, black horse, and hoped to God that Jude didn’t want me to get on it.
Thankfully, the foreman passed me the reins to a chestnut mare. Mounting easily, he turned his horse before I could question his sanity and disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness.
Grumbling under my breath, I gripped the reins in my gloved hands, pulling myself up. I succeeded, but there was little grace in my actions and I was glad for the cover of a cloudy morning that left us in a haze of ambiguous light.
By the time I caught up with Jude several paddocks later, my ass was numb and the horse and I had developed an instant mutual dislike for each other.
“Damn good thing you’ve been driving a truck. Especially when you were playing at being a cowboy in front of Eve last Christmas.” Jude nodded to me. “That was fucking abysmal, Archer.”
“I never said I was a cowboy,” I groaned, attempting to stretch one leg over the horse, but nothing cooperated. Or coordinated. With a mammoth effort, I hauled my ass myself down. The horse whickered, sidling away from me.
I didn’t blame it.
“Good to know you’re human.” Jude watched me with his arms folded across his chest. “You over it, yet?”
“Over what?” I asked with my back to him. We both perfectly well knew what. Or maybe who.
A hand clapped me over the back of my head.
I winced, biting my tongue. “Damn, man.” That was usually my move reserved for younger Rangers. I turned to stare at him. But a smile cracked my grumpy-ass facade when Jude’s weather lined face didn't so much as shift. “No one’s been brave enough to do that in a decade.”
“A century is more like it. Up here, you’re just a man, Archer. Not a hot-shot Ranger. Just you.”
I grinned. Oddly enough, I liked that step down a little too much. Maybe Montana suited me after all.
Jude nodded to me, his point made, and gestured toward an upturned water trough.
“How the hell did that happen?” I studied the giant contraption that looked like a behemoth had turned it on its head overnight.
Or that someone had wrapped a snatch strap around the entire piece of hardware and hauled it off its struts with a truck. The damage was colossal, the weight of the trough filled with water more than any one man could turn over without assistance. Or half a dozen.
I walked around the area, glad the horses hadn’t trampled the ground too much.
Sure enough, dual tire tracks started a few dozen yards back from the disaster zone.
I’d bet last year’s salary that I could match those tracks to one of the trucks in the big house yard.
No free guesses on which one. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and snapped a few quick photos.
“No idea.” Jude ignored me, intent on the work to be done, not how it happened. “Gotta be fixed, though. You ready?”
I had no idea how we’d make it work, but I was up for the distraction rather than worrying about Eve back at the house on her own for one more day.
“Let’s do it.”
My muscles screamed as I helped the stocky foreman push the trough that must have been a hundred years old, weighed down with what looked like Travis’s personal brand of innovation.
Overall, the work was good, and I was glad to put my excess energy to use somewhere other than moping.
By the time we were done the trough was dented, much the worse for wear and empty, but back in its place.
All evidence of the tracks I’d photographed before had been erased, and I was glad I’d taken notice when we first arrived.
The trough hadn't pushed itself over, and I’d been on this land the last time someone tried to sabotage my girl, hurt her and her kin.
Sure, the work was a nice distraction, but my mind was never far from Eve.
Maybe I’ve waited long enough.