1. CT
1
ct
I pant as the heat pounds the back of my neck, making sweat roll down my spine. It is only May, but the summer sun is already melting the earth one plane at a time and beating down on me while I round up the last of the cattle.
I need to get help.
For the past few years, I’ve done everything on this ranch myself. Keeping to mostly cattle so I don’t have to deal with people and their pitying looks or my brother Graham and his hostility.
Though, that one was mostly my own fault.
When tragedy hit our family, I’d needed more than I was willing to take. Graham, my older brother, had been stuck in Afghanistan, where he was stationed with the Army, and because I couldn’t think rationally, instead of comforting him when he was far away, I pushed him away.
We were mostly okay these days, had come far in the last year, but we still have a way to go.
Ever since my mom passed, things have been so fucking hard. Some days I would wake and the realization that she was gone would hit me. It would suddenly be hard to breathe, hard to get out of bed. It took me weeks before I finally got off my ass and realized I couldn’t just sit around and mourn. She would hate that. She would be disappointed in me.
I missed her so fucking much I ached but disappointing her wouldn’t do justice to her memory and what she built here.
In the last year, things have taken a turn for the better.
Quinn—my brother’s girlfriend—swooped into our lives with her adorable little girl and turned things around for all of us.
Graham met Quinn when she made a call to his handyman business to help with her broken AC, and at least on his end, he was a goner at first sight. It took a bit for them to work things out, to find a way to make dating work when there was a little girl involved, but the three of them were now a package deal.
Then Dad had recruited Quinn to help relaunch the festival my mom had founded here at the ranch, getting her to do the legwork for him when he couldn’t. At first, I was skeptical about it, but it was one of the best decisions we ever made.
The Trevors Ranch festival was back in full swing every fall, and Quinn and my dad, Cal, were already working on this year’s festival. It was such a success that all our vendors were adamant we keep it up.
I couldn’t complain.
After I started giving Alex—Quinn’s daughter—riding lessons, it had sparked something in me that had been missing for so long.
I’ve always loved horses, loved training them, and showing them in horse shows.
When I was fifteen, my mom let me ride her mare Sadie, who was a cow horse. Her specialty was reining and working cow horses, which was a western competition where the horse and rider were tested in their ability to work cattle. We became reserve champions in our first season and the rest was history.
I continued showing for years after that, doing well, and working my way up to be one of the most well-known trainers in the area. I worked all the way up to the top until my mom got so sick she couldn’t leave the hospital.
That’s when my whole life went to shit. I lost everything .
I quit showing, quit pursuing my dreams. I pushed my future away until she didn’t want anything to do with me. My brother returned to his military duties, and then it was just me and Dad and no one else.
I’d been lost for a long time, long enough that I wasn’t sure I would ever feel like myself again. But there was something nagging in my chest, something telling me it was time to live my life again.
“What’s the plan, Cade? You gonna work yourself to death?” I smirk at my dad’s voice and dismount Milk—my trusty ranch horse—then loosen the cinch around his belly so he can breathe easy and lead him into the barn.
Finally, some shade.
I put Milk in my crossties in the alleyway and untied the wild rag around my neck. I turn on the faucet in my barn sink that Graham installed for me last year and run my rag under it before slapping it around my neck again and dunking my head under the spray. My hair falls into my eyes, and I shake it off when I rise.
I turn to see my dad untacking Milk. Grateful for a break, I sit on the bench outside of my tack room and take a breath.
“What were you doing out in this heat?” my dad’s incredulous voice asks from inside the tack room.
“Getting that herd down into pasture seven,” I reply, leaning back against the wall. “There’s more shade there since those aspens leafed out.”
Years and years ago, my parents added some trees specifically to pastures that didn’t have enough shade, and while we were in the mountains that provided a good amount of shade, there were plenty of spots that didn’t have enough of it to satiate the cattle.
Now, the trees have matured enough to help.
“Ah,” Dad replies and goes over to give Milk a scratch on the head.
I need to wait for my horse to cool down a little before spraying him off, not wanting to drastically change his body temperature and running the risk he would get sick, which means I have nothing to do to get me away from the lecture my dad is about to give me.
“What’s up?” I ask my dad, taking in his graying hair and beard, the wrinkles from the laughter he and my mother shared in their many years together.
I look away, the dull ache at the memory of them stinging.
He often wanders out of the house and comes for a chat or to see his horses, but his days of working the ranch are long over, partly because of his age but mostly from grief. The past few years took their toll on my father.
Taking over the work on the ranch was more than fine with me. He did his time, and now this ranch was mine to run.
“I think we should hire some help around here.”
I groan, hating the idea of having help. Though he wasn’t wrong. If I wasn’t chasing cattle around or training my new mare—one that I had as a side project I was hoping to use in competition someday soon—I was mucking out stalls or giving a lesson.
Since the festival last year, my lesson clients went from once a week with Alex to five days a week with multiple local kids and a few adults.
A few wanted to compete and wanted me to train them for that. Admitting I was a full-on horse trainer, or coach, again wasn’t something I was ready to do, but the evidence didn’t lie, and I was a fool for fighting it.
I could get more clients if I was showing my face at actual horse shows, but the time would come when I was ready.
“I know,” I admit begrudgingly.
“At least someone to help with these stalls. You can’t do it all, CT. ”
Nodding, I rise to head into the tack room, moving to the mini fridge to grab a bottle of water.
Draining half, my eyes drift to the wall that holds a few framed photos. Photos my mother put up with all of us. Us with Dad, all four of us together, me and—nope, not going there.
I turn around and head back into the alleyway. I set my bottle down and feel Milk’s chest. Still a little warm.
I look at my dad and admit, “I’ve got Quinn’s friend, Viv, coming up tomorrow to talk about some marketing.”
Dad’s brows lift in surprise. “You do?”
I nod. “I know I need help, but if we’re going to do this again, I wanna do it right. I want to hire the right people and not just dive in. I want this to be a legitimate business with people who care about these animals almost as much as I do.”
Clearly, I’ve shocked my dad. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with this new information, and I don’t blame him. The man I am today is not the same person I was a year ago.
“Well, I’m proud of you, son.” His eyes well with tears, clearly seeing a new version—or maybe a little bit of the old version—of the son he’s known for a while in front of him.
I know I’ve worried my dad. I’ve worried Graham. I know that I haven’t been myself in years, and it’s all on me. I’m not delusional. I don’t blame anyone else for the way I’ve behaved, for the recluse I’ve become.
“Pops!”
I breathe a sigh of relief at Alex’s voice cutting into our emotional moment and smile at her when she wraps her arms around my dad’s middle.
My dad took to being a grandpa—even if it’s unofficial still—immediately. When he met Quinn’s energetic little girl, he’d declared he was Pops, and no one dared argue with him. Well, Graham gave him a little shit, but we all let it go.
These two girls—I wave at Quinn when she steps into the barn after her daughter—changed our lives here.
“Ready for your lesson?” Dad asks her, and she nods enthusiastically.
I instruct her to get General, Graham’s horse that she rides every week, and she bounds off to do just that.
I smile as I rinse off Milk and put him away.
Maybe nothing is perfect, but that lighter feeling in my chest tells me that I’m finally on the right path .
I was finally feeling like me again. Even if there was a chunk of me missing, I had to be grateful for what I had now.
I had to live with the choices I’ve made, chest aching be damned.