Chapter 10 – Kaitlyn/Sunshine
TEN
KAITLYN/SUNSHINE
The knock on the bedroom door came far too early.
“Alexa. What time is it?” I asked, my eyes still closed.
Silence greeted me instead of my echo device, then I heard voices just beyond the bedroom door.
“Who is Alexa?”
“Is that a girlfriend, maybe?”
“Or a maid? She’s rich enough to have a maid.”
“Shh, she can probably hear us.”
I rolled out of bed and stomped toward the door, knowing they weren’t going to stop talking until I confronted them.
My brothers. Half-brothers, but at the moment, one half was more than enough.
I opened the door to the two men, who turned to grin at me.
Carter was taller than Ethan, wider. Blonder. But they had the same smile and twinkle in their eye. We had the same color hair, and, I realized, looking at them, the same sharp nose, so different than my sisters’ little button noses. We had the same face shape, strong cheekbones and stubborn jaws.
“What?!” I snapped.
“Harmony said she’s cranky before coffee,” Ethan told Carter.
“Did you bring coffee?” Carter asked, and Ethan shook his head.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pushing my hair off my face.
I’d borrowed pajamas from my sister and slept like the dead as soon as my head hit the pillow. So, I wasn’t completely back online yet. Coffee would have been good, but three more hours of sleep would be better. What the hell time was it?
Carter was holding some folded clothes and a pair of cowboy boots.
“We’re going to put you on a horse,” Carter announced, and thrust the clothes and boots in my direction.
“Dear God, why?” I asked, lifting my hands like he was handing me a rattlesnake.
“If you’re going to commit to saving the Swinging D, you need to see it the way we see it,” Carter told me, pushing the clothes at me until I had no choice but to take them. “That means on a horse.”
“We’ve got a gentle mount for you,” Ethan assured me. “We weren’t lying yesterday. You’re a McGraw now, and it feels like we should introduce you to our land.”
“This isn’t a set up?”
“Why would we set you up?” Ethan asked, like he hadn’t driven past me and my sister in the rain and snow a million times on his way to school.
“To strand me out in the wilderness. Let me perish among the wolves. Collect early on my inheritance. ”
Carter snorted. “Sunshine, depending how things work out, there might not be any inheritance. We’re offering to take you out for your first horseback ride so we can show you our home. Your home.”
“Oh, and there’s coffee downstairs,” Ethan said.
“You should have led with that. I’ll be down in ten.”
“Why does it smell like shit?” I asked, resisting the urge to pinch my nose like a toddler.
I was entirely dressed in denim. Harmony’s jeans were a little looser in the butt, the boots a bit snug at the toes, and the chambray shirt I was pretty sure was Carter’s. I tied the loose ends in a knot at my waist and rolled up the shirtsleeves as we approached the paddock.
The air smelled green and muddy and – as stated - an awful lot like shit.
“You do know horses shit?” Carter asked, stepping over a giant pile of it.
“I thought they did all that in the stalls, and you all mucked them…or whatever.”
“Hear that, Ethan? Miss City thinks our horses have regular bowel movements in designated spaces,” Carter laughed.
I stopped in my tracks and lifted the eyebrow that made commerce grads cry. “If you’re going to make fun of me, I’m out.”
Ethan’s own brow furrowed. “Of course we’re going to make fun of you. You’re our sister, now.”
Carter nodded as if that all made sense.
I had brothers. I was their sister. They were going to tease me. None of this penetrated my one-cup-of-coffee brain fog.
Carter waved his arm in the air, and in the distance, I could see Tag, covered head to toe in black denim, wave back.
We were twinning, I thought, and barely kept myself from smiling.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked.
“Uh, he’s the foreman,” Ethan explained. “He basically runs the ranch, although technically, his dad is still the ranch manager.”
“I know what a foreman is,” I snapped. “I said I’d never ridden a horse-”
“Or shot a gun,” Carter added.
“But I know the basics,” I insisted.
“Really?” Carter asked genuinely. “Always felt like you were in another world.”
He wasn’t wrong. You couldn’t grow up in Wyoming and not know some of the basics, but I’d never been curious about ranch life. I’d never been curious about anything in Last Hope Gulch, except getting out.
“Maybe I was in another world because I was escaping this one. Because I never fit in here. Or anywhere.” The flies were outrageous and I waved them away from my face. “Not even with my own family, which we now know wasn’t actually my real family. Funny coincidence, huh?”
Ethan stopped walking and I almost bumped into him, and when I dodged him I almost stepped in a big pile of shit.
“Hey!”
“Did your dad treat you differently?” Ethan asked. “Growing up?” He and Carter shared a look. “ Always looked to us that he adored all his girls, but you never know what’s going on inside the house.”
“No,” I said. “Edward was an amazing father. I never suspected a thing, even though I didn’t have the Calloway red hair. Even though I was a weird kid. Even though he knew Leroy was my dad. He loved me.”
“I can tell you right now, your dad was a lot better than our dad. So, if you can, try and let go of all the bad stuff and just accept the good,” Carter said, like the widowed father of three would.
“The good stuff being older brothers who tease me?”
“Yeah, now you’re getting it,” Carter said, encouraging me like I was about to swing a bat to hit a ball. He, I thought, must be a good dad. “And frankly, me and Ethan.” Carter looked over at his brother. “We’re teasing training wheels. Once Seth and Eli get home…hold on to your hat.”
“Well,” Ethan said. “Maybe not Eli.”
“Right. maybe not Eli,” Carter agreed.
“Why? What’s the deal with Eli?”
Ethan pointed at Carter. “You teased him too much.”
“What? That’s a thing?” I cried, and they laughed.
“No. He’s just quiet, and you gotta look out for the quiet ones.”
“Something to look forward to, then,” I muttered.
By the time we got to the fence gate, Tag already had it opened and was waiting for us.
“Sunshine,” he said, with the tip of his hat.
I listened closely for some innuendo in his tone, but there was nothing. No smugness, no arrogance. No sign at all that we’d had the hottest sexual encounter of my life yesterday, and he was still holding onto my panties.
Good thing Harmony and I were mostly the same size, so I was able to steal a pair of hers .
“Tag,” I said, as crisply and firmly as I would to one of the partners in my firm. All business.
He winked at me and all my crispness wilted in the heat. The bastard.
“Okay, this is Shirley,” Carter brought a brown horse with a white star on her nose over to me. Shirley had the most amazing fuzzy ears and beautiful eyelashes.
“Hi Shirley. Pleasure to meet you,” I greeted her.
“She’s a horse, not a business acquaintance,” Carter said.
“Animals have souls and I’m connecting with hers,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Shirley? You’re very pretty, aren’t you? Yes. And smart. I can see that right away.”
“Oh my God, you’re more like your sister than I realized,” Carter groaned.
I could hear Ethan laughing behind me.
“I don’t know about her soul, but she’s old, slow, and she doesn’t spook easily. Still. Don’t spook her,” Carter said with a stern tone.
“How do you not spook a horse?” I asked the men.
“Loud noises and sudden movements,” Ethan said.
“And Shirley does not like singing,” Carter said, like it was life or death.
“Got it,” I said, in all seriousness. “No singing.” I was not a spontaneous singer, but now I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to help myself.
“I’m fucking with you,” Carter smiled. “You can sing if you want to.”
“I don’t want to sing,” I said. Did I?
We led our horses out of the stables and into the sunlight. I blinked and lifted a hand to shield my eyes. Barn swallows swooped and crickets buzzed in the high grass beside the barn. Beside me, Shirley twitched and flicked her tail.
“Here we go, Sunshine,” Carter bent down and clasped his hands together next to the horse.
“You’re going to step with your right foot into my hands.
Then you put your left hand on the horn, your left foot in the stirrup, then I’ll give you a push and just use your momentum to swing your right leg over the saddle. Got it?”
I looked down at my right and left hands and feet. Tried to visualize what he was saying and shook my head. “Is there a stool or something I could use?” Or maybe a presentation deck I could watch?
“Let’s make this easy, Sunshine,” Tag said, coming up behind me.
He put his hands around my waist and lifted me nearly over his head.
So I didn’t spook Shirley, I swallowed my squeal of alarm, and…
okay, I could admit it, delight. What full grown woman didn’t have dreams of being lifted by big, strong men occasionally?
At this height, I could just swing a leg over and grab onto the horn of the saddle with both hands.
“That’s cheating,” Carter said, with a frown at Tag.
“She’s on the horse,” Tag said. “You taking her down the west pasture toward the creek?”
He nodded.
“There was some hard rainfall early this morning. Don’t get too close. The ground will be saturated,” he told Carter.
“This isn’t early morning to you?” It was like…dawn.
Tag laughed. “Sunrise was almost an hour ago, Sunshine. Keep up.”
Ethan joined us on a sleek, black beauty with a white stripe down his nose. Carter mounted a massive brown horse that looked like he could take both Ethan’s horse and Shirley in a battle with one leg tied behind his back .
I leaned over and patted Shirley, assuring her she didn’t need to be worried about any bullies on my watch. “Don’t let that big horse intimidate you. Size doesn’t always matter.”
“You sure about that?” Tag asked, with a playful twist of his lips.