Chapter 54
FIFTY-FOUR
MADDOX
Blair moves into the Big House in July. She’s a timid thing—black hair and big, green eyes.
She’s sweet, but guarded in a way that reminds me of Austin.
Whereas Austin had been all piss and vinegar though, Blair seems sweet and cautious.
She might’ve spoken a whole ten words to me total since she’s been here.
The way Colt fawns over her so bad, you’d think she was already nine months along.
He’s been a hell of a worker, barely even complaining.
The first couple days, I’d given him the worst jobs that needed doing on purpose, and I think he knew ‘cause he’d just roll his eyes and huff, but get to work.
Now, he’s still doing the grunt work until we can figure out how to move duties around, but I’m being a bit easier on him.
Mama’s over the fucking moon. Between Colt retiring from bull riding, gaining a new daughter, and her first grandchild being on the way, she hasn’t stopped smiling.
I think that might just be my favorite part of all of this—despite the headache of moving jobs around and planning to cut back on booking guests next season so Colt and Blair can have their own cabin, Colt’s news has taken everyone’s attention off of me.
Kenny’s already buying baby clothes and Tate is determined to get Blair over her fear of horses. Bailey’s support is quieter, more focused on her twin than Blair since she doesn’t open up as easily as the other two girls do, but even her excitement is palpable.
My family’s excited about the baby, and the guests are happy to be on vacation, and the horses are ecstatic they’re being fed treats more often thanks to both the trail rides and Tate’s mission. With so much happiness going around, it’s hard to be in a shitty mood.
I still find a way though. If I have to team up with someone, I try to make sure it’s Jameson.
He doesn’t push me to talk and doesn’t have someone of his own he’s fawning over.
Sometimes he fills the silences I leave between us with chatter, and others, he’s content to work together without anything but the wind between us.
On rare occasions, he’ll bring it up, but he never dwells. “Are you planning on getting back out there? Maybe you could do online dating.”
“Nah,” I tell him, lying back in the grass with my hat over my face. It reeks of sweat, but it’s easier covering my face when Jamie’s in one of his talking moods. “Don’t care much for dating. The thing with Austin just kind of happened.”
I hear Jamie spit off to the side and it’s quiet for long enough that I think he’s moved on, but I’m not that lucky. “Maybe now that you know your type, dating will be easier.”
“Don’t think it has anything to do with having a type, Jay. I don’t—” I sigh, taking my hat off my face before I suffocate myself. “People don’t… matter to me.” I realize how harsh that sounds and grimace. This is why I hate talking about this shit.
“Blair and the new baby, for example. I care about them just about as much as I’d care about any other stranger—I don’t want to see anything bad happen to them, but I don’t really have an emotional connection to them.
I care about them because Colton cares about them and if anything happened to them, it would upset him. Otherwise…”
He nods like he gets it, but I don’t know for sure that he does. “But then by that logic, at one point, you cared about Austin only because she was Kenny’s best friend and Kenny would be upset if something happened to her.”
He’s right. I wish I could pinpoint what changed things.
The night I took her home from the bar, drunk off her ass and asking for birthday spankings was the catalyst perhaps, but that was more about me seeing her as an adult woman than seeing her as anything more than Kenny’s best friend.
She’d caught my interest, sexually, but a few women had over the years.
That hadn’t made them any more special to me than an acquaintance though.
I run over everything in my mind—from unknowingly subscribing to her on the cam site, to finding out she was RedRanger, to the night she spent with me in the barn, and the texting banter that led to her spending that first night with me.
There wasn’t a single, individual moment that stood out to me as the moment Austin shifted from a woman my dick likes the look of to a woman with the power to shred my heart into pieces.
“You wanna know what I think?” Jameson breaks the silence a few minutes later, taking me out of my head. I continue to stare up at the clouds, trying to find pictures in them like Dad and I used to.
“No, but I bet you’ll tell me anyway.”
“I think it’s because she gave you hell.
You were so used to being able to control everything—to all of us just sort of rolling over to your need to take care of us, even when we’re all more than capable of taking care of ourselves.
And then in comes this spitfire of a woman who not only fits you sexually, but also flips your perfectly planned world upside down, and, for once, challenges you instead of just giving in. ”
“You’re making me sound like a fucking controlling asshole,” I grumble, though I know he’s right—at least somewhat. It was something I’d been working on fixing since that conversation on the couch with Austin about arrogance.
Jameson tilts his head this way and that, thinking. “Not an asshole,” he settles on and I snort. Controlling, but not an asshole. Great. “I think it’s intent, you know? You’re not controlling because you’re trying to be belittling. You’re controlling because you're anxious.”
“I’m not anxious.”
“Agree to disagree,” he says, waving a hand through the air to push the point aside.
“Get a shrink for that shit. My point is that you controlled everything so much, had a routine down pat and plans A through F should things go to shit, and in walks this person who can’t be controlled.
Who keeps secrets and argues with you at every turn, who doesn’t submit easily and is unpredictable.
On top of that, she turns everything around on you.
Instead of you taking care of her, you’re experiencing what being taken care of feels like.
Instead of you being the one who doesn’t want to commit, it’s her. ”
“Thanks.” Not a huge fan of the reminder.
“My point,” Jameson continues, “is that you put effort into it. You had to choose to make her matter to you. I think Austin could’ve always just been your little sister’s best friend who you found slightly attractive, but at some point, something flipped a switch in your brain and you decided to dig a little deeper. You put effort into knowing her.”
“And look where it got me.” I get up and leave, done with the conversation.
Being reminded that the only woman I’ve ever cared about romantically wanted fuck-all to do with me isn’t exactly the way I wanted to spend this afternoon.
I bet if I give Colt the chance to skip off the rest of the afternoon and head home to Blair, he’ll do so gladly and I can pick up what’s left of his work.
Stay occupied for another couple hours at least.
But Colt’s leaf is still turned over, apparently, because he wipes the sweat from his face with his equally sweaty, tattooed arm and declines.
I want to make a joke about what’s keeping him out in the heat instead of in bed next to his girl, but I don’t really want him turning that around on me and bringing up the fact no one’s sharing my bed anymore, so I turn around and start walking toward my cabin.
I’ve taken up walking more. It wastes more time than driving and my cabin’s not too far away from everything else on this ranch, only a little over a half mile from the Big House.
I’m so lost in my own self-pity that I walk right past the other pickup in my front yard. My hand’s already on the doorknob when a voice sounds from the porch swing. “Damn, Rancher. It’s like that?”