Chapter 3
ROWE
I haven’t been a free man since the day I turned fifteen.
The moment I hopped onto one of the meanest stallions my father had ever accepted on our ranch, hell-bent on breaking the fucking thing, my life changed.
Back then, we didn’t give a shit about patience when it came to an untrained horse.
If it was brought to us with a habit of sending its riders flying, my father rode it until it didn’t have the strength to keep bucking, and only then would the real work start.
When I turned fifteen, he told me it was my turn.
So, I listened and rode that fucking horse until I was so sore I couldn’t move for a week afterward.
It was unnatural how long I held on to it, though.
That’s what everyone told me. I was a scrawny kid with no experience on an unbroken horse at the time, but that hadn’t mattered.
I was told to hold on and not let go, so I did just that.
My father never praised me for it, but he hadn’t scolded me either.
In my na?ve, desperate mind, that was more than enough.
So, I did it again, and again, until I’d spent more time on the back of a horse than on my own two feet.
I became the ranch’s top horse trainer and still carry that title to this day.
The ranch I grew up on became a prison after that. Maybe that’s why it didn’t faze me when I found myself in a real one. I’d only managed to trade one for another.
Staring out at the ranch as the sun begins rising behind the mountains eighteen years later, my opinion hasn’t changed.
It’s so big we’ll never use the majority of the land, and if we did, I’d wish we hadn’t.
I have the rest of my life to explore it, which feels more like a punishment than a reward.
The whiskey in my coffee and bandage around my ribs help make that reality easier to accept.
It’s hot as hell for early June, and I know that’s got Dad all up in arms about having dry fields.
I squint at the purple sunrise for a beat longer before turning and heading for my truck.
Dropping my hat on the passenger seat, I start it up and take the paved road to the stables.
It takes ten minutes to reach them—another stark reminder of how big this place is.
The main stable is so goddamn flashy that it should make the need for a second and third one minimal. Yet, there they are, hiding behind it with their doors closed. Huffing, I park the truck on the side of the road and hop out.
The Painted Sky logo is all over the place, marking the trucks, stables, saddles. If my parents could brand the hay in the stalls, they’d have done that too. I keep my eyes down as I fit my hat back on and join the old man smoking too close to the stable.
“It’s like you have a death wish,” I say, watching the ashes fall to the grass.
Otis glances at me, the corner of his wrinkled mouth lifting in a lazy smirk. “The wranglers are already out. Your old man tore through here looking for you a handful of minutes ago.”
“You lit that shit up the moment he left, then?”
“Damn right. What he doesn’t know, Rowe.”
I scoff. “Oh, he knows.”
“You might loosen up a bit if you take a puff.”
“I don’t smoke anymore.”
“Don’t gotta tell me that. I’m old, not blind,” he says, dropping the smoke and crushing it with the heel of his black boot. “We got a trailer coming in from over the mountains today.”
“Yeah, Dad mentioned it.”
“You gonna be here when we unload?”
“If I need to be.”
“I’d suggest hanging around.”
I tongue my cheek, nodding as I stare at the open stable door. “Diesel’s saddled?
“Watched Brock do it myself this time.”
Clapping him on the back, I relax a bit.
The summer hires Mom found this year are the shittiest they’ve ever been.
Brock, the youngest of them at fifteen, would lose his head if it wasn’t attached.
Never seen a worse-placed saddle in my life than when he tried to put Diesel’s on last week.
If I’d done the same thing at his age, I’d have been sleeping in the shed all winter long.
“Alright,” I grunt.
Otis lingers, his gaze a bit too curious for my liking. I arch a brow and cross my arms, ignoring the restricting feeling of the Painted Sky–branded long-sleeve.
“If you’ve got something to say, say it, Otis.”
“Just want to make sure you’re all good.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He takes a step back and lets it go. “Okay, I hear you.”
“Get the wranglers ready for the new horses. I’m not dealing with my dad when he starts bitching about you being unorganized.”
“Got it.”
Without another word, I enter the stable.
It’s humming with morning noise. Boots scuff the concrete floor as stall doors creak open, and some idiot kid whistles from the feed room. Another one leads an unsaddled gelding down the aisle, fighting the lead rope the whole way outside.
I ignore everyone around me, my sights set on Diesel as he stands tied to the crossties at the far side of the stable.
He’s tacked up, his ears pinned and tail swishing in short, angry bursts.
I almost laugh at how fucking mean he can be when he’s in here like this, antsy to get outside for a ride.
Pitch-black with a white blaze and a gaze that could level any one of these kids in here, he shuffles on the mat beneath him, hoofs scraping it.
“I wouldn’t get too close,” Brock warns, sidestepping me wide. “He’s in a mood this morning.”
“Is that right?”
“Nearly bit my head off when I put the halter on.”
I cock a brow. Diesel stills when he sees me, his head lowering as his ears twitch. The peace that fills me when I reach him is like nothing else on this earth. I run my hand up his nose and give him a few scratches behind the ears.
“He just doesn’t like you,” I say bluntly.
The kid goes red, plucking at the collar of his filthy shirt. “Right. That’s reassuring.”
I swallow a laugh and unhook him from the crossties. When I take the loose, worn reins Brock’s left around the saddle horn and clip them to the halter rings beneath Diesel’s jaw, Brock speaks again. “You really don’t bridle him?”
“Surprised you know that term already.”
He flushes again, embarrassed. “I’ve been trying.”
“I don’t need to bridle him right now. A horse like Diesel doesn’t need a metal bit to listen.”
“Everyone else uses one.”
“I don’t give a shit about everyone else.” I swing my body into the saddle easily. “You did a good job with this today. Do it like this every time and you won’t wind up fired.”
Adjusting the reins in my hand, I straighten my back and wait for Diesel to move on his own. When he starts toward the open door, I look away from the kid and focus on getting out of here before my dad appears. The sun’s a bit higher now, and I decide that we’ll chase it for a bit.
At least until I have no choice but to come back and get to work.
“Jesus! Where the hell did these come from? Hell?”
I hop off Diesel and tie him up outside the barn. The angry sound of hoofs beating against a metal trailer has me speeding up, taking off into a sprint toward it.
“Back up! You’re gonna meet God early if you don’t smarten up,” Otis barks, shoving Sawyer back away from the trailer.
The back is open, and I narrow my eyes on the two horses hooked up inside of it.
One’s dark brown with a few spots on its back, while the other is way too similar to Diesel.
The only physical difference I can see is the missing stripe down his nose and the tension corded so thick in his neck I nearly tell them to shut the door and lock it up.
The whites of his eyes look at us in warning.
My old man is talking to the driver of the truck, his back facing the rest of us. I pass the other wranglers, Tanner and Cruz, and join Otis where he continues to talk some sense into Sawyer.
“Get the round pen ready for the black one,” I snap at the idiot with the death wish.
Sawyer stares at me with deep green eyes, his excitement for new work obvious in his fidgeting limbs. The guy’s been here since I got out of prison on parole eight years ago, yet he still has no sense of self-preservation. Maybe he’s spent too much goddamn time watching me.
He hesitates for a second longer before nodding once and heading toward his tan horse. I wait until he’s in the saddle before looking at Otis.
“Watch him once they’re out of the trailer. The one at the back is mine. Give Sawyer the other one and have him work it in the arena.”
Otis stares at the black one, not arguing with my decision. I leave him and go to my father, not bothering to soften my steps as my boots scuff the pavement.
“How long is it going to take, Jed?”
“You know I don’t give timelines. Knowing what I do about those two, you’re going to be waiting as long as it takes,” Dad says gruffly.
The man across from him rolls his jaw, alerted to my presence.
He scrolls his eyes over me quickly, from the black boots to the filthy, old chaps on my legs and the Painted Sky logo on my chest. It’s the curl of his nose as he stares at my tattooed neck that stokes the dying flame of humour trapped inside of me.
“How old’s the black one?” I interrupt.
The man grumbles his answer. “Six.”
“Six? And he looks like that?” My temperature spikes as anger blisters beneath my skin. “He your horse?”
“No. We took him in a couple of weeks back. He’s too dangerous to keep, but too expensive to put down without trying everything to get him back to what they say he used to be. I want him off our books until he’s fixed.”
Fixed.
I grip my hips tight enough to hurt. “Who broke him?”
“Some ranch out East. Nova Scotia, maybe. He was worked too young, chasing cattle. Had a trainer who didn’t know what the hell he was doing and wound up sending them both into the fence. That horse is a cruel son of a bitch with a vengeance that runs deep.”
The mention of that place sends barbs of discomfort through me at a pace that nearly forces me to my knees. I grit my teeth and steady myself, pushing forward.
“We’ll take him. You don’t get a fucking timeline, though. He’s here until I decide he’s fine to go back,” I state, leaving no room for argument.
Dad shifts toward me, his frustration evident in every tight line of his face. “We need to talk about price. I didn’t know you were bringing me one this bad. I’m going to need to keep him away from the others for a while.”
“Name it, Jed. He’ll be worth ten times whatever you ask for by the time Rowe’s done with him.”
I take that as my cue to piss off. Talking money has never been an interest of mine, especially with my father. Everything he does at this place is for profit now, rather than the work we do. It’s why I’ve hated being here so badly.
I’m still trying to figure out if it’s better than the alternative.