Hoyt #3
“This is my…this is Lucas. He’s the majority owner of the ranch now. Walter’s grandson.” A moment ticked by. Jesse then pulled Lucas into his side. “Actually, Lucas is my boyfriend.
“Oh.” That was my stellar response.
Holy shit. Holy. Shit. Okay, well things had changed round here. Guess that’s what happens when you ignore your family. They move on with life.
I held out my right hand. “Hoyt.”
Lucas gripped my hand, firm. “Hi, nice to meet you.” His smile was polite and open.
“Likewise.” It was killing me to dig deeper but this ranch and what happened on it was none of my business now. Majority owner. Huh.
“I was expecting you sooner.”
“Yeah, should’ve texted. Data’s tight and the meds knock me out, so I’ve been pulling over a lot.” Crying, getting BJ’s from randos, you know typical Hoyt Knox shit. I glanced at the house. “Old man know I’m here?”
“Nah.” Cool. Simple reply. Not that anything here was ever simple. “You’re welcome here,” he rushed to say.
“I won’t cause trouble.” I wanted to assure him of that. What Abel did remained to be seen.
“That’s not—”
“I’ll park the trailer by the hay barn. Out of sight, out of mind. Might run a cord for electric. Otherwise he won’t know I’m here.”
“We have a room for you in the house,” Jesse said real quiet-like.
“I cleared it out,” Lucas interjected with all kinds of brightness. “New mattress and drapes, green, which I hope you like, and new sheets, which is more than I got from Jesse when I arrived.”
“Nah. Trailer’s fine. The less time the old man and me share air, the better.”
“No, not in our old house.” He jerked a thumb at house behind him. “In this place.”
Oh. That was also something. “In the big house?” Huh again. I turned my attention to Lucas. “Thank you, Lucas, but I’m not a guest that needs fancy.”
“It’s my place too,” Jesse blurted. I was more than a little confused. “Walter left me some of the ranch and the rest is Lucas’s and…Jesus. That’s a story for another day.”
“You own the house?”
“Not all of it, and some of the ranch. But yeah, you can stay here easy enough.”
“I’m used to being alone.” Secrets kept better when they weren’t shared.
That secret ain’t a secret here, Hoyt.
Oh right. Old habits die hard.
The yard got real quiet then.
“Dad doesn’t live on the property anymore. He’s not foreman anymore, he’s…in town. He’s…not like you remember.” Jesse looked all kinds of pained.
“I remember a lot.”
“We need to sit and talk.”
“Yeah, we will.”
That sounded defensive even to my ears.
“There’s stuff you need to know about Dad—”
“Yeah, I said okay but not now.” Ouch fuck. Okay, that took him back. I was a bastard. “Shit, Jesse, I don’t want to think about that man.” A soul could only take so much pain. “I’m not here for him.”
He stared at me for a long, anguished moment.
“No,” he said, not unkind, just honest and waved at my arm. “You’re here for you.”
“I wanted to see you and—”
“Not just that. You’re fucked-up and out of options.”
Fuck me. My little brother was brutal. Honesty usually was. I closed my mouth. “Not all options and I want…look, I’m sorry for losing my shit.”
Poor Lucas. Talk about fucking awkward.
“I told Lucas you made me the best Pop Tarts on my birthday,” he chucked out into the chilly night with what looked to be a genuine smile. One I returned.
“You still eat those?”
“Sometimes.”
And just like that, the awkward was back.
“I’m beat. I’ll just go get set up,” I said to fill the air with something.
“You need help?” Jesse asked, and for a second, I could see the two-year-old begging me to let him help, no matter what it was. Stupid. Hoyt. Help. Up. Kiss.
Damn it.
“Nah,” I said gently to let the kid down easy. Man. He was a man now.
“All meals in the kitchen still.” I nodded, the weariness of travel, surgery, and coming home dropping on me with the weight of a Hereford bull.
“I’ll work for it. You got some work for me to do?” I asked, making sure he knew I would pull my weight in exchange for food and electric.
“You’re our guest.” He was being stubborn now. Another trait he seemed to have held onto over the years. A true Knox male.
“Work,” I stated again.
“We have a ton of tack that needs seeing to, new stuff to be ordered?” It was a concession yeah but at least I’d be contributing in some way.
“Okay then.” I gave him a thankful nod.
Then, because Jesse was Jesse and he couldn’t let a thing go, he started telling me about Abel.
Head injury, Walter’s heart attack, fires, hospice care.
The past twenty years flowed out of him like water from a busted tap.
Exhaustion pulled at me, as did crushing guilt that he’d had to deal with all of that—and Jesus Lord that was a mountain of shit to deal with—leaving me unable to say anything other than how sorry I was.
The three of us stood there like golems, so many words said, so much left to be resolved.
My bleary brain was unable to process it all so I turned and walked to my truck.
The sooner I got her parked the sooner I could crash.
There was only so much emotional baggage a broken cowpoke could deal with in one day and I had reached my limit.
Pop Tarts. Now I craved them. Imagine that.