Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
CALDER
The door to the room I was using is still closed when I wake. I’m quiet, getting ready to give Meredith a chance to rest. The urge to peek in on her comes out of nowhere when I walk by. I grit my teeth and keep going until I hit the mudroom.
I bypass my cowboy hat and find a new Crossroads Ranch ball cap that won’t blow off my head.
The first thing I do is check the barn office for any signs someone went through it.
It proves impossible to tell, when papers were previously scattered, fingerprints are already disrupting the dust layer, and there’s nothing on the laptop but cattle records and inventory.
Unless someone wants to see how close to the red this ranch runs, there’s nothing on it, and it appears untampered with.
Next, I get lost in chores and try to forget about possible break-ins and the beautiful woman who slept on the other side of the wall.
“How’s business?” Carlos asks after I park the truck with the water tank by the barn. He’s reclining on the flatbed.
I stretch, enjoying the loosening of stiff muscles from the sun beating down on me.
Wind gusts around the barn. Always with the wind.
I shouldn’t have missed that, of all things, but I did.
It means I’m outside, and the breeze, however strong, carries smells of home.
Pungent manure, fresh blossoms, and normal dust. All things I don’t get in the city.
“Are you asking about CFC, or if Jules Creek’s bottom line is as dismal as the ranch’s?”
He flips off his hat, runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper strands, and then stuffs the ball cap back into place. “God, I hope not.” He squints at me. “Is it?”
“I haven’t dug that far.” But judging by the employees’ wages, any profit isn’t trickling down to them.
The place is in good shape, yet nothing’s been upgraded for years.
I haven’t been to the mech shop yet. Dad and Meredith cared for the equipment.
That’s who they are. But is it also out of necessity? “What do you think I’m going to find?”
Carlos shrugs. “Hard to say, but he seemed more worried about something beyond just the financing for this place.”
Shit. I’m not going to like it. “Why all the loans?”
“We had bad year after bad year for a while. Just couldn’t catch a break, and you know how your dad was—he wouldn’t ask for help.
For a while there, Ransom was managing Jules Creek without Meredith.
Sawyer was finishing vet school at the same time, and he didn’t realize how much he relied on her.
Things started slipping through the cracks.
” He sighs and gets a faraway look. “There was the drought a few years ago, and blister beetles. We hemorrhaged money on hay to get through. Then came breakdown after breakdown. And the market always sucks. We needed to upgrade, but after those bad years, well… insurance only does so much. Can’t blame him for all the financing. ”
I’ll wait on those issues until another brother arrives. Something else Carlos said caught my attention. “Before Dad died, you thought there was something else bothering him?”
“Yeah. He was working through some shit he didn’t talk about. That’s like him, but also… not.”
Meredith said something similar. “Any idea?”
Carlos spreads his hands out before dropping them to slap his thighs. “If I were to guess, retirement, maybe? We’re getting older. What would he do with this place? The brewery? Work until he dies?” His face crumples. “Ah, hell. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry about it.” The irony isn’t lost on me.
Neither is the melancholy. Dad was still doing what he loved when he passed, and there’s a peace in that.
Years of trudging to the office have given me a new appreciation for his dedication to the Cross endeavors. “I know what you mean, Uncle Carlos.”
The muscles jump on either side of Carlos’s jaw, but he nods. “You think you would’ve ever come home?”
Home. Stepping onto Crossroads Ranch is like stepping into a well-worn pair of boots.
Each morning, when I get up to work, I look forward to it in a way I never do when heading to the office.
I fucking hate traffic and the stink of the city, and the longer I’m here, the more I detest the idea of being inside all day.
Denver doesn’t get the winters like Scandal does, but right now, those don’t even sound bad.
Yet this isn’t my home.
“I make a nice living for myself.”
Carlos groans as he pushes off the flatbed. “Don’t want to smell cow shit every day?”
I almost admit how much I miss it. The lilacs aren’t blossoming as brightly as they were last week, but I also missed their season. And goddammit, I haven’t been on horseback yet, and I can’t leave without planting my ass in the saddle.
“Or fix the unroller when it’s twenty below,” Carlos continues. “Nothing like wrestling with a round bale when you can’t feel any part of your face or hands.”
“You’re selling it. Keep going.” I may sound like I’m joking, but frigid temps aren’t scaring me away. Not when there’s a warm house and a woman who smells like a blooming pasture in the middle of June inside of it.
My chest grows tight. When we sell, all this will go to another family.
They might take the house and lease the pastures.
They might build the ranch up to its former glory, with pastures full of fat and happy cattle, big stacks of round bales, and constant activity, from pickups to tractors to horses.
The warm house will be theirs. Where will the woman be?
I don’t want to bring up the next issue. “Do you know if anyone stopped out yesterday?”
He scrunches his face up. “Just Sawyer. She came out to help me move the corral panels behind the barn.”
“She go in the house?”
He frowns. “I don’t think so. I know Meredith doesn’t mind if she does. Use the bathroom, grab some food, you know?”
That makes sense. She’d be the most likely one to have been in Meredith’s bedroom. No clue why. Meredith’s comment about cologne comes to mind. I have no clue what Sawyer smells like.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
Blue trots next to Carlos, runs to me, and returns to Carlos’s side.
He’s herding us. Whose dog is he? He may live here, but Carlos is his human.
If we sell, Carlos will probably adjust to retirement.
Working here isn’t the same when his best friend is gone.
Hell, he’s likely sticking around for the girls, waiting to see if my brothers or I trace our roots back to this dirt. Where would Meredith go?
“Probably. Meredith feels like someone was in the house while we were gone.”
He recoils, and confusion flushes his features. “I have no clue why they would be. I can ask around, see if anyone else complains about strangers sneaking around on their property.”
“Appreciate it.”
I split off from Carlos and arrive at the house. Meredith is absent. My bedding is folded neatly and stacked on the end table, though Meredith doesn’t seem to use much of the house. She’d need to be home to do that.
I pass by the guest room on my way to the bathroom to clean up. The guest room door stands propped open, and I smile. The bedding is rumpled, and the pillow looks like someone whacked the middle with a hammer. She must sleep as hard as she works.
After I’m done in the bathroom, I hop in my Escalade. Flying past the fields and pastures, I take mental snapshots of the green rolling hills and shallow draws.
Pictures. Shit—the lost camera.
Gritting my teeth, I turn before I hit the highway and head toward the bridge where the crash happened.
To my right, Sterling land stretches to the horizon, dotted with cattle in the distance.
Closer to the road are more oil wells. There are a couple of sites with flares burning off the gases in the flare stack.
I turn onto the county highway that’ll lead to the crash site.
My knuckles are white on the wheel when I reach the bridge.
The road is clear of skid marks. Dad didn’t break at all.
Bits of broken glass scattered in the dirt shoulder of the highway glint in the sunlight.
The grasses in the ditch have mostly bounced back.
I pull to the side of the road and get out. Stuffing the ball cap on my head, I wander across the road, my boots hitting the pavement. My heartburn fires up, and I’m tempted to leave. Why the hell do I care about Holly’s camera?
Because Meredith cares.
Fuck.
I stomp to the edge of the road. The bridge ends to my left with a crumpled edge of guardrail, but nothing looks wrong in front of me.
The car’s been hauled away and sits behind the sheriff’s office.
Rocks jut from the edges of the banks and randomly dot the shoreline at the various levels it’s been carved into the earth.
Bits of glass sparkle from near the shoreline.
Even if Dad and Holly had been wearing their seat belts, it would’ve been a miracle if they got out alive.
I adjust the brim of my hat and walk through the foxtail and broom grasses, making my way down to the shore.
My steps crunch against the rocks, and memories pepper my brain.
My brothers and I chasing each other down the shoreline.
Mama wading into the middle of the river at its low point to get a photograph of downstream.
Fishing until Dad swore too much about our lines getting caught.
Trying to kayak during spring runoff and nearly freezing to death with my brothers after we barely saved ourselves from drowning.
Mama was pissed, and Dad informed us we were never too old to get our asses whooped.
I squint into the sun. None of those are formative memories, yet they make up who I am. Who I was. A major life event happened here, and I wasn’t around for it. I’m here now. For what it’s worth.
I check the ground some more before giving up. There’s no camera to be found.
I climb out of the ditch and get into my pickup. No cars have been by. How long did they lay out here before—
I shake my head. No. I can’t go down that road.
I have enough on my mind. Half of today will be spent answering emails and jumping into online meetings for my company.
Then I need to dig into brewery financials, but the urgency isn’t there.
Once the funeral is over, I’ll be more concerned.
Until then, the books can wait. Otherwise, I’ll want to troubleshoot the issues, make improvements, and design business plans. Wasted efforts if we’re selling.
A niggling in my conscience is also telling me to wait for the will reading.
Dad might have left some surprises. I don’t doubt he intended to take care of Meredith, though what, if anything, is laid out?
Bowen and I talked about it. Landry a little too.
We’re prepared to fork over part of the sale to be done. We’re also prepared to fight it.
The longer I’m here, and the more I’m around Meredith, the less inclined I am to argue that she deserves some of the profits, should there be any.
I don’t know what I’ll tell Bowen when he gets here. Will Landry even show for me to tell him anything?
For the next few hours, I run to Williston and back to fix the security-camera issue and grab some food. It doesn’t take long to install a second doorbell camera and mount a couple of cameras on two sides of the house. My work is quick and dirty. The new owner can put up something more permanent.
I get back into my vehicle and stare at the blue house, picturing it in its prime. Will the new owners paint it white again? I smack my teeth against my lips and take off.
When I pull into Jules Creek’s parking lot, only Meredith’s SUV is there. Inside, she’s at a mash tank that’s filling with water. She’s monitoring the temperature.
I linger by the edge of the taproom. Country music is blasting through the speakers at a louder volume than any night I’ve worked.
Just as the singer demands his country girl shake it for him, Meredith does a butt wiggle.
I groan, the sound swallowed by the thump of the base.
She’s gathered her hair in a loose bun on her head, and it bounces in time with the beat.
Again, she’s in jeans, but instead of an official Jules Creek polo, she’s wearing a snug navy-blue shirt.
I know that color. It’s from the bandana of the Scandal school mascot, Robber, for the Scandal Robbers.
The mascot is an old-time locomotive that used to run through Scandal.
The town was initially called Riverwood, but a trio of train robbers were held at the jail.
The sheriff at the time let them out on the condition they voted for him in the election.
The uproar was so bad that the town’s name got changed.
I cross my arms while Meredith works, admiring the show. She picks up an iPad and pokes at the screen, then spins, mouthing the words to the song. Her gaze lands on me, and she yells. The iPad clatters to the metal platform.
She jumps again, her eyes flaring wider. “Calder!”
I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t hold it back. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Why are you watching me like a stalker then?” she snaps and stoops to grab the iPad. “You’re lucky I put this thing in a protective box after Ransom cracked the screen for the third time.”
“He was probably doing it on purpose, so you’d go back to using a clipboard and paper.”
She shoots me the cutest scowl. Tendrils of hair curl down her neck, and stray strands float around her face. I was right about her top, but I never would’ve guessed that it hugged her tits better than those damn polos.
“That shirt is now our official Jules Creek top.”
She frowns down at the graphics. “It’s a Robbers shirt.”
“Change the logo, keep the fit.”
Her cheeks blush that shade of rosy red I’ve only seen on her. I push off the wall. I have no business changing the dress code of a place that may no longer need the logo.
“There’s a sandwich on the bar counter. I’ll be upstairs.”
“I’ll turn the music down.”
I pause at the first step. “No need. I like knowing you’re shaking it down here.” I flash her a grin, enjoying the way that flush creeps down her neck.
One question is going to bother me all afternoon. How far down does that blush travel?