Chapter 13
thirteen
Zander
I walk Doc Holliday out of the barn. He's an ornery old horse who belongs to a neighbor.
They're paying me to make him more broke to ride.
He's not terrible. In fact, when he goes, he's pretty fucking awesome but then something will spook him or he'll just get tired of listening and he goes into bucking bronco mode.
Dad's been home from the hospital for two weeks.
At first, he acted like an invalid, a frail old man who couldn't make himself a piece of toast and who would, no doubt, kick the bucket if he tried.
The heart attack gave him enough of a scare to actually kick him off his cigars and beers …
for two weeks. Today, he's hanging his arms over the railing of the round pen, wearing his black cowboy hat and boots and getting ready to bark out orders on what I'm doing wrong.
He'll never admit that I'm a way better horseman than him, but I let him think he's won there, too.
Being the winner is important to him but not at all important to me.
Doc is already snorting as I walk him into the round pen. I can feel the energy behind me. The horse is already feeling like a bronco, and I haven't sat on him yet.
Dad senses it, too. "That horse is ready to shoot you straight to the fucking moon." His laugh is always accompanied by a coughing fit. That's been happening for a long time, but it hasn't put him off his cigars. Just like his ticker almost giving out hasn't ended his love for steak and whiskey.
"You're quite the fucking cheering squad," I say as I climb up into the saddle.
Doc snorts a few times then drops his head when I give him the cue with the bit.
I squeeze my legs, and we move forward at a gentle walk.
"Hey, you know what, you could help. I'm going to take him around, warm him up, and when I say so, give him a scare with that fallen branch over by the bench. But wait for my cue."
"Now what kind of dumbass bronco busting is that when the rider knows the horse is going to be spooked?"
"No, I'm saying wait for my cue to let you know that he's warmed up enough. Then use the branch to scare him, but don't tell me you're about to do it. And if you think you can do better old man, then why the fuck don't you sit in this saddle?"
"I ain't that stupid." He walks over to pick up the fallen branch. The leaves are dry and brittle enough to make a good crinkling sound when shaken. "Thought I told Ronan to get out here and clean all this debris up. I swear that kid is as lazy as a fat cat on a hot afternoon."
"Probably doesn't help that you boss him around like he's still a teen instead of a man moving in on thirty." I cluck my tongue to pick up to a trot.
Dad puts the branch on the ground next to his feet. He laughs. "That horse is already giving me the side eye. He knows something is up."
I take the horse around the pen three more times. Dust floats around us.
"He moves nice," Dad says. "Good looking animal, too. Too bad he's got the brain of a frightened baby deer."
"Just needs some exposure. I think Gary was riding him in an indoor arena and he was fine, but the second he got out into the big scary world it all went to shit. All right, any time you want." I cluck my tongue and push my leg against his side, and he picks up a lope.
Dad is waiting for us to get into a rhythm.
He's holding the branch casually at his side.
As we pass him, he raises it and gives it a shake.
Doc hops straight up like a fucking scared rabbit.
His back rounds, and he bounces me across the pen.
He's snorting like a true wild bronco, but I stay on, and after a couple of ass-slamming, back-jamming trips around the pen, he settles back into his lope, pretending that the last few seconds never happened.
Dad claps. There's another clap with his.
I look over my shoulder. It's Nev. She still has the same effect she's always had on me whenever I see her.
The adrenaline I'm feeling now isn't from the horse.
I haven't seen Nev since we ran into each other at the Gold Rush.
I've avoided going into the sandwich shop because I'm worried I'll say something that will anger her.
Mostly something about the stupid asshole she's dating.
Jameson and I have been working hard to get the job finished.
Hoffman avoids us, and we avoid him. If we stick to the game plan, we'll be wheeling our equipment out of there in a few months.
I made a promise to Jameson that I'd keep my mouth shut and my temper under lock and key so we could finish the job and get paid.
My biggest worry is the getting paid part.
Chug hasn't returned to the site, but the fact that he knows Hoffman is enough to send up some big, fucking flares.
"Look who's here, Z, my guardian angel. And she brought me a sandwich." Dad frowns at the sandwich. "Where's the roast beef?"
"It's vegetarian," Nev says in a way that tells him "no argument." She's taken on her grandmother's authoritative nature with the man who took orders from no one. No one, that is, except El Honey and now, apparently, her granddaughter.
"I suppose I could give it a try," Dad says glumly. "See, why live long if you're stuck eating vegetables and drinking water? Wanna come in for a glass of juice? That's all I've got."
"Please," I scoff. "No one believes your little goody-two-shoes act, Dad. I found the bottle of bourbon you hid in the microwave."
"Just had a splash in my coffee," he explains to a scowling Nev.
Dad looks back at me. "She's even cute angry. Still don't understand why you two didn't pair up. Sometimes the tension between ya is thicker than the plaque in my arteries."
It's a statement that catches both of us off guard.
Dad never paid attention to anything we did, and he certainly never tuned into any of our feelings or emotions.
He was always too busy taking care of his own needs to think about us.
It's true that I always held a big slice of my heart for Nev, but did Dad actually pick up on it?
Lately, he was full of fucking surprises.
"I should probably stay out here and make sure the cowboy doesn't get thrown from the horse," she says.
"Good idea." Dad winks at her and whispers something in her ear. She giggles and even blushes.
Dad walks away with his sandwich. "What'd he say?" I ask.
"That's between us."
I lope Doc a few times both ways around the pen. "Shake that branch the next time I come round," I tell Nev.
She stoops down to pick it up, and Doc's ears are turning back and forth like the beacon on a lighthouse.
He knows something is up. "Never mind. He's already anticipating trouble.
I need to take him out on a trail ride where things like birds taking off or shrubs rattling their branches can happen naturally.
Are you interested in a quick trail ride?
I can put a saddle on Doobie. He's very mellow on the trail. "
Nev looks down at her jeans and sneakers. "I guess I'm sort of dressed for it." She looks at me. "Certain topics are off-limits."
"You mean like that creep you're dating?" I can't stop myself from being an idiot.
She pulls her hands from the top bar of the pipe corral. "Never mind. Try not to get dumped out there in the wilderness."
"Stop, Nevvie. Sorry. I won't say a word about—" I'm about to blow it again but stop myself. Amazingly. "I won't say a word about him. C'mon, it'll be fun. You haven't come to ride in a long time. In fact, you haven't come to the ranch in forever."
"Uh, you might have noticed that I'm running a business. It takes a lot of my time."
I hop down from Doc's back, and he releases a snort that seems to say "good riddance.
" I lead him out of the pen, and we walk over to where Nev is standing.
"Well, what do ya say about a ride? We won't go far.
Just to the pond and back." Now that I've landed on the idea of taking a ride with Nev, I'm going to be disappointed if it doesn't happen.
"I guess I could go on a short ride."
"Great. Follow us back to the barn, and we'll get Doobie out."
I tie Doc up and lead Doobie out of his stall. The dapple-gray gelding is a quarter horse crossed with a draft horse. He even has some feathering on his legs. Nev approaches his nose to talk to the horse and let him know how gorgeous he is, and I get him saddled.
Nev walks down the line of stalls and greets the other horses and returns. "You're right. I haven't been here in a long time. I forgot how therapeutic it is to stand in the warm, smelly barn with all of their soft snorts and gentle noises."
I nod as I tighten the cinch of the saddle.
"I think this barn is the thing that got me through my teens.
It kept me from going off a ledge. Whenever I was angry or in trouble, which seemed to be all the fucking time, I came out here and groomed the horses, mucked the stalls and just hung out.
I can't tell you how often I fell asleep up in the hayloft.
Stayed all night too. Even alone," I add cockily.
Nev puts her fingers in her ears. "Don't want to know about the sordid sexual adventures of Zander Wilde. I've heard that infamous hayloft mentioned in far more conversations with friends than I liked."
"You exaggerate," I say with a chuckle.
"Nope. If anything, I'm understating it."
"Yeah, all right. There, that's the second topic that's off-limits. My sordid sexual adventures. And how is it you manage to make casual sex sound like a novel?"
Nev shrugs. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail, and the shoulder movement lifts the collar of her shirt up and down. There's a red mark on the side of her long, smooth neck.
"Fuck, that asshole still gives hickeys?" I ask, sharply. "Is he living in the twentieth century?"