Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Iverson
I take Sunny back to her car and wait until she’s out of the parking lot before I leave. It’s a few hours before dawn when my ass will have to be in the saddle. I can catch a few winks.
Her taillights disappear down the highway. Is she really passing through and on her way to a different town and out of my life? Or will I run into her again at the grocery store? With fucking Andrew.
It’s best if she leaves. I have a job that women don’t like to compete with and a boss who doesn’t understand work-life balance. Not that I need him to. The job has kept me and my brothers out of trouble, a spectacular one-night stand in the back of my pickup on my dad’s property aside.
I scrub a hand down my face. All I wanted to do was curl up with her in the back seat and sleep until noon.
Even better would be having her in my bed, but that’s not possible.
I sleep in the bunkhouse with my brothers and the three other guys who work with us.
Haven and Durban would try to embarrass me around Sunny, but the others would try to steal her. Even the married ones.
I inhale the lingering scent of us in the cab and turn down a different road.
I could follow her taillights, but that might creep her out.
If she’s staying at the motel on the edge of town, it’ll still look like I was doing a drive-by.
So I turn down a dirt road. It’ll take me longer to get to the ranch and my bunk, but anyone still awake won’t see my headlights rolling in a couple of hours before the day begins.
My eyelids are growing heavy when I finally park next to my brothers’ pickups.
Inside, I maneuver around the table and chairs in the kitchen area to the bathroom.
We have actual rooms in the bunkhouse. William overhauled the layout ten years ago.
He expects loyalty and dedication, but he doesn’t think we should be living like we’re at a youth camp.
I run through the shower, wishing I could save Sunny’s sweet scent instead of washing it down the drain. Finally, I towel off and sneak into my bedroom. I get almost two hours of sleep before it’s time to wake up.
My alarm is going off as I blink awake. I’m too old for this shit. My body’s stiff in the best way, and if I think about why, I’ll start the day with a monster erection.
There’s a knock at my door a second before Haven leans in. His dark-brown hair is ruffled, and his jeans are undone with his green shirt hanging open over the waistband. “Late night?” he drawls.
“You wanna get dressed before you give me shit?”
He grins. “I am dressed.” He leans against the doorframe. “How was your night?”
I scowl at him and sit up, swinging my legs down. “I had the meeting with Myles Foster.”
He sobers. “He wants to buy Dad’s land?”
Durban appears next to him. Unlike Haven, his hair is neatly combed even though it’ll get crushed under a cowboy hat, and his navy blue shirt is tucked into his jeans. “Are you selling? Can we retire in the Caribbean?”
I laugh, but it’s the first time Durban’s mentioned not cowboying his entire life. “You want to retire?”
He shrugs, and it’s not the immediate dismissal I expect. “Foster has the money to buy us a lot of freedom.”
“It’s family land,” I say.
“We’re not using it,” Haven argues.
“You think I should sell? Just let Foster bulldoze over the memories we have there?” Myles explicitly said he’d be using as much of the old mine headquarters structure as possible, but I need to see how my brothers feel.
We don’t really talk about the property or what could be done.
Any value that’s ours is sunk into that land, but none of us have given a shit about money before.
Because we’ve never had it.
What if we did?
“We’ll always have the memories,” Haven says. He steps back to look up and down the hallway. Their rooms flanked mine, but it’s morning, and the other guys will be moving around. “Be nice to have something of our own. We’re not going to get that on these wages.”
I drop my gaze to the floor. Did I make the wrong decision? Is it only me holding on to the memories?
No, I’m holding on to possibilities. “It just feels wrong to sell it off like it’s nothing. The money split three ways won’t last long.”
Haven sighs. “That’s true. Damn good fishing. Hate to give that up.”
A tributary of the Stillwater River cuts right through our property. We know every inch of shoreline and have fed ourselves many times on the fish we caught. It’s not like we couldn’t go fishing anywhere else, but the spot we use for fly fishing is ours and ours alone.
“No competition.” Durban props his arm on the doorframe. “He didn’t make you an offer you couldn’t refuse, and we trust you on that. The money’s tempting, but these days, it goes fast. Still…did that conversation take until three in the morning?”
Definitely not talking, and not with Myles Foster. “Get out of here. Let me get ready.”
My brothers grin at each other, then aim their shit-eating expressions toward me.
“Who was she?” Haven asks.
“Nobody.” Acid burns up my throat on those words. They exchange another look. “Knock it off. It was nobody.”
“You didn’t go home with Tricia from the grocery store?” Durban asks.
Tricia’s nice enough, and after a few years of randomly hooking up, she’s been hinting about something deeper. I only slept with her because she was determined to stay single after a messy divorce. I’ve been keeping my distance since.
“Kaley?” Haven asks.
There aren’t many eligible women in town who aren’t tourists or summer help, but we’ve each had our repeat partners.
I haven’t been with either Tricia or Kaley in months.
They’re both starting to want more. Kaley did find more with some attorney and cut me off.
Whenever it doesn’t work out, she comes back.
I hope it does work for her because I can’t give them more.
If I had something to give, my brothers and I wouldn’t be working some other guy’s livestock, living in his facilities, or being told to keep our distance from the wealthy guests who can afford thousands for a week to feel like a cowboy.
“She was someone passing through.” She said she might be, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s gone. It’s better that way, and the ache in my chest will get over it.
She’s a Dolly fan too.
A few favorites and a secret confession doesn’t make a foundation. Someone like Sunny should have more. She should have it all.
Both guys groan like they missed the winning lotto numbers.
Sunny’s my jackpot, and I already spent it. My only plan for retirement is to stay mobile enough to ride until I die. The idea worked better when I was in my twenties and the morning stiffness wasn’t getting to me.
Haven crosses his arms. “I had to sit here all night and listen to Cal clip his toenails while watching America’s Got Talent because you were going to some boring meeting, but you were fucking all night long.”
“I had the boring meeting,” I mumble. “Then she showed up after.”
“What’s her name?” Durban asks.
“Why?”
He rolls his eyes. “Because I was on the other side of Cal—and we all know he tries to use his teeth before he uses the clippers.”
My empty stomach lurches. “Enough. I haven’t had breakfast, and I’m going to lose it.”
Neither brother moves.
“Name,” Durban demands.
I wipe another hand down my face. They’re obstinate enough to make us all late. “Sunny.”
“Sunny what?” Haven asks.
“We didn’t get that far. Now, move out of my way. William wants us there at nine sharp. We have a lot of work to get done first.”
Durban snorts. “I don’t understand why we have to go line up like obedient little servants whenever someone new starts.”
“It’s so we don’t fuck with them.” Our dad used to watch Downton Abbey, and Hawthorne Ranch reminds me of the show. There’s a clear class divide, and the two can’t mingle, according to William. But then he’s the millionaire owner of a thriving working guest and vacation ranch. I’m just the help.
I wipe sweat off my brow and stuff my cowboy hat back on after a good dusting off as my brothers and I ride toward the main ranch. My brothers only looked at it and smirked.
Grasses rustle around the legs of the horses as we ride across the property.
The working ranch around the bunkhouse has two large barns and a shop.
Cattle pens surround the barns. It’s where we keep the heifers when they’re about to calve.
The other cows are farther away but still close for when they give birth.
The rolling pastures in the valleys of the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains are filled with cow-calf pairs.
On the other side of the shop is the bull pasture.
Next to them, the well-trained horses the guests use graze until they have to take on a new rider.
Three cabins line the property by the big house. The housekeeping and kitchen staff can live there or in town while the guests stay in the lodge.
The cowhands mill around outside the shop.
Cal and the other two ranch hands are among them.
I stop at the fence stretching between the shop and a bar and swing down.
I tie off Burgundy, my mare, on a fence post, and she happily rips grass from around the base of the fence.
My brothers do the same, and we join the crowd.
When William swaggers out of the shop, he pins me with a stern glare. “You’re late.”
I have two minutes to spare after having to make an appointment with the vet. The new VIP was less important than one of the cows under my care. “Sorry, boss.”
He nods, his mouth in a satisfied line. He can talk a gruff game, and sometimes he’s heavy-handed, but the most important thing is respect. As long as we show him respect, his tolerance is a lot higher.
William claps his hands together. “All right, everyone, thanks for coming.”
He’s dressed like us. Jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat.
Only, like the guys who work with the guests, he wears a short-sleeved snap-up shirt.
The rest of us wear ten-dollar T-shirts that are readily replaceable if they rip.
Sometimes, when I get too much body fluids on myself, I just trash the whole thing.
There’s no coming back when a vet lances a large cyst and I get splattered.
I cross my arms and hang out at the back of the crowd. Haven and Durban are even farther behind me, less caring about who the new bookkeeper is. William’s been cagey, which isn’t like him. That’s the only reason I was two minutes early instead of right on time. Curiosity is a big motivator.
“I know some of you have met Jamison before she left home,” William starts. “She’s been gone for a long time.”
Haven catches my eye, frowning, a silent question in his gaze. I shake my head. I don’t know a Jamison who’s been at the ranch. I want to keep my job, so I only venture into the big house when William wants me in a meeting or needs hard data that only someone in the trenches knows.
William beckons toward the shop. “Jamison, the barn cats can wait. Come on out and meet everyone, hon.”
Hon?
Shadows move inside the large open door, but I can’t make out any details. I catch sight of a flowing skirt over cowboy boots. Her blouse is tucked in, and the sway of the skirt highlights the roll of her hips. Long, chestnut hair hangs over one shoulder.
My pulse kicks up, and I stand taller. Who is this Jamison? I crane my head to see her and every other man around me is doing the same.
When the sun hits her face, my lungs freeze. Pink lips that turn into perfect pillows when they’re kiss-swollen. High cheekbones that flush during her orgasm. Amber eyes that match the shade of whiskey I was drinking last night.
Her gaze hits mine, and her eyes widen. Then those plump lips part.
“Sunny,” I say under my breath.
Haven jerks his head toward me.
“Everyone,” William says, “this is Hawthorne Ranch’s new accountant. Jamison Hawthorne. My daughter.”