Chapter 22
Wilder
“What’s got you so jittery tonight?” my mama asked, a glass half-raised to her mouth. “Haven’t seen you this fidgety since you were a boy.”
I paused mid-chew, my leg going still under the table. “No reason.”
I didn’t even have to look up to know she was narrowing her eyes at me over the rim of her glass like she always did when she sensed I was trying to be slick. My mama had a sixth sense when it came to bullshit.
Always had.
I could’ve been halfway across the damn state and she’d still know I was hiding something. From some weird maternal telepathy my father and I used to joke about but were always secretly scared of.
No amount of distance or changing the subject could shake it once she has her eyes locked on to whatever she thought she saw.
My fork scraped against the edge of my plate as I shoveled another bite into my mouth, using it as an excuse to not be able to talk if she asked me something again.
Sitting here vibrating, feeling like I’d swallowed a livewire, all because I was waiting to sneak a boy into our house like we were a couple of rowdy teenagers tired of messing around in the haystacks out by the stables.
Outside, the sun had already set.
Dinner up at the bunkhouse usually got over and done with around six. Factoring in clean up, dish duty, and maybe a quick shower and a change of clothes, Asher would probably show up at my back door pushing six-thirty.
Which gave me all of about half an hour left not to let slip to my poor mama that I was losing my goddamn mind waiting.
Him laid out on that desk, the image of him panting while covered in both of our cum, was burned into the inside of my eyelids. The way he’d begged me to take him replayed on repeat. The soft little sigh he let out when I’d reached for him today in that shed.
The way his fingers glided over his stomach, coating them in our release before he brought it up to his mouth to taste it.
Lord have mercy.
My leg began to shake again, earning me another pointed look from across the table.
“Wilder Reese. You tell me right now what has gotten into you.”
I flinched.
Not visibly, at least I hoped not. Enough that my hand jerked slightly when I reached for my glass.
I brought it up to my mouth to buy time, using it to mask the flush I knew was creeping across my cheeks, staining them a deep, cherry red I was known for having when I was a boy after getting caught doing things I shouldn’t have been doing.
I was bad at lying—always had been. Half-truths never came easy, either, but they weren’t as hard of a pill to swallow.
God help me, I’d never been this twisted up over another person in my whole damn life.
I sighed, setting my glass down. “Nothing’s gotten into me. Just tired. It’s been a long week.”
She raised one thin brow at me, the fine lines around her eyes deepened with her suspicions. “Really, now. Something happen?” That slow, southern drawl always sounded so sweet, even when it was laced with a thinly veiled threat to knock it off.
I forced a shrug, leaning forward to drag the prongs of my fork through what was left of my potatoes.
The problem was I had nothing solid to give her. Not unless I wanted to confess to what I was sure would be a night spent doing whatever I could to Asher while my mother peacefully slept on the opposite side of the house none the wiser.
Having a ranch that ran as smooth and efficient as ours didn’t give me much to complain about. No crisis or injury, no new intakes. Nothing that would explain away why I was sitting here squirming like a man ready to be dragged into confessional.
We were a well-oiled machine at Boone Ranch. Everyone pulled their weight, things got done on time, we broke even most months—which, in the world of ranching, was more blessing than curse—and most folks had enough competence to know better than to screw around or slack off.
Carter’s face flashed in my mind.
Well, most everyone...
“Actually,” I said, changing tactics. If Mama was going to keep pressing, I might as well throw her a bone. After all, it wasn’t a lie. Just not the truth she was actually looking for. “We’re having some problems with one of the greenhorns we hired early last year.”
Her head tilted in curiosity. “Oh? Don’t tell me it’s that sweet boy from Louisiana. I know him taking a long break from here might’ve set y’all back a bit but he’s a hardworking one, isn’t he?”
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s doing just fine.”
She shot me a relieved smile. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. He’s always been so polite when he comes up to the house.”
I tried to smother my smile.
Hard to whenever Asher came up in a conversation, even more so when people were complimenting him. My mama’s approval meant more to me than she knew. Her liking Asher filled me with a sense of pride.
He’d come to Texas all on his own but I’d been the one to hire him.
I’d trained him, molded him into a fine ranch hand, and quietly encouraged that wild knack of his when it came to our rescues.
He was mine the moment he’d shaken my hand and fixed me with that eager grin of his the day he’d arrived.
“It’s our other one. Carter. We’ve been having some issues with him the past few weeks.”
“What kind of issues?” she asked, her curious gaze sharpening.
“Attitude mostly,” I said. “Not real good at taking direction. Talks back. Picks fights with the other hands when he thinks he’s right instead of trying to listen and understand.”
Not bringing up what happened with the feed just yet before I had solid answers would save my poor mama from worrying herself sick.
She cared about our horses just as much as we all did. Not being able to attend to anything like she used to before her health had started to fail still kept her up late into the evening watching out our big bay window until everyone finally made their way up to the bunkhouse for the night.
It felt unnecessary scaring her like that when this was all still an ongoing investigation.
If it turned out to be a big misunderstanding, then so be it.
If not, Sully and I already had a plan in place on what we were going to do with Carter afterward. And that included sitting him down in my office and forcing him to talk.
She hummed softly. “Some folks just aren’t cut out for this line of work. Can’t handle the pressure of having to work together.”
I nodded, even though this wasn’t only about Carter not being a team player. It was about trust at this point, and how fast that could shatter with a single situation. One that in our line of work meant life or death with the animals if not addressed.
I couldn’t shake the image of Asher’s face from earlier—tight with concern when he’d turned around with that bottle in his hand inside the storage shed.
His voice had been pinched as he’d confirmed it was the right one, just like it did when he was recounting the story of how he found Carter with the feed and that same bottle the day before.
He hadn’t hesitated coming to me to tell me.
He could’ve ignored it. Written it off as something that seemed off but not out of the ordinary. But he hadn’t. He’d come straight to me and dragged me back to the stables regardless of the weird tension that had settled between us.
That was impressive.
“You gonna fire him?” she asked.
“We might. We have to wait and confirm some things first.”
She nodded in approval. “I trust you’ll make your daddy proud with how you’re handling things. You were always good at making sure everyone got their fair share.”
I smiled faintly.
Sometimes, I wished that were the case. She meant well when she spoke like that, but she didn’t know the half of it. Everyone around me seemed to think I’d been born with my boots already laced, like stepping into my father’s role was as natural as breathing.
But truth be told, my father’s shoes were big ones to fill and most days, I never felt like I’d ever measure up to the legacy he left behind, no matter how long I kept the ranch running or how hard I worked to do right by the land and the people on it.
I tended to put him on a pedestal, sure, but hell, the man deserved it.
He was a great man and an even better rancher.
Fair, firm, kind when it counted. He led by example and everyone respected him for it.
I’d spent my whole life watching him command a room with nothing more than a look and a tilt of his chin.
And now, two years later, I was still trying to master even half of what came so effortlessly to him.
After we both finished off our plates, I gathered them and brought them to the kitchen to wash and set in the dry rack.
The window over the sink gave me a clear view of the path that wound down from the bunkhouse, the dirt trail empty under the warm cast of the porch light. So far, no sign of a soul traveling down it.
I itched to check the time but forced myself to focus on the dishes cluttering the sink instead.
Obsessively, watching the clock wasn’t going to get Asher here faster.
I knew that.
If he ran into some trouble sneaking out without anyone noticing, I was in for an even longer wait. That was fine. Really, I’d wait as long as I needed to. But my chest ached with the kind of restless anticipation I’d felt back when I’d spotted him waiting on the steps the day he’d come back.
That same tick tugging at the back of my mind, relentless.
I needed him. Bad.