Chapter 7
Fitz
I wake up at my ranch with a case of the Mondays, but I'm in a better mood than usual, thanks to a certain brunette who kept me up half the night on Saturday.
A brunette I’ll never see again.
It’s been years since I hooked up with someone. I pretty much know everyone in this town, which means I know better than to set tongues wagging with any hint at romance when I don’t plan to follow through.
But there’s a bigger reason. I don’t trust myself to be a good romantic partner.
The role model I had for relationships was a father who made his problems everyone else’s.
Apple doesn’t fall far. In the one long relationship I had, I fucked everything up.
Let myself be vulnerable and show parts of myself I could never hide after that.
Made me feel so exposed that I started becoming the same kind of asshole as my dad, taking everything and giving nothing because it was the only way to feel worse about myself than I already did.
It was inexcusable, and the shame over it made me vow never to inflict that on another woman.
I’m better at helping other people with their burdens and keeping my side of the street clean. Giving up relationships doesn’t feel like much of a sacrifice for not hurting someone else.
The fact that I keep thinking about Tessa doesn’t mean I’m about to change my ethos. I just had a good time. I enjoyed every soft curve of her body. Every worry line in her forehead that I erased. Every sigh on her lips.
That’s all.
The insistent banging on my door jolts me back to reality.
My ranch is up along the driveway from the main road, and anyone who wants to come here has to pass several Private Property signs in case there’s confusion that the long drive through a stand of trees is some kind of public parkland.
The ranch house itself is a sprawling structure that’s clearly a residence, and I keep up on the painting and repairs to keep it in good condition.
Whoever came far enough to bang on my door ignored the signs or needs me at this ungodly hour. Either way, it chaps my hide. Even more than the prospect of yet another day trying to make inroads with the next-door neighbor who hasn’t returned any of my emails.
Not cool. Not neighborly.
So now I’m back with the big guns, a lawyer who will sue their asses six times over for water rights they’re hoarding for no good reason.
The land over there is fallow, so they’re not watering shit, and my land produces half the income in this town because I pay a metric ton of taxes.
People around here depend on my ranch meeting its production goals because my taxes impact them directly.
Road repairs. Fire abatement. A public health clinic.
But there’s no such thing as a working ranch without water to keep the vegetation alive.
The threat of another drought year in California always hangs over me like the never-ending sky. As I implied to Anthony at the bar, I will prevail over the absentee neighbors if I have to offer them double what their property is worth just to get it under my control.
“Quit your nagging,” I say, stomping over to the door and flinging it open.
Staring back is my younger brother, mirroring me with the same dark hair and brown eyes.
Only in his case, his hair stands on end as usual, and his eyes are red-rimmed and squinty.
That's his normal state of affairs. The guy doesn't sleep, and I don't think he owns a hairbrush.
He barges through the door without saying good morning or asking me if I'm busy or if this is a good time. Again, not unusual.
“Hey, Chad. What's up? Nice to see you too,” I say. He doesn't bother with pleasantries, but to his credit, he does have a cup of coffee in his hand, and he shoves it at me by way of apology. Then he starts in on a rant.
“You still don’t have cameras installed. What is wrong with you?”
“This again? I said I’d do it.”
He holds up a finger and moves toward me. “Exactly. So why haven’t you?” I grab his finger and force it down by his side. He raises it again and pokes my chest. “Help us help you, for fuck’s sake.”
My hands ball into fists, and I clench my jaw because if I don’t exert some self-control, I’ll take a swing at him like I used to when we were kids. And teenagers. And…well, last month. But he should know better than to poke me.
Instead, I take his paper cup peace offering and walk into my kitchen. It takes three full deep breaths in and out before I feel calmer. It used to take ten. Feels like progress.
My brother’s kindness in the coffee department is tempered by his lack of attention to detail. I don’t drink black coffee, never have. I don’t care if it’s half ’n’ half or some nut milk, but there has to be something in the cup with the coffee.
“Thanks for the coffee.” I can hear him panting behind me like he just finished a fifty-yard dash.
He’s not out of shape. He just runs hot, always fired up about something and spitting nails.
I worry about his blood pressure. Our dad died of liver disease when he wasn’t much older than us, so I worry about that too.
I pour milk into the cup and take a sip.
“Sorry, I always forget you put shit in your coffee.” Chad comes up next to me and peers into my cup like it’s mysterious. He’s slightly calmer.
“Traffic bad out there?”
It’s rush hour, or what qualifies as such in a small town. Slow trucks on narrow mountain roads clog things up, and day laborers trickle in. I rustle around in my freezer for a bag of banana muffins and pop two into the toaster oven.
He laughs. “No traffic. Just assholes.”
“Yeah. The usual.” I’m momentarily mesmerized by the orange tube in the oven blazing brighter as it thaws the muffins. Then I shake myself out of the trance and chug half my coffee, which burns the roof of my mouth. I’m off my game today already. Not a good sign.
“Heard you hooked up the other night.” Chad grins with this bit of gossip. There’s no use in trying to deny it when Chad spends enough time at the Hitching Post to know what goes on even on a night when he’s not there.
“Yeah. Unlike me, I know. It was nice.”
“Nice?”
I shrug, and he shakes his head. “That’s all I get?”
“That’s all there is.”
“Jesus, you can’t let anyone in. Ever.”
It’s not a new conversation, and I’m unlikely to change, so I don’t know why he’s bothering to bring it up.
“I don’t expect I’ll see her again, and I’m fine with that. Moving on.”
The toaster dings, and I give it one more round to make sure the muffins thaw in the middle. The smell of burnt sugar and melted butter fills the kitchen, and I inhale deep.
Chad laughs. “Still with the muffins, huh? I never met a guy with such a thing for banana muffins.”
“It’s the only option. Bananas make no sense.”
“Here we go. The great banana problem.” He swings a leg over a stool and leans his elbows on the high countertop between us. “I know your whole thing…they’re sold in bunches so they all ripen at once…”
“Exactly, and there’s only one or two days when they’re good, so the rest end up soft and brown.” The toaster dings. “And fucking delicious in muffin form.”
“You could put them in a smoothie,” Chad says.
“Fuck that.”
I roll the muffins out of the oven and onto plates. No chance Chad will eat his without butter, so I grab a stick from the fridge and hand him a knife.
“Anyhow, I did a drive around the perimeter of the property and ID’ed a couple of blind spots where you need eyes.
If you don’t put cameras there, you’re asking for trouble from people looking to steal water right from your spigot, and we’re already stretched thin at work.
Got a former cop starting this week, so that’s already a shit show because he thinks working security is the same thing as being a cop.
On top of Dirk, who’s on administrative leave, and Gina, who's about to go out on maternity. Don’t make more work for me. ”
I talk through a bite of muffin. “Fair enough.”
Sneaking a look at my brother, I assess his condition.
He’s not slurring his words, and I don’t smell alcohol on his breath, so it seems like he’s having a good morning.
I’m relieved. I worry sometimes because he pushes himself hard working twelve-hour shifts as a security guard outside the one bank in town.
But the drinking, well, that’s a different story.
Chad used to be a police officer here, but his hangovers hindered his sharpness, not to mention that he was in no position to be a responsible authority figure.
I couldn’t save his job. It wouldn’t have been right to have him behind the wheel when I couldn’t guarantee he’d be sober.
He’s been on indefinite leave for a while now, with the possibility of getting his job back if he gets sober and cleans up his act.
But Chad doesn’t do well with ultimatums. So here we are, me cleaning up his messes and him making new ones.
It is what it is.
“I’ll get on it today, hire someone to put them up.”
“At least get an estimate, is all I’m saying.
Make some inroads.” He tears off a big hunk of muffin, swipes it through the butter, and pops the whole thing in his mouth.
“Or better yet, just make something happen with the property next door. I hear there’s been some activity there.
Visitors. Maybe the owners are finally ready to sell. ”
This gets my attention. For as long as I’ve owned my land, there’s been an absentee neighbor on one side with an underground aquifer I’m dying to rent or buy.
“What do you know?” I ask.
He rubs a hand across the back of his neck and shakes his head. “Just that some inquiries have been made down at the city planner’s office about property lines, conditional use permits. They’re either planning to build or planning to sell.”
“Now they want to build something, after years of letting it rot?”
“Or they plan to sell. And you need to be first in line with an open checkbook.”
Buying that land could solve some of my problems, but those are a literal drop in the bucket compared to the much bigger water issue that hangs over the entire town.
Still, it’s enough for me to feel suddenly better about the day ahead of me. For the first time in a while, there’s a glimmer of lightness in my chest that I almost don’t recognize.
I think it’s called hope.