Chapter 5 Everett
EVERETT
Mary Bryce from Branded has been on my ranch for three days so far, and she’s steadily driving me more and more insane. I have enough to deal with from my kids—Jennifer keeps hatching schemes to save the ranch, and I drove my son off years ago. I don’t need Mary adding to it.
“Is this the last of the lot for this year?” I ask, as I set another tag in with the pliers.
They’re nasty looking things, basically a hole punch with a spike, but most of the calves hardly even flinch when they get tagged. It’s the handling that they don’t like.
“Tony’s going through the field and double-checking that everyone else is tagged,” Al says. “But this should be everybody.”
He’s leaning against the fence, and while it would look casual to anyone who doesn’t know him, I can tell he’s practically propping himself up.
Rough day for him, then, but with how much it’s been raining, I’m not surprised.
Walking through the mud is hard on him. I make a mental note to keep him away from anything strenuous today.
Maybe I can talk him into making some phone calls I’ve been putting off.
He’s more personable than I am, even if he prefers physical labor to paperwork, but it’s a good excuse to keep him in the office and off his feet for the majority of the day.
As soon as I see Bill get a good hold on the calf, I step in and place the pliers to its ear. It tosses its little head a few times before pausing to take a breath, and I wince in sympathy even as I clamp the pliers closed to secure the tag.
The calf’s eyes are wide, and it’s obviously not enjoying the hold Bill has it in, but it’ll be over fast. I double check the backing to make sure it’s secure before stepping back with a nod to Bill.
He releases it with a little chuckle. It bolts right for the gate, spraying mud in its wake.
Jonas lets it run out to join the rest of the calves and herds an untagged one into the pen with us.
It’s a well-practiced routine after so many years working together, and while the calves are never happy about playing along, we’ve got a good rhythm between us.
I’m so used to things going the same way every year that I damn near drop the alcohol wipe I’m using to sterilize the pliers when I hear Mary’s voice.
She’s babbling before she’s even fully in earshot, and I glance back to see if she’s on the phone.
A chuckle breaks out of my throat when I realize that she’s just talking to herself, completely in her own world.
“We just need to really hype up the rustic factor,” she says, her tongue slipping out to wet her lips as she raises her phone to take a photo of one of the horses.
Trixie poses for the photo obediently, and I snort. She’s always been an attention hog.
“Morning, Mary,” Al greets.
She turns with a bright smile on her face, the blue of her eyes glittering with excitement as she steps out of the barn and toward the small pen we use for tagging.
She’s wearing a pair of tailored navy slacks and a white button up, which is at least a little more suited to the ranch than the sensible pant suits she seems so at home in.
The heels have been set aside, too, and she’s been wearing sneakers since the second day.
I haven’t been able to talk her into the mud boots again, no matter how amusing it had been to see her face scrunch up in disgust the first time.
“Good morning, Al,” she says. “Everett, I wanted to talk to you about some ideas, if you’ve got a minute.”
I glance back to where Bill is still trying to wrangle the calf. This one’s feisty.
“Bit busy at the moment,” I say, not bothering to pretend I’m apologetic.
“Excellent,” she says with a wide grin, which is the last thing I expect to hear. “You can’t run away while I talk, then.”
That startles a laugh out of both me and Al, as Mary leans against the fence right next to him.
Her eyes are glittering with both amusement and challenge, and I scowl, wishing that Bill would get a hold on the damn calf so I can focus on something other than the way her gaze makes me feel hot under the collar.
It’s been damn near a decade since anyone’s made me feel like this, and the only person before her was my wife. I spent thirty years with her, through all the ups and downs, and I don’t quite know how to feel about having even a passing attraction to someone else.
But I can’t stop the way my gaze falls to Mary’s lips when they twist into a teasing grin.
“Over the next few days, I want to get some photos of you working,” she says. “You’re the face of the ranch, so our marketing strategy should really include you. I was thinking maybe you could pose with some of the calves, at least when you’re not stabbing their poor little ears.”
She glances at the pliers in my hand with distaste, but I ignore the jab. She’s a city girl, and she probably thinks the needle that a vet uses to give a dog a vaccine is too big.
“Got her,” Bill finally calls.
He’s breathless, and the hold he’s got on the calf isn’t great, but I rush over anyway, tag at the ready.
I take the calf’s ear in my fingers, ready for her to toss her head, but she bucks furiously instead.
Her back legs dig down and send slicks of mud flying when she throws her weight around.
She manages to wiggle free from Bill’s hold yet again just as Mary lets out a truly ear-piercing shriek from behind us.
I whirl on instinct, already advancing toward her. My eyes are wide with worry, because as annoying as she can be, I have no interest in anyone getting hurt on my ranch.
And then I come to a halt when I realize what that scream was about.
She’s staring down at her once pristine blouse, the white fabric now splattered with fresh mud across her chest and all the way down to her hip. There are a few spots on her pants, too, and a small spray reached up her neck to her jaw.
All I can do is laugh.
She just looks so utterly horrified, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her anything but composed—that smile finally dropping into a look of pure dismay.
It’s the harmless kind of entertaining, seeing the pretty little city girl finally get properly dirty.
The rest of us are all covered in mud and sweat, so she doesn’t look so out of place among us anymore.
Her head whips up, a truly venomous glare on her face, but whatever she sees when she looks at me makes her anger soften, and she settles on sighing.
“Gross,” she mutters, wiping the mud from her face with one hand.
My mind goes immediately blank when I realize that her other hand is plucking at the buttons of her shirt.
She doesn’t seem to be thinking about it, and I see Al turn his attention elsewhere as she works the buttons open, causing me to freeze in place.
Unable to look away. She doesn’t look up until she’s shrugged her way out of it completely, and I really wish I could come up with quite literally anything to say.
She’s standing in front of me in a tiny little tank top.
I can’t help but stare at the clear lines of her bra beaming from beneath it, causing my cheeks to warm.
Her waist is even tinier than I thought it was, her curves the kind of thing that I want to stare at for days on end.
She’s absolutely beautiful, despite the small smear of mud at the corner of her jaw.
“Please tell me that it was all mud,” she huffs. Her eyes gazing down at her shirt with a grimace curling her lips, thankfully failing to notice the way I’m still just standing there stupidly, looking at her.
“Uh, yeah,” I finally reply, blinking rapidly in an attempt to get my head on straight.
I don’t need to be staring at the beautiful woman who just stripped her shirt off in front of me and is now leveling me with a distrustful glare.
I really don’t need to be thinking about the way her lips go all full and pouty when she frowns at me.
Hell, I don’t need to be thinking about her at all.
“You don’t sound very certain,” she says.
It’s stupid to think that she looks cute, right? She’s got mud all over her clothes and she’s visibly annoyed with me, but that just makes me want to tease her.
“It’s mud,” I say, a slow grin stretching my lips as I glance back to where the calf is currently taking a shit in the corner of the pen. “Mostly mud.”
She makes a truly disgusted face at the implication, swallowing hard before nodding and taking a quick step back.
“I need to change,” she says, “and shower. If you’ll excuse me.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer from any of us, just turns on her heel and walks right back toward the house.
The view of her leaving isn’t any less distracting than watching her strip out of her shirt was.
Her hips sway with every step, and my mouth goes dry as the image of her taking everything off and stepping into the shower pops unbidden into my mind.
Would she still be smiling so sweetly if I pinned her to the shower wall?
“You, uh, alright, boss?” Bill asks.
He sounds a bit hesitant and a bit teasing, and I turn with a scowl to find him, Tony, and Al all doing their best to bite back grins. I try to shove all thoughts of Mary out of my head immediately, frowning deeply when they stubbornly refuse to go anywhere.
“Shut up,” I grumble at Bill, shoving the pliers toward him.
I’m too busy to be fantasizing about a pretty girl, especially when she’s far too young for me.
I haven’t looked at anyone but my wife like that, and after she passed, I haven’t considered dating again.
The idea makes me feel guilty, like I’m throwing out 30 years spent together, as well as the 10 years since that I’ve spent grieving.
Cancer took Laura from me before either of us were ready, and I lost everything along with her.
I lost the connection I had with my kids, the love I had for the ranch, any hope of being able to move past how much I miss her every day.
I have no idea why I’m so hung up on Mary, anyway.
She asks too many damn questions, and she never shuts up. Every word out of her mouth is hopeful to the point of being delusional. She wears designer clothes and complains about how much everything smells and can’t even handle getting a little bit of mud on her.
“You and Tony can get the rest of the calves tagged on your own,” I say.
No one argues with me as I step out of the pen, although I hear an annoyed sigh from Tony. They all know better than to rile me up further when my mood slips like this, and while I won’t admit it, I’m grateful for it.
My head is spinning, and I wish I could just step back from all of it.
The money situation has been stressing me out more and more.
Just recently, the land developer who’s been riding my ass raised his offer again, and he’s only asking for half the ranch.
It would cut our productivity, but I’m only managing to keep things running by the skin of my teeth as is.
We’re all overworked and exhausted, and the cash would be enough to pay most of the debts off and at least get the threat of foreclosure off our backs.
Even Al doesn’t know how close we really are to losing everything, but he doesn’t need any more to worry about right now.
As much as I don’t want to sell even part of the ranch—because it feels like giving up—the money is getting more tempting by the day. I could scale back operations to something a little more manageable, fix up the crumbling fixtures and parts of the house.
I could get Ms. Bryce and all her hopeful suggestions off my back.
I sigh heavily as I round the corner of the barn, exhausted and drained by my unsureness on how the hell to fix any of this.
Jennifer is so hopeful that a smart marketing scheme will be the change we need, but I just can’t see how some advertising is going to repair a decade of ruined friendships and my own shitty work ethic.
I want the ranch to succeed, but I just don’t have it in me anymore.
I rub my hand over my face, frustrated. It’s not worth thinking about right now. Jennifer and Mary will talk when Jennifer gets back, and it’ll be their problem to figure out.
Right now, all I really want to do is lay out on the dirt in the shadow of the barn and take a damn nap.
Yeah, a nap sounds just about perfect right now.