Chapter 19
“Ready?” Lane looked over at Kade with a raised brow.
“Yeah, I know Mom’s going to freak out, and Dad will be mad because we didn’t let them know.” He pointed to his casted leg, and tried to lift his arm with the sling, but winced at the pain in his shoulder.
“You know, your rodeo days are probably over with that torn rotator cuff.”
“I know, and we need to make a pact right here before we go in the house.”
“What type of pact?”
“Downplay the severity of my shoulder injury, and really, really, really hit home the opportunity to work with Cole. I really like the idea of working with the animals, but not trying to ride them. Between you and me, I did my rodeo thing, and I enjoyed it, but I don’t think that life is for me.
If I can get in on the ground floor of something like what Cole wants to build, that would suit me just fine. ”
“Yeah, after my last spill, I’m thinking the same thing.
” He leaned back, lifted his shirt, and they both winced at the gigantic dark purple bruise on one side of his rib cage.
“We also have to stress that we’re really needed.
As much as I love our family, and missed them like crazy, I can’t see myself spending the rest of my life milking fucking cows.
Working with the horses and bulls is where it’s at for me. ”
“Me too, and we can always give them one of Cole’s cards so Dad can call and talk with him.”
“There is that.” Lane nodded and looked at him with a smirk. “Need help getting out of the truck?”
“No, but I’ll have your back when the girls launch themselves at you, if you have my back.”
“Deal.” They did their special handshake and gingerly exited the truck. They made it all the way to the back door and into the wash room before anyone noticed they were there.
“Is someone there?” They heard their mother call out, and they exchanged grins as they stepped into the house and saw their father sitting down to lunch.
“Oh my!” Their mother screamed, causing their father to whip around, and at the last moment, he grabbed his wife around the waist to stop her. “Let me go, John. I want to hug my boys.”
“You can, but stop, look at them, they’re hurt.” From his height above his wife he saw relief in his son’s expressions, and nodded at them with a grin.
“Oh my,” Iris Montgomery put her fingers to her mouth. But she didn’t rush them again. “How bad?” Before they could answer, she stepped back and invited them further into the kitchen. “Lunch is on if you’re hungry.”
John Montgomery burst out laughing as he held his hands out to his sons. “Iris, they’re always hungry.” He looked at them sternly, then gave them a wink to soften the blow. “Answer your mother.”
Kade wrinkled his nose at his father and turned to his mother. “Messed up shoulder, and a fracture in the shin bone. It’s been a little over two weeks, so I have six left to go.”
“And you?” She had nodded and turned to her eldest child. She visibility winced and jerked back when Lane lifted his shirt and they saw the bruised ribs.
“Damn,” John said, and whistled. He bent down and inspected them, he started to reach out to touch, but dropped his hand when Lane jerked away. “How long ago?”
“Night before last.”
“Ouch, come in, take your seats, and dig in.” He went back to his own seat and watched as his grown boys shuffled to the table, but he smirked at his wife when they paused, turned and went back to the wash room to wash their hands before sitting at the table.
They filled their plates with the sandwich fixings, and salads, and dug in.
No one said a word until the boys had finished their first plate of food.
When they took only half of what they had at first, John nodded in understanding.
With them slowing in their eating, he asked quietly.
“Are you done?”
“No, at least not the way you mean.” Lane spoke after chewing the bite he had taken. “We’re here because we were over in Denver this past weekend, and wanted to come home and talk with you and Mom. Since neither of us can partake in any events for a few weeks, we thought we’d come home to heal.”
“Yeah,” Kade said. “We also have something to talk to you about.”
“Can it wait until after lunch? I’m not being a hard ass here, but I can spare a couple of hours before I have to get back out in the field.”
“I can drive a combine, if that will help.” Lane volunteered.
“No, I don’t need you twisting and turning and hurting yourself even more. Are they bruised or broken?”
“Doctor said cracked.”
“Got it, you’re going to be laid up for a couple of weeks at least. I can make do.” He chuckled. “Got a couple of townies working for me this summer.”
Lane and Kade quickly covered their mouths when they spat out their food, and laughed along with their parents.
“Where are the girls?” Kade asked as he finished his lunch.
“Running the combine, and trucks. We’re working in shifts.”
“Ah, got it, that’s why there’s so much food for just you and Mom.”
“Correct,” Iris said. “Now talk.”
Kade drew in a deep breath, looked at Lane, and at his nod, he started. “This past Friday, I was watching Lane in the arena, he drew Brutis. Two weeks prior, over in Nevada, Brutis made me see the rail up close and personal.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, while I wasn’t taken out on a stretcher, I had Lane take me to the medic as soon as I got in the back.
He told me to go to the hospital, but I waited until Lane was done before we went.
I know, but I didn’t want to worry him. Anyway, we were just north of Denver this past weekend, and on Friday, I was watching Lane do his event.
I want to say it was a little old lady, but I think she would put me over her knee if she heard me talk like that.
Anyway, as I was saying, I was watching Lane, and stepped up to this woman.
She must have thought I was someone else, because she asked a question.
I automatically answered. I don’t know what she saw when she looked at me, but she immediately handed me a business card and asked if I would meet her and her boyfriend for breakfast the next morning.
She said she had a business opportunity for me.
” He looked at his parents with a grin. “I asked if I could bring my brother, and she said only if we would bring our appetites.”
John and Iris laughed at that, and John pushed the bowl of macaroni salad that Lane had been eyeing, closer to him.
“Did you?”
“Did we what?” Lane asked as he took a healthy helping of his favorite salad.
“Bring your appetites to breakfast?”
“We did, and true to her word, Cole bought our breakfast. It was a buffet, so we were able to fill up. I’ll be honest, Dad, it was hard at times, but we learned to save our money, and though I had won a small purse from riding the weekend Kade was hurt, it kept us going.
There were days that we only ate once in order to make our money stretch.
We’re not dead broke, we still have about a thousand dollars left between us, but after that breakfast with Cole and Lois, we thought it would be best to come home, heal, and talk with you and Mom. ”
“About?”
“Again, being honest here, but you know how much Kade and I hate cow farming.”
“Yes, and I resigned myself to you not taking over the farm when you were back in high school and wanted to start going to the rodeos.”
“Okay, then this might be a good conversation,” Kade said as he sat back in his chair and looked between his parents. Without saying anything, he withdrew the piece of paper with the numbers on it, and passed it to his father. John took it, opened it, looked at it, and passed it to his wife.
“What’s this?” Iris asked.
“That would be our weekly pay if we take the jobs offered us. Each. For the first ninety days, then a raise if we work out, then another one annually after that.”
“You’re telling me that someone wants to hire the two of you and pay you this amount on a weekly basis? What on earth would you be doing to earn this?”
“We’ll get to that, because I want to tell you that Lane and I figured we could live off of half of one of those numbers, together, and we could send the rest home to you, and you can put it toward the girls’ college.”
“You’d be willing to do that?” John asked in shock. “How the hell could you live on what you said?”
“We’d have a place to live, rent free, I believe, don’t quote me on this, because we still have questions, but we wanted to talk to you so we could call Cole and ask our questions together. But I believe we might be responsible for utilities, and our own food.”
“Well,” John laughed. “There goes one weekly check.”
“Ha, ha, very funny. Not,” Lane said with a laugh.
“What would you be doing, and where?”
“Have you ever heard of Fool’s Gold, Colorado?”
“Yes,” John said with a laugh. “Remember the summer before your senior year of high school, we went as a family for a week of survival training. We rode in a helicopter, did rock climbing, camped out in the woods. The people running the place were former military?”
“Oh, yes, I remember that. It was fun, but what does that have to do with anything.”
“That was in Fool’s Gold, Colorado.”
“Oh, wow, I hadn’t realized that. Well, I asked about that town, because Cole said it was roughly an hour away from the ranch.”
“Do you know the name of this ranch?” Iris asked as she rose from the table and went over to the counter to bring over her laptop.
“Erin’s Way,” Kade answered. They watched as John went to join his wife and they looked them up on the internet, it was long enough that both the boys, even with their injuries cleaned up from their lunch, washed down the table, put the food away, and started a fresh pot of coffee.
Their parents didn’t look up until they sat back down.
“This Cole person wants you to work at Erin’s Way?” Iris asked in confusion.