Bloodlines
COLT
I nearly groan as a head-to-toe shiver of sheer fucking pleasure darts down my spine.
“That’s the fucking stuff. God, that’s good. So, so good.”
Am I aware I make orgasm-adjacent sounds while drinking my first cup of coffee in the morning? Yes.
Do I care? Not a lick.
Gotta get your rocks off somehow. As a single dad living on a twenty-thousand-acre ranch in the middle of nowhere, I take what I can get.
Bringing the steaming mug to my lips, I take a gulp. Let my head fall back as I savor the coffee’s velvety, bitter taste. I take it with a little half-and-half, no sugar.
This time I do groan. Goddamn, that really is good.
The clock on the microwave says it’s 4:37 a.m. It’s early as all get-out, but this is still my favorite time of day.
The house is quiet. Windows are dark. It’s just me and my coffee. No fuckups to fix or literal shit to shovel. No moody six-year-old to coax into eating breakfast or brushing his teeth or putting on his shoes.
I don’t know why, but it’s always a fight to the death to get Dean ready for school. I hope it gets better as he gets older. He’s only in kindergarten, so we’ve got a long-ass road ahead of us.
My phone lights up with an incoming call. Fuck me, is shit already going sideways? Wouldn’t be the first time one of my brothers or a ranch hand hit me up this early with a crisis: a sick horse, a busted irrigation pipe, missing cattle.
But I grin when I see that it’s my buddy Ryder Rivers. He’s my best friend outside of my siblings. He also owns Lucky River Ranch, a property that’s twenty or so miles away from our own.
“What’re you doing up so early?” I grin, knowing full well Ryder’s an early riser like me.
“Oh, you know. Just woke up to not one, not two, but three flat tires on my truck. I am so over all this fucking construction.”
He grunts, and I send up a silent prayer of thanks that it’s not me changing a tire in the pitch black right now.
All the fucking construction happening on our ranches—both the Wallaces and the Riverses have been busy making improvements—means we’ve got lots of stray nails finding their way into tires.
We recently wrapped up the new arena, and now we’re refurbishing some older outbuildings around the ranch.
Good problem to have, because it means we got the money to make shit happen. Still a problem, though.
“Anyway. Wanted to thank you for coming over yesterday. Sorry if I wasn’t myself.”
I always make a point to spend the anniversary of his parents’ death with Ry every year. They died thirteen years ago in a car accident, and I think he misses them more as time goes on.
Part of me wishes I felt the same about Abby. I wish I missed her being around. Wish I missed our friendship.
Don’t get me wrong, part of me does miss her. She’s the mother of my son, for fuck’s sake. But I don’t miss our bullshit—the lies, the fighting. The loneliness.
Shoving that thought aside, I clear my throat. “No need to apologize. I’m just glad I was able to get you out for a bit.”
We hunted all afternoon. It was a good day. But yeah, Ryder was more agitated than usual, even considering the date.
A pause. The back of my neck prickles. Why do I get the sense that Ryder wants to tell me something?
“I’m glad too,” he says. “Any chance I could steal Dean from you this weekend? I miss my little buddy.”
Ryder showed up in a big way when Abby got sick, babysitting Dean, bringing over food, picking up the house.
He’s a good friend. A fun one too. He’s definitely a love ’em and leave ’em type—his wandering eye is the stuff of legend here in Hartsville—but dang, is he a good time.
I miss going out with him.
Hell, I miss going out, period.
“He’d love that, sure. Maybe the three of us can hunt or something.”
“Done.” Another pause.
“You all right, Ry?”
He grunts again. “Yeah. Just gonna be a long day.”
“Hang in there.”
“Thanks. See ya this weekend.”
Hanging up, I stand with my backside against the kitchen counter and savor the only peace I’ll enjoy all day.
Sometimes the grief—the anger—from losing my wife, my marriage basically falling apart before that, will creep in between sips. I’m sure it’s the same for Ryder when he thinks about his parents. But this morning, I cut that shit off at the pass and think about what needs to get done.
My soul seems to have left my body during kindergarten open house, and I volunteered to be room parent for Dean’s class.
What can I say? I’m clearly trying to overcompensate for Abby being gone by being dad and mom.
Which means I need to send out the October email to the class LISTSERV—shit, did we ever get the sign-up link for Trunk or Treat?
—but first, I have to remember to email his teachers to make sure there’s nothing else they want to include.
I also need to update my payment information for the occupational therapist who’s helping Dean with his handwriting.
Inhale through nose. Exhale through mouth.
I hope we’re not late for drop-off again. We tried the bus when school started back in August, but because of the way the route worked, Dean ended up being on the bus for over an hour each way—one of the few drawbacks of living on a ranch as large as ours.
I decided I’d drive him, which works out well…until it doesn’t. Not only am I late for work sometimes, but Dean is sometimes late to school too.
Luckily Mom helps with pickup more often than not, which is a godsend. She recently had a knee replacement, so she’s slowed down a bit, and I hate to add to her to-do list any more than I already am.
Then there’s the task list for my paid job as foreman of our family’s twenty-thousand-acre ranch.
A buyer’s coming in from Kansas City to check out a pair of our palominos.
The new rig we ordered has arrived at the dealership up in Austin, and I told Dad I’d go with him to pick it up this week.
There’s hay to cut, which means the baler’s inevitably been acting up.
I’m a decent mechanic, but it might be time to call in the pros because I’m so short on time.
I gotta call the Brody brothers back. They pinged me last week about a Friesian they’re interested in.
He’s a big boy, pure hell to break. But his bloodline is impeccable.
I know he’ll be an excellent competitor.
The negotiations over price and delivery will be a huge pain in the ass, but it’ll be worth it.
Long story short: Being a parent and a foreman is hard.
Being a single parent and the guy slated to take over his family’s ranch that’s been passed down from generation to generation for over a hundred years is fucking impossible.
But I don’t have a choice about whether I raise my son, just like I don’t have a choice when it comes to being a steward of my family’s legacy. So I make it work as best as I can.
The most important thing for my work is that I protect our family’s business and our reputation. When it’s my turn to pass the ranch on to the next generation, I want to make sure Dean and his loved ones inherit an operation they’re proud of.
For decades, Dad’s worked his fingers to the bone to honor the toil of the generations that came before him.
His daddy, my grandfather, made some questionable business decisions.
Dad fixed all that, rebuilding our stellar reputation as the Hill Country’s top producer of pedigreed horses and Hereford cattle.
I have every intention of continuing Dad’s work when he retires. This legacy is a heavy burden to carry sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Pouring myself a second cup of God’s elixir, I grab my laptop, roll up my sleeves, and get busy at the kitchen table. My back is tight from haying an especially hilly field yesterday.
My neck hurts too from sleeping on it wrong. I swear that since I turned thirty-one earlier this year, my body just started to randomly hurt or stop working for no damn reason.
Dad chuckles whenever I complain. “Just wait until you hit sixty. Then shit really hits the fan.”
Can’t wait.
But really, sixty doesn’t seem half bad if you get to finally rest. I don’t have any plans to get married again—hell, I’m not sure I ever want to date again—so chances are I’ll be on my own.
I wouldn’t mind sex being a more regular thing, though. I’m not opposed to casual hookups. Had some a while back that were pretty fun. I never take girls back to my place—feels too risky with Dean at home—but I make do.
I don’t look up from my screen until I hear the pad of familiar footsteps. I smile when I see a little boy in blue pajamas standing in the doorway.
Well, not so little anymore. Like me, he’s tall for his age—ninety-eighth percentile, no joke—with long legs and knobby knees. He’s six, but he looks like he’s eight or nine.
His hair sticks up at the back of his head. The pajamas I just bought must’ve shrunk in the dryer because they’re already too small, revealing a sliver of his tummy.
I smile. “Good morning, buddy.”
He closes the distance between us and climbs into my lap. “Mornin’, Daddy.”
I kiss the top of his head, inhaling the scent of his rumpled dark blond hair. He may be in “big kid school,” but he still smells like baby shampoo.
I fucking love it.
“How’d you sleep? Have any dreams?” I ask.
I know without looking that it’s six o’clock on the dot. Like me, he thrives on routine, waking up at almost exactly the same time every day.
He curls up even tighter against me, his elephant lovie tucked between his ear and my chest. “I slept good. I had dreams, but I don’t remember them.”
My chest clenches. Just like your mama.
“Is today the weekend?” he asks.
“It’s not, buddy. Today is Wednesday.”
“That means I get to go to school, right?”
“Right.”
“Good.” He sits up and smiles. “I think we have PD today.”
Chuckling, I run a hand over his back. “You mean PE? You really like that class, don’t you?”
“I do, but I think I like music better.”
“I like music too. Should we play some while we eat breakfast?”
“Only if you make me waffles,” Dean replies.