9. Grounded
NINE
Grounded
CARTER
“I can’t tell you how good it feels to be working with you today instead of Trig,” I said as Jake and I repaired a section of fencing.
“At least I’m a hell of a lot more handsome to look at,” he quipped.
“That’s about right.” I slammed the posthole digger into the frozen ground, muscles screaming. Jake watched me struggle for a moment, then demonstrated the proper twist. “Work the tool, not your back.”
I paused, took a deep breath, adjusted my grip, and tried again. It went in cleaner, better. Jake crouched to check the angle.
“Done this before?” he asked.
“Not exactly.”
“It shows.” He took the digger from me and demonstrated the slight twist at the bottom, opening the ground rather than hammering through it. He stood a few inches taller and could probably bench a hundred pounds more than me, so I reasoned that gave him the advantage.
“My experience lies more in farming than in ranching. Planting, gardening, that sort of thing. Different kind of work.” I covered up for my lack of skills. “I’ll concede the expertise to you.”
“First thing you’ve conceded this week, I’ll bet,” he chortled without edge.
When we’d set the first post, we stopped for a coffee break. From the ATV nearby, he pulled a thermos Eldon had packed for us at breakfast and poured both of us a cup. The ranch cook brewed coffee black as coal and nearly as hard-hitting as a shot of Italian espresso.
I asked, “Where’d you learn to work a ranch?”
“I grew up around here in a neighboring county. My folks have a place west of town. I came back after I left the Navy SEALs.”
“Why?”
He picked up the digger in one hand and a new post in the other, and hauled them to the next location, considering my question.
“Thought the entire world was out there for me to discover when I first left, but when I came back, home was still here—my family, my sister. There’s something about knowing where you belong.
Having a place that’s actually yours and stays yours.
A lot of guys I served with, they’re still looking for that. Where’s home for you?”
He dug, and then I set the post in the hole. I did the honors of driving it in with the sledgehammer, grunting through it with muscles that had been sore all week. His question weighed more heavily. Where the hell was home?
“Guess I’ve been everywhere,” I mumbled. The answer was accurate from a certain angle. “Hard to say if there is a home right now.”
“You’ll know it when you find it.”
Satisfied, we moved on to the next section of fence, repeating the entire process over and over. We talked here and there, and I realized that if I needed a friend on the ranch, I’d just found myself one. Jake was one of the good guys.
Physical work did something I hadn’t expected, stripping away the noise, forcing me into thinking way too much about things.
In the city, I’d always had too much going on to stop and think too much: a meetup with friends, a call to return, a party that needed my name on a list, a concert event to appear at.
Out here the only sound was the wind and the grind of boots on almost frozen ground, and underneath it all was whatever weighed me down.
Like the thoughts of Sage.
Damn it, she kept trickling back in no matter how hard I tried to push her away. Since the coffee shop. Since her hand had landed over mine on that wobbly shelf. Since I’d held her in her kitchen while she cried.
Why was I so drawn to her? She was nothing like the polished, high-maintenance women I typically dated. Sage was real. Natural. If Carter James had a type, it was apparently the lavender-scented, plant-loving woman who rescued half-naked strangers on the side of the road.
Aside from my numbered days here, we were from opposite worlds, and no matter what name I used, I wasn’t exactly a guy who settled down. Pursuing her would only end in hurt for both of us. Tonight I’d find her, pay what I owed, and draw a line between us.
A clean exit strategy—thirty days and done. Dad had probably had a good laugh writing out my inheritance challenge, betting I’d fail.
There wasn’t much we ever agreed upon. Especially once I’d made it clear, I had no intention of majoring in business and joining him and my brothers in running Magnus Music. Dad thought I was throwing my life away, studying plant biology.
Somewhere around the second semester, though, my new major had stopped being out of spite and started being the only thing I’d ever chosen entirely for myself.
It suited me, the quiet of growing things, and the logic of plant systems that didn’t care about your famous last name or your investment portfolio.
Dad and I hadn’t had a proper conversation after that. I’d assumed there would be more time for reckoning.
There wasn’t.
I drove the sledgehammer a little harder into the next pole and tried harder to forget the past.
Ash came out of the main office at day’s end with the envelope box under one arm and the efficiency of a man who ran a tight operation and knew it.
He called out names. Handed out envelopes. The guys opened them and grinned at their checks. Guess cowboys cared little for direct deposit. I waited for mine.
“Carter. My office,” Ash shouted. What the hell was this about?
I followed him in. He tossed the envelope across the desk.
I opened it, blinked twice at the numbers on my check, and turned it over to the back in case this was a joke.
“Is this missing a zero?”
“Nope.” He leaned back in his creaky chair.
“Or three?”
“Also, nope.”
“I worked my ass off every day this week. Including the section of the barn you sent me back to redo yesterday.”
“You’d done it wrong the first time.”
“And for five days of that, plus Trig calling me Pretty Boy at minimum twice per shift, this is all I get?”
“Welcome to the?—”
“Real world. Got it.” If I paid Sage back what I owed her for the clothes, I’d have next to nothing left for the week. Which was what this was supposed to feel like. Having nothing. It sucked. “How does a man survive on this?”
Ash laced his fingers on the desk. “We give room and board and plenty of food, a warm place to sleep in winter.” He said it without apology.
“A man wanting little, working beside a team of men he can trust, is better off than most. We will increase pay once he proves his worth. When it looks like he’s going to stick around.
Of course, the Colts and the Knoxs of this world are the men who become leaders.
They earn something closer to a living wage. ”
My jaw worked while he let that land.
“So the question is—what do you think you’d be worth if you stayed, Carter?”
“Lucky for both of us I won’t be around long enough to find out.” I picked up the check and left.
Outside in the equipment yard, I inhaled and exhaled deeply, biting my tongue to avoid screaming or swearing. I gaped at the check amount again.
I’d spent more on dinner in the city for one. Dropped double that at a casino table in thirty seconds without blinking. And spent at least this much on a bottle of wine just to impress a woman I dated.
“Is it worth it?” I flexed my aching right hand, where blisters were turning into calluses. Dirt had lodged so deep into my nails I hadn’t been able to scrub them entirely clean yet. Muscles everywhere screamed for a massage.
If my mother saw her son like this, she would be horrified.
“Fuck it. I’m outta here. Screw the inheritance.” Everyone could call me a wimp, for all I cared. I wasn’t putting up with this situation for another second. I’d head back to New York tomorrow and figure something out.
Jake was leaning on the fence near the barn when I came around the corner. Trig and a guy named Pete stood with him.
“Hey, we’re heading into town tonight to cash our checks, grab a bite and a drink, maybe look at some pretty women at the Sapphire Saloon,” Jake shouted.
“Maybe all you’ll do is look,” Trig snickered. “Some of us know how to take a woman farther.”
Jake ignored him and gestured with a thumb at his double-cab truck. “Got room for one more?”
Damn it, I had to find Sage and pay her back for the clothes. Forest Grove was a small place; on a Friday night, she’d be somewhere in it. I wasn’t that much of a shit to leave town and stick a nice woman like her footing my clothing bill.
I’d find her, pay up, and then somehow leave this place far behind me.
As we drove into Forest Grove, I kept to myself, deep in thoughts, but the endless chatter between the three of the guys eventually drew me in.
“The damn jackalopes are back. Got into the horse feed. Isn’t that right, Pete?” Trig was in the front seat and glanced back at us.
“Yep. I found their trail this morning, heading straight into the woods. Next thing you know, the Wolfagators will come back, too. And we don’t need those terrorizing the horses,” Pete warned with a guffaw.
“Jackalopes? Wolfagators?” I’d never heard of such animals.
“Predators. Horrible. Native to our region,” Trig quickly explained. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Uh…” Pete hesitated.
“Search party?” Jake offered.
“Hell yeah. We organize a search party and take the jackalopes down before they hibernate for the winter.” Trig organized the search details, but I tuned him out. I wouldn’t be here long enough to care.