Ford (Bastian Brothers #3)

Chapter One

One of the easiest things about moving to the ranch was that I was used to getting up early.

When I’d worked construction with my uncle Lorenzo back in Brooklyn, we were up at the crack of dawn to be at whatever worksite by seven sharp.

So coming awake to the cock’s crow—although he crowed all night—was nothing new.

Generally, I’d be up about the same time as Baker and his man, but I’d slink out to the goat barn to avoid them making out as they waited for the coffee to perk.

Not that I had anything against kissing or my half-brother being happy.

Hell, if anyone deserved some happiness, it was Baker.

He’d kept this ranch afloat all by himself for years.

It wasn’t even jealousy I felt watching Baker—and Dodge as well—being in love.

It was more of a lonesome feeling in my gut.

Wanting. It was wanting. I wanted what they had.

Okay, maybe it was envy of a sort, but not an ugly one.

Just a wish for someone to hold me through the night when the dreams got bad.

They’d let up slightly, the dreams, but not enough. Maybe never enough.

Shaking away the darkness of the past, I rolled out of bed to dress.

Jeans, tee, sweatshirt, and thick socks to keep my toes warm.

Fall had arrived with a thick coating of ice on the pumpkins yet to be carved.

There was so much to do in the autumn. Things I’d never thought about.

Of course, coming from Bensonhurst, I’d not thought of anything cow-related other than when I’d open a carton of milk for my cocoa nuggets cereal in the morning.

But work on a ranch never ends. In the fall: weaning calves, repairing fences—a never-ending job—and winterizing equipment.

Hauling hay, cleaning barns, and checking on the watering systems to stay ahead of any possible freezing problems come winter.

Tack had to be checked, as well as the line cabins, which were ready and being rented out.

In the goat barn, we placed the buck in with the does a week ago. He’d been happier than a pig in slop, as Granny liked to say. He’d been in goat heaven, but I hoped heaven didn’t smell like a buck goat in rut. Man, did he stink. Peeing on your beard will do that to a man.

Today, we were riding out to start rounding up the cattle so we could bring them into the fall ranges to separate the calves from the cows.

I’d been warned this was a job that required all four of us so the others would be waking up soon.

Sneaking into the kitchen, I made some coffee then made my way into the laundry room to pick up my boots, coat, and hat.

A cowboy hat. Which felt like the biggest lie in history, as I was no more a cowboy than Bella was a pro wrestler.

Leaning against the dryer as the coffee burbled, the floor creaked.

I looked up to see Baker, alone, looking rumpled and bleary. No Hanley at his side.

“Morning,” he said in a voice rough as asphalt.

“Hey,” I replied as I shoved my left foot into my work boot. “Coffee’s on,” I added, even though I was sure he saw, smelled, and heard it.

“Yep.” That was Studebaker Bastian speak for “saw it, thanks, mighty good of you,” which I’d learned over the past several months. “Plain right? None of that fancy vanilla shit Bella keeps trying to—”

A shotgun blast exploded outside. Caught unaware, even though I shouldn’t have been, I leaped a foot while reaching behind my back for…something which had been ditched at the bus station at 3rd Avenue and 38th Street.

“Fuck,” I growled after swallowing my thumping heart back down.

Baker stood in the doorway, intent on me. “You okay?” His question was a dumb one. Hell no, I wasn’t okay.

“Might need to change my shorts before we go,” I tossed out to be funny. Hahaha. My eldest brother said nothing, but his sharp brown gaze lingered far too long. “When does she plan to stop shooting at cans at the asscrack of dawn?”

“When she hits one,” he replied, moving past me to grab his chore coat from the line of beat-to-shit coats hanging off pegs. “You good?”

“Yep.”

That was Ford Bastian speak for “not going to get into that over-reaction thanks” and I stomped my foot down to wedge it into my boot.

“Okay then.”

The back door opened with a massive gust of cold air and our grandmother—both being blown into the house.

“Morning, boys,” Granny said upon spying us in the laundry room. “Thought I hit one of them birch beer cans you and Ollie emptied last night, but it was only the wind.” She pulled off her coat to give us both a once-over. “You good?”

“Yep,” Baker and I said in unison.

“Good. Glad to see it. I’ll get food around in a minute. Got to lock up old Close Enough here, then I’ll start the eggs and bacon.”

“I’ll go wake the others,” Baker said just as the one squeaky step from the second floor creaked.

“That’ll be Bella,” Granny said and padded off, windblown and still in her chore boots, a winter coat pulled over her flannel nightgown.

“Pretty soon it will be too dark to shoot in the morning,” I commented on the sly to Baker.

“She’ll just turn on the porch light,” he replied, giving me one final glance before heading off to shout at Linc and Dodge to rise and shine.

Once he was out of sight, I turned to face the wall then let my brow drop to the thick fleece lining of Linc’s coat.

Holy fucking shit. That had rattled me. Fuck.

Bella’s soft voice broke through the lingering fear.

I drew in a breath and released it, stepping out into the kitchen to see my best friend stirring some flavored creamer into her coffee.

Blond hair poking out around the edges of a cute little turban that matched her flannel pajamas, she gazed at me with sleepy green eyes.

“Morning,” she said and took a sip, which was followed by a sigh. “I wish I knew why Baker was so against flavored coffees. They’re just a delight first thing.”

“He’s stubborn,” I replied and got a tiny snort of amusement from her. Her gaze lifted from her coffee to me, and her head tilted just a little. “What?”

“You look pale. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yep.” I was growing fond of that word. Bella, on the other hand, rolled those pretty eyes but said nothing more as I made a beeline for the goat barn.

I could check on things and settle my nerves without all those prying sibling eyes.

I’d been an only child for my mother, Louisa, and my father, Cash Bastian.

Mom was a hostess in my grandfather’s restaurant.

Cash was…well, not as bad as my brothers always painted him.

Stepping out into a wind that pushed my hat nearly off my head, I lowered my chin and crossed the yard to the goat barn with my father on my mind.

Perhaps I knew him better than Baker, Dodge, and Lincoln.

I’d had him the longest. He’d been with my mother until I was almost a teenager before he left for work one day and never came home.

What the cops would call a modus operandi.

I’d been crushed. Mom not so much. She remarried quickly.

Paul, my stepfather, was a nice guy. Unsure of how to handle me when I started to say things about being gay.

In the face of my mother’s rabid love and acceptance, he had no choice but to take me as I was or risk being torn to bits by mama bear.

Who was now a chapter leader for my old high school gay student association.

Walking to the barn, head down, I felt the pang of guilt once more.

Cash had been a good dad overall, aside from the bailing thing.

He’d never once mentioned any other families, then again, why would he?

So getting the letter from Cash’s attorney during the chaos of the worst week of my life had seemed like a godsend. Bella and I had wasted no time.

And here we were. In the middle of Oklahoma, surrounded by cows, goats, and far too many pickups with truck nuts.

We weren’t just fish out of water. We were fish nearly fifteen hundred miles from water.

New York Harbor water. Bella, being Bella, had fit right in with the family.

Me, being me, was taking longer. I didn’t trust easily, tended to be shy, and preferred to spend my time alone.

Aside from Bella and the goats. My brothers were okay.

Granny was very cool, even if she was trigger happy.

Dodge’s son, Dahn, was really nice. Huge into goats like me.

So we got along well. I guess Bastian Acres Ranch was a pretty nice place to live. For as long as it lasted…

The door to the barn came open with a heave and a grunt.

The smells of animal, hay, and, of course, Eau de Goat Buck met me.

I slipped inside, not wishing to turn the lights on just yet.

The goats would think it was grain time, but that came later.

Right now, I was just visiting them in the dark.

Which would be creepy to some people, but I found peace here in the barn.

A few of the does lifted their heads as I moved quietly down the wide middle walkway.

One or two blatted, but the majority slumbered on without a care in the world.

How I envied them.

My world, my sleep, was hardly ever peaceful.

Even out here in the middle of the country, I was always looking behind me.

Ready to run. My feet carried me to the pen where Willy was chilling with several recently romanced ladies.

The girls yawned when I dropped down to sit on a square bale by the grain bins.

Willy, being a big, spoiled goober, made his way over to me.

“Always looking for a head pat, eh?” I asked in a whisper before reaching through the woven wire fence to give the guy a scritch between his curved horns.

Willy nudged his head into my hand for more.

He’d stand here all day if someone were petting him.

Well, aside from when he was busy making baby goats.

Since the does he was in with had come into heat and had been serviced, he was just chilling until he got moved into a pen with another set of receptive does.

“Don’t poke your head through again, you’ll get your horns caught. ”

We’d had to free so many goats from fencing over the past few months. I’d thought of having our new kids disbudded, but if you were showing in a Boer goat official show, they liked to see the horns intact. And since goats were the nosiest creatures on the planet…

He stood in place as I rubbed his red head until I stopped petting him.

With a yawn, he lay down right beside the fence in case I wanted to resume loving on him.

Smiling, I bent down to reach under the large blue plastic bulk container that held the goat grain to pluck the burner phone from underneath.

I stared at it for the longest time before dialing the number I’d been taught to memorize when I was five. Mom picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, Mom,” I softly said into the cheap cell.

“Ford, honey, I’m so happy to hear from you!”

I smiled even though she couldn’t see me. I could picture her in my mind’s eye. Slim, short black hair threaded with a few strands of silver now. Silver that she would pluck as soon as she noticed them, which always made me laugh. Bright hazel eyes always filled with laughter. “I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too, Mom. How’s Paul?” I leaned against the bin at the sounds of goats shuffling around, burping up cuds, and the like.

Goats, being prey animals, were light sleepers but smart enough to know they only got fed when the lights came on.

So they didn’t carry on too badly when it was dark in the barn.

“Good. He’s good. Misses you. Looking at wrapping up that beauty supply job over on Eighty-Sixth Street by the Target.”

“Cool. Glad things are good for the company. And your job?” Willy sighed in the pen beside me. A contented goat if ever there was one.

“Oh, you know. It’s a job. I like the new hours better. Lunch is busier, but it’s faster, so we can get people seated and served faster.”

“I miss Gina’s ravioli.”

“The best in Bensonhurst. So, enough about us old people, tell me about the ranch and your brothers. How is Bella?”

I filled her in the best I could about things on the ranch.

She knew I was in Oklahoma, obviously, as she had seen the legal papers that had arrived before we hightailed it out of Brooklyn, but she didn’t know exactly where.

I’d kept it as vague as possible. To be honest, I shouldn’t even be making contact, but we were so close that not talking to her once a month was impossible. Yeah, I was a mommy’s boy, I guess.

“And the mountains?”

“They’re still there, Mom.” She was fascinated by the view of the Arbuckle Mountains we had from the ranch. I’d sent her a picture during the summer of the peaks in the far distance. Brooklyn wasn’t known for wide open spaces or towering mountain ranges. “Just as pretty.”

“Can you send me a picture of them soon? I like knowing you’re out there with so much fresh air and a newfound family.”

“Nothing can replace you,” I told her in full and naked honesty. The only one who might be close to being a mother to me was Granny. Bella was the sister I never knew—Mom had lost a baby two years after I was born—and my brothers were growing on me.

“You’re a sweet talker, always have been. Found any handsome cowboys to spend time with?”

There it was. “No, no one.” I mean, yeah, there was one man who I’d run into traffic to be with, but he was too handsome and far too smart to pay me any mind.

Aiden was so far out of my league I couldn’t hope to touch his boots.

Besides, getting attached wasn’t part of the game plan.

Who knew when we’d have to take off in the middle of the night again. “Most of the men out here are too…”

“Not for you. I get it. Well, don’t dismiss anyone out of hand. Being alone is terrible.”

“I know, Mom.” She had really struggled after Cash had left us. Mom was not one to wade through life alone.

“Ford, you in here?” Baker called through the crack in the front doors. I sat up, startled, and then took a breath to settle.

“Yep.”

“Come eat. Food’s ready, and we got a long day in the saddle ahead,” he shouted then things got quiet. A few younger goats rustled about in their pens, but they’d have to wait for a bit longer to be grained and given fresh water, hay, and bedding.

“I have to go, Mom. Baker’s summoning all hands to the table.”

“Alright, honey. I’ll let you go. Love you, my little cowboy. Who would have thought it?”

Not me. Not ever. Not in a million years.