Chapter 3
THREE
DYLAN
I don’t know how the kiss happened—if it was her or me or both of us—only that in the moment, with the bourbon swimming through my veins, cloaking my thoughts in the best way, I didn’t want to stop.
And the woman with the smart mouth and legs for days?
She gave as good as she got. The way her fingers dug into my shoulders like she hated me and wanted me all at once.
Right up until she pulled away, green eyes flashing and ready to fight.
I stare at the door she disappeared through, my dick still hard and my blood still hot. I’ve kissed my fair share of women, but nothing like that. That was… fire and something raw that I poured every last drop of my frustration into.
There has been no room in my life lately for anything that wasn’t getting me back to playing football. But it’s not like I had women lined up before the injury. I don’t flirt. I speak my mind, and more often than not, it lands too harsh and gets me in trouble.
My love life has never been a priority. When I wasn’t at practice or playing football, or helping out with the Stormhawks youth coaching outreach program, I kept busy on the ranch.
Fixing up the paddocks. Repairing the fences when storms took them down.
Painting the barn every offseason. Keeping things looking nice for Mama, even if the ranch wasn’t being used for work and hadn’t been since Dad died twenty years ago.
I guess there was Kate, a fitness instructor who lived a few blocks from me in the city.
We met six months before the Indianapolis Riverrunners linebacker took out my knee.
She didn’t seem to mind that football came first, didn’t expect grand gestures or romance.
We got along… fine. But I didn’t miss her when I ended things the day after my injury.
Didn’t think about her once when I was laid up at the ranch.
There was no spark with Kate. Nothing close to what flared just now with blondie. And I don’t even know her name.
Hell, I don’t even like her. And she clearly hates me. I must be more buzzed than I realized if I’m even thinking about women.
Fuck. I need another drink.
I push through the doors into the bar, pulling my cap lower.
The Hay Barn’s filling up with the after-work crowd—ranchers, mechanics, football fans.
It’s the usual noise of boots on hardwood, country music, talk, and laughter.
I keep my head down and pray no one recognizes me.
I don’t want small talk with a well-meaning fan.
I don’t want sympathy. All I want is the burn of another bourbon.
Flic eyes me warily as I take my seat, but she silently tops me up.
I swirl the bourbon in my glass and take a deep gulp as someone fills the stool beside me.
I glance over to find a weathered old cowboy settling in, wide-brimmed hat shadowing his face.
It takes a moment, but I recognize him. Bill was a good friend of my dad’s back in the day.
They both bred rodeo horses and would often swap stallions for strong bloodlines, back when the ranch was alive with the smell of hay and the thunder of hooves.
When Dad died and Mama had to sell the horses, it was Bill who bought them.
She couldn’t run a ranch and raise three boys on her own.
“I’ll take a beer, please, Felicity,” he says, his voice as rough as his calloused hands.
I raise my empty glass. “And another bourbon for me. Put them both on my tab.”
A moment later the fresh drinks are in front of us and Bill takes a long sip, the foam of beer lying thick on his upper lip before he wipes it away.
“This was supposed to be my first beer as a retired rancher,” he says, dropping his hat down between us.
“What happened?” I ask. Either the last bourbon has loosened my lips or I’m seeking distraction from my own troubles. I’m too far gone to care which.
“Doc told me to retire, or…” He shrugs. “Breaks my heart to say goodbye to those horses. I love them like family, but I’ll be no good to them dead.
So I’m selling up and going to see if this world is all it’s cracked up to be.
Or I was supposed to. I had a deal lined up with a ranch out by Dallas.
They were taking everything. Horses, equipment.
All my stores. All of it gone in one go.
” Bill sighs, a broken man I can relate to.
“But the buyer never showed. Can you believe that?” He pulls out a folded document and drops it on top of the hat.
“Figures, doesn’t it? Had everything packed to go tomorrow.
All the guy had to do was meet me and sign the contract.
” He taps the folded pages before concentrating on his beer.
My fingers move without thinking, brushing the rim of Bill’s hat.
I think of my dad and the cowboy hat that still hangs on the hook in the hall at the ranch all these years later.
Dad was larger than life—a man with an easy smile and a way of making everyone feel at home.
The ranch was his kingdom, the horses his passion, but he always had time to throw a ball or listen to a problem.
He died too young, too suddenly. Knocked on the head by the hoof of a spooked horse in a thunderstorm.
A few degrees to the left, a few seconds different, and he’d still be here.
I blink slowly, the bourbon tugging loose the edges of thoughts I usually keep tucked away, hidden. In another world, I’d have worked alongside him, breeding horses. When I was a kid, it was all I wanted.
I think of Oakwood Ranch. It’s where I grew up, where Mama lives.
Of all of us brothers, it’s just me who lives there full time—a grown-ass man who had to give up the sweet loft apartment a few blocks from the Stormhawks training facility because I could barely hobble from one room to another, let alone face the five flights of stairs to my apartment.
The room tilts. Oakwood Ranch is my home.
Those rich green paddocks that stretch over the land, split by weathered wooden fences.
The sprawling white ranch house, the tall red barn.
Acres of beauty framed by the craggy foothills and the distant peaks of the Rocky Mountains, snowcapped even now in the blistering July heat, with the air as dry as dirt and the sun unrelenting.
Earlier today I couldn’t wait to leave, but now all I can think is that it’s a ranch that hasn’t seen horses or real ranch work for two decades.
I finish my drink and the warmth spreads through me, making my body feel loose, my mind stepping out of itself, drifting away. I don’t even have to think as I say the next words that come into my head. “We’ve got space at Oakwood.”
Bill laughs, a strong hand clapping my back. “You’re a football player. What do you know about ranching?”
“I was a football player. I’m not anymore.” My eyes drop down to my chest where it feels like a knife must be lodged. “And I remember some.” The hell if it’s true, but the weight of Bill’s hand on my shoulder has reminded me of Coach Allen’s pitying smile.
I don’t know how much time passes, how many more drinks we share, but the late-night drinkers have replaced the after-work crowd by the time a plan is taking shape.
“It’s poetic,” I say, my words slurring at the edges. “You bought our horses from Mama after Dad died. Now I can buy your horses from you.”
Bill is all smiles now, talking about how much he loves his horses.
How lucky he was to have the best ranch hand in Colorado helping him out.
Both of us are sold on our idea. “You agree to keep my ranch hand on for a month—no, let’s say six weeks—so I know the horses will be looked after while you find your feet, and they’re yours.
Up to you whether you keep Brooks on after that. ”
I nod, trying to stay sitting up straight on my stool. I scan the bar for blondie, but she’s gone. It’s an effort to keep my thoughts on the conversation.
“What do ya say?” Bill asks, sounding a little tipsy now, too.
But he’s got nothing on me. Man, I’m drunk.
Room spinning, everything is fuzzy and funny and who cares about football anyway?
Maybe it’s the bourbon that makes me do it.
Maybe it’s the memories of my dad and the hole his death left behind.
Maybe it’s the need to escape the sting of failure.
Whatever the reason, I raise my glass to Bill’s and pick up the contract.
“How hard can ranching be anyway?”