Rough Justice
SLADE
The following week, Lila’s busy on an install.
She explained to me that’s the term for when a house gets all the furniture moved in for the client so it’s turn-key, move-in ready.
So I’ve got Lucky with me while I work the south herd, cutting out the stragglers, moving the cattle to the winter pasture before the next cold snap hits.
Lucky’s taken to ranch life like she was born to it, bad leg and all. The prosthetic slows her down some but she doesn’t seem to know that, moving around the edges of the herd with utter confidence.
Lila’s gonna be so proud of the dog when I tell her.
Today’s a crazy day at Wild Rose, though.
There’s a film crew here. Trucks and equipment cases and cables snaking across the ground, a catering tent set up by the barn, a generator humming somewhere out of sight.
They’ve got cameras trained and trailers and crew members are scattered across the meadow with clipboards and headsets looking completely out of place against a working ranch.
Though he gets a million requests for it, Dad very rarely lets Wild Rose be used for filming.
Only when he loves the project or the director does he allow it.
Back when we were kids, they filmed a period movie that took place in the Old West here.
It was so cool to see the actors in their costumes, imagining Wild Rose as it might have looked two centuries ago.
Truth be told, it’s likely not much has changed since then. The mountains are the same. The creek that runs along the south field is the same. The old timber barn my great-grandfather built is the same, just with fresh red paint and a new roof every decade or so.
What’s changed is the details: the row of John Deeres, the modern calving barn with its vet room and hydraulic chutes, the climate-controlled stables.
Dad believed in honoring the past and investing in the future.
Wild Rose runs like the well-oiled machine it is because of his forward-thinking spirit.
What’s forever is the land. The big sky. The way the light gilds the mountains with every sunset. That part hasn’t changed since the first Rhodes set foot here. Won’t change after the next generation of Rhodes kids either.
Not kids of mine, I always figured. I swore off children just like I swore off marriage. It was hard enough losing my mom. The possibility of going through that kind of pain again, but losing my wife? Losing a child? I never wanted to risk it. I didn’t see how the risk could be worth the reward.
Except now I have a wife, and I’m thinking real hard about how much I’d like to put a baby in her.
The fact that I’m having those thoughts should scare the living shit out of me.
Instead, they fill me with peace. A sense of rightness.
Lucky wags her tail at my feet, oblivious to my ruminations.
I’m leaning against a fence post, resting my shoulder, when Rafe pulls up alongside me on his horse. Lucky barks once in greeting and he swings down. After tying Cisco up to a fence post, he gives Lucky an absent belly rub while he squints out at the film crew from under the brim of his Stetson.
He stands there a moment taking it all in: the trucks, the cables, the crew members in their city clothes picking their way across the frozen ground looking deeply uncertain about the mud situation.
Our normally placid foreman looks annoyed.
“They messing with the normal order of operations?” I guess.
“I wouldn’t let them mess it up. But they do get in the way.” He sighs. “Daryl and his love for Rough Justice.”
I almost snort. “Is that really what that show is called?”
“Yup.”
I follow his gaze across the field to where Dad is leaning over a monitor with the director, gesturing enthusiastically at something on screen.
“How long are they here?” I ask.
“Three more days.” He looks back down at Lucky and frowns. He starts pressing on her belly in careful examination while she looks up at him adoringly, tongue hanging out.
I’m instantly alert to the careful, clinical way he’s palpating her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” I say tightly.
My mind flashes to a memory of the oncologist at my mother’s bedside, pressing on her stomach the same way. Back then, he was feeling the tumors that spread to her liver.
I remember the look in Mom’s green eyes as he spoke in that gentle tone doctors use when they have to tell their patient that the cancer is spreading. That there’s very little left to be done.
I remember Mom didn’t look sad or scared when he spoke.
She looked angry.
She told me once she wasn’t ready to leave this patch of earth, this brief stretch of time that she got with all of us. That she was mad as hell at the Lord for making it so short.
The anger passed. So did she. Peacefully, in the end.
I never made my peace with it, though.
My teeth clench together and I breathe through the surge of adrenaline and anxiety.
Lila will be devastated if anything happens to Lucky.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Rafe says, pulling me back to the present. He straightens up. Gives me a sidelong look. “But your dog’s going to have puppies.”
Lucky wags her tail like she’s been waiting for someone to finally bring it up.
I stare at the dog. I think about Lila, crouching down to tie the tutu around Lucky’s waist on Halloween, frowning. She’s gaining weight. Are we feeding her too much?
We weren’t feeding her too much.
“My wife is going to lose her mind,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. I look up at him wearily. “Don’t suppose you’re in the market for a puppy?”
Something that might be a smile crosses Rafe’s face. “Could be.”
Both of us are so absorbed in the Lucky development that we don’t notice the actresses until they’re almost on top of us.
A blonde and a brunette, picking their way across the frozen ground in boots that were not designed for actual ranch use.
I vaguely recognize them. Famous, probably. I have no idea from what.
“Look at you two,” the blonde says, batting her eyelashes. “Real cowboys, huh?”
It’s not a question. It’s the tone people use when they want something from you and think flattery is the fastest route.
“You both look like you could be on camera,” the other says.
The blonde giggles as she says, “Bet you could ride better than our co-stars.”
The innuendo lands with a dull thud. She picked the wrong audience. Rafe and I exchange a look. His expression says exactly what’s going through my head, which is something like: no fucking thank you.
“I’ve got to get back to work,” he mutters, reaching for his reins.
“Wait.” The brunette steps forward and puts a hand on his arm. She’s got long brown hair, with a bright white smile that probably works on most men. “I’d love to pick your brain about ranch life. Character research.”
Rafe freezes.
It takes me a second to see what he’s seeing. The brown hair. The shape of her face. The green eyes.
She looks just like my sister Josie. Not exactly. But enough that it’s a pretty startling resemblance.
Something moves across Rafe’s face, a burst of intense emotion that I don’t understand given that he’s talking to a complete stranger. Then he steps back, politely but with finality, moving his arm out from under her hand.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he says. Flat and courteous and completely closed.
He swings up onto his horse in one fluid motion and rides without a backward glance, straight back toward the south pasture where the actual work is.
Then both actresses turn to me, and I realize I’ve made a tactical error by not following his lead immediately.
Time to make my own getaway.
“C’mon, Lucky.” I click my tongue at the dog.
She lumbers to her feet and her prosthetic slips on the frozen ground. I crouch down to adjust it, hoping if I’m busy enough the actresses will lose interest.
They don’t.
“Oh my God.” The blonde crouches down beside me, uninvited. “You’re Slade Rhodes.”
I say nothing. Keep working on the prosthetic.
“You’re the reason I started watching hockey,” she says. “Those pre-game stretches you do on the ice?” She fans herself. “We watch those over and over and over again.”
I’ve heard variations of this speech more times than I can count, since I was probably sixteen years old. I know I’m not a person to these women. I’m a jersey number. A highlight reel. A brutal enforcer they’re hoping will give them a hard fuck.
I’ve heard as much straight from their lips.
“Is Walker here?” the brunette asks, scanning the ranch. “I love his music.”
“Or Tanner?” the blonde pipes up. “I’ve always wanted to meet a real bull rider.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. About the only thing that makes you feel grosser than a woman wanting you just because you’re famous is a woman making it clear she’d swap you out for your brothers just as easily.
I get the prosthetic adjusted and straighten up.
The blonde steps in front of me. Puts one finger on my chest.
“I’m not due back on set for hours,” she says. “Want a tour of my trailer?”
It’s not the first time I’ve been blatantly propositioned but I’m always hoping it will be the last. I look down at her finger. Then at her.
“No,” I say.
I walk around her.
From the corner of my eye I catch a flash of rose-gold. I turn.
It’s my wife’s car. Lila steps out, and I forget completely about the actresses and the film crew and the annoying morning I’ve had.
Lila’s hair is down and blowing around her face. She spots me across the field and raises a hand.
As I pick up my pace to get to her faster, I watch her walk toward me too and think about this morning, watching her get dressed in our bedroom.
Admiring the way she always knows exactly what goes with what, the colors and textures she puts together like it’s effortless.
And I think about what I know that nobody else here does: that under the cream sweater and the blue skirt there is pale lace, soft and pretty, and that it’s mine to peel off later.
Lucky tears ahead of me, barking joyfully, and I follow at a stride that is probably faster than is dignified.
But something’s off.
I can tell before I even reach her. Lila usually smiles when she sees me, a warm, gorgeous hello that I’ve quietly come to rely on without admitting it, and right now it’s absent. Her face is carefully composed.
I pull her in and kiss her anyway, savoring her softness. Her scent.
She’s stiff in my arms. Barely returns the kiss.
The alarms start going off inside me.