Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Bax
“The cursed wheelbarrow that started it all,” Rye said with a grin.
The metal pushcart I’d turned to grab when Red Pepper the bull tried to maim me waited by the base of the porch stairs, and Rye helped me down them.
“Hold on,” he said, and he left me teetering on my crutches. He jumped the stairs and grabbed a pillow from the wooden chair I used to rock Athena in, then jumped back down and tossed the hot-pink puff into the wheelbarrow. “A cushion for the king’s tender ass.”
“Ha. Funny,” I said, but it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. I sat on it and let my good leg hang over the side. My cast kept my right leg straight out in front of me, and I rested the crutches over my thighs.
I heard Rye grunting behind me as he began to push. “Damn, man. Lay off the pound cake, will ya?”
“Ha! You know we’ve got tractors, right? You could’ve picked me up in the skiddie, and by the way, you weigh more than I do.”
“There’s no way you’re ridin’ in my brand-new skid steer. You’re bad luck. And now you got them rods and pins in your leg. They probably add twenty pounds. Anyway, I’m just glad you decided to get out of the house. A little sun on your face ain’t a bad thing.”
“Please,” I said. “You’re taller, and you got at least ten percent more muscle mass than me, at the very least.”
“Whatever. You’re just jealous ’cause I’m more handsome than you.”
“You’re delusional,” I said, laughing with my best friend who was as much a brother to me as Brand.
He pushed me through a dip in the dirt on the path to the barn that he easily could’ve avoided. “Now, I know that’s not true. Aubrey tells me I’m the hottest guy on the planet, and she’s very knowledgeable. She reads lots of books.”
I snorted. “Sure she says that, when she wants somethin’ from you.”
“Fine by me,” Rye said, “’cause what she wants is my hard c?—”
Throwing my hand up in the air, I yelped, “Stop! I got no need to hear about your red rooster.”
“Your loss. My red rooster can cock her doodle doo somethin’ fierce. Hey, so how you feelin’?”
“Yeah, I’m… okay.”
“How’s the pain?”
I sighed. “Sucks. But it’s better than it was right after surgery. Now it’s more about aches and pains. It’s so damn frustratin’. I’m sittin’ around, watchin’ the world go by without me. You know me. I like to stay busy.”
“Have you finished that picture I saw you workin’ on the other day?”
Every pebble he rolled the cart over made me clench my jaw in pain. “Naw, man, that’s just sketches and scratches.”
“Well, you oughta make it more than that. Spend some time on it. Let your creativity out. What else you got to do?”
He had a point.
“Well apparently, today I need to make some phone calls. Who am I callin’?”
“I need you to put in an order with Bob at the feed store, and it’d be great if you could call the vet and hash out the herd health-check appointments and the immunization schedule for the next year, and if we wanna go organic, we gotta start talkin’ about probiotics.
Yola’s expectin’ our call. We’ve already talked about it, but I’ve been waitin’ to get anything down in their books till the new stock got here, so we’d have a better idea about numbers. ”
“Done. That’s it?”
“I mean, I’ve got a whole list of shit that needs doin’, but just tackle what you feel up to. Don’t push it.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like I broke every bone in my body. I can make calls or do whatever else as long as I can sit while I do it.”
“This is a cattle ranch. If we’re sittin’, we’re not makin’ money.”
I laughed. “We ain’t made a penny yet, but it’s good you still got two workin’ legs.”
“Touché. By the way, why’d Athena name the bull Red Pepper?”
As he wheeled me under the shade of the big balsam tree halfway between my house and the new barn, the wheelbarrow’s tire hit a good-sized rock, and the creaky contraption tried to tip me into the dirt.
I held onto the sides with a death grip and sucked in a breath.
I released it slowly through my nose so my mouth would stay shut and the sharp stab of pain in my leg wouldn’t make me scream.
“Sorry,” Rye said, grunting and trying to tip me upright. “We really need to clear and level out this path. My fancy new Bobcat will do the trick. I’ll get started on it later today.”
Making a conscious effort to slow my heart, I answered, “’Cause Athena’s still angry with that damn bull for breakin’ my leg, and she hates red peppers. Give her green peppers or yellow, and she’ll eat the crap out of ’em, even raw, but red? No go.”
“Your daughter is weird,” he said.
I settled back into my rickety bucket and adjusted the crutches over my legs. “We refer to it around here lovingly as ‘unique.’”
He chuckled. “Seriously, she’s a really cool kid, Bax.” He parked me next to the open barn door and held out his hand to help me up as Figaro, Rye’s cattle-herding German Shepherd, came out of the barn to tug and bite at my good foot. “You’re doin’ a great job with her.”
“Thanks,” I said, ignoring the hand he offered.
I gripped his forearm instead and used my own weight and momentum to launch my ass out of the wheelbarrow.
Rye snapped his fingers at Figaro and pointed to the dirt, and Fig sat with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
He was still a puppy, a big fucking puppy, but definitely a puppy.
But had I really been doing a good job with Athena?
Every other word out of my mouth was a curse.
Even before I broke my leg, I rarely remembered to take the laundry out of the dryer.
There were always dirty dishes in the sink, and our house was falling apart.
My friends and family had been better parents than me since the Red Pepper incident, and I forgot about cross country and drama club. What else had I forgotten?
“So what’s up with Bea?”
“Oh, um, who?”
“You know who.”
“Nothin’s up,” I said. “She’s here to do a job. End of story.”
Rye laughed again. “Mm-hm. Sure that’s the end of it.”
Fig and I watched as Rye led his horse Blue from a stall into the barn aisle, then set about saddling him.
Fig had already proven to be hell on four paws around the cattle, but around the horses, he was a perfect gentleman, maybe because Blue was side eyeing the dog, like he was thinking, “Get in my way, you squishy little fruit, and see what happens.”
I’d already caught Fig napping a few times, curled up with a couple of our calves in the sun. He fit in on the ranch like he’d always been here.
“Whatcha mean?” I asked.
“Bea’s a beautiful woman,” Rye said as he hefted his saddle onto Blue’s back.
“Mm.”
When he had it strapped down and tightened, he turned. His dirt-stained, tan hat shaded his eyes, but the pity was evident in them all the same. “You know it’s not wrong if you wanted to… date again.”
I shook my head as I reached for my own hat I’d left hanging from a hook by the door the day I broke my leg. I fixed it on my head and tugged on the brim to shade my eyes too. “Not ready.”
“Okay, if you say so. But still, it wouldn’t be wrong. Candy wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
“I’m not alone. I’ve got Athena.”
A rare flash of irritation crossed Rye’s face. “That ain’t what I meant, and you know it. And are you really gonna put that on a kid? All that weight?”
“What weight?”
“The weight of your happiness,” he said as he turned again and stepped his boot into his stirrup.
But before he pushed up, he asked, “Need help before I go? I won’t be gone too long.
I just wanna do a quick paddock check. One of the new heifers is due any day.
Just wanna make sure everything’s goin’ okay. ”
“I’m good.”
“Alright, well, it’s just you and me today, so text me if you need me. My to-do list is on the table in the tack room next to my laptop, and I wrote down all the stuff we need from the feed store on there too.”
I nodded and shuffled back to lean against a stall door as he turned Blue in the aisle and headed out.
The weight of my happiness?
How much did happiness weigh exactly?