Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
TRISTON
T he Monroe Ranch is both the same and yet different, and it messes with my mind most of the afternoon while I work with the other ranch hands.
Once they’d finish moving the last couple square bales of straw, we’d started on the daily health checks of the calves and nursing cows in both the large herd and the smaller Highlands herd.
Jake and Paul had railed against Ethan a bit for staying to work.
Despite their ribbing over him having a baby right in the middle of calving season, it’s clear they don’t want him to put the ranch over his pack and kids.
They’ve always been like that, though, even back when it was just Camden while Caleb and Ethan were trying to navigate being widowers with an infant.
There’s an odd comfort in knowing that commitment hasn’t changed.
“We starting fencing checks tomorrow?” Paul asks as we’re organizing the last of the equipment in the Highlands’ winter barn. “Or does Emily need you closer to home?”
Beau nods without glancing up from his phone, a frown pulling the corners of his lips. “Fencing’s the plan. We’ll start with the portions harder to access and then work our way toward the service roads.”
“I call driver,” Kyle says with a grin.
Jake just sighs and shrugs. “Guess that means you’re paying at the Outpost tonight.”
“You want to come with us?” Paul leans against fencing a few feet away from me, his hands in his pockets. “Be nice to catch up when we’re not sweating like a bunch of pigs.”
“Pigs don’t sweat,” Ethan grumbles.
Paul rolls his eyes.
I give a small smile even as I shake my head. “Not this time.”
“Gotta let Devynn know there’s going to be a celebrity, man,” Kyle jokes. My stomach clenches, but I do my best to keep the anxiety off my face. “You don’t want her sticking Marcus on you.”
I manage a small smile thinking of the lumbering Newfoundland that’s too friendly for his own good. “Wouldn’t want that.”
The three of them laugh as they leave the barn, waving to me before tipping their hats to Ethan and Beau.
I let my focus return to the feed storage and slowly refasten the locks that keep the wildlife out.
It’s one of the items that’s changed, and it takes me a couple tries to get the locks to snap in correctly.
“You all right riding back with Beau?” Ethan asks in a low voice. He stands a few feet behind me, his arms crossed. “I need to grab Cam from Joan and Mark in town before dinner starts, and I figured you’d be more comfortable staying away from the town limits for a bit longer.”
“Yeah, that’s fine with me,” I instantly agree.
He’s not wrong that I don’t want to go into town if I can avoid it.
It was Lance who’d thought of the NDA to keep Ethan from telling everyone I was coming back at all.
It’s not that I think Creek Falls can’t handle the influx of attention.
The town’s built for tourists and their niche, kitschy interests. It’s… me that can’t handle it.
Just the internal admission has my throat closing up.
I’ve worked six years to get to this point, to win the championship and have the sponsor money that means I’m not terrified of how I’m going to afford new boots or chaps or a sedated heat at a Haven.
Mentally, I shake off the concern and recenter myself.
I’ll be able to handle it. As soon as I can go back on the low-dose suppressors and implement the new security strategies Lance has been planning since everything went to hell in Oakland.
I just need these couple weeks to remember why I wanted all of it so much, why it’s been my dream for so long.
A respite, just like the Haven doctor instructed.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” Ethan says.
I don’t risk anything more than a nod. He touches the brim of his ball cap and then turns toward the entrance of the Highlands barn. Beau claps him on the shoulder as he passes. As I slowly approach, Beau drops his phone into the back pocket of his jeans.
“You good with helping me put away some tack in the private barn? It’s been hectic since Naomi came, and I’ve been slacking on picking up over there.”
Quiet before more people are wanting to talk about the last nearly two years that I’ve been gone? I shove my hands into my pockets and nod. “That’s fine.”
Beau doesn’t offer any kind of conversation as we ease onto the service road and turn back toward the Monroes’ house in the main meadow.
He’s never been the type to ask redundant questions or pry into other people’s business.
I perch my hat on my knee and close my eyes, absorbing the quiet.
Coming off the suppressors has been more difficult than I expected.
I’d managed to forget how overwhelming the sensations and desires are without the dampening affect of the medications.
I take a deep breath, trying to soothe some of the agitation that’s become standard since waking up in the Haven last month.
There’s a faint touch of vanilla under the smells of the ranch.
The presence of it has me breaking the silence.
“So, you and Emily?”
Our summer of wild fun wasn’t supposed to end up with any kind of strings attached, but apparently that had shifted once I’d left for the professional circuit.
Someone else might be offended, but only a soft fondness runs through my veins—especially since it’s not entirely a surprise.
That last night we’d spent together as a trio nearly two years ago, everything had felt different.
The kisses, the touches, the cuddling between rounds.
Even the sleeping in a messy clump of limbs after we’d finally admitted our bodies were too exhausted to continue.
I’m glad to know it didn’t turn sour for the two of them once I was gone.
Beau chuckles, and I glance over at him. There’s a smirk curling one corner of his mouth, and the laugh lines around his eyes are deeper than before. Something warmer than simple physical attraction swirls under my sternum, but I ignore it.
“Yeah,” he says. His gaze flicks to me, and the smirk drops. “Yeah, me and Emily.”
All at once, he’s as stoic as Ethan always is. The shift has that ever-present agitation clawing just a bit deeper, the flittering affection disappearing. I press my hands under my legs to keep from messing with my hat.
“And… a baby?”
This time, his nod is short and crisp, not inviting any kind of follow-up.
The silence thickens, growing barbs that prick my skin.
As Beau turns his truck onto the main drive, he clears his throat.
His shoulders drop away from his ears, and his knuckles lose the white undertone as he loosens his grip on the wheel.
“You want to meet her?” he asks. “Her name is Penelope, but we call her Penny.”
“Of course,” I agree easily.
He stares at me for a long minute, intense enough I squirm under his regard.
His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. Then he adjusts his ball cap, and all the tension fades away as if it had never been there.
I suck in a breath, trying not to appreciate the vanilla that’s leagues better than the replacement pheromones I’ve been living on, and then get out of the truck, leaving my hat on the seat.
The Wyoming wind kicks up as I close the door as softly as I can manage.
I duck my head as I quickly step into the Monroe private barn.
Several bridles hang from a single hook beside the door to the nearest stall.
Without a word, I grab them and head into the tack room.
In here, there’s even more of a mess. Saddle pads and blankets litter almost every surface, and three saddles aren’t in their designated spots along the walls.
More than one lead rope lays strewn across the concrete floor.
Beau hadn’t been joking at all that this barn had been getting the short end of the stick recently.
Just like the steady process of tending the cattle herds throughout the day, the methodical work of reorganizing all the tack soothes me.
I’ve just set the last of the saddles on its labeled shelf when I hear a woman’s voice.
“Beau?”
It’s Emily. Even with stress tightening the name, I can tell it’s her. Beau’s voice is a low murmur, quiet enough to blur the words into an indistinguishable hum. There’s a small giggle, bright and airy, and then steps echo on the concrete.
I grab the last lead rope and twist it around my arm as I leave the tack room.
A girl in that not-quite-a-baby-but-not-really-a-toddler-either stage has her arms wrapped around Beau’s leg.
Emily’s attention is all for Beau, her arms crossed and her teeth biting into her bottom lip while he palms her waist. They exchange one of those looks perfected over years of needing silent, discreet communication.
I focus on hanging the rope on the open hook just beside the stall, feeling entirely out of place. I’d known those intimate looks at one point when there wasn’t anything more than a fun stolen moment riding on them. But now? Now they aren’t for me to read, and it bothers me more than it should.
“Penny bug, this is Triston,” Beau says, his voice even warmer than before. “Do you want to say hi?”
I cautiously turn back to them, a smile already curving my lips to help soften any concern. Camden was wary of strangers around this age, I’m nearly positive. Somewhere around the year mark, at least.
The smile freezes as I see the girl fully for the first time.
My heart hammers in my ears, louder than when I’d gone into Drop last month in Oakland.
My mouth dries out, and a shivering current races down my sternum, making it difficult to remember how to breathe.
The girl’s smile is soft but wide, lighting her entire face.
She waves, and I mirror the movement, not really even feeling my hands.
Her chin is narrow just like mine, though her cheeks are lower, her face a bit rounder, more like Emily.
Her hair is pulled back into small pigtails with ends curling tightly.
The few small pieces that frame her temple are the same light brown as my own, the curls twisting the exact way mine do after they air dry.
Her nose is the same as Emily’s, even the small bump at the ridge that she swears she despises. And her eyes…
I’ve never seen that particular shade of green anywhere but in a mirror.