4. Beck
Beck
I crack my eyes open, my senses still muted and my mind still fuzzy from my night of drinking.
I only had three–okay, maybe four–beers, and another when I got home.
At the ripe age of thirty-three, the hangovers hit me harder than ever before.
They last longer, too. I’ll be in a murky cloud of brain fog for days after this one.
But there are no days off on the ranch, but Austin told me he’d get a head start on the morning chores, making sure the cattle have stock water, and giving Kenny Rogers some fresh hay, too.
Kenny is a three-legged goat that wandered onto the property some years ago now.
He got into a tussle with a tractor and he’s lucky he only lost a leg.
It was my dad who named him. He used to listen to all the great country stars while he worked in the barn—Kenny, George, and Willie—but it was always when Kenny Roger’s voice came on the stereo that the damn goat came hobbling over.
Now, he’s made himself my problem and refuses to leave, and he gets pissy whenever breakfast is late.
I roll over, rubbing my eyes with one hand and pinching the bridge of my nose. When I sit up, a wave of nausea ripples through my gut, and I’ve never been more grateful for a morning off in my life.
Austin might be the only one who sees how much the responsibility of running the ranch weighs on me, and how tiring it is trying to keep it afloat. I appreciate him, even though I probably don’t tell him enough.
As his thanks, I’m here thinking about his fucking sister.
Lyla has been the only thing on my mind since I saw her in that stupid t-shirt, stretched across her tits and showing a sliver of the smooth, tan skin of her waist.
Fuuuuuck. My morning wood is fully cocked and it’s not going to get any better if I keep thinking about Lyla Morgan.
I get out of bed and stumble into the bathroom where I turn the shower on cold. I hiss as the water hits my skin, and I let it run down my face–self flagellation for the way I’ve been thinking about Lyla.
Austin would fucking kill me. He’s been known to throw a few punches in the bar when someone has so much as looked at him or anyone he cares about wrong. And there is no one on this planet he’s more protective of than his sister.
Rightly so. He’s been the only one she’s had looking out for her since their parents died.
That did a number on both of them. Austin was always a trouble-maker, but once there wasn’t anyone left to keep him in check, he went off the rails.
I think it’s his way of coping. Dealing with the pressure of making sure Lyla is okay. It’s his release.
Lyla on the other hand, I don’t know how she copes. What I do know is that before the accident, Lyla was… she was something else. Bubbly, loud, energetic, bright, a fucking spitfire.
So goddamned beautiful.
She’s still beautiful. There’s just something else there now too, something sad behind her eyes. Her eyes had a sparkle in them at the rodeo, like there were whole galaxies in her irises. But later at the bar the sparkle had faded.
I shut the water off, get out of the shower and dry off. I’m starting to feel more awake now that I have some blood returning to my brain as my hard-on subsides. But I need caffeine.
My dad isn’t in the kitchen when I get downstairs, and the relief of that helps loosen the knot in my stomach.
I was late getting in from the bar last night, and he was already in bed, so it’s given me extra time to figure out how to tell him about my loss yesterday.
Not to mention the fact that I’m going to have to make budget cuts elsewhere to make the necessary fixes around the property.
He won’t be overly disappointed in me, he knows what a fucking shit show this place has become. Hell, it’s his own doing. But I’ll feel the heaviness of disappointment every day if I don’t manage to turn it around.
This is our family’s legacy, and I made a promise to my dad that I’d take care of it. I wasn’t handed the best cards to begin with, but I’ve sure been doing a shit job with them anyway.
Austin is already hard at work in the barn, but he comes outside to greet me when he hears my boots crunching on the gravel drive.
“I told you to take the morning off,” he says. It’s still early, but he’s getting back from counting heads, and riding the fence.
“I am off,” I answer, putting my hands up in a show of innocence.
At the sound of my voice, Willow trots over to the fence, and I reach up a hand to scratch her ears.
“Takin’ this girl out for a ride,” I say. “I think she’s still a little down in the dumps from our loss. Needs to blow off some steam.”
Horses are intuitive, and she loves competing at the rodeo as much as I do. She feels the losses as much as I do, too. And I could use a ride to release some of the pent up tension I’m carrying, and forget everything I’ve been thinking about Lyla Morgan.
“I talked to Lyla.”
Off to a great start.
Austin’s dark brown eyes are drilling through my back.
“Oh?” I try to keep my tone measured, flat, unrevealing.
“She lost her job in the city,” he says, turning to head back into the barn.
Last I’d heard Lyla was getting her MBA and working for some fancy business consulting firm.
It had taken me by surprise, honestly. Lyla never seemed the type for board rooms and a big corner office.
The girl couldn’t even wear a bra a day in her life, I can’t imagine her wearing a stuffy pant suit.
I follow him to grab a lead rope and bring Willow inside to tack her up. I keep my attention focussed on the bit I slip into Willow's mouth, adjusting the bridle around her ears.
“I thought maybe she could help you out here,” Austin hedges.
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Shovelling horse shit?” He says with a laugh, and then his voice trails off and turns serious. “Or consulting.”
I let out a scoff. “Ranching isn’t like the businesses Lyla is used to. Besides, what would Lyla know that I don’t. This–” I gesture around me, and out the barn door to the vast expanse beyond “—is my life.”
“She knows plenty,” he argues. “She did spend the majority of her life in Sage Valley. And ranching may be a lifestyle, but it’s still a business like any other.”
I contemplate Austin’s suggestion in silence as I tighten the cinch securing Willow’s saddle in place. I yank on it once, and wait for a minute or two until Willow relaxes. She always puffs her belly out so the girth is looser, and I know to tighten it one more time when she’s not expecting it.
“I can’t pay her, you know that.”
“Pay her later, once the ranch starts turning a profit again,” Austin explains. “Just think about it.”
I respond with a grunt and a nod, but I don’t have to think about it.
There are many reasons not to have Lyla come and work on the ranch, and Austin seems to have a solution for all of them. The only problem he won’t be able to fix, is that having Lyla working here is going to be torturous for me.
I turn and lead Willow out the barn before I have a chance to say anything damning, and mount her, throwing a leg over her hind end and seating myself in the saddle.
“Hey, just a heads up,” Austin calls after me. “She’s coming by the house later, I already told her she could talk to Wade about it.”
Of fucking course he did.
Austin has a habit of going over my head to my dad if he thinks it’s in the best interest of the ranch.
He knows how to sway him, because my dad is so riddled with guilt over how he’s run the ranch into the ground, and for generally being a shit parent all our lives.
He’ll do anything if there’s a chance it’ll help me out.
But I don’t need his help, I never have.
I throw a middle finger up over my shoulder, and click my tongue to get Willow moving.
A gentle nudge is all she needs and she’s trotting through the tall grass. I give her another squeeze with my thighs to get her up to a lope, because I know what she really wants is to run. Another one gets her to a gallop and I feel the transition as all four of her feet lift off the ground.
The cool morning breeze blows through the waves sticking out from under my cowboy hat, the sun warming my face.
This is the part of ranching that I love–feeling like one with the land and the sky, soaring through the fields on horseback as the rising sun paints everything in a wash of purple and pink.
We run until it feels like we might reach the base of the jagged Rocky Mountains that jut up from the horizon, looming over the rolling hills and fields of Wild Sage. We run until Willow is out of breath, and then I turn her around, and steer her back toward the house.
My burdens feel lighter out here, almost non-existent. But the closer we get to the main house, the more they begin to weigh on me again.
One, because going back will mean I have to make a decision about whether or not I’ll be hiring Lyla for the summer. And two, because as I slow Willow down to a steady walk, I notice things I didn’t before.
The new grass shoots that sprouted in the fields a few weeks ago have brown tips. The earth beneath them has cracks running through the top layer of parched soil. All signs that this summer is going to be record-breaking dry.
We no sooner turn around, and my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see Tate’s name on my screen.
Tate Caldwell is a good decade older than me, and I’m still not sure how he ended up in Sage Valley. He didn’t grow up ranching like I did, some mysterious past led him here instead.
All I know is he owns the property next to ours, and even though it’s acres away, we’re constantly in contact. Well, Tate is constantly in contact with me, because of my fucking cows and my broke ass fences. I already know that’s why he’s calling.
“Yeah,” I say after hitting the green button to accept the call.
“You gotta come take care of these damn cows, man,” Tate grumbles over the phone.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “How many?”
“Looks like half your herd,” he answers.
I scrub a hand down my face and rub it over my stubbled jaw.