Chapter 17 Carson
SEVENTEEN
CARSON
It’s cold as fuck outside, but it’s fun too, trudging through the snow that’s starting to quickly pile up. We haven’t seen a storm like this in years, and I’m enjoying being with my brothers and friends.
I’m walking through the wind, bracing myself against it, with my hands tucked into my jacket pockets, when I get hit with a snowball from behind. Looking behind me, I point to Jesse. “Motherfucker, you might be my older brother, but I will throw one at you too.”
He spreads his arms out to the side. “C’mon, big boy, if you think you’ve got the balls.”
In that moment, a snowball fight starts with Devlin tackling me. For longer than we should, we fight one another and roll around in the snow. Some gets down the front of my jeans, and I howl. “Goddamn, that’s cold.”
We’re all breathing hard and laughing as we pick ourselves up from the ground.
This is the best time I’ve had in years.
The only thing giving me some trepidation is the fact that we aren’t sure what we’re facing with Sheriff Reagan, but one thing I do know?
We can overcome anything as long as we’re together.
Truett reaches down and grabs a fistful of snow, packing it between his gloved hands with a grin that tells me he’s not done yet. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, Carson.”
“Don’t you dare.” I back up two steps, but it’s too late. The thing nails me right in the chest and explodes with a puff of white. The cold hits the back of my throat when I laugh, and I double over, hands on my knees. “All right, shit. I’m calling a truce. Jesus Christ.”
Jesse claps me on the back hard enough to nearly knock me forward. “Getting soft in your old age.”
“I’m the youngest one here.” I shove him off and fall into step beside him as we all start moving toward the barn. “Let’s get the cows checked before this thing really opens up.”
The humor fades some as we walk, the wind picking up and pushing against us with more force than it had even twenty minutes ago.
The sky has turned the color of a dirty wool blanket, the ceiling low.
I’ve lived here my whole life, and I still have a healthy respect for what a storm like this can do when it decides to get serious.
Jesse pushes open the barn door, and we file inside.
The relative warmth of the space is nice compared to outside.
It smells like hay and cattle, and I’ve loved it since I was old enough to come out here and help.
The cows we’ve brought in make noise as we come in, a few heads turning our way, but most of them are unbothered.
We split up without having to check with each other. We know exactly what to do because we’ve been doing this for most of our lives. Truett and Devlin head toward the far end while Jesse and I move along the near side, checking each animal as we go.
Jesse slows in front of a big black Angus cow near the middle of the row and leans against the gate, studying her with the same look our dad used to get.
It pulls me back to a time before we lost him, and I wish he were here to still impart his knowledge.
I’d love to learn from him. I would give anything to learn from him now.
“She’s close,” he says, more to himself than to me.
“How close?”
He tilts his head. “A day or two, maybe. She was separating herself from the others before we brought them in here, and now she’s making sure she’s got enough room.” He nods toward the space she’d claimed near the corner of the stall. “And look at her flank.”
I do as he says. The muscles along her hindquarters are softer than they were a few days ago, the telltale loosening that means her body is getting ready. “Yeah,” I agree. “You’re right.”
“There’s another one down here too,” Devlin calls from the far end.
Jesse pushes off the gate, and we walk that way.
He takes one look at the cow Devlin is pointing to and nods.
“Yep. She might actually beat the first one.” He pulls his glove off and runs a hand along her side, calm and easy, the way he’s always been with animals.
“We’ll want to check on them every couple of hours once it gets dark. ”
“You think they’ll go tonight?” Truett asks.
Neither one of them tends to make a decision without the other when it comes to what’s happening here.
“Hard to say.” Jesse shrugs, putting his glove back on.
“Could be tonight, could be tomorrow. You know how it is. They’ll go when they’re ready.
” He glances around at the rest of the herd.
“Everyone else looks good. Let’s get back inside and get warm while we can. We’ll be pulling shifts soon enough.”
Nobody argues because we all know it’s true.
The walk back to the house is harder than the walk out. The snow is coming sideways now. I put my head down and push through it, and when we finally get through the back door and into the mudroom, I feel like I’ve earned my pay for this storm just from that short walk.
Once inside, we go about disrobing. We stack boots next to the door and put jackets where they can be easily grabbed.
Truett makes a beeline for the coffeepot, and Devlin drops onto the couch and pulls out his phone.
Jesse stands at the kitchen window for a moment, watching the storm, then seems to decide there’s nothing useful in worrying about what he can’t control and pours himself a mug.
I look around the main room and don’t see Lennon.
I don’t ask where she is. I just notice, the way I always seem to notice where she is or isn’t in a room.
“I’ll be back,” I say to no one in particular, and no one in particular pays me any attention.
After not seeing her when we came in, I head down the hallway. The office door is cracked, and I can hear music playing softly in the background. I push it open slowly.
She’s behind the desk. Papers are spread out across every surface in a way that looks chaotic from where I’m standing, but probably makes perfect sense to her.
There’s a notepad covered in her handwriting, a laptop open to what looks like a spreadsheet, and a coffee mug pushed to the far corner of the desk.
Her hair is pulled up, and there’s a pen tucked behind her ear that I’d bet she’s forgotten about entirely.
She’s got a look of concentration on her face.
It’s cute the way she’s pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and her brow is furrowed as she leans forward to see her laptop better.
I lean against the doorframe and just watch her for a moment.
There’s something about seeing her like this that gets to me in a way I didn’t expect.
It’s not even about how she looks, though she’s fucking hot as hell.
It’s that she’s fully herself right now.
More often than not, I feel like she’s hiding who she really is because she’s been judged most of her life. Right now, she’s just being her.
I’ve been keeping a careful distance from this feeling for a while now.
Telling myself there’s no sense in pushing anything, no sense in making things complicated.
But standing in this doorway, looking at Lennon with a pen behind her ear, I’m finding it increasingly hard to remember what my reasons were.
She reaches for the coffee mug without looking up, finds it empty, and frowns at it like it’s personally failed her.
I push off the doorframe. “You’ve been in here a while.”
She looks up, and for just a second, there’s that flicker of surprise before warmth spreads across her face. “How are the cows?”
“Good. Jesse’s got his eye on a couple that are close to calving. We’ll be taking shifts later.” I move a little further into the room, stopping on the other side of the desk. “What are you working on?”
She waves a hand over the spread of papers. “Going through the complaints at the jail, trying to figure out if it’s something we can use when we go to court next week for the custody hearing.”
I look at her, and I hate that pensive look on her face. This is obviously bringing up some memories for her, and I want to take those away.
I don’t think about it for very long.
“What would you do,” I say, “if I kissed that serious look off your face?”
She goes still. Then, slowly, she lifts her eyes from the notepad and looks at me. There’s a beat, just one, where neither of us says anything. The storm outside pushes against the windows, and our gazes hold steady between us.
The corner of her mouth curves.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Why don’t you come over here and find out?”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice.