Chapter Two #2
The fairgrounds were deserted when she pulled in, which wasn’t surprising given that it was still the early part of blustery March.
The only person she’d seen in the two days she’d been there was the guy driving the maintenance truck.
He’d stopped to ask if she knew where the honor box for boarding horses was located and to show her the trick to opening the door to the restroom, which was thankfully kept unlocked for the general public.
It had a shower room, intended for rodeo riders and the ever-present Montana vacation bicyclists who wanted to clean up before they hit the road again.
Maclyn had made shivering use of it that morning, reminding herself that what didn’t kill her made her strong.
She still had hay to feed her horses that night—she’d helped herself to four bales before leaving the Sweet Grass Ranch, which seemed small compensation for the hell they were putting her through—and after work the following day, she’d visit Lane’s Feed and Supply, thank the lady for the job lead, and buy more hay.
As for herself, she would eat a couple of the granola bars she’d heisted from the Sweet Grass kitchen, sleep in the truck, take another icy shower, then drive to the Tree Fork.
In the two days she’d been staying in Marietta, no one had objected to her truck and trailer being parked in the fairgrounds lot and she hoped that it would continue.
Every night she spent in the truck was a night that she wasn’t paying for a motel room.
The sign over the honor box was faded, but she saw where there was a limit on days allowed.
She wasn’t yet sure what she was going to do about that.
Throw herself on the mercy of the powers that be? Hope that no one enforced the rules?
Danny and Jessie greeted her with soft nickers as she approached the pen the two horses shared, Raisin dancing beside her.
Danny, her trusty Morgan, swung his head over the top of the panel and she reached through the rails to rub his neck beneath his thick curly black mane. Her boy was such a sweetheart.
Jessie, her retired barrel horse, a red dun, pushed him away, taking his spot and twisting her neck to show Mac exactly where she needed scratched. Mac gave a low laugh and obliged with short scratches that made the mare’s lower lip protrude as she leaned into Mac’s hand.
“Enough.” She patted both horses, then opened the back of the horse trailer, which was parked at an angle near the pen, and broke open the last bale.
She was on her way to the facilities debating about whether to shower now or the next morning—either way she was going to freeze—when her phone rang. She brought it to her ear, her heart skipping when she heard Trev’s voice.
Was he going to rescind his offer? All they’d had so far was a handshake deal.
“Where are you staying?”
“Why do you ask?” she said, tamping down a spike of unnecessary guilt. She wasn’t breaking any laws … that she knew of, anyway.
“Wondering if you could swing by Lane’s Feed and pick up some probiotic paste before heading out tomorrow? It would save me a trip to town. They open at seven o’clock.”
“No problem.” In fact, it was excellent, because it meant she honestly had a job.
“You can put it on the Tree Fork account. Get a dozen tubes.”
“Will do.”
Maclyn sat on the trailer’s wheel cover after ending the call, watching the two horses eat. Trev Matthews was now her boss.
That was Twilight Zone stuff—almost as Twilight Zone-y as having Brooke, her supposed friend, turn on her.
Or discovering that Frank Carrington, the CFO of the family company, her father’s best friend, had driven the business into the ground and had been lying about it for months after her dad’s death.
And then there were the Benningtons, who had also turned on her, but given their entitled personalities, that wasn’t surprising.
It was the people Mac thought she could depend on who caused the trouble. Brooke. Frank.
Fortunately, she’d discovered a solution for that.
Stop depending on people.
*
Trev pushed his phone into his pocket, glad that he didn’t need to run to town.
The few remaining tubes of probiotic paste in his calving stash were close to expiring and he wasn’t going to the trouble of pushing the stuff down calves’ throats if it didn’t to do their guts any good.
Thankfully, he had a new hire who could pick up the stuff on her way to work the next day.
What a strange turn of events that was.
He was glad to have someone to help out for a few days, but how in the hell had that someone ended up being Maclyn Kane?
And how had she gone from showing all the signs of casual wealth to being essentially homeless?
She’d been desperate for work, that had been clear, but she’d also been about to drive away before she’d dropped the bomb about Brooke.
A clever ruse to get a few days’ work?
He had to admit that felt like a stretch, which left him with the grim possibility that he’d been wrong about her, and that there were things he hadn’t known about the former love of his life.
He grabbed his hat and headed for the door, needing to find a distraction, but instead of gathering his tools to fix the split rails on the bull pen, he stopped on the porch steps and after a moment’s debate, called the one guy who had been there when all this had gone down.
He needed perspective, and his stoic roping partner was the guy to give it to him.
Dylan answered on the second ring, the sound of equipment running in the background making it hard to hear.
“Give me a sec.” The noise quieted and Trev went through the hey-how-are-you bit, before stepping off the deep end.
“Quick question.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think Brooke was cheating on me?” He pushed the words out carelessly, brushing aside the cringey feeling that made his shoulder muscles tighten.
Silence followed the question, the kind that made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut on the subject.
“What brought this up?” Dylan finally asked. “I mean, it’s been six years.”
“My new hire.”
“Who’s that?”
“Maclyn Kane.”
Dylan let out a choked laugh. “How is Maclyn Kane your new hire?”
Trev recounted the story, clipping it down to a few facts. She showed up. She needed a job. She said Brooke was cheating on him. He hired her anyway. Yep, he was that hungry for help.
“Did Maclyn give you details of this alleged cheating?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Not ready for the answer?” Dylan was good at zeroing in on things.
“Maybe not,” Trev allowed. If she’d cheated on him, it was a done deal. No good would come from learning the details.
Keep telling yourself that.
“I’m not saying I believe it’s true. I just wondered if I’d had my head so far up my ass that I missed something glaring.”
“You didn’t.”
“Nice of you to say so. Especially watching me become my new and improved self.” It was embarrassing to acknowledge that he’d changed so much of his life for the woman who’d walked out on him. The woman who might have been cheating on the side.
“You went straight. Big deal. I never made fun of your khakis.”
“Yes, you did.”
“That was wrong of me.” Dylan made a clicking noise with his tongue. “You went down a different road because of Brooke, but it paid off. Whatever geek thing it is you do is more stable than ranching.”
That was a fact, but one month on the ranch had been enough to convince him that wallowing in the muck while delivering calves was a shit ton more satisfying than solving a hacking problem for a major corporation.
That said, muck-wallowing didn’t have much of a retirement and benefits option and he had two brothers who planned to return to the ranch and use it as a home base.
Between Hayes, Jordan, and Wade, there were enough hands to manage the ranch and only so much income to be had.
He was the last guy to call dibs, and he was also the guy with the most stable job.
It only made sense to keep at it. Be responsible.
Not end up like Maclyn.
“By the way,” Dylan said. “I think I might unretire this summer.”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll see how things go on the 88 Ranch. If they hire me on full-time, I think I’d like to hit the circuit again.”
“Don’t be teasing me, now.” Because Trev needed the outlet. He didn’t know how he was going to burn off excess frustration if he didn’t have roping to fall back on.
Dylan laughed. “I’ll keep you posted. Just do the same for me.”
“In other words, you want to know how Maclyn works out?”
“Fucking A. Keep me in the loop.”
*
“I thought you were going to get calf paste this afternoon.” Wade ambled into the kitchen as Trev came back into the house after ending his call.
“The new hand is going to stop at Lane’s Feed on her way out tomorrow.”
“Good.” Wade gave a considering nod. “I didn’t think you’d find someone so quickly, but I’m damned glad of it.”
He headed across the kitchen to refill his coffee cup, favoring the leg his new mare had landed on last fall. He was a talented horseman, but accidents happen, and this one had taken him out of commission for months.
“With extra help, we have a good chance of getting roofs on those sheds and corrals fixed before other stuff breaks.”
“Yeah.” Trev did not point out that if Wade had fessed up to what had been going on for the past couple of years, they wouldn’t be in their current position of doing two jobs at once—regular ranch chores and calving coupled with a long list of neglected ranch repairs and maintenance.
With Trev and his brothers living off the ranch, Wade had been able to keep the slow decay on the down-low, until he broke his leg, and Hayes had returned home to take over.