CHAPTER 45
Cal
By the time I reach Special K at our agreed-upon meetup, I’ve had Leroy at full gallop for about four miles.
I tell myself that I should do this more often, since endurance is what my boy was bred for.
Now that the slow-going Miss Backlund is leaving Yosemite Ranch for good, I’ll make a point of it.
I bring Leroy down to a canter, a lope, then a walk. “Good morning, Kevin.”
He turns in the saddle to glare at me from under his black leather Stetson.
Of all my brothers, he’s the least sociable.
Always has been, even as a little snotty-nosed brat.
And I know damn well that he prefers to be alone out here on his rounds.
So when I hit him up on the walkie this morning to inform him that I’d be joining him, he didn’t bother to hide his irritation.
Well, tough shit.
“To what do I owe this honor?” he asks, turning his horse to face me.
I sigh and look around the landscape. “I just needed to get out, you know, feel the wind. Get some dust in my lungs.”
“Uh, huh.”
“I’ve been spending too much time behind a desk lately.”
“Right.”
“What’s on your agenda this morning? Are there still issues with the fences out near Traitor’s Gulch?”
Special K laughs. “Speaking of traitors, how’s it going with the little red-headed industrial spy? Did you drop the disinformation on her yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Too busy doing other shit?”
I shake my head, a signal for him to back off. “I plan to tell her tomorrow. Let’s get moving.”
Turns out Special K is the perfect companion for someone who doesn’t feel like chatting and wouldn’t even know what to say if he did.
We just ride, up and down the hills and through the pines, over the river and around the embankments.
I stay alone in my twisted-up mind and heart, ashamed of the way I behaved last night with Victoria.
It’s true that she gave as good as she got, but that’s beside the point.
What I did was wrong. My actions were about as far away from decent as a man can get.
Being pissed off and wild doesn’t make it okay to take it out on someone else. The right thing would have been to talk it out, but I felt too feral for that. And when she did try to talk to me, I pushed her away and bent her over again.
It went on like that through the night. And when I started to fall asleep, she got up and went to her guest room in the other wing of the house.
I made sure to be gone before she woke up this morning, but at some point, I’ll have to go back.
It’s my own damn house, after all. Maybe she’ll still be there. Maybe she won’t.
Fuck. The only option is to apologize for my piece and let her deal with her actions however she chooses. I can’t make her come clean to me. I can’t make her do anything.
Special K and I do locate a few holes in the fencing at Traitor’s Gulch, and he uses the walkie to provide coordinates and call for a crew to bring equipment and replacement fencing.
We see a few of our Piedmonts wandering on land that belongs to the neighboring Travis Ranch.
Special K radios to get permission to bring them home.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to do some real ranch work. I welcome it. It clears my mind, which is the whole point.
We don’t speak much on the ride back, so I’m taken by surprise when Special K pipes up. And I’m fucking dead when I hear his words.
“You love her, don’t you?”
I slow Leroy to a walk and stare at my brother, mouth open.
“I read somewhere that we don’t get to pick who we fall in love with. Shit happens, and boom! We look around wondering what the fuck just hit us, but it’s already too late. We’re fucked.”
I laugh. “That’s beautiful, Kevin. Seriously. You need to get yourself a TED Talk. Or a spot in the next poetry slam at the Sweetbriar Public Library.”
“They don’t let you use the F word at the public library. I already checked.”
I laugh my ass off. It feels good to laugh like that. And the damnedest part of all this is that my baby brother, the undercover philosopher-slash-comedian, is right.
I was falling in love with Victoria Backlund before I saw that contract.
Not long ago, I was thinking about the logistics of working part-time in San Diego, just so Victoria and I wouldn’t have to spend too much time apart.
I was even wondering what kind of changes she might want to make to the house. Her own office. A bigger walk-in closet.
Because I’d hoped my house would become our house someday.
And now I don’t know what the hell to do with myself.
Boom.