17. Wylde West Girl #2
Then Chelsea mentioned Mom had cut her hours at the diner, that her hip was giving her trouble, that she was talking about semi-retiring, hiring someone to manage the place.
The diner needed someone who knew the customers and how to run a kitchen without burning the building down.
Someone like me—the guilt over not being there for my mother finally hit hard.
“She won’t say it outright,” Chelsea said, picking at the scoop of corn casserole on her plate. “You know how she is. But she needs you, Colt.”
“Or there’s the Holly Creek Hops and the Evergreen restaurant, too; plenty of work for you to choose from when you come back,” Maisy added, as if tossing out options at a board meeting.
“My Silverpine Lake Golf Course could use a solid man running things over there,” Rex countered.
“We’re just saying, you’d have options, Colt. Plenty of them,” Chelsea reached over and squeezed my hand.
Options. Like leaving Montana was only a minor scheduling problem to them. As if I could pack up this life and return neatly into the one I’d left behind, become that kid again who left years ago.
“I have an idea. Bring Ivy with you for Christmas,” Chelsea said, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, Ivy. Our mother would love you.”
“It’s not a bad idea.” I’d already considered it. Just a matter of talking with Ivy about it.
I noticed her plate was barely touched, her posture a little too straight. She caught my eye and sheepishly smiled, which didn’t seem like her at all. Was she pulling back from me? Us? Like a change in air pressure before a storm, something was noticeably off.
After dinner, we all cleaned up. Knox got the fire roaring at the circle. Guitars came out, and some of the ranch hands began entertaining, picking at songs.
I lost track of Ivy. But then I found her at her truck, keys already in her hand.
“You’re leaving?” I ran up to her.
“Early morning tomorrow.” She didn’t look at me. “Chamber meeting. Shipment coming in at the shop.”
I leaned an arm against the truck bed and waited. Crickets filled the silence between us, plus distant laughter and singing from the group. Ivy stared at her keys as if they held the answers, as if running away from whatever was going on right now was best.
“Your family is truly lovely, Colt,” she finally spoke, voice quieter than usual. Was this the real Ivy, hiding behind a wall she constructed today? “You’re really lucky to have sisters who care that much about getting you home.”
“Listen, I—”
“No. Your mom needs you. You heard what they said.” She peered up at me, and her eyes were far too steady, like she’d made a decision and would not be talked out of it.
“You should be there with her. And I won’t be the reason you’re not.
” She gave herself away, breaking on the last word, opening her truck door. I caught her by the arm.
“Hey. Come with me to Holly Creek. Even just for a visit. Meet my mom. See where I grew up. Honestly, it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, asking you.”
“Leave Montana?” she asked, almost on a humorless laugh. “My sisters would miss me for the holiday. And the West is all I’ve ever known.”
I reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, my thumb brushing her cheekbone.
She leaned into it, barely, and my chest ached with everything I wanted to say.
That I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back. This place, this ranch, these Sunday nights on the prairie with my hand in her hair and her laugh in my ear, had started to feel more like home than anywhere I’d ever been.
That when I thought about the future now, she was in every version of it.
But the words stuck. What if she wasn’t ready to hear all of that? I could push her to where she’d only run from me, so all that came out was—
“Yeah.” I smiled at her cooly. “I get it. The Wylde West girl.”
She pressed her lips together, and her chin trembled for half a second before she controlled it.
Then she rose on her toes and kissed my cheek.
Her hand lingered on my jaw, her fingertips tracing the stubble there, and then she was in her truck and gone.
I shoved my hands into my jeans and watched her taillights disappear down the hill and out the ranch road as if something good had just slipped away from me, and I might not get it back.
I returned to the fire when Ash’s phone rang.
From the way he answered and talked to whoever was on the line, something was wrong.
He yelled, asked questions, paced three steps one way and three steps back, his free hand balling into a fist, and then he hung up and turned to the group with a look that could’ve cut steel.
“I need every man tonight.” His voice barked across the gathering, sharp enough to darken the atmosphere.
Conversations and laughter stopped. The music died.
“Fences have been cut, stables opened. Horses and livestock are getting loose. Grab guns, grab lights, mount up on any horses you can find and get the ATVs running. It’s going to be a long night.
We need to retrieve every animal, repair fences, and…
if you see anyone who doesn’t belong here, bring them to me. ”
Knox shouted, cutting through the chaos that ensued. “Who did this?”
Ash shook his head. “I have no idea. But when I find out, they’re going to pay.”
Like an army mobilizing under attack, every ranch hand took off down the hill by vehicle or running, moving toward the barn.
Eldon doused the fire. Willow pulled a worried Ro close and started explaining to her in a calm, measured voice that everything would be fine, that her daddy Ash would find all the animals.
“Willow, can you watch Eli?” Dusty called, taking off before she answered because he knew she would.
Daisy and Sage jumped up and took charge of cleanup. My sisters joined them, worried looks on their faces.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll call as soon as I can,” I shouted at them.
“What can we do to help?” Rex stopped me on my way to ride with Knox in his truck, mine still out for repairs. Richard and Brooks stood by his side.
“Keep my sisters safe. Where are you staying?”
“The hotel over in Lewistown.”
“I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening.” I ran off with Knox, leaving my family behind, focused on the job ahead of me.
With any luck, we would find who had cut our fences on a Sunday night while we ate and laughed and thought the world outside this prairie couldn’t touch us. When we did find them, they would learn what happens when you fuck with the ODRR.
It suddenly hit me: I didn’t need my sisters to tell me where I belonged. With the brotherhood of the ODRR, men protecting what’s ours, I already knew.