2. Colton
Times Like These - Foo Fighters
“You have to be shitting me.”
Pops rocks in his seat. “You think I’m in the habit of wasting words, Colton?”
I think you’re in the habit of being an asshole.
“I’m not going to let this happen.”
I flew in a couple hours ago from Wyoming and, immediately after, was called in to help a heifer birth a calf that was breech, and this jerk-off wants to talk about?—
“You don’t have a choice. The rivers are dryer than a bone. Aren”t you the one caterwauling about that all the damn time?
“You want to check how much water we have to take us through the season? You think it’s going to be enough for our cattle?”
“I told you we overexpanded,” I snarl, slamming to my feet, hands clapping against the desk as I loom over it. “But you wouldn’t listen?—”
“No, I wouldn’t listen. The bank wanted to invest in us. Why would I refuse free money?”
“It wasn’t free! My grandkids will be paying off the interest, you moron.”
“It’s not like we can’t afford it. It was only a loan, leaving me to diversify our capital elsewhere.”
“Why would you take a loan when we didn’t need it in the first place?” I argue, unable to understand the man’s logic.
But then, I’ve never understood how Pops’s mind works, and it’s only getting worse.
What with last year when he got it into his head that my youngest brother, Callan, wasn’t his kid, and then this loan—he’s pulling a crazy stunt once every 180 days minimum.
“It’s good business sense.”
“You wouldn’t know good ranching business if it pissed on your hand-stitched shoes, Pops. This is proof of it.”
I can see the rage licking around his pupils as if his fury is a visceral entity at my back talk, but I stopped being scared of him a lifetime ago. That rage can beat at me as if it were his fists however much he wants, but we both know that in a fight, I’d be the one taking him down.
I’m not eight anymore, pretending I have bullies in the schoolyard to explain away my bruises.
“I don’t know what made you think you can get away with talking to me like this, Colton,” is his cool warning, “but?—”
“The hot air you leak means nothing to me. I won’t be marrying Susanne McAllister for water rights. Sorry.”
“So our herd will die!” he exclaims. ”That’s what you’re saying. And here I thought the ranch was your everything. When the shit hits the fan, though, you’re the first to jump off the sinking ship!”
“This is your mess,” I snap, the urge to throttle him strong. “Why am I the one who has to rectify it?”
“You think I haven”t already tried to tie that girl to me? You should see the ass on that filly.” He whistles. “Almost jealous you’ll be breaking her in and not me.”
His words have me gritting my teeth.
I haven’t seen Susanne McAllister since she was a bratty teenager in the middle of a fire so fierce the scars remain on our land.
I didn’t intend on seeing her again either.
The good folks of Pigeon Creek know she was near the stables when they went up in flames.
Only I know that she was inside them.
Hell, I’m the reason she’s alive—I carried her outside.
“You discussed this with the McAllisters already?”
“They’re land-rich, water-rich, but money-poor, Colton. We, on the other hand, have plenty of everything but water.”
“I can’t believe Juliette McAllister agreed to this.”
How bad are things at the Bar 9 if she’s willing to fraternize with the enemy?
“She doesn’t have a choice,” he demurs, staring at his manicured nails. “They went through the same seasons we did. The bank’s branch manager knows I’ve been trying to buy her out so he told me the bank didn’t offer the Bar 9 a loan on account of their credit being shot. That’s why I approached her.
“Either we join forces or she loses everything.”
I don’t know why because they hate us as much as we hate them, but that has me rubbing a hand over my chest, right above my heart.
There’s been a McAllister in Pigeon Creek, Saskatchewan, since the early days of settlement. They’ve been on this land almost as long as we have.
“That’s a damn disgrace.”
“Might be, but it works to our advantage.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Why me?”
“Juliette. She said you were the only one strong enough for her Susanne.”
Whatever the hell that means.
Like he senses my confusion, he grins. “Think of it as a compliment. Anyway, it’s not like Cody ever stays long enough to say ‘I do.’ Cole’s gotten himself hitched to that Mia girl, and if Callan were the same age as Susanne, he wouldn’t have the balls?—”
“I told you to leave Callan alone. He’s eighteen years old, dammit, and he brings plenty to the table. Jesus, he’s been my assistant since he was sixteen!”
“What use is a boy who won’t get his hands dirty to me? I run a ranch!”
“You also run a business and his savvy is taking us places. He’s still in school, for Christ’s sake. Imagine what he’ll do for the company once he graduates.”
Before this can devolve and I give in to the urge to strangle him, I step over to the window behind his desk. This office is technically mine now, but the bastard always lays claim to it whenever he shows his face around here.
Looking at the Seven Cs’ acreage always brings with it a semblance of relief.
Unlike Cody and Cole, my younger brothers, I’ve never felt the call to be anywhere else. Sure, city living in Saskatoon was tempting a time or two, but I got enough of that when I went there for university. A degree later, minoring in animal science and majoring in accounting, I came home. Willingly.
The plains might be bleak to some, but this is my place.
I’ve known that since I understood what a legacy was.
Even if two of my brothers would do anything to get away, to me, this is where my soul belongs. Callan understands that. He’s the only sibling of mine who does.
But…
Marriage?
I hadn’t bothered thinking that far ahead.
Mind whirring, I contemplate ways to turn this to my advantage.
As I look onto the yard, I see the ranch hands coming in for lunch, some yawning, others smoking. I can hear the horses neighing in the distance and the baying of the stock as they cross land that my ancestors staked their claim on two centuries ago.
The Seven Cs is mine.
All two hundred thousand acres of it.
Even if Pops’s the idiot who puts every acre at risk with his shitty business practices.
It’s a thought that makes me come to a decision.
One that’ll change my life and that of a woman I haven’t seen in a decade.
“I’ll do it.”
“Knew you’d see sense, boy.”
“I never said there wouldn’t be conditions.”
Smug smile fading, he furrows his brow. We both know control of this situation is in my hands, and he can posture as much as he wants, but it means nothing in the end. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
He acts like I’m still fifteen, not thirty-two.
But there’s his problem—I am thirty-two and he let me know that Juliette McAllister hand-picked me for her granddaughter.
“As far as I can see, it is. You need my ass to shuffle down the aisle, and if you don’t want to liquidate those assets of yours to cover the loan repayments when water shortages force us to downsize our herd, then you’d better give me what I want.”
“You won’t let the Seven Cs suffer,” he jeers. ”You don’t have it in you.”
“No, I don’t. This solution of yours might be gussied-up, but there are alternatives. Expensive ones for sure, but alternatives.
“Seeing as I’m the Korhonen the McAllister matriarch chose for Susanne, you’ll do as I say if you want a fast and cheap route to fixing this mess.”
His chin tilts. “What do you want?”
“You. Gone.”
His bewildered expression is borderline comical. Or it would be if anything about this situation was funny.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Do you want to save the Seven Cs? You get away from it. Your mismanagement is what’s brought this place to its knees, then, when it was at rock bottom, you deigned to let me take over. I’m the only reason this place is flourishing.
“If you care about it as much as you claim, then you’ll resign as CEO and President of the company.”
“How dare you!”
He jumps to his feet much as I did earlier, but I’m not finished with him yet.
“Oh, I dare, Pops. Just like you dared arrange a marriage contract without warning me. I go to Wyoming on business and come home with an engagement in the cards.
“You need me to help, you need the McAllisters’ water, and that has a price tag.
“Resigning as CEO and President isn’t all I want from you either. You’re going to move to the house in Saskatoon and leave us the hell alone. I don’t want to see you around unless I call you back, do you hear me?”
Ignoring his sputtering, I storm from the office, a conversation with my lawyer in my immediate future. I move past him, sticking close because if he wants to have a tantrum, I’m more than willing to brawl.
The weight on my shoulders is always heavy—he may be the head of the company, yet the bulk of the work remains mine. But after giving him that ultimatum, for the moment, the burden of being me is lighter.
It doesn’t matter that I’ll end up having a sociopath in my bed and as the future mother of my heir.
No sociopath could be worse than the one who calls himself my father.
If it gets him off my land, an arranged marriage is a price I’m willing to pay.