CHAPTER 2
KENDRICK
Normally, the rumble of my bike underneath me and the wind buffering my body is enough to put my mind at ease. Not today. Not when I’m headed toward the one place I promised myself I would never go back to.
Seneca Falls.
Home.
Well, it was the place where I was born and raised. It’s also the place I left behind more than three years ago.
While I was growing up the town felt like a noose around my neck more often than not. Everyone looked at me a certain way and whispered about me while thinking I couldn’t hear them. I could.
They judged my leather jacket and the motorcycle I love to ride.
What they failed to notice was that I rebuilt the engine of my motorcycle and I spent most of my time working next to my father at Watts Ranch.
The facts of my life never stopped anyone from making assumptions when anything happened that was even a little bit questionable around town.
My father always told me not to pay them any mind. But I saw the writing on the wall.
There was no way I would find peace in Seneca Falls. By the time senior year rolled around, my reputation had only grown because of the girls I dated and the fun I had. It’s not like I was the only kid drinking in fields or laughing it up with friends, but no one seemed to care I wasn’t alone.
I was the bad seed. I was the one to keep your eye on.
Even with the whispers, I was planning on sticking around for my family’s ranch.
After spending my entire life on the land, my legacy mattered to me.
But then something changed; the way my father looked at me shifted.
He no longer grumbled about nosey neighbors who don’t know what they’re talking about.
He started questioning me about where I was going and who I was spending my time with.
Instead of staying and proving myself to everyone after graduation, I was fucking done. I left Seneca Falls and took the rumble of my bike with me. Why should I stay when even my father, the only parent I had my entire life, was no longer on my side?
Reno was calling my name and it’s where I’ve been for the last few years.
I built a life there. It’s not the one I thought I was going to have growing up, but it’s all mine.
I’ve been working as a mechanic, and have dated more than one woman who wasn’t lost in the gossip and repression of small-town life.
Everything stopped when I got a call yesterday from Cliff, my father’s right-hand man for as long as I can remember. Even though I had grown up knowing Cliff, after his gruff greeting, I still hesitantly asked, “Cliff?”
“Kendrick,” he sounded relieved to hear my voice even though I hadn’t talked to him in years, “I’m so glad you answered.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, even though I wasn’t entirely sure whether I cared or not.
“It’s your dad,” Cliff’s voice was gentler than I had ever heard it. “He’s had a heart attack and is in the hospital.”
“I need to get a few things in order here, but I’ll be back tomorrow,” my voice was gruff and strained.
I made the promise to the man who was like a second father to me before I could really think it through. While I needed to get shit straight with my job, there was no way I was going to leave my father hanging. Even if he lost trust in me. Even if I left and never looked back.
“I’ll see you then,” Cliff grunted, but I could hear the relief in his voice.
Now, as I pull into Seneca Falls, it’s clear nothing has changed since I left.
It’s only been three years, but not seeing any changes makes me feel like I made the right decision by leaving.
This place will always be stuck in place by their expectations; anyone who doesn’t fit the mold will be considered a black sheep.
Still, there is something peaceful about the town. Everything moves slower here than it does in Reno. And there’s the connection I still have to the land, the land I wanted to stay for. I can feel it tugging at me.
I can still hear my father’s voice telling me how important the land is. “Kendrick,” his voice had a rasp leftover from his days of smoking, “this land will give you everything you need, but it’ll challenge you at the same time. You’ll bleed for it. You’ll shed a tear. But you can’t give up on it.”
As I chuckle under my breath, I shake my head and ride toward the ranch I always called home. When I pull off the road and onto the long driveway, I’m reminded just how manly the ranch is. It’s like one big man cave.
I can’t even blame Dad. After losing Mom in a car accident when I was only one, he never dated, and another woman never set foot in the house since. All of Mom’s little touches are still dotting the house, including the flower boxes in the front which are faded and dated at this point.
Sometimes I wonder how things would have been different if Dad had opened his heart up again. He always said my mom was the other half of his soul and that was that.
I’ve never had that kind of love and I don’t remember them together, so it all feels like seeing shooting stars to me. I’ve only seen one and it was so many years ago that it makes it difficult to believe I’ll see another one.
But I also said I’d never step back in Seneca Falls and look where I am.
The moment I pull up in front of the giant farmhouse, which was built generations ago with a large family in mind, something in my soul calms. It’s a huge house, far too big for the man who lives in it alone.
I almost feel bad for the house because so many rooms have never been filled with the laughter and love they were meant to hold.
For the first time in my life, Watts Ranch feels like a ghost town. There are cows out in the distance in one of the pastures. I hear someone talking near the barn, but the house is dark and quiet. It’s eerie as fuck.
The ranch was always moving when I was growing up. People were always around and working. But I don’t see anyone right away, which means the only thing to do is head toward the voices.
As I get closer, I recognize the gruff tones of the man who has always been in charge when Dad isn’t around on the ranch. When he comes into view, my heart does a strange flip in my chest which I can’t say I like very much.
“Cliff,” I call out to him which has him whirling around too fast for a man his age.
We stare at each other for a long moment. I’m not sure how this man will react to actually seeing me. It wasn’t just this town I left behind when I rode out of Seneca Falls. While I knew Dad didn’t want to see or talk to me, I never reached out to Cliff to say goodbye or to check in.
Maybe I should have.
Cliff’s shoulders relax by a fraction. It’s the only warning I get before he steps closer to me. Stupidly enough, for a split second I think he’s going to hug me.
Then pain blooms along my jaw and my hand immediately goes there as I realize the man punched me.
The old man. Who just fucking punched me.
I glare at him and spit out, “What the fuck, Cliff?”
“I still remember you in diapers, boy,” his voice is just as venomous as it is amused. “And you just left. So, I don’t want to hear you bitchin’ about taking a punch you’ve earned.”
“Fuck,” I bite out under my breath. “I had to go,” I try to explain.
Cliff holds up a hand. “I didn’t say I didn’t understand, but you could have said goodbye.”
The sadness underneath his voice is not easy to hear. “I should have,” I tell him honestly.
When it comes to a man like Cliff, the only thing to do is take it on the chin. Both his punch and his words. He’s not fucking wrong, either. I should have said goodbye, regardless of how things went down with Dad.
“Damn right,” he mutters but then he slaps my shoulder and pulls me in for a quick slap on my back which masquerades as a hug. Before I can process it, he’s pushing me away again. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too, Cliff,” I force the words past my lips while keeping my voice level.
I’ve never been an emotional guy. It wasn’t something I saw growing up with Dad and Cliff as the only guys I could look up to.
He slaps my back one more time. The man has more oomph behind the slap than I’d like, but I hold back my grunt of surprise and pain as he steps away from me while turning enough to get himself under control. It only takes him a moment before he’s looking back at me.
“Where ya been?”
I chuckle and shake my head before telling him, even though I’m fairly sure he already knows, “I’ve been living in Reno.”
Cliff nods once and tries to hide the smirk on his face by rubbing his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, I could see that,” his words are measured as he looks me over. “You’re looking more like a city boy than I remember.”
I flip him off and bark out a laugh. When he joins me, the rest of the tension around us falls away.
Cliff elbows me with a grin on his face. “You met a lady who can deal with your bullshit and keep you in line out there?”
I shrug one shoulder and rub the back of my neck, not willing to answer outright. No, there wasn’t a woman in Reno who could keep me in line. It was the last thing I was interested in finding.
“There’s lots of women in Reno who are fun to spend time with,” I deflect without saying much of anything.
He can interpret my words however he wants. When everyone in Seneca Falls was talking about the girls I dated, Cliff never said anything, and he didn’t treat me any differently. I have no idea if he believed the rumors the same way Dad seemed to buy into them.
He makes a humming sound before turning back to the clipboard hanging on the nail in the barn. With one glance I can tell it still holds the paper where notes are taken about the cows brought in from the pastures for a better look.
Raising cattle for beef is different than a milking farm. We want our cows to live their best life out in the pasture. They’re fed, they’re checked on, and they’re allowed to graze.
“I was about to head out and repair a fence line before we rotate pastures tomorrow.”
He doesn’t explain further, but I take the olive branch for what it is. With a nod, we set about saddling up two horses. I’ve worked with both before, but it’s clear Cliff takes a shine to a gorgeous buckskin quarter horse.
The ride out to the fence line is quiet. It gives me the chance to take everything in. One of the things that keeps sticking out to me is how quiet it is. Too quiet.
Cliff slows and then slides off his horse a few feet away from a fence on the western border. I look out toward the land on the other side of the fence and can almost see the Conners’ family farmhouse. They’ve owned their land just as long as my family has.
“What’s going on around here, Cliff?” It’s impossible for me to keep the question from landing between us. He glances at me, clearly not wanting to answer. “You need to tell me,” I demand.
“It’s been slow around here,” Cliff admits, his words measured. “Harold had to let some hands go.”
“What’s slowed everything down?”
What he’s telling me doesn’t make sense. Dad—Harold—would never put the ranch in danger by reducing the number of hands, not with the number of cattle we usually have. That shit just isn’t safe and it can cause the overall health of the herd to go down.
“You know how things can go wrong fast. There was a drought two years ago and it fucked with the grazing pastures and the cows. The price of meat was up and down. We couldn’t breed as many as we wanted and then Blacky died.
” He looks down at the ground with a frown on his face.
“Between that and always chasing our tails on the fences and the moldy feed, we couldn’t catch a break. ”
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” I huff out an annoyed breath. “It’s the only reason I made sure Dad had my new number.”
I almost didn’t call him after I got settled in Reno.
But then I couldn’t shake the idea of finding out too late some shit had happened, and I lost the only family I had left.
So, I called him and made sure he wrote my number down.
Even if he hid it after that, or threw it away, I did what I could to make sure he could reach me.
“You know how Harold is,” Cliff throws out as if it’s an explanation. It isn’t. I can feel him looking at me from the corner of his eye.
“Was it all just nature taking a shit on Watts Ranch or is something else going on?” When Cliff doesn’t say anything, I turn toward him. I push him, “Sabotage?” The look on his face tells me everything I need to know.
Fuck.
The land will chew you up and spit you out without caring. You put everything you can into it but always wonder if it’s enough. Then people try to make it even harder on you, as if battling the land isn’t enough.
My hands clench into fists as I look over the fence, hoping to get lost in something familiar. It would be better than the sting of knowing my father didn’t want my help. He didn’t even try to ask me.
“Is he gonna die?” I don’t look at Cliff as I ask the question. I can’t look at him.
“No,” Cliff grunts. “It was touch and go there for a moment, but he’s too much of a stubborn asshole to die.”
It’s like I can breathe again. I’ve been holding my breath without really acknowledging it since yesterday when Cliff called me. And to think I was kicking myself lately when I hadn’t heard from Dad in three years and was wondering if I had made the right choice when I left.
He was too stubborn.
I wasn’t going to reach out again.
Maybe we were never all that different.
“Good,” I murmur, my voice soft before I dive into fixing the fence line.
Cliff and I work side by side like I haven’t spent the last three years in the city. It all comes back, and my movements feel natural. More natural than anything has felt in the last few years.
Not that I’ll ever say anything so fucking cheesy out loud.
“You should have called me sooner, Cliff,” I admonish the man, barely keeping the rage out of my voice.
“Would you have come?”
His words stay with me and not another word is spoken between us as we finish up the fence. It sinks deeper into my chest and wraps around my heart as we ride back to the barn. It finds a home in my marrow as I force myself to go to the hospital to see Dad.
He’s asleep and I’m left sitting by his bedside for far too long. The entire time, Cliff’s question rings through every part of me.
I want to believe I would have dropped everything for Dad and the ranch.
But then I remember the life I was living while not being expected to answer to anyone.
The freedom I felt in Reno is just an echo in the hospital room as I try and process how weak my dad looks.
I’ve never seen him look frail, not once in my entire life.
But he looks like he made a pact with the Grim Reaper with every breath rattling through his chest. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did.
For him, I would have come home. Right?
Or would I have stayed away for all the reasons I ran.
Would you have come?
I don’t have an answer. I don’t think I ever will.