Chapter Fourteen
The morning sun was just warming the boards of the veranda when Jake got back from his morning run. He flopped onto one of the benches and sat, squinting at the stables, the animals moving about, the birds greeting the day with a riot of noise from the big trees around the house.
It was not nearly as irritating as it had been on day one, waking him up and disrupting his sleep cycle.
Maybe he’d finally figured out his clock, because today he’d bounced up at six to get his run out of the way before it got too hot.
Yesterday the sun had been a murderous bitch, so this morning had been a lot more tolerable.
He compared it to the city, where he could shadow dodge during a run in the middle of the day if he wanted, even if the humidity radiating off the concrete tried to kill him.
He might like this better. The slight breeze and steam rising off the fields along the road were peaceful, the sky big and open, giving him permission to breathe deeply, take up space instead of winding around people, always an apology on the tip of his tongue if he had to wade through a crowd. It was just him and the road.
The ranch was much more restful now that he was used to it, and he relaxed into the seat, his neck and back thankfully pliant and less kinked up than they had been that first night here.
The pleasant exhaustion was also likely because he had just punished himself with a hard six-mile run, in an effort to sweat out the new tension that had invaded other parts of him.
The mental image of Liz in the kitchen last night snuck back in, and he rubbed his eyes to ward it off.
She had been much more approachable, and they’d put the up-and-down day behind them.
Then he’d gotten close to her, her body up against him as he’d shown her how to use his nine-inch chef knife.
He was instantly turned on, wanting her, which was a bad, bad idea.
He closed his eyes and sighed as he ran a hand over his sweat-plastered hair, frustrated with himself.
Even with her raccoon-black eyes and tape on her nose, she looked warm and soft, and it had been damned near impossible to resist kissing her as their bodies pressed together.
With the look she’d given him, she’d all but invited him to do it, as well.
But he had resisted, unsure if he should take it that far. He could sense her disappointment when he’d pulled away. Him, too, in spades.
The stories she’d told him about his dad as they’d mowed down entirely too many fajitas had been funny ones, thankfully.
It had helped them both keep things platonic, even though the undercurrent of attraction was still humming.
She was trying to soften the man, he assumed.
He’d long gathered that his father had not been easy to work for, and he noticed that she skirted around stories of their interactions, focusing more on Brett himself. His achievements, daily life, rituals.
He appreciated that. They were anecdotal and safe.
The new thoughts of the man, the stories making him more than just an idea, had rattled around in his head as he cleaned up the kitchen, and when he had finally gone to bed, he was thankful to Liz for distracting him so that he wasn’t as anxious as he had been when Peony had dropped the bombshell that Brett had searched for him.
Not that kissing Liz wouldn’t have done the same damned thing.
“Hey, New York. What’re you doing out here?”
Jake cracked an eye to see Brady, dressed for work in grease-stained blue overalls and a hat that looked like it had been chewed on by a puppy, standing near him. He had a dinged-up metal travel mug in his hand that he slurped from, overtly eyeballing Jake and raising an eyebrow.
“Just finished my run,” Jake replied, and sat up, pulling his earbuds out. He felt lazy suddenly.
“A run,” Brady deadpanned. “On purpose?”
Jake snorted a laugh out. “Your brother said the same thing. Yes. A run. Gotta stay fit somehow.”
He felt like he didn’t have to walk on eggshells around Brady, but all the same he was cautious. He looked away, down the lane, the silence after his answer awkward. But then Brady chuckled and sat down beside him, leaning back. He rested one booted foot on his knee.
“My mom loved to sit here with her tea. She said it was the best view of the stables. She loved horses,” Brady said.
Jake turned his head and looked at his brother. He was so different from Tanner that sometimes he wondered how they were related, but he supposed Brady favored his mother. The auburn hair and less angular features were part of it, but he just seemed like a happier guy.
“I just realized. You haven’t been out to visit Dad’s grave yet,” Brady added, taking another loud slurp of his coffee.
It hadn’t even occurred to Jake that there was a grave for him to visit, let alone that he’d want to. He wondered if he even wanted to open that wound further.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” he replied.
“Well, if you want to go, just let me know. I’ll take you,” Brady offered.
“I appreciate that,” he said, meaning it. He had a gut feeling that he and Brady were on their way to becoming friends, and it was a relief.
“All good. Hey, on that note, why don’t you come find me later, I’ll take you on a tour of the place. You haven’t had one yet, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. But I can just go for a walk, you don’t need to take time away,” Jake said.
“Take you a long time to walk it.” Brady laughed.
Brady seemed to think that was funny, so now he was curious. “How big is the ranch?”
“We’ve got a thousand acres, give or take.
Half of that is under soybeans and corn at the moment, we’ve got two hundred acres of seeded hay and pasture fields, and we have the rest as what we call grazing land, high pasture we use in the early part of summer.
The main house and stables, cattle barns are around twenty acres, and the pens at the back of the cattle barns are around fifty.
Our land pushes into the foothills a bit compared to some. We log that on occasion.”
A thousand acres. Crops. Logging. Feedlots. Jake wasn’t sure he could even wrap his head around how big that was or what it would cost to run. He made a mental note to find the ranch on Google Maps later. “Is that a big operation, a thousand acres? How do you operate it with so few crew?”
“We hire in temporary crew for the planting, haying, the calving, and often drive cattle to the higher pasture with other outfits in the spring. It works. Feedlots make it a lot easier to spread the work too.”
“A lot of overhead and training, hiring in temp workers,” Jake said. He’d done that for big events and to handle the influx when he opened a new restaurant, but it was never fun to manage people you didn’t know well, and always expensive.
“We get regulars every year who know the routine, which helps. Dad preferred a small crew. Said it got the job done better, and we’ve never known it any different,” Brady replied.
“I’d like to bring in someone permanently to help on the crop side eventually, and we could use a couple more full-time wranglers. ”
“How long had Brett owned this place?” Jake asked, gesturing around him. He was asking a million questions, but Brady didn’t seem to mind.
“It’s been in the West family a few generations now. Each one buying a bit more land around the original ranch. Long tradition,” Brady said. “You didn’t know that?”
“Nope.” Not one mention of that in the documentation or from anyone, and Jake sat back, heaviness settling in his stomach. Generational. Not only was this family’s livelihood on the line, but their legacy as well. He blew out a tense breath and looked around him again.
“Well, if you’re gonna be here a while, you need to know the lay of the land. Your land, at the moment,” Brady added with finality as he stood and walked to his truck, keys jingling as he waved. “See you later.”
His land. No, it wasn’t, even if a bunch of papers said it was. Papers he hoped they could tear up so he could go back to where he was supposed to be, which was not twiddling his thumbs sitting on a thousand acres of ranch.
Thoughts about the enormity of what now had his name attached to it made him restless, and he stood, stretching, muscles he hadn’t felt in a while groaning. He looked at the little car he’d driven in, parked in front of the house, a coating of dust on it. It hadn’t moved since he’d gotten here.
He needed to figure out how to get that back to Calgary.
Lawyers never moved fast, and Brady was right, he probably was going to be here for a while.
He toyed with the idea of asking Liz to follow him in, and then drive back with her, but that might be like throwing gas on a fire if they were in the same truck for the hour or so it took to get from there back to the ranch.
Maybe, with the offer Brady had given this morning, he could ask him instead.
Tanner was out of the question. They’d kill each other spending that much time together in a small space.
He walked around back to head inside, passing through the kitchen on his way to his room and a shower. Rosy was bustling about in the kitchen.
“Good morning, Rosy,” he said, careful not to startle her, hoping his friendly tone was enough to keep her from scurrying away. “I thought today we could do up that chicken. I’m looking forward to sharing my rub recipe with you.”
She frowned and set down the fry pan she was holding. He noticed a small jumble of things in a box and a few cookbooks stacked beside that. She took a breath, her hands fidgeting. She was nervous.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. West,” she said, not meeting his eye. “I’m here for my things. I resigned this morning.”
Jake’s heart fell. It was because of him, and once again, here he was messing around in people’s lives when they deserved better.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he offered carefully. “Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?”