Chapter 24 Hutch
Hutch
I’m not too stubborn to admit that walking away from Ginger Westbrook was a lot harder than it should have been.
Taking her stuff out of the van for the last time at Hayley’s felt wrong.
Like, where it and she should be was right across from me.
The van feels empty as I drive out of town toward the ranch.
Her scent still lingers but it’s not enough.
That thought is both foreign and jarring.
But it doesn’t matter what I want. She’s here for Wren.
And she’s not mine. Not even close. I haven’t got a right to her, and don’t want one.
Not really. I’m feeling slightly off kilter because I can’t have her.
This shit will pass. At least that’s what I tell myself as I hang a right onto the dusty, split rail fence road leading to my childhood home.
So why does it rub me wrong that I only ever got a couple of nights with her?
Like an itch on my back that I can’t quite reach.
I know this is what I agreed to. What happens on the road trip stays on the road trip.
And I am nothing if not a man of my word.
But if that’s the truth, why am I already wondering when I’ll see her again?
Pulling up to my parents’ house, I park next to Hank’s truck.
His life used to be nothing but this ranch, and I guess on some level, it still is. He’s still here every day, working his ass off to preserve what our Pop built thirty-plus years ago. Ever since he and his wife Wrenley had their twins, he’s shifted priorities.
Golden light silhouettes the house I grew up in, and the mountains and tree line beyond it are as familiar as the back of my hand.
I grew up riding dirt bikes in these hills, and with my brothers and sisters, we’ve explored every inch of the woods.
Friday night bonfires as kids turned into more of the same as adults, though not as often, and family dinners with countless games of corn hole have taken up most of the time I’ve spent here recently.
Opening my door, I climb out, and Oakley, my golden retriever, comes trotting out from the barn. His tail picks up and wags his entire back end before he lets out an excited bark and tears toward me. He slams into my legs, jumps up, paws on my shoulders when I bend down, whining like crazy.
“Hey, buddy,” I whisper as he attacks my face with his tongue. “You miss me?”
Oakley lets out a series of whiny yelps, which causes my brother Hank’s dog, Tucker, to come tearing out of the barn, too. He barrels into me, and then they proceed to play a rousing game of who can be the loudest while I push to my feet.
I grin and shake my head at them, turning toward the main house. But when I hear voices from the stables, I head in that direction instead.
My brothers are inside, likely coming back from riding. Hudson turns when he hears my footsteps, pausing in removing the saddle from Mom’s horse, Mystic.
“Hey, asshole,” he calls out.
I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face. “What’s up, fucker?”
Hank looks over from where he’s untacking his horse Apollo, but in typical broody asshole fashion, he tips his chin at me before going back to the task.
“You just get back?” Hudson asks, lifting the saddle off Mystic and coming out of her stall to drop it on a saddle rack.
I nod, stopping next to my brother and running a hand over Mystic’s muzzle where she’s patiently waiting. She lets out a soft whinny.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I murmur to her, giving her a couple of gentle pats. “You doing okay? This asshole didn’t ride you too hard, did he?”
Smirking at me, Hudson removes the blanket from her back, laying it over his arm.
“More like the other way around,” Hank mutters from Apollo’s stall across the aisle.
“Fuck off,” Hudson volleys back, but there’s no heat in it.
Hudson’s good on a horse, but until about a year ago, he’d been living in New York. He moved there for college, and even though he always found time to ride when he brought his daughter Paige back home for visits every year, fifteen years away is a long ass time.
The slap of sandaled feet on the concrete stable floor pulls my attention back the way I came, and I look over in time to see my seven-year-old niece flying into the barn, long, dark pigtails bouncing with each hurried step.
“Uncle Hutch!” she hollers and launches herself at me before proceeding to climb me like a tree.
“Hey, little gremlin.” She’s all long legs and sticky fingers when I swing her up into my arms. Her face is sun-kissed, and she smells like dirt and green apples.
She grins up at me and I groan dramatically, “Shit, you’re getting big!”
Her lips tip up on one side and she holds out her palm with a triumphant gleam in her hazel eyes. “That’s a dollar for the swear jar, Uncle Hutch.”
“A dollar? Holy fu—” I stop, wide-eyed, splitting a look between Hudson and Hank—who both wear matching smirks, the assholes—before digging my free hand into my pocket for change. “Fees are getting steep.”
I drop my eyes to my palm and shrug before dropping a shit ton of change in her sticky little hand, not bothering to count it.
“That should hold me over for the next thirty seconds or so,” I say with a chuckle and give one of her pigtails a light tug.
She grins at me and reaches up to give my bun the same tug in return before I crouch down, setting her on her feet.
“Thanks, Uncle Hutch,” she says once we’re eye level and she’s standing again. “I’m gonna go see if Grammy will let me keep these coins for our swear jar at home.”
She swings her gaze toward her dad and gives him a look—half pout, half scowl. “Daddy and Mama only give fifty cents per swear, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
I throw a knowing glance up at my brother and can’t help but chuckle at the look on Hudson’s face. With the mouth on my brother and his wife, this kid will be rich before she’s fifteen.
“No problem, kid,” I tell her before she saunters off and out of the stable.
When I push to standing, my back twinges as I straighten up. I wince, rubbing at a spot above my waistband. Maybe I do need a new mattress for the Vanagon after all.
“Throw your back out fucking your way across the country?” Hudson asks, eyeing me. His expression is innocent, but the twitch of his lip has me rolling my eyes.
“Eat me,” I throw back at him, upending a crate and lowering myself onto it to sit.
Hudson tips his head back and laughs. “Excuse me…Six or seven states, then?”
“It’s sleeping in that small as fuck bed in the shoebox you call home,” Hank throws out, his back to me as he dicks around with Apollo’s halter.
I shoot a look at the back of his head, because until recently, he lived in a one-room cabin not much bigger than my Vanagon for twenty years, like some sad, anti-social troglodyte.
Trouble is, I can’t tell either of them my back is sore—not from the bed itself, but from sharing—and sort of fucking—Ginger in that tiny bed for the past three nights. Can I? Technically, we never actually fucked, but it’s not like I can talk about her like she’s another girl I mess around with
But then again, Ginger isn’t anything more than that, right? Well, she is, but not because anything will happen between us. She and Wren are best friends. Finnley, too.
Hank would have my balls in a vice if he knew about the two of us, simply if his wife requested it.
Hudson would go tattle to Finn, and fuck, we all know what would happen then.
Whole damn family would be privy to who I’m sleeping with.
Slept with? It’s not continuous, so ‘slept with’ is probably more accurate.
Besides the fact that it’s none of their business, I don’t need anyone knowing. And Ginger specifically asked me not to say anything.
Why the fuck am I still thinking about this?
I glance up at my brother when he clears his throat.
“At least get a new mattress for that thing,” Hudson pipes up, taking a brush to Mystic’s body. “Don’t even want to think about how many bodily fluids are all over that piece of shit,” he adds with a mock shiver.
“What is it with you two and your obsession with my jizz?” I ask, glancing smugly between my brothers. “Besides, you didn’t seem to mind crashing on that piece of shit when you passed out drunk on it last fall,” I shoot at Hudson, no real venom in my response.
He and his best friend Finnley—now wife, since they were secretly married and screwing around behind everyone’s back besides mine—we’re taking a break.
Hudson’s ex had blown back into town and turned shit upside down and he’d shown up drunk off his ass.
Because there was no way he was driving in his condition, I’d filled him up on cheap tequila and given him the bed in the Vanagon for the night.
“Key words there being ‘passed out drunk’, dumbass. I coulda fallen asleep on the fucking ground and I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Get a new mattress. Your back will thank you,” Hank says gruffly.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Don’t need one.”
“Whatever you say. But we’re getting fucking old, brother,” Hank says as he exits Apollo’s stall, closing it behind him.
I glare over at him. “Speak for yourself, asshole. I’m just hitting my stride.”
Hank chuckles. “If by hitting your stride you mean being unable to turn your neck because you slept wrong, I’m just hitting my stride too.”
Hudson huffs out a laugh before turning to me. “You planning to start on the other side of the duplex soon?”
I nod, not at all phased by the sudden switch in conversation. That’s how it’s always been with my brothers and me. We can rib the shit out of each other one second and switch to business or talk about the ranch the next without missing a beat.
I nod, flicking a glance at Hank. “Thanks for the heads up about Ginger staying at Hales’ place, by the way.”
Hank shrugs. “Why else would I tell you to keep your dick in your pants?”
I blink at him. “You always tell me to keep my dick in my pants.”
Hudson laughs. I glare at him.
He shrugs like the asshole he is, a shit eating grin on his face. “What? He’s not wrong.”
“I thought you knew,” Hank says after a beat.
“How the hell would I know Ginger was staying at Hales’ place? She doesn’t live here, and even if she did, it’s not like they’re friends.”
Are they? Fuck. Who knew? Not me. I see my family often enough, I guess, but I don’t make it a point to know every little detail of what’s going on in each of their lives, who talks to whom, and how much.
Hank shrugs again, picking up his black baseball cap and settling it on his head. “How the fuck should I know? You’re working out there. Thought Hales might’ve mentioned it.”
“She didn’t.”
“What’s the big deal, anyway?” Hudson asks.
I actually don’t have an answer for that. Me working in close proximity to the woman I can’t seem to get enough of shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not. It won’t be.
Hudson watches me, waiting for an answer, but Hank speaks up next, leveling me with that broody big brother look he’s perfected since the rest of us started coming out of the womb.
“Keep your dick away from Ginger and everything will be fine.”
“You’re still on that shit? Fuck off.” I scoff at Hank. “What I do with my dick is my business.”
My oldest brother drops his hands on his hips and does his best impression of Pop.
"She’s Wren’s best friend, Hutch.” He glances down at his feet, then hits me with that broody look he can’t help but use.
“Just don’t fuck with her, okay? They’ve been tight a long time and don’t forget, she’s got kids, too. ”
“What the fuck do her kids have to do with anything?” I know I probably sound like an asshole, maybe even a little guilty, but what the hell?
Hank sighs, scrubbing a hand over his mouth. “She doesn’t need you coming in and fucking things up with your bullshit.”
I grind my molars. My bullshit?
I’m about to open my mouth and tell him that Ginger is a grown woman, but before I can, a guy with dark hair pokes his head into the stables, clearing his throat. I recognize him but don’t spend enough time on the ranch to know his name.
“Sorry to interrupt, boss,” he says to Hank before glancing at Hudson and me.
Hank tips his chin up at the guy in acknowledgment, hands still on his hips like the moody fuck he is.
“Wyatt Ransom’s here. Says it’s urgent.”
Hank’s brows pull together. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
Hudson glances over. “Wyatt Ransom? What’s he doing clear out here?”
“Bullshit rumors, most likely. You know how small towns are,” Hank says, reaching for his hat.
Pop used to deal with the co-op, but since Hank took over, they come to him. Folks trust him to stay calm when things start to buzz.
“I gotta handle this,” Hank says, then looks at me, “and you—think with your big head where Ginger’s concerned, alright?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to make a joke, but I bite it back. He pisses me off—scolding me like I’m fifteen with zero control over my dick.
“Can you…” Hank turns to Hudson and nods toward Apollo, not looking at me.
Hudson pushes off the stall he’s leaned against and gives a nod. “I’ve got him.”
Hank grunts once and strides from the barn without another word, boots thudding hard against the packed dirt.
“What a dick,” I mutter, standing as I watch my older brother go.
“Can’t blame him, you’re basically a walking erection,” Hudson mutters behind me.
I turn and shoot him a look. “First of all, fuck you. And second, takes one to know one, shithead.”
“I’m just saying, we know how you are,” he says, smirking at me. “Everyone knows how you are. Why are you getting so defens—”
“Shut up, Hudson.” I turn and stride for the double stable doors.
“You already fucked her, didn’t you?” he calls out.
But I don’t stop because Hudson’s always been a nosy fucker and I’m over this conversation.
I can hear him groan as I leave him behind. “Jesus, Hutch. Is there anyone you won’t stick your dick into?”
Hank’s words are still ringing in my ears as I leave the barn, and Hudson’s guess that we’d already slept together only made it worse. Like he had some right to lecture me.
I stride across the yard and grab Oakley’s leash from the Vanagon. The dog jumps in like he owns the place and settles into his usual spot by the door.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, I catch the faint smell of her. It’s still here, clinging to the fabric of the seats, subtle but impossible to miss. I swallow hard as my fingers tighten on the steering wheel.
I pick up my phone, my thumb hovering over our text thread, but I can’t bring myself to type. This isn’t a casual check-in. With her, it’s more. And once I start, there’s no going back.
I let out a slow breath and close my eyes for a second, trying to shake the weight settling in my chest. Whatever this is, it’s messing with me in ways I didn’t expect.
Fuck.