Chapter 6
WYATT
My chair squeaks under my weight as I lean back in it.
The high-pitched sound echoes around the room and collides with the sound of Grayson typing out an email.
We’re in his office today, waiting for Kade to arrive for our weekly catch-up.
He’s running late, which has become the norm for him in the last year because of his fiancée, Chloe.
They’re sickeningly in love and he’s been late to almost everything since they started dating last year.
I tap my fingers on my thigh, humming a song that played on the radio as I drove to the office this morning. We converted one of the old ranch buildings on our property into a working office a few years ago so that we could have a place to work that was separate from where we live.
Besides Gray’s house, which is the main ranch house, my siblings and I all have homes on the ranch. You would think that would mean we see each other all the time, but with the amount of land we own, we rarely run into each other.
When the door opens behind me, I keep my focus on the picture-perfect mountains in the distance.
I’d do anything to protect this land. Even if that means putting in a proposal for land we don’t need.
If it stops the Harts from expanding their business and bringing in even more tourists to ruin Coldwater, then we have to step up.
I just hope my brothers see it that way too.
“Sorry I’m late,” Kade announces, sinking into his seat. His hair is a mess, like he didn’t bother to run a comb through it.
I roll my eyes and shift my focus to him, pressing my lips together to hide my smirk when I spot a mark on his neck.
Rolling my tongue around my mouth, I slide my palm over my stubble-covered jaw. “You’ve got something on your neck.” I snigger, pointing to the same spot on my neck.
Kade scrubs at the mark, but there isn’t any chance of that being wiped away. “What is it? Is it gone?” he asks, his brows drawing low as he rubs harder at the skin.
It’s comical watching the panic on his face as his neck grows red.
Unable to hold back, I break out into laughter, the sound loud and punctuating the quiet of the room. God, it’s so much fun to tease him. Much like Grayson, Kade can be a little too serious at times. Although he has mellowed out a lot since we all found out his secret about riding in the rodeo.
Kade scowls at me. “Can you get it off?” He huffs, his gaze jumping between me and Grayson as he angles his neck at us both.
From his position behind his desk, Gray shakes his head, exhaling heavily through his nose. “You’ve got a hickey, Kade. Wyatt, stop being a dick,” he admonishes.
With a scowl, Kade reaches across the space between us, thumping me in the arm. Hard. “I can’t believe I fell for that. Asshole.”
Holding on to the spot he hit and leaning away from him, I grin, ignoring the pulsating in my arm. “Hey, I didn’t know what it was. You’d never catch a woman leaving her mark on me like”—I point at Kade’s neck—“that.”
“That’s because you don’t let a woman get close enough.” Kade stares at me as he fixes the collar of his lightweight shirt, a brow raised. “You probably don’t even let them kiss you.”
He’s not wrong about not letting women get close, so I won’t even try to argue with him. Instead, I shudder and reply, “When there’s a pool of women at my fingertips, why do I need ‘lasting connections’?”
Kade and Gray shake their heads in unison because they know I’m right. Or at least that’s what I tell myself, given that they’re both in fully committed relationships.
Personally, I don’t want or need the “love bug” to catch me. The thought of settling down makes me nauseous. I have everything I could ever want right now. An endless list of women vying for my attention and willing to do anything for it.
The image of a feisty brunette fills my mind, but I don’t let it linger. Maddie Hart is an annoyance, not a desire. Even if I’ve been feeling a lot more desire than annoyance toward her lately. It’s just something in the air. I refuse to let it become anything more than that.
Instead, I focus on how, not too long ago, my brothers were the same as me, content with being single.
Or so I thought. Okay, maybe Grayson wasn’t.
He spent a good chunk of his life pining after his high-school sweetheart, Avery.
But Kade was right by my side on every night out, at least until sometime last year.
How times have changed.
Shaking my head, I turn my attention back to the matter at hand and pick up the pile of documents that I’d printed out before the meeting. I hand a copy to Grayson and another to Kade for them to read through. We’ve got more important things to discuss than how I choose to live my life.
Ever since I overheard Maddie and Rhett talking about the Evergreen land, I’ve been working on a proposal to put forward for consideration. This is how we make our decisions; no matter what it is, it gets put to a vote. If the decision isn’t unanimous, then it doesn’t go ahead.
Grayson, Kade and I are equal partners in the ranch with our sister, Gracie.
Over the years, Gracie has stepped back, giving up her right to vote because she’d much rather work on planning the local events that we host at the ranch, such as our town summer BBQ and cattle sale as well as the town’s fall festival to name a few.
“What’ve you got for us?” Grayson asks, flipping through the papers I’ve handed him.
I lean back in my chair, observing them both. “There’s a last lot of land that Jim Evergreen is going to be putting up for sale. The Harts want it.”
Grayson narrows his eyes at me, sliding his pack onto the desktop. “If this is some sort of Hart revenge plot, it’s a no from me.”
Inhaling, I look over at the mountains again, Maddie’s words floating around my mind and fueling the fire of annoyance in my chest. “They want to use it to expand their business. To bring more tourists to Coldwater.”
“You know that doesn’t always mean it’s a bad thing, right? I think, given how much time has passed, we’ve all learned from what happened with Autumn,” Kade replies, setting his pack on the edge of Grayson’s desk.
“Of course you’d say something like that.
But not every tourist is like Chloe, Kade.
They don’t all respect the land and how things work around here.
This has nothing to do with my dislike of the Harts.
This is about the damage they cause when they ride fucking ATVs through our fences, tear up our grazing fields, or break the spirit of our family members.
Then they have the nerve to act like we’re the ones bothering them.
The more tourists that come, the more damage they will cause, especially on that plot because it’s right next to our fields. ”
Grayson’s brows lift to his hairline, disbelief flashing across his face. “Right, but this has nothing to do with the Harts?”
I hesitate for a beat before shaking my head.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his desk.
“We don’t need the land, but I also don’t need more damage being done than we already have to deal with, and we all know that will be inevitable.
I also want to be very clear, Wyatt. What happened with Autumn is in the past; she’s over it.
You need to be too. What do you think, Kade? ”
I jerk my head and try to keep the swirl of excitement at bay because nothing is guaranteed yet. We still need Kade to say yes, and if he does, I’d then need Jim Evergreen to sign on the dotted line. Until he does, there’s still a chance Maddie will get the land and then who knows what will happen.
Kade lifts a shoulder. “I’m not opposed to it. It’s a large pocket, so we’d have to figure out how we can use it, given how close it is to the stream. Have you spoken to Tanner and Reed about it?”
Tanner Westbrook is our Chief Operations Officer and is responsible for making sure our operations—here in Montana and those we’ve formed in Texas—run smoothly.
Reed Harrison is our numbers man. As our Chief Financial Officer, he’s the one who ensures we don’t blow the billions of dollars we’ve made on frivolous shit. He’s also best friends with Gracie.
“Yeah. Reed has crunched the numbers, and Tanner will look at some possible agricultural opportunities for us, so the land itself is preserved. He said he’s got a few ideas already brewing.”
Grayson nods, taking one last glance at the papers in front of him. “Then I guess it’s settled. You gonna need any help with this, or you got it handled?”
I’ve met Jim in a business capacity a handful of times when I attended meetings with Grayson for the negotiation of other lots of his land.
He’s a typical Montana businessman and much like how our dad used to operate.
He likes you to shoot it straight, but he’ll always make his own decisions with no swaying. “Nah, I’ve got it handled.”
If I’m up against Maddie Hart, she doesn’t stand a chance.