Chapter 15
Wilder
Since arguing with Sully, I didn’t see much of him until around New Year’s.
We kept a respectful distance with each other, neither of us going out of our way to avoid each other, but not exactly seeking each other out, either.
There was an unspoken understanding between us like there always was, though whether it was out of genuine courtesy or a silent agreement to avoid another heated conversation, I wasn’t entirely sure.
Maybe it was a bit of both.
Things hadn’t exactly been bad since Christmas evening.
We worked and ran the ranch just fine, same as we always did, slipping back into the comfortable rhythm of daily responsibilities with practiced ease.
But there was something different now, a shift in the way we navigated around each other that felt more careful.
More cautious.
Almost like we were both waiting—watching—to see who would make the first move, who would be the one to crack and finally acknowledge that our last conversation had left something unfinished. That there were still words hanging between us that neither of us had the energy to address.
I had no intention of being the one to do it.
If Sully had second thoughts about rehashing things and also wanted to pretend nothing happened, that was perfectly fine by me. I was more than willing to let the whole thing fade into the background, to bury it under the weight of chores and running this business in order to keep the peace.
In the meantime, I buried myself in work.
Long hours, relentless tasks—anything to keep my hands busy, my body moving, and my mind from wandering to places I didn’t need it to be drifting off to.
The hard labor took its toll like it always did. Muscles aching at the end of each day, bones creaking in protest when I finally managed to drag myself back to the main house, my mama’s worried frowns following me up the stairs to my bedroom.
I welcomed the exhaustion, eagerly traded in my physical comfort for the distraction it gave me. For anything that could keep my thoughts from drifting back to Asher Torres.
Since our last phone call, I hadn’t heard much.
No updates. No check-ins. Just an awkward kind of silence.
I fought every day not to text him, even if it was to innocently ask if he was okay, as if that quiet sadness I’d heard in his voice during our last conversation had faded into nothing more than a distant memory.
But each and every single time I reached for my phone, thumb hovering over his contact, I hesitated.
Because without fail, Sully’s words came roaring back in my head without warning: “Let’s not forget the fact that he’s nineteen.”
That single memory haunted me, sent my teeth clenching together while my jaw ticked as I shoved my phone back into my pocket and buried myself deeper in my work in order to ignore that nagging pang in my chest.
I missed him.
Terribly.
This place wasn’t the same without his boundless energy.
And his horse was a fucking pain in the ass to deal with.
“Quit it,” I grumbled, swatting Pelly’s mouth away from the rim of my hat for what had to be the third time since I’d stepped into her stall.
The damn mare had a fixation on stealing it and using the brim of it as a file for her teeth whenever I was in here trying to clean up her stall when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I’d already had to retire two of my hats from being chewed through and I wasn’t about to lose a third in two days.
With Asher gone, she’d been relentless.
Bending back over, I grabbed at the mess of hay she’d already yanked out of her feeder and started shoving it back in through the metal bars, gritting my teeth as I worked.
Since Asher’s departure, Pelly had been nothing short of a petulant toddler.
She’d refused to listen to any of us—wouldn’t mind her manners, wouldn’t stop nipping at the other ranch hands who’d come by to refill her trough and feeder, or their sleeves, or anything she could get her mouth on.
And if that wasn’t enough, she had a new favorite pastime: tearing all her damn hay out of the wall feeder and spreading it around like she was throwing a temper tantrum.
As much as I hated to admit it, the damn horse missed him, too.
“Hey.” I stuck out a hand to shove against her hindquarters when she tried to herd me back into the wall. “You know, this would go a whole lot smoother if you weren’t being a brat.”
Pelly responded with a slow, bored blink, her ears flicking lazily as if the concept of cooperation was something she’d never quite heard of. Ironic, since she’d taken to Asher’s coaching perfectly fine.
I sighed, standing up again to give her hip a few good pats, ignoring the way her tail swatted at my back. “Listen, you have to deal with me for at least another two days. So, we might as well get along till then.”
She let out a long, exaggerated snort. Her nostrils flaring as she turned her head just enough to look at me as if to say, I don’t think so.
I scowled when she swatted me again. “Real helpful, thanks.”
Before she could make another attempt at bullying me into the corner of the stall again, a voice called out from the other side of the door.
“Boss?”
I turned, catching the sight of a head of dark hair appearing over the stall door, pushed back with a green bandana that was tied around his forehead.
Laken.
He threw his arms over the top, leaning hard against it until it groaned slightly. His chin rested on one of his forearms while he shot me an unmistakably amused look.
“You talking to her like that sounds just like Asher.”
Pelly took that exact moment to turn in the stall and nudge my shoulder with her nose, almost like she agreed.
“At least she’s polite to him,” I muttered, reaching up to rub at my shoulder where she’d pressed her nose. “Can’t say the same for myself.”
Laken’s grin widened. “Yeah, I think that’s everyone’s consensus. Least she behaves for one of us.” He snorted.
I exhaled, still undecided if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
We took in our rescues with the objective of rehabilitating them, giving them the care they’d been denied before. Whatever personality quirks came out of that process, we took in stride. Whether that meant skittishness, stubbornness, or in Pelly’s case, a clear preference for certain people.
None of that was bad, but it did make things a little more complicated with Asher being gone.
And if he ever decided to leave for good?
That would make things even trickier.
At the equine hospital, Pelly’s paperwork had come back with a rough estimate of her being around six years old—young, healthy, and firmly in her prime. If she was properly cared for—and she would be, as long as she stayed under our watch—she could easily live well into her twenties.
But I doubted Asher would stay that long. Even five years was a hell of a long time for a kid his age.
He had family ten and a half hours away, a whole life waiting for him outside of the ranch if he ever decided to put those talents of his to good use at a job that would make him way more money than what I could ever hope to give him.
“You’re working late,” Laken said, nodding to the feed. “Don’t tell me you’re down here missing the fun up at the bunkhouse because you wanted to get a head start on filling the feeds.”
I pulled my hat off my head to swipe an arm over my brow. The night air had cooled quite a bit but stuck in this stall with Pelly hovering over me was keeping me quite toasty.
Restlessness had forced me out of the house before the ball had dropped, leading me down here to sequester myself until everyone was packed up and off to bed for the night.
I’d planned on only staying down here for a little while but had completely lost track of time after going through and fixing each horse’s stall.
Not that I had any plans to be up at the bunkhouse getting into whatever chaos was bound to unfold to begin with, however, evading the awkward questions around why I was avoiding coming around was better than trying to lie my way out of them.
I glanced back at him. “Could say the same for you.”
Laken shrugged, pushing off the door and rolling his shoulders a few times. “I was up in town, just got back from Cal’s. Wanted to head up there for a bit while the ball dropped and have a few drinks.”
Cal’s.
I hadn’t heard that name in a while.
A small bar just up the road in town, known for its questionable practices when it came to checking IDs and a general don’t ask, don’t tell attitude.
The guy who owned it, Calvin Turner, had a reputation for not giving a damn about who walked through the doors so long as they had money to throw down for a few drinks and didn’t cause too much of a scene while they were there.
I’d spent a handful of nights there in my early twenties—back when Cal had just installed TVs and sports betting was starting to take off.
“I’m surprised you weren’t at the bunkhouse with everyone else,” I said, “Don’t tell me they tried roping you into karaoke again.”
“No, nothing like that.” Laken’s lips quirked. “I met someone up at Cal’s.”
That caught my attention.
I raised my brow slightly.
I wasn’t all that tuned in to my ranch hands’ personal lives, and I made it a point not to be for the sake of keeping things professional—aside from Asher, though that was a whole different situation.
But this surprised me. Usually, Laken was too busy chasing Ryder and Dusty around to think about slipping off into town for a late-night meet-up.
Out of my entire crew, he and Dallas were my most levelheaded ones.
Not typically the type to sneak out for a quick fling before coming back for morning chores.
Then again, at the end of the day, we were all men with needs.
So, who was I to judge?
“A... friend?” I guessed.
He laughed, something distinctly mischievous about it. “Yeah. Something like that.”
I let out a slow breath, shaking my head. “Right. Well, I’m glad you didn’t get yourself thrown out before midnight.”
Laken chuckled, stepped away from Pelly’s stall. “It was a close call, trust me.”