Rough Stock (7 page)

But having to cut their careers short must have been hard. Maybe not much for Sawyer, who rarely talked about his own success. Unlike Court, Sawyer’s hat fit his own head, so to speak. Seth knew Court’s ego was a little bruised and he did feel a bit sorry for his little brother as he turned to walk away.

“You really should practice,” Sawyer declared, more somberly this time.

“Later,” Court muttered.

“Then let’s go out,” Sawyer decided, slinging an arm around Court. He looked at Seth. “Will you come? While the others are out making camp?”

Seth was a little tired for drinking and dancing, but what the hell, it had been a rough several weeks, and he could use a stiff drink and a flexible female to drag around the dance floor for a few turns. “All right,” he agreed.

The three of them headed out of the barn. Sawyer and Court were about to head into the bunkhouse, when the front door of the Big House burst open. Walker stomped outside with Austin hot on his heels.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore!” Walker said, his large steel-toed boots clomping across the wooden floor of the porch.

“We haven’t talked about it at all!” Austin replied.

Sawyer, Seth, and Court edged closer to the Big House to see what was going on.

“I wouldn’t take it out of the farm account!” Austin was shouting as the trio drew near.

If that was supposed to placate Walker, it had exactly the opposite effect. His features went from icy to molten in an instant. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. Seth had to strain to be sure he heard him right.

“Don’t say it.”

Seth didn’t know what they were fighting about, but he could tell that Austin had gone one step too far. But Austin either didn’t understand that the thin ice that he was treading on was about to give way under a sudden blast of heated rage, or maybe he just didn’t care. Either way, he threw up his hands. “We have the money, Walker! And if you’d just let me take some and—”

“Don’t you dare!” Walker growled.

“Well, it’s not just yours, you know!” Austin shot back.

And that was the final straw, the red flag waved at the six-foot-six, 225-pound bull. “
No one is touching that insurance money! Not even me!
” Walker bellowed as he charged at Austin. He caught his twin brother around the waist, and they both flew off the steps of the front porch.

They landed with a crunch in the slush, neither of them pausing in their punches to even really notice they were getting soaked to the bone. Walker caught Austin with a crushing blow to the ribs. Austin, who was possibly more like his twin than he wanted to admit, was a vicious, capable fighter as well. He hit Walker in the jaw and sent him sprawling, at least enough to scramble to his feet. Both men circled each other now, swinging and retreating, bobbing and weaving as they traded blows like prizefighters.

They didn’t fight often. Seth could maybe count on one hand the times that things ever got more serious than the occasional shove or half-hearted punch. Mostly Walker and Austin just stayed away from each other if things got too heated.

Someone else shouted, and everyone turned to see Dakota racing from the round pen, new mare abandoned, in favor of breaking up the fisticuffs. She arrived at the group breathless and angry. She threw herself between Walker and Austin, mostly at Austin, eyeing his rapidly swelling lip. She glanced over her shoulder and glared at Walker. “What the hell are you doing?!”

Walker scowled at her.

Dakota was the only person who could yell at Walker that way and not get a fat lip out of the deal. He stared down at the two of them, hands clenching and unclenching into fists. Seth wasn’t sure what was bothering Walker more, the fact that he and Austin had come to blows over Dad’s insurance money for some reason, or that Dakota had apparently taken Austin’s side and was now pressed tightly against him, protecting the younger twin from the older.

Walker snorted and picked his hat up off the frozen ground, swiping it on his wet jeans. It seemed to be the theme for the day. “The two of you,” he growled while shaking his head, as though they were always together, somehow conspiring against him.

Seth didn’t understand it and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Walker slammed his crushed hat down on his head and tweaked the brim for good measure as he shot Austin a cold, hard look. “No one’s touching that money.” Before anyone could respond, he turned and stormed back into the house.

Seth picked up Austin’s hat and handed it to him. “Do you want me to stay?” he offered. “I can make camp this week, if you’d rather not go.”

Austin practically ripped the hat from Seth’s hand, but Seth understood who he was really mad at. “Hell no. He’s not going to run me off just by being a bullheaded ass.”

Seth nodded. He supposed it wasn’t really a surprise. Snake River came first, before everything, even family feuds.

“Are you okay?” Dakota asked. She still hadn’t let go of him.

Austin grinned at her and chucked her under the chin. “I’m fine, darling. You know how he is.”

Dakota sighed and rolled her eyes.

Seth studied them both, thinking maybe he was seeing things through Walker’s eyes. Dakota and Austin were getting closer…at the same time that Austin and Walker were drifting apart, it seemed. It was something to think about, anyway. Something to keep an eye on.

Austin and Dakota headed into the Big House, leaving Sawyer, Court, and Seth all staring at each other.

“What the hell was all that?” Sawyer asked Seth. “What does Austin need money for?”

Seth shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m not sure I want to find out.”

“Just Walker,” Court muttered. “Throwing his weight around.”

“We don’t know that,” Seth reminded him.

Court glared at him. “I do.”

“Who cares?” said Sawyer, clapping his hands together. “Let’s shit, shower, shave, and see if you can do any better at rustling up a few of these local fillies. I’ll lend you a reata if you need one.”

Court smirked. “I’ve had all the local fillies.”

Sawyer shrugged. “They’re new ones,” he pointed out, “that weren’t legal yet when we left.”

Court considered it for a moment before his face broke into a wide grin. “Yeah, all right.” To Seth, he said, “Let’s be ready in thirty minutes. You can be our designated driver.”

Seth watched them head back to the bunkhouse, wondering when he’d become the chaperone. Was he really that old? But his aching legs and back told him, yes, he certainly wasn’t as young as he used to be. He turned to the front door to get himself ready as well for a night on the town.

‡

R
owan took the
highway into town early the next morning and crept quietly into her father’s hospital room so as not to wake him. It didn’t work, though, and he stirred on the bed, as though he somehow had sensed her presence. Or maybe he just wasn’t sleeping. Hospitals weren’t exactly the most relaxing vacation spots.

He smiled and lifted a single finger in lieu of a wave. She grinned and squeezed his big toe. “How do you feel?” she asked. “Dizzy at all? Breathing okay?” She glanced at the output screen on the IV.

“You’re not on duty,” he told her, but it came out in a croak. His lips were cracked, she noticed, and his complexion was a little sallow. He looked older, too. And not just older, but
old
.

Living in Cheyenne, it was too easy to picture him younger, as though he never aged. Had he been this thin at Christmas? Rowan couldn’t recall. He seemed frail now. His beard had gone salt and pepper, and there were fine wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. His skin was papery. How much of that was dehydration? And how much was years’ worth of sun and wind damage from working outside?

Rowan didn’t want to think about her dad getting old.

“I let the sheep out,” she told him, checking his IV line to keep herself busy.

He sighed and leaned back into the pillow. “Thanks, Rowan. Sorry you had to mess with it. When I get home, I’ll get back on track. No worries.”

He tried to push himself up and failed the first few times.

Rowan’s hands itched to help him, but she knew better than to offer. He wouldn’t like the idea that he needed anyone’s assistance. He licked his lips, grimaced, then reached for the water cup that sat on the small rolling stand by the bedside.

Rowan held her breath again as she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

His hand flopped uselessly, as though he had been sapped of all his strength.

Finally, her worry over his condition won out over her reluctance to make him feel dependent. He was dependent, after all, and they would both have to get used to that. She let the IV line fall and reached for the cup. She filled it for him and handed it over. She could tell by the clouded expression on his face that he was unhappy about it.

He was proud, she thought. And so incredibly stubborn. No doctors, no ambulances. Rowan supposed watching Mom waste away in a hospital bed just like this one hadn’t helped his opinion of the place. Part of her couldn’t blame him for lying in his own bed at home, trying to convince himself he was just overworked.

“I don’t think they’re going to release you before the end of next week,” she told him. “At the earliest.”

He scowled and shifted in his bed. “Guess I can call Wilbur Hines,” he mused, “to feed the flock.”

“I’ll do it,” Rowan told him while rubbing his hand gently. “It’s okay.”

He looked up at her doubtfully. “Well…” he said slowly. “You have your job.”

She forced a smile to her lips. “I have some vacation time saved up.” It was kind of true. She had a few days. Certainly not two weeks’ worth. She’d have to call Sandy and arrange a leave of absence, though her pocketbook would take a huge hit.

He took another sip of water, but it must have gone down wrong, because he started coughing, and a look of pure agony flashed across his face.

“Hang on!” Rowan cried, snatching the cup away and tossing it into the garbage can. She reached for the small, heart-shaped pillow on the bedside table. She pressed it to his chest firmly. “Grab it,” she ordered in her nurse’s voice.

He wrapped his arms around it and held it to his chest. It took a full five minutes for the fit to subside. By then he looked like he was on the verge of passing out from sheer exhaustion. How he thought he could run a sheep farm like this was unbelievable to Rowan.

Then again, Rowan told herself lies all the time, just to keep going.

Visiting hours ended, and though Rowan could probably use her credentials and convince the duty nurse to let her stay, she wanted to check on Willow and actually tuck her in tonight.

She kissed her dad on the forehead and pulled up his blanket. “Get as much sleep as you can.”

He grunted, and that told her how likely he thought that was.

She smiled, though, grateful that he was still the tough-as-nails rancher that she’d known all her life. “Try anyway,” she said in her nurse’s voice.

That voice always made him smile for some reason.

She turned out the lights and slipped out the door making it all the way down the hall, to the elevator, and into her car before tears almost came. She fought them back, using every ounce of strength she had left and kept her eyes proudly dry as she got behind the wheel.

Outside the city, though, her mind wandered a bit, with memories of Mom in the hospital, of the first time she’d come back to the house knowing Mom was dead. Autopilot took Rowan, not to the highway but to Hardee Road instead, the back way to the Archer farm.

When she realized where she was, her foot came off the gas. She fought the urge to double back and get back on I-89. She’d lose so much time, though, and Willow might be asleep before she got back if she did that. She soldiered on, biting her lip all the way. Her foot—her damnable foot—slowed again once she came around Slayter’s Curve.

There it was, the high wooden arches that proclaimed it to be the entrance to the Snake River Ranch. She could just make out the Big House, the barn, and the bunkhouse down the long, winding drive through the valley.

She’d driven this way so many times in high school, visiting Court, making out in the barn, sometimes in the grassy field near the house. He’d taken her virginity in his beat-up Ford, on prom night, and she cried when the stain ruined her dress. It wasn’t really the stain, it was that there was no one to talk to about it, no one to ask questions about what she was supposed to do.

Emma was about a minute older than Rowan (two years actually) and barely knew anything about sex herself. Court and Rowan had bonded over the fact that they’d both lost their mothers to breast cancer. And he held her in his truck, awkwardly, that night when she pretended to be upset over some blood.

They’d stayed together through graduation, though he flirted some. She’d ignored it and told herself he’d settle down soon. Then he’d taken off, joined the rodeo circuit. She’d ignored it, telling herself he’d be back eventually. And besides, she had nursing school to get through.

But he’d been in Cheyenne for the Frontier Days, and she’d been on break from school. She’d driven there, alone, to surprise him, surprising them both when she found him in bed with two women in his travel trailer. She’d stormed off. He hadn’t bothered to follow her.