Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“So…what are we doing?” I asked Rand once I was back on the wagon with the girls—Rand said they were Marge and Mavis—all hitched up and Juju beside me.
“Making sure we eat and go,” he grumbled. “I talked to Everett and told him that everybody but Zach, me, and Mac have to be switched out tomorrow, so he’s still gotta drive up here with half a dozen guys. I think you should go then too, and not as a punishment or me not wanting you here or appreciating you, but you do have a business to run.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“I really appreciate all you’ve done. Truly.”
“Thank you.”
“Stef did me a real solid by making that deal with you. I’ll have to thank him when I get home.”
And that time I didn’t say if because he looked a trifle forlorn. Clear to see that Rand Holloway did surely miss his family.
The pace was brutal. By the time lunch rolled around, everyone just wanted to sit and eat. We rested for the time it took to let the horses and people eat and drink. Nothing was unpacked, no tents, tables, anything. It was amazing how much I missed chairs after only a day. On the range you sat on the ground or on your horse, period. And the sky was beautiful, but there was something comforting about ceilings that I missed. I could acknowledge that the part of ranch life that was outside, under the stars, had never been for me. I missed the community and closeness of being with others I depended on, but that was all. Driving cattle had never been in my blood the way it was with Mac, Rand, and Zach. I now understood that it wasn’t a character flaw but simply a choice.
I was surprised when Zach showed up three hours after the meal and had me stop the wagon so he could get on. Once we were moving again, Zach said, “I let you down when you opened the restaurant.”
Could have knocked me over with a feather, and because I was surprised, I said nothing.
“I was maybe more interested in making a good impression on Rand than doing what I said I would for you.” When I looked at him, I found him staring at me. “I shouldn’t’ve done that, but maybe stop carrying it around.”
I squinted at him.
“Shit.”
“You’ve always been like that,” I told him. “You apologize but turn it around so it’s whoever else’s fault for being mad when you’re the one in the wrong.”
He grunted.
“It’s a terrible habit,” I assured him.
He stared out at the range but didn’t ask me to stop the wagon so he could leave, which—since that was his normal pattern—was an improvement.
“But at least you don’t yell your apologies anymore.”
He was trying not to smile.
“Like the time you were supposed to be holding the ladder but you got distracted by…what was her name again?”
“Adele Myers.”
“That’s right,” I said snidely.
“She never gave me the time of day before, and then suddenly—”
“I fell fifteen feet straight down into rose bushes.”
“Who plants rose bushes next to cherry trees?”
“It was to keep the neighborhood kids away from the cherry trees, but that’s so not the point.” I wanted to make sure he understood.
He crossed his arms, clearly not enjoying the conversation.
“But you moved, and I fell, and when I was getting the cast put on my broken arm, you hit me in the other one and said you were sorry and to just fuckin’ forgive you already.”
He was quiet.
I glared at him.
“Fine, whatever,” he growled at me.
“You’re not perfect. You do a lot of things wrong.”
“I know,” he snapped.
“So maybe—and it’s just a thought,” I said before I punched him in the shoulder, “you should stop being an asshole about apologies.”
“Ow!” he yelled dramatically.
“Gimme a break, ya big baby.”
“I figured with ya all slimmed down and such that you wouldn’t be able to hit so hard anymore.”
“And?” I prodded him.
“It still fuckin’ hurts.”
I shook my head at him, and he smiled.
“So, are you sorry you abandoned me?” I asked him.
“Abandoned you?” he grumbled. “You don’t think that’s puttin’ it on a—”
“Are you?” I pushed.
“Yes! I’m fuckin’ sorry!” he barked at me.
“Really?” I deadpanned.
He threw up his hands and told me to stop the wagon.
“No,” I said, and punched him again.
“Ow! Stop hitting me! Violence is not the answer.”
I laughed then, and so did he because seriously, after our mother died, violence was the only answer in our house. We got hurt outside because we lived on a ranch, and we got hurt inside whenever our father punctuated something he was mad about with a slap across the face, or a smack on the back of the head, or sometimes a shove into a wall or piece of furniture.
He didn’t beat us. It was never that. He didn’t make us bleed, but there were bruises. Even today, if either me or Zach said the wrong thing, his first instinct was still to hit. I suspected that neither of us picked up the habit because we knew it hurt, but more importantly, it hadn’t started until our mother died, so we hadn’t been raised that way. It came once she was gone, and we both understood it would not have been something she tolerated. That made it wrong and not something we should do ourselves. From learning family history, I understood that my grandfather, when he was young, when he was a father himself, had been a harsh disciplinarian, which included actual beatings. It was gone by the time he was a grandfather, so I never saw him that way. What was interesting was that all the time my mother was alive, my father had hidden his propensity for violence, but none of his brothers were like that. Rand had gotten spankings when he was younger, but they were over by ten when punishment became losing things he wanted. And now Wyatt wasn’t spanked at all. Stef didn’t believe in hitting anyone unless it was life and death, and Rand had agreed.