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)
“Glenn,” Zach said gently, and I realized I’d been zoning out.
“Listen.” I sighed. “You have her eyes. When I look at you…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Just because you look so much like her, I’m programmed to give you chance after chance, but I just…” I couldn’t tell him that I had to stop him from breaking my heart. “I have to be able to count on you.”
“I know!” he shouted. “Fuck.”
I shook my head at him.
“I won’t disappoint you anymore, all right?”
“Just try. I don’t need you to be perfect, Zach, but I need you to try.”
He was quiet.
“Zach?”
“Yeah,” he husked. “I’ll try.”
“Okay,” I whispered, feeling like everything suddenly felt better, lighter. “Okay.”
It was a miserable ride. Really. The rain was gone, but it was cold and windy and the ground was muddy and just a slog. The cattle tromping through the thick mud before the wagon wasn’t going to work, so I moved up front with Rand. He looked even darker than the sky. He wanted to kill someone, and for once, it wasn’t me.
When we stopped that night, late, after nine, I realized that Rand had moved us all the way to the edge of the Red, where there was a cowboy camp that normally went unused in the winter. There were three small cabins, but no one cared about that. They cared about the toilets. And yes, they were compost ones, but still. Not having to squat in the dirt, carrying your spade and biodegradable toilet paper, was a bonus. Even better, since it wasn’t December yet, the water hadn’t been turned off. That meant there was hot and cold running water, and a couple of people actually cried.
I waited, taking care of the horses first, and by the time it was my turn to shower, the water was ice cold. It didn’t really matter; I was in and out fast, and the important part was that I was clean. Freezing, but clean. When Rand asked if I wanted to bunk in with others in the cabin, I just shot him a look like he was high.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” he said, chuckling. “You know, not everyone is gonna take an arctic shower so they don’t reek.”
“You will,” I said because I knew him. “Mac will, Zach will.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Most of your men will.”
“Fine. You’re right.”
“But even with that,” I teased him, grinning, “I will be in a tent, sir.”
He gave me a gentle clap on the shoulder, and I almost teared up. It was possible that I was, along with everyone else, overwrought and tired and not in control of my emotions. If Rand or Zach were mean to me at this point, I might shatter into a million pieces. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted them in my life until the opportunity presented itself and we’d talked. What was annoying was how right Stef had been. He was like the seer of my family, and I had no idea what that was about.
Of course once I was lying in my tent an hour later, cocooned and warm, I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about Rand and Zach and then Stef’s hope that there would be bonding, and my own bullshit getting in the way, it came to me that something had to give, and it was good that it had been all of us. That didn’t, however, get me any closer to being good with Mac. Not that I should have cared about what kind of relationship I had with Mac, but I needed that one to be better as well, and I couldn’t leave without at least trying.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the right thing to do. So just after midnight, I finally gave up wrestling with my conscience and got up.
I had put up my tent near the firepit, and with the ground and air warmed by the fire, I knew that others might have worried about snakes, spiders, scorpions, or other critters bothering them, but with my horse standing vigil over me—even though she’d been sleeping—I didn’t. Her hearing was better than mine, and I’d seen her crush a lot of creatures under her hooves over the years. She was a bloodthirsty vegetarian. Herbivore. Whatever.
I gave Juju an absent pat that made her grunt like she was irritated, probably because I woke her up.
It was strange now, thinking about not showing up at the Red. The reality was that we were family, and the bond was a real one. It would keep us in each other’s lives forever. I had needed the drive to get that through my thick skull. I also needed to pull my head out of my ass and realize that just because the ranch wasn’t my life, that didn’t make it bad. I didn’t need to vilify them to make what I did better. The fact of the matter was that the people who worked in my restaurant were just like the ones on the Red Diamond, each depending on either me or Rand. We weren’t as different as I made it out to be.