by Lexie Ray
I’d address the missing cattle situation before turning my attention back to Paisley. I just couldn’t think about her right now.
The sun was already well above the horizon by the time I reached the herd. I could see Hunter in the distance riding the fence line, checking for breaks. That was his favorite job because he liked to ride the hell out of his horse. I couldn’t blame him. He’d lost his leg in Afghanistan. The man deserved to go fast.
To drive images of Paisley naked and spreadeagled on my bed, I poured myself into the cattle logs, squinting at the tags on the ears of the herd, parsing them out, weaving the horse between them to make sure I counted all of them. We were missing five, but that couldn’t be right. Five was ludicrous. The cattle stuck together with few exceptions. There was a reason why “the safety of the herd” was a saying. Cattle just stuck together. Even though predators were rare here — coyotes sometimes worried us — the mentality remained. Where would the other five be?
I issued a recount, carefully recording each and every animal in the log, but came up short again. Who said I needed a cattle log to tell these things? I was usually dead on — when I was mentally invested. That was the key to my ranching success, apparently. Chance was always on me about not caring.
After updating the logs, I urged my horse into a gallop to catch up with Hunter, still circling the pasture.
“Hey!” I shouted, trying to get his attention. How was he even able to check the fence for weaknesses if he was riding so fast? “Hey! Hunter!”
He turned in the saddle and eased up on his mount. “What’s going on?” he asked shielding his eyes against the sun rising ever higher. “Were you out late last night?”
“Never mind that,” I said, because minding that would mean turning my mind to Paisley, and I just couldn’t do that right now. “Have you noticed any stragglers?”
“Stragglers?” Hunter frowned. Stragglers weren’t good. Stragglers caused trouble for themselves and all of us. If the herd didn’t stick together, it was a nightmare. “I’ve been riding the fence all morning, but I haven’t noticed any stragglers. The entire herd overnighted here. They should all be here. The fence is secure.”
It was important to know that the fence was secure because that was about our only assurance the cattle would stay on our property. It was a nightmare when a section of fence opened up. Depending on the kind of damage our cattle did and where they ended up, the ranch could face fines for “free ranging” cattle. Notably, one time a couple of Corbin rogue cattle had crashed the cornfield that the agricultural department at the school was growing and ate their fill. We had to reimburse the school and apologize to the students whose work was destroyed.
“Would they have gone missing last night?” Hunter asked. “Wasn’t the count right?”
I heaved a sigh. “No. The count wasn’t right. I’m not sure when the count went off.”
“Ah.” It was easier to admit that to Hunter than it was to anyone else because if the baby of the family ever passed judgment on anyone, he did it silently.
“Has, uh, Chance talked to you about anything?” I asked hesitantly.
“I haven’t seen him this morning,” Hunter said, shrugging. “Why?”
“No reason,” I said, not sure why I was so relieved that only two Corbins — and the rest of the town, apparently — knew what fate was about to befall the ranch. It just meant Chance would probably tell everyone later, and I’d have to be there for it.
“What’ve you done to piss him off this time?” Hunter grinned at me. Our oldest brother had been a curmudgeon since birth, probably. One of us was always pissing him off in one arena or another.
“Me?” I bluffed. “Who’s to say you’re not the one who’s done it this time?”
“Well, if you’re looking for stragglers, Chance is sure to be pissed,” Hunter reasoned. “Come on. Let’s ride to the rest of the pastures and see if we can’t turn them up.”
It was probably just an excuse for him to gallop his ass off a cross the ranch, and Emmett would be angry if we returned the horses to the barn lathered, but I was glad for Hunter’s exuberance and company. It just delayed the inevitable.
I wasn’t crazy about the horses. Mine, in particular, was pretty persnickety, shying at rocks and blowing breezes and about everything else. But when we gave them the reins and let them run together, Hunter and I were the wind flowing around the ranch, invincible and untouchable. When you were riding that fast, you never wanted to stop. I was convinced that I could outrun everything, and it was an even better distraction than booze from all of my various problems. With just the wind in my ears and the rippling muscles of the creature carrying me, I could almost pretend that everything was all right even if nothing was.
Hours passed, and I remembered just how big this place was. It sprawled from all directions up from the river that curled around the property, even if the bed was nearly dry. Our next step, if the skies continued to deny us rain, was to start bringing in water for the cattle — or start pricing other options, like digging wells and other solutions. It wasn’t going to be pretty if we couldn’t keep the herd watered, but it also wasn’t going to be pretty to go into even more debt than we already were in. I had honestly no idea how we’d pay for the thing if we couldn’t even repay the bank.
Only there was a way to repay the bank, but the solution was marrying Paisley Summers.
“I don’t see any stragglers, do you?” Hunter asked me as our horses slowed to a trot. He was just as troubled as I was. “When was the last time the count was right?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “Those cattle could’ve gone missing weeks ago and we didn’t notice. Chance only brought it up to me yesterday, and he’s not out here all the time.”
“We’ll keep looking,” Hunter said, nodding to himself. He was the man with the plan. “I’ll ride the entire perimeter and see if there are any sections down. We’ll get the entire Corbin calvary saddled and on the lookout for the missing guys. Little rascals. Probably eluding us in the gorge.”
“We ran by the gorge,” I reminded him. It was a dramatic name for what was little more than an overgrown ditch dividing one of the pastures, but the terrain was problematic. Just a few weeks ago, Emmett had torn ligaments in his knee dragging a calf out of there. Cattle got hung up there all the time, but none of our missing five had been there.
Hunter and I groped for our vibrating phones at exactly the same time, which could only mean one thing.
“Family meeting,” we said in unison.
“Wonder who’s getting the intervention this time,” Hunter muttered, pocketing his device. Last time, it had been him.
“Who knows,” I lied. “It’s probably about the missing cattle.”
“Maybe. I’ll race you!”
He didn’t give me time to respond before spurring his horse into action, leaving me coughing in a huge cloud of dust. If my baby brother had a clue what this meeting was about, he wouldn’t have been in such a damn hurry to get there.
We met Emmett in the barn, who’d been grooming a horse, trimming its hooves expertly.
“You ran those horses too hard,” he said without looking up.
“Have you even done any work today?” Hunter teased. Emmett was sporting a large and bulky brace on his knee from his incident at the gorge. He hadn’t been able to ride — Hadley’s orders — and it was really wearing on him. The only person happier on a horse than Hunter was Emmett.
“More than you know,” Emmett said. “But we’d better get to the war room and figure out what’s got Chance in a twist this time.” My heart sank. I knew exactly what it was.
“We think it’s missing cattle,” Hunter said, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“Spoiler alert,” Emmett returned sarcastically. “How do you know?”
“Because there’s missing cattle,” Hunter said, rolling his eyes. “Easy.”
“Why call a meeting over that?” Emmett wondered. “Just find the miss
ing cattle.”
“Big ranch,” I said, walking with my brothers up to the house. “Easier said than done.”
Tucker was already up there, idling on the porch, waiting for the rest of us to get there.
“You’re not keeping Chance waiting, are you?” Hunter called.
“Kind of didn’t want to be the first one there, brother,” Tucker said. “Nothing really positive ever happens at family meetings, does it?”
“Chance should just throw in a couple of nice ones to keep us on our toes,” Hunter said. “Family meetings telling us we’re doing a good job on the ranch.”
“Yeah, right,” Emmett said, rolling his eyes as he accepted Tucker’s hand to get him up the porch stairs. I couldn’t help but notice Hunter bound up the stairs, testing the limits of his prosthetic leg. Hadley encouraged that kind of horsing around, pushing himself to reclaim his previous range of motion in spite of the carbon fiber length that kept him upright and moving.
“If some of the meetings were stupid, we’d be less likely to all show up for the important ones,” I reasoned.
“Maybe, but I just get such dread whenever my phone buzzes now,” Tucker said. “It’s a bummer.”
“Has Chance always been such a bummer?” Hunter joked.
“He can hear you all standing out here on the porch bitching about him,” Zoe said, poking her head out the door. “The windows are open.”
“Fuck,” Tucker said mildly. “Well, guess we’d better go in.”
“Damn right, you’d better come in,” Chance bellowed. “You’re wasting daylight.”
And only Chance and I knew just how precious daylight was now. How much longer would the rising and setting of the sun dictate our days? How much longer would the ranch be ours?
Inside the house in the front room, Chance looked as haggard as I felt. At least, I hoped I didn’t look as hungover as I really was. Chance appeared so much older than even the day before, and unless I was imagining things, I thought I saw more gray hairs populating his head.
“You all had better sit down for this,” he said, even though he was standing, pacing around.
“You’d better sit down, too, or you’re going to wear a hole in my floor,” Zoe tossed over her shoulder as she walked back toward the kitchen. Chance watched her go before plopping down hard on the couch. Zoe and her son, Toby, were the most recent additions to this mismatch of a ranch. She cooked and cleaned for us in exchange for a small paycheck and room and board. I had no idea where the money came from for that, but Chance was the one who kept the books, not me.
“We know about the missing cattle,” Hunter said gravely, looking to get this show on the road.
“Missing cattle?” Tucker repeated. “Really? Have you checked the gorge? Let’s send Emmett.”
“I am dying laughing, but it’s on the inside,” Emmett said, his hand on his knee brace.
“Missing cattle isn’t a joke,” Chance barked. “Avery, what’s the count?”
“We’re down five,” I said. “Hunter and I have been all over looking for stragglers.”
“And I’m going to do a perimeter run after this,” Hunter said, impatient to get back in the saddle.
“That’s not the only reason we’re meeting,” Chance said, putting his face in his hand. My stomach dropped out from underneath me. I knew what was coming and my brothers didn’t have a clue.
Chance was saved from having to drop the bomb on everyone by a sharp rap on the front door, followed by several pressings on the doorbell Hunter had recently fixed.
We all looked up, confused.
“Are we expecting a shipment today?” Chance asked Tucker.
“They wouldn’t ring the doorbell — they’d just drop it off at the barn.”
“Well, no one’s down at the barn,” Emmett reasoned.
“Are any of you lazy asses going to get the door?” Zoe demanded, bustling back down the hallway.
“Sorry, Zoe,” Chance said. “That’s not your job.”
“It’s somebody’s goddamn job.” She switched her sweetness on as she opened the front door. “Corbin Ranch. What can I help you with?”
“Bud Billings. Here to see whichever Corbin is on hand.”
All of us froze. What the hell was that vulture doing here?
“Well, looks like you have your pick of Corbins today,” Zoe said, her tone notably chillier. “May I ask what your business is?”
“Business with the Corbins. Not your concern, girl.”
Chance was on his feet in a flash, marching toward the door before even Tucker could grab him. “Listen here, you son of a bitch …”
“Excellent,” Bud said, sidestepping both Zoe and Chance and looking around the front room. “You’re all here. This is better than I could’ve imagined.”
Bud Billings was one of those old men who never seemed to age, an exact date of birth indeterminate. He looked the same to me now as he had when I was a boy, wiry, close-cropped white hair and ropy muscles you could still discern beneath his clothes. He walked with a cane, but not because he had to, I didn’t think. He was always dressed sharply and was one of the first ranchers in the area to go commercial — that is, practicing everything in ranching my parents had been so against. Bud couldn’t rightly call himself a rancher anymore, really, though that didn’t stop him from doing so. He used ATVs and trucks to move the cattle from feeding pen to feeding pen. It was more of a controlled feeding operation than a ranch, and the shit he fed his numerous herds made them big and fat and quick to sell. Bud was highly successful at what he did, whether you believed in it or not.
“Have I caught you Corbins at a bad time?” Bud asked, his eyes lingering on Emmett’s brace and the portion of carbon fiber prosthesis showing beneath Hunter’s jean cuff. “You’re a raggedy bunch, aren’t you?”
“You’re going to die alone in your bed,” Hunter replied pleasantly, and Tucker snorted.
“You have caught us at a bad time,” Chance said, crossing his arms over his chest before sitting back down in the chair he’d vacated in rage. Zoe shook her head at the lot of us and returned to the kitchen. I realized belatedly that Chance had only been so angry because of Bud’s rudeness toward Zoe, and wondered at that.
“Well, I’ll be in and out of here in no time,” Bud said. “Is this what you do all day? Loaf around in your house? No wonder your ranch is in such trouble.”
“We’re all capable of throwing you out of here,” Tucker rumbled. “Speak your piece and go.”
“I’m only here to help,” Bud said, spreading his hands as if he were a reasonable man. “I’d like to offer you a fair price on your ranch — particularly fair considering all the trouble you’re in.”
“What trouble?” Hunter asked, peering at the old rancher.
And with a jolt of horror, I realized that Chance and I weren’t going to be the ones to break the bad news about the foreclosure to our brothers. It was going to be Bud Billings, and there was no worse man for the job. Paisley had been right. Everyone in town really did know that the ranch was under foreclosure. How had my brothers missed that news?
“Why, the bank’s going to take your ranch,” he said, raising his bushy white eyebrows at the youngest Corbin. “Or hasn’t anyone told you?”
“You’re lying,” Hunter said confidently.
“It’s true,” I said, so Chance didn’t have to. Everyone stared at me. “That’s what the meeting was about. The bank’s moving to foreclose if we can’t repay the loan and interest by the end of the month.”
“So sad,” Bud commented, even as his voice was gleeful. “The five of you have run this place into the ground. I told you that you would.”
“And I told you to go to hell,” Chance said, his voice remarkably calm. “Are you going to give me another opportunity to do so?”
“Hear me out,” Bud said, even as the rest of my brothers looked like their hearts had been scooped out and smashed underfoot right in front of them. “My offer is reasonable. If you ca
re anything about your futures, you’ll take it. When the bank takes this place, you’ll have nothing. If you sell it to me, like you should’ve done when your parents died, I’ll not only repay the loan; I’ll see to it that each of you has a little money to get started again somewhere else. Ten thousand dollars a boy.”
“You’re crazy, old man,” Chance said. “My parents never sold to you, and neither will we.”
“You’d be a fool,” Bud said. “What do you think will happen when the bank repossesses your ranch at the end of the month? They’ll offer it at auction, I’ll win it, and none of you will own so much as a pebble on this property anymore. You’ll all go to the poorhouse. But if you sell it to me now, at least you’ll have a leg to stand on — pardon the expression, Hunter.”
“Ten thousand dollars isn’t enough to start over again,” Chance said before Hunter could fire back something rude. Tucker patted our baby brother’s shoulder comfortingly as Hunter seethed silently but obviously, rubbing his hands together.
“Then what would be?” Bud asked smoothly. “Name your price.”
“You heard Chance the first time,” Tucker said. “We’ll never sell to you. Now get out. You’ve overstayed, and you were never welcome here.”
“Consider my offer,” Bud said, his eyes not leaving Chance. “It won’t stand for very long. I’ll show myself out, though your housekeeper is very charming.”
“Fuck off, you old codger!” Zoe yelled from the kitchen. Chance covered his mouth, and Tucker laughed openly.
Bud only shook his head and left, the car we’d never heard pulling up to the front of the house now the only sound we could hear.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” Hunter demanded, looking at me. “You knew the bank was trying to repossess the ranch?”
“Chance and I only just found out yesterday,” I said. “It’s not like we weren’t going to tell you.”
“That’s what this meeting was about.” Now that Bud was gone, Chance didn’t have anyone to hide his despair from. His shoulders sagged and he rested his forearms on his knees.