by Leslie North
“Yeah, buddy, what’s going on?” She arrived at his side in time to see Carlos facing off with Rick and Bran. Carlos and Rick stood stiffly, their arms crossed, scowls on their faces. Bran was gesturing toward the barns, his hat in his hand.
When Carlos started talking, she heard the word “bullshit.”
Cam’s eyes grew wide. “Mama, Mr. Carlos isn’t supposed to say bad words,” he intoned seriously.
“You’re right,” she answered absently. “I’m sure he just forgot for a moment.” She caught his eye and added, infusing cheer into her voice, “Why don’t you go inside now? Mary Beth said she’d made some pumpkin muffins, and you could have some for a snack.”
Cam was off the swing in a flash, bad words forgotten in the rush to get to the baked goods.
Ava leaned against the swing set frame and watched the men, unable to hear most of what they were discussing, but observing enough body language to get the gist.
After a few minutes, Carlos shook his head one last time, turned away, and climbed into his old truck, leaving the parking lot in a cloud of dust. Rick said something short to Bran, then stomped off in the direction of the barns. Meanwhile, Bran came marching toward the house. Too late, he noticed Ava standing there. She could tell, seeing him slow his pace, that he was looking for some way to avoid her, but she wasn’t about to let him. Something bad had happened, and she needed to try to help, even if he was all walls and denial.
She met him midway between the parking lot and the house. “What was all that?” she asked without preamble.
He sighed and kept walking, forcing her to reverse course and hustle to keep up with him.
“Carlos quit.”
“What? Seriously?”
Now he stopped, giving her a hard look. “You’re really surprised? You’re the one who’s been telling me how I’m fucking everything up. I’d think you’d feel vindicated. Apparently, you were right. I can’t manage my own ranch hands.”
Ava felt tears burning at the back of her eyes. “Bran.” Her voice was husky and thick. “You know that’s not what I think. You just need to listen to them better, pay a little more attention instead of holding them at arm’s length all the time.”
Bran shook his head sadly. “You know, the funny thing is, until you started in with these interviews, everything was running fine. The hands never complained, and no one was quitting in the middle of our busy season.”
Ava’s heart contracted, and the pain was visceral. “No,” she responded coldly, “You were just missing tens of thousands of dollars. Your business was obviously in stellar shape until I came along.”
She regretted the words the moment they left her lips, but it was too late.
Bran’s face hardened and shuttered. “I assume your parents are willing to have you and Cam move back in tomorrow. I’ll send your final paycheck to their house.”
Then he turned and walked away. Ava stood staring after him until she heard Cam calling her from the back door. She hastily wiped the tears from her cheeks and plastered on a smile. She was a mother first, and this certainly wasn’t the first time she’d had to put her son’s needs before her own heartbreak. But she was determined it was going to be the last.
Five days later, Bran was still ready to take the head off of anyone who crossed his path. Right now, that path led straight to his pickup truck, where he was virtually hiding out, pretending to wash the damn thing so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Two more longtime employees had quit, and no matter how much he worked, he couldn’t get Ava out of his head. He longed to see her sunny smile as he moved around the property, yearned to hear her chatting to Cam as she gave the little guy a bath or got him a bedtime snack. And other parts of him missed her just as much, missed catching her in a tank top and boy shorts as she did laundry at midnight, missed holding her hand after they took an early-morning ride and watched the sun come up.
But she was gone, and really, what choice had she given him? He knew it wasn’t her fault his staff was disintegrating, but it wasn’t his, either, and he couldn’t be expected to simply roll over and act as though his years of experience were meaningless. He did things the way his dad had done them, the way his grandfather had. He wasn’t some novice with stars in his eyes and no discipline.
A vehicle door slammed, and Bran turned to see Hunter striding over from his truck.
“Hey,” Bran said. “What brings you by?”
“Just thought I’d stop by and see how things are going,” Hunter answered nonchalantly.
Great. He’d obviously heard about Ava.
“Yeah, right,” Bran sniped. “Because you’re always just stopping by for the hell of it.”
Hunter leaned against the spit-polished door of Bran’s truck, crossed his arms, and looked up at the sky thoughtfully. “Do you remember when Dad used to make us clean his truck?”
Bran groaned. “God, I hated washing that damn thing. It never failed, we’d start picking at each other, bickering, and suddenly the truck needed washing.”
Hunter chuckled. “Yep. Guess he figured if we had time to argue, we had time to work.”
Bran nodded. “Not a bad parenting approach, but from a kid’s perspective, really annoying.”
Hunter dropped his chin for a moment, seeming to inspect his scuffed and worn-looking boots that had cost a small fortune.
“Whether we liked it or not, Dad knew us. He knew when we were bored, or sad, or anxious. Remember how he used to show up after football practice and take one of us out to the diner?”
Bran did remember. Those had been some of his favorite moments with his father, just the two of them, a little one-on-one that always ended with his father saying, “I’m proud of you, son. Just keep being you, and it’ll all turn out fine.”
“He knew when we needed something, Bran, because he watched, and he listened. He wasn’t distracted by some idea of how we should be feeling or acting, he was paying attention to how we were acting and feeling.”
In that moment, Bran knew what Ava had been trying to tell him, what Rick had been trying to show him, what Carlos had meant by walking off the job.
He shook his head, dismay washing over him.
“And I’ll bet you’re going to tell me Dad was the same way with his cowhands.” He felt the heat of shame rise to his cheeks.
Hunter just looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
“You heard Carlos and the others quit?”
Hunter nodded.
“And you heard Ava left.”
Again, Hunter simply nodded, keeping his silence while Bran processed all of it.
“Dad was…” Bran’s voice cracked slightly. “I can never live up to him, I can’t ever be as good as he was.”
Hunter reached out and clapped a hand on Bran’s shoulder. “You already are. You just didn’t realize it.”
Bran’s head fell forward, and a strange mixture of pain and shame and, yes, relief washed through him.
“How the hell do I fix this?” he asked.
Hunter squeezed Bran’s shoulder one more time before dropping his hand. “One person at a time, big brother. And I’d suggest you start with Rick.”
Then Hunter ambled away toward the house shouting something about brownies and Mary Beth, and Bran was left to tear down another wall.
16
Rick was mucking out Chief’s stall when Bran found him.
“So, I guess it’s a good thing you don’t take your feelings about me out on my horse,” he said lightly to his foreman.
Rick gave him some side-eye but kept on scraping the floor of the stall. “No reason to punish the horse just ‘cause his owner’s an ass.”
Bran sighed. He deserved that.
He stood outside the stall and leaned his arms on the door. “I’ve come to apologize…and to admit I haven’t been doing my job very well for quite some time.”
Rick stopped mucking and straightened, one hand on the wooden handle of the shovel. He kept his profile to Bran, obviously stil
l not ready to give him his full attention. “I’m listening,” was all he said.
Bran inhaled, struggling to find the right words. “I haven’t been—listening, that is. I get it. I get that we’ve needed to make adjustments around here, and I haven’t let you. I also haven’t taken the time to get to know you and the other hands. I keep you all at a distance, and that’s just plain wrong.”
He paused, watching as Rick gradually relaxed his stance, his grip on the shovel, his anger.
“We’re family,” Bran said, his voice rough. “You didn’t know my dad, but when he was alive, this place operated like a well-oiled machine. I always thought that was because he did things a certain way. But I’ve come to realize—you and Carlos and everyone else have forced me to realize—that he wasn’t the best at his job because of how he did things. He was the best at his job because he did what the ranch hands needed. He listened, he cared, and he treated them like the family they were. I don’t know how I forgot that, but I did…and I’m sorry.”
Rick finally turned to him and exhaled. “Well, it’s about damn time,” he said.
Bran smiled wryly. “Think it’s too late to get Carlos and the others back?”
Rick rolled his eyes. “Of course not.” Then he stopped, pursing his lips for a moment. “It’s also not too late to get your financials in order before you meet with Hoyt on that investment.”
Bran snorted in disgust. “If only I could find the missing money.”
Rick chuckled. “It’s not missing,” he said cryptically.
Bran’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”
Rick sighed, shaking his head and glancing upward as if asking the barn gods for patience. “Boss, let me tell you something—you remember the day you came to me and said you didn’t want to keep an emergency fund anymore?”
“Yeah, a couple years ago. You argued like crazy about that.”
“And you wouldn’t listen. You didn’t have a good reason, just kind of dictated it and moved on.”
Bran felt that burst of shame again. “Go on.”
Rick cleared his throat. “In all the time I’ve been a foreman, I’ve never run an operation that didn’t protect itself with emergency funds. What you asked me to do was crazy and irresponsible. So I called your dad’s old foreman who’d retired….then I did what he told me to do.”
Bran stood up from the table and put out his hand.
Hoyt grinned. “To hell with that, come ‘ere,” he said as he drew Bran in for a backslapping bro hug. “How the hell are you, man?”
Bran sat back down and smiled. Hoyt looked like Hoyt always had, fit, handsome, and happy.
“Things are going well. How’s life in the big city?”
Hoyt leaned back in his chair, his jaw sporting a couple days’ growth that Bran was sure wasn’t there during the work week. “Houston’s good, business is good, but it’s nice to come home. Thanks for giving me another excuse to visit.”
“Happy to,” Bran said, and he meant it. Regardless of the outcome of his request for investment dollars, Bran was happy to see Hoyt and glad he’d come back home. Hell, maybe Bran needed to get out of town once in a while, go visit Hoyt in Houston or old college friends in California. When had he decided that the ranch couldn’t possibly run unless he was on site at all times?
They looked over the menu at Louise’s, the only fine dining place in town, and after their waitress had taken their order, Hoyt cut right to the chase.
“So, I’ve read over everything you’ve sent the last few months. Business looks like it’s solid for you, but tell me something new—pitch me, bro. I want to hear it directly from you, not an emailed spreadsheet.”
Bran took a drink of his whiskey, then exhaled. It was go time.
“I appreciate your confidence in the business, and it is solid, but its owner hasn’t been, and I’m not going to lie to you about that.”
Hoyt’s head tilted slightly as if to listen better. “Ok, tell me more.”
Just then, Bran saw his youngest brother, Scout, enter the restaurant and start to talk to the hostess on duty. Scout didn’t see him so Bran didn’t wave, but he made a mental note to work on Scout the way he was working on everything else that had been misfiring in his life. His baby brother had been forgotten, and Bran needed to fix that.
He snapped his gaze back to Hoyt, who was waiting patiently.
“You know that I’ve had some problems getting the books to balance, and if Ava has told you anything, you also know that I’ve had some dissension among the ranch hands.”
“I may have heard a thing or two about all that.” Hoyt’s expression was placid.
“Somehow, in the time since Dad died, I lost track of some things—some of what he taught me. And the result is I’ve been a really mediocre boss. I stopped listening to my cowhands, didn’t bother to get to know them, and became entrenched in doing the exact things my dad did—instead of doing things with the intentions he had. Long story short, this last week I finally got it. And when I did, my foreman, Rick, was kind enough to enlighten me as to where the missing money has been.”
Hoyt’s eyebrows raised at that. “Do tell.”
“In the same emergency fund the ranch has had for over seventy years. At Texas State Bank in Dallas, in the account with my name on it, every penny accounted for and recorded appropriately.”
“And Rick didn’t tell you this sooner—why?” Hoyt’s brows furrowed.
“Because I told him to abolish the emergency fund.”
Now Hoyt’s eyes widened. “Good lord, what for?”
“Because I was an idiot. I thought it was too much trouble to keep track of a separate fund at a separate bank. Luckily for me, Rick didn’t listen, he just kept transferring the twenty percent over to Texas State, and it’s been sitting there all along.”
Hoyt let out a long breath, then chuckled. “Well, I haven’t met Rick, but he’s got some serious balls.”
“He was smart about it. He called up my dad’s retired foreman who had the job before him, and he was the one who told Rick to do what protected the ranch rather than what played to my ego.”
“Damn.” Hoyt shook his head in awe.
“Yeah,” Bran echoed.
“Did you fire him?”
“No, and if you feel that’s necessary for you to invest, then I’ll respectfully decline your money. I know Rick. He wasn’t trying to be insubordinate, and he wasn’t preparing to take the money for himself. He was genuinely concerned that if there was a crisis, the ranch would be vulnerable. He was trying to protect me from myself.”
The waitress arrived with their steaks, and for a time, the two men inhaled some perfectly grilled Angus beef. When they’d finally slowed down and the pecan pie had arrived, Hoyt brought things back to business.
“So you want to use the majority of my investment for a new breeding program?”
Bran confirmed the plan and explained the details, lighting up when Hoyt said he not only wanted to invest the money, but he felt it promised a solid long-term prospect where he’d want to put more funds in the future.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Bran said, grinning. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to have involved in the business. I’m really looking forward to this.”
“There’s just one more thing,” Hoyt said, taking Bran by surprise.
“Of course…”
“What are you doing with my little sister?”
Bran froze like a deer in headlights. Damn. This was what he’d been afraid of. Hoyt had been toying with him. Which made sense. Bran had violated one of the oldest, most important rules of the bro code—no little sisters.
“Uh, look,” he began.
Hoyt burst into laughter. “My friend, the look on your face right then was priceless.” He laughed harder as Bran’s brow furrowed more.
“Glad you find this entertaining,” Bran finally said.
Hoyt gasped and wiped at his eyes. “Sorry, man, seriously. I just wish I’d had a
camera.”
Bran cleared his throat and murmured “asshole” under his breath, but he didn’t really mean it.
Hoyt finally sobered. “Look, I know you’ve been seeing Ava. She talked to me about it a few weeks ago when I was visiting. It sounded like there was some real potential there. What I want to know is why she and Cam showed up at my mom’s three days ago, baggage in hand, saying she was going to move back to Dallas first chance she gets?”
Bran cringed, and then he rubbed at the ache forming in his chest. “Ava is…”
Hoyt’s gaze narrowed in warning.
“Amazing. I mean it, she’s like this force of nature. She’s smart and alive, and she really understands people. I can tell she must have been amazing at her job.” He paused, wanting to tread carefully. “And she’s gorgeous.”
Hoyt continued to glare at him.
“But we had a blowout.” He took a deep breath and said lower, “It was my fault. She saw things about how I was handling my ranch hands that I didn’t want to admit. I’m happy to admit them now, but there’s no point in the two of us continuing whatever it was we were doing. All she’s wanted since she got here is to get a new job in Dallas and go back to her life. I don’t want to interfere with that.”
“You don’t want to interfere—or you’re scared she might turn you down?”
Bran huffed out a chuckle. Hoyt didn’t pull any punches. He’d forgotten how that could feel when you were on the receiving end of it.
“She will turn me down, there’s no question. I was an ass. But also, what kind of guy would I be if I tried to come between her and her dream? It’s not my place to get in her way, and even though she’s pissed as hell at me, the best way I can show I care is to support what she wants, which is going back to Dallas.”
Hoyt shook his head, his lips tight in a look of disdain. “So we’re defaulting to, ‘if you love them, set them free’? That’s a bunch of bullshit, and you know it. Especially if she doesn’t know you’re in love with her.”
“I never said I—”