by Dawn McClure
Yeah, it seemed like her mind was set on heading out. Like Matt, David hadn’t truly thought she’d leave. But she’d accepted the job—and that spoke volumes.
For the first time in David’s life, he figured he needed to take his dad's advice. Get his head out of the clouds when it came to her, because she'd made her decision, and it sure as hell wasn't him.
Chapter 8
David was up and out in the field checking on the cattle before the sun peaked over the horizon. The sky held various shades of dark blue. He and his father had put the cattle out to pasture yesterday after he’d returned from the Evans’, so all he had to do was give them all a quick check. He could already feel the humidity in the air, and there was low-lying fog in some of the valleys in the fields that bordered the small stream on their property. Weatherman said they were going to get some strong storms today. They needed rain, so he hoped the prediction was right.
He was going to do his best to get on his dad's good side—if he even had one. Might as well give it a good shot. If nothing changed in the next few weeks, he’d come to the decision that he was going to head out and find work elsewhere. No reason to beat a dead horse. He'd already become a pro at that, what with Misty and his nonexistent relationship with her. The thing about beating a dead horse was that it only hurt the one doing the kicking. She'd flat out ignored him yesterday when he'd helped to put their cattle out to pasture. In fact, they hadn't said one word to each other, which had been an impressive feat, since they had to work closely together to herd cattle.
He hadn’t asked her to help with his livestock. Instead, Matt had come over, and between the three of them, they’d gotten it done quickly. His dad had barked orders at them for a solid six hours. Fun times.
He glanced over the cattle one last time. One of the heifers was still pregnant. He had to keep an eye on her, because hot and humid temperatures didn’t go well with pregnant livestock. The heifer could easily get overheated if it was a hard labor. She didn't look to be showing any signs of going into labor, so he headed back to the barn on his four-wheeler and got to work on replacing a tire on the tractor. He'd noticed it had been leaking air when he'd been feeding the cattle the other day.
Big Mike walked in a few minutes after he had the tractor up on the jack. “What the hell is wrong with that now?”
“Slow leak. I'm going to take the tire off and run it up to the implement. Junior said he could have it done by this afternoon.” Unlike the way they felt toward Big Mike, the guys at the implement liked David. Mostly because he didn't treat them like shit. The techs worked hard to keep up with all the equipment that came in and out of their shop, and if you weren't a dick to them, sometimes they put your needs before others. There was a lot to learn from the old saying, you attract more bees with honey than vinegar.
He glanced at his dad. Cowboy boots, big belt buckle, big cowboy hat, and big attitude. Hell, that man probably only had vinegar to give. He'd been dishing out the acidic liquid to David and his mom over the years, why would anyone else be immune?
“They cost a damn fortune over there and they haven't got one decent tech.”
That wasn't true, but David let it go. “I don't have the tools to take the tire off the rim, and Junior will let me know if we need a new tire altogether.”
David didn't feel like fighting with his dad right now, but he knew the look in the old man's eyes. He was itching for one. Maybe that's why his mom had left to go into town and do some grocery shopping. Just to get away from her husband, something she'd been getting better at through the years.
His dad shoved a meaty finger in his direction. “You ask me before you go makin' appointments up there.”
“I figured you had better things to do.” He grabbed a socket wrench. “They say we're going to get some weather today,” he said, trying to turn the conversation. He should have known from experience you couldn't steer Big Mike. Especially not when he was looking for a fight.
“Where were you last night? You didn't drive in until two in the morning.”
Now his dad was watching when he came home? Christ. All he'd done was drive around the back roads, trying to let go of a past that was no longer within his reach. Trying to blot out the sight of Brandon and Misty after the vaccinations. Trying to brush off the cold shoulder she'd given him yesterday. “I'm a grown man. It's none of your business. I'm here at the crack of dawn working just like you asked.”
“So now what? You're going to start drinking and driving again? Who were you with? That slut Caroline Parker?”
Caroline was a lot of things, and though David slightly agreed with his dad about that—because self-deprecating was in her nature, so she tended to give the town something to talk about—David didn't like people talking about her that way. He'd gotten on Matt a few times for the same thing. Sure, it was easy to say those things about Caroline, and he'd thought that way plenty of times in the past. Sometimes a person just couldn’t help it. Not with the way she talked and dressed. The way she slept with anyone with a pulse and made zero bones about it.
Still. There was a side to her that she didn’t show to many people. She’d been forced to raise herself, thanks to her own deadbeat parents. She’d even raised her sister, Pat, who was a few years younger than she was. Hell, her father made Big Mike look like Dad of the Year. She was tough, but she was also vulnerable, a side he'd seen their senior year. “You know nothing about her.”
“I know she's been with half the cowboys in this town, and I don't want my son keeping company with her.”
“She had a hard home life. She's only coping the best way she knows how.” She'd even admitted as much to David a time or two. Since folks had already painted her in a bad light, she'd grabbed the paintbrush and ran with it. She knew what she was doing, and she didn't really give a damn. Still, it wasn't anyone's business but her own.
“And what would you know about a bad home life?”
That's it. With Misty taking that job in Rapid eating at his gut and his failed attempts at getting his dad to do anything but bitch at him about everything, David lost it. What would he know about a bad home life? What wouldn’t he know about it? The gut-wrenching, self-inflicted anger he’d put on himself because of what he’d done in the past spilled out.
He tossed the wrench to the ground, shouting, “Really? How about a dad that never got off my ass about anything? All you ever do is complain and tell everyone how they're not good enough. You know why I drank back in high school? To get the hell away from you. To shut out your damn voice in my head. Christ, even Mom tries to stay away from you as much as she can. You put this ranch before everyone, including your own wife and son. What the hell did I do? What did I do to make you hate me so much?”
His father had gone still. David waited for the booming voice and the red face and neck, but it didn't come. The color literally drained from his father's face. Probably because David had never fought back. Never engaged. He'd always run. Out in the country, at an early age, kids were taught to respect their elders, and he'd tried to respect his dad. But he was through. He just couldn't take anymore verbal beatings.
Big Mike cleared his throat and looked around the barn, at the jacked-up tractor—everywhere but at his son. Finally, in a hoarse voice, he said, “Get out.”
Why had David ever thought his coming home would turn out differently? He'd been a fool to think he could win back a girl whose heart he'd broken. An even bigger fool to think he could get his dad to love him. The man didn't know what love was. At least Misty had loved him at one point. His father? He doubted he'd ever truly loved anyone.
David headed back to the guesthouse and slammed the door behind him.
An hour later, while packing his clothes, he heard the siren.
The wind had picked up and disrupted the dry soil. Misty felt like one giant grain of dust. The shit was in her eyes and in her hair and was kicking back behind the pickup as she tore down the dirt road to check on cattle. They needed rain badly, and
from what she'd heard on the radio they were going to get it. She and Matt were busting their asses to get what they needed to get done before the rain hit. Their parents decided to take a day off and head to Aberdeen, leaving the two of them behind to handle the chores.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she slowed down and pulled it out. It was Matt. He was out in the fields planting corn. “Hey, what's up?”
The background noise from the planter running on his end nearly drowned out his voice, even though she could tell he was yelling. “Carter just called. Said he had some cows in his winter wheat. He's pissed. Says he called David's folks but they aren't answering.”
“And?” What the hell did Matt want her to do about it? Not her cows, not her problem.
Last few times she'd seen David, he'd been casting her looks that threw her into mixed feelings country. She didn't want to run into him, and she undoubtedly would if she went to get his cattle out of a wheat field.
“I tried calling David but he's not answering his cell. Can you get 'em out of Carter's wheat before he shits his spleen? Carter said there’s a four-wheeler parked just by the fence if you need it.”
“Seriously?” She knew Matt and David had all but picked up where they'd left off, but she wanted to keep a safe distance.
Matt yelled over the noise of the planter again, bringing her back to the present. “Misty, you don't hate him. We both know that. He's not even around, so you probably won't run into him anyway.”
“Fine,” she snapped, hitting the end button on her cell. She tossed her phone onto the other side of the bench seat and wondered why, when it came to do with anything involving David, she turned in to a shrew. She really needed to learn to let things go.
Figuring not helping the Buchanan’s would be a bitch thing to do, she headed toward Carter's wheat field. She came to a stop and threw the truck in Park when she got there. About twenty cattle roamed a small patch of winter wheat, heads down, happy as could be as they munched on the good stuff. This was going to be a mess. Cattle were hard to move when they'd found something they liked to eat. With a sigh she opened the door and tugged on her ball cap, praying this would be a quick roundup.
Two hours later she was ready to shoot three heifers straight between the eyes. One was ready to give birth any day. A storm was kicking up in the west, which made her wonder if the livestock was being ornery because they sensed an oncoming storm. By the way her phone threw off alerts every five minutes, she figured it was going to be a bad one. She hoped not. She couldn't just leave these damn heifers out here in the road. So come hell or high water she was going to be out here in the storm until she got them back behind the fence.
Her phone buzzed one more time. Looking down at the Doppler, yeah, they were in the red. Tornado watch. Definitely gonna be some hail and a lot of rain if that black wall of clouds heading her way was any indication. She doubted they'd get a tornado, though. In South Dakota during the summer months, the weatherman got a little itchy. Seemed at least once a week they were in the red.
She slipped her phone back in the back pocket of her jeans. “Damn heifers, go back to where you belong.”
Thirty minutes later, she was soaked and muddy to boot. The rain was a torrential downpour and came at her sideways because of the wind. She was just about to dropkick the last two heifers when she heard a truck engine over the wind and rain of the storm. Probably Matt since there was no way in hell he was still out in the field planting. Help would be nice. A stubborn heifer was an unmovable heifer, and pregnant to boot? Impossible. Most Angus tended to be skittish until one intended to kill you. Yeah, she'd jumped her fair share of fences to get away from one or two in her lifetime. Ran up a tree once.
The dull thud of a vehicle door shutting was a welcome sound. Matt would get on one side, she on the other, and they would be able to guide her in. She turned to tell him that he owed her, but froze with her mouth open, the quip stuck somewhere between her brain and her tongue.
“I'm sorry for your trouble,” David yelled over the storm. He’d only taken a dozen steps in her direction, but his T-shirt was already soaked from the rain, hugging every damned muscle he had. “I really appreciate your help.”
She nodded once and turned back to the heifer. Her heart was in her throat and her pulse was undoubtedly faster than Caroline's sex drive on a Saturday night. Having been avoiding him for the past few days, the sudden and unexpected sight of him really did a number on her.
She absolutely refused to think too hard about what that could mean.
The pregnant heifer let out a low moan, and her mind finally tuned into what was going on. “She's in labor,” she called out.
She should have known. That's why the heifer didn't want to move, but she hadn’t been giving the normal signals, so Misty hadn’t caught it. Now all thoughts of getting outta Dodge quickly were gone. She'd stay and see if he'd need any help because that's what good folks did.
And then she was the hell outta there.
David had no intention of leaving the hospital when he’d received Matt's text: Your cows are all over Carter's winter wheat. Couldn't reach you. Misty is over there getting them rounded up.
After all, Misty was more than experienced to handle that kind of situation. He was surprised the text had come through, considering none of his calls were. Then his mother insisted he get out there and help Misty because of the weather. And besides, his mother wasn't leaving his father's side, and she needed a few things from home.
He figured she also needed a little space, so he'd agreed to go.
He was on emotional lockdown. It was something he'd experienced a few times over in Afghanistan. He didn't want to think, didn't want to overanalyze, and just did what had to be done. Autopilot. The thought of his dad and the fight they'd had...
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “I can take care of this. You've done enough.” He'd check the heifer to make sure the birthing was going well and head up to the house to get the meds his mom needed.
Misty nodded once, as she'd done when he first arrived, and turned to leave without another word. He doubted he’d ever get used to the way she treated him now. After the fight with his dad, and Misty’s obvious dislike of him, he’d never felt so…alone.
“You know,” she said, passing him. “Don't forget you're helping to run a ranch. Didn't they teach you responsibility in the military? I've been taking care of your shit for almost two hours now.”
He was going to let her go—he really was. He was going to let her climb into her truck and peel off because he knew he'd never penetrate that wall she'd put up between them.
Last night when he'd driven around Garner into the wee hours of the morning, he'd told himself that Misty was off-limits. No ifs, ands, or buts, she was as available to him as a unicorn riding a rainbow. He'd had his chance with her, and he'd blown it.
But that didn't stop David from needing to tell her what had happened, or diminish his desperate need to chip away at the hate she'd built up around her heart where he was concerned. Maybe they'd never be friends again, but he just couldn't stand the thought of her hating him.
He grabbed her arm as she strode by. “I don't want you out in the storm. It's going to get worse before it gets better.” The radio had been issuing weather alerts on the storms headed their way his entire drive back home from the hospital. It was all they were talking about on the radio. She tried to yank her arm away, but he held on. “My old man is in the hospital. Had a massive heart attack this morning. He hasn't woken up, but they’re running all sorts of tests on him, and more than likely he’ll be heading to Sioux Falls for surgery. My phone was getting limited coverage when I was in ICU with Mom.”
Her face softened instantly. No fear, no hate. She almost looked as though she liked him. Like those point two seconds at the fair when he'd given her the ultimatum. But she didn’t close the distance to wrap her arms around him like she’d have done years ago. The wall between them was too thick and t
oo solid for physical comforting. “I'm sorry. I didn't know.”
“I'll get the heifer situated, and then I have to head up to the house for a few things. Just go back to your place. They're calling for tornadoes. Could get bad.”
She shook her head. “I'll take care of everything here. You know they love throwing out tornado warnings every week. I'll be fine. Just go get your mom what she needs.”
She started to make her way back to the heifer. He let her go, and if he were honest with himself, he'd been hoping... Hell, what had he been expecting? A hug? Tears? He hadn't even been home a month and she had him under her thumb. He'd thrown out his plea, and she'd chosen. She just hadn't chosen him. And now he had to let it go. Let her go.
He adjusted his drenched ball cap and headed back for his truck, his boots sinking into the mud with each step he took. Before he climbed in, he shouted over the wind, “If shit gets bad out here, get to the house.”
She nodded but didn't face him. Her long blonde ponytail fell like a waterfall out of her cap and down her back. Every now and then the wind would pick up the wet strands and toss them around. He stood there another full minute with his hand on the open door of his pickup, waiting for... Hell, he didn't even know.
Nothing like wishing for a unicorn and knowing one actually existed.
Chapter 9
The mother didn't need any help birthing the calf, but she'd left her baby lying in the mud because the storm spooked her. Five minutes ago the town siren went off. That meant there was a tornado touching down within fifteen miles of town. Misty looked around but couldn’t see anything through the driving rain, or hear anything over the roar of the wind. The tornado could now be fifteen miles from her or only a mile away, an F0 or an F5 tornado, she had no clue. The calf needed to be taken into the barn for safety and for colostrum, and she could find the mother later. Right now Misty needed to get her ass to her house.
