What It Takes (A Dirt Road Love Story)

by Sonya Loveday

  Grabbing his forearm, I used the wall to brace myself as I shoved him off me. “My chores? I don’t have chores here.”

  He staggered back a step, rage turning his face a very nasty shade of red. “You really don’t want to piss me off, Gracen.”

  Walking away from him, I made for the stairs, trying not to run. Once in my room, I slammed the door and locked it. Lucy raised a fuss outside. I didn’t want to go back downstairs and have to deal with Clint, but I wasn’t about to leave him to take care of Lucy either.

  Unlocking the door, I flung it open and made sure to pound my way down the stairs. Maybe if he heard it, he’d understand I wasn’t in any mood to go another round with him.

  The kitchen and living room were quiet. No sign of him anywhere as I opened the door and let Lucy in. She followed me upstairs, ignoring food and water as she stuck right with me. When she heard the door shut and the lock snick into place, she curled up on the center of my bed. I could swear I saw a little doggie smirk on her face. It was time to do something about Clint. He needed to go before it got worse. Before he got worse.

  I would have stayed in my room for the rest of the night had it not been a ‘battle of the stomach growls’ between Lucy and me. The fact I was hiding made me angry at myself. It was my damn house. I wasn’t going to lock myself away in it.

  “Come on, Lucy. Let’s go get some supper.”

  Lucy was off the bed and at the door before I could unlock it.

  Clint sat at the kitchen table, still wearing the clothes he’d mucked the stalls out in. A bag of burgers sat in the middle of the table.

  When he saw me, he lifted his head. “Truce?”

  My stomach rumbled in response.

  He laughed and pushed the bag over, putting it in front of the seat he wanted me to take.

  I braced my hands against the chair at the far end of the table. My heart hammered in my chest so hard I could feel it all the way up my throat. “I don’t think—”

  “I’m sorry, Gracen. Really sorry. I don’t know why I reacted like that.”

  I hung my head, trying to bolster enough backbone to tell him I was done. He needed to get his stuff and leave. “I don’t think this is gonna work, Clint.”

  He chuckled. The sound was eerie enough to work a chill through me. “Why? Because I’m not Slade?”

  My head whipped up. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Slade.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yes, it does. You haven’t given me a fair chance. You think I don’t know the two of you had something going on? He left, Gracen. He left you. Now it’s time to move on and see where this,” he gestured between us, “goes.”

  He didn’t have to raise a hand to me. The verbal blow he’d dealt crashed into me like a runaway horse. I pulled the chair I’d been hanging onto out from under the table, collapsing into it. Clasping my hands in my lap, I clutched my fingers so tight bone rubbed against bone.

  I heard Clint slide his chair out. Listened to him cross the floor. His heavy footsteps dragging because he never picked up his feet when he walked.

  He lowered himself, squatting and taking my hands in his. “I didn’t say that to hurt you.”

  I tried pulling my hands from his, but he wouldn’t let go. “You shouldn’t have said it at all.”

  “Just hear me out. Please?”

  I slumped back in the chair. Deflated. I felt deflated. Clint must have taken it as a sign to continue, because it was just what he did.

  “I understand I’m not the first man in your life. It wrecked you when he left. I have eyes… I saw what his leaving did to you. Why do you think I took my time getting to know you? Getting you to let me in hasn’t been the easiest. I could have walked away, but I didn’t. I stayed. Me. Not him. And it’s frustrating to think that somewhere in the back of your mind, you still haven’t let him go. You haven’t given me a shot at loving you.

  “I snapped. I’m sorry for it, and I can’t promise you I won’t get angry again. I just… I want you to look at me and see me. Let him go, and let me in.”

  The pressure on my hands intensified until I winced and pulled hard to get away. He let me go, but he didn’t move, keeping me pinned in my chair by his presence alone.

  Everything I wanted to say sat on my tongue as I puffed out my cheeks and let a long burst of air out. “You’re right, I do love Slade. I’ve loved him for a very long time, and it’s not something I can push out of my head and forget. I tried to with you. It’s not working. I’m sorry, but you deserve the truth. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

  He stood in one fluid move. “No.”

  I tipped my head back to look up at him, seeing his refusal etched deeply in the frown bracketing his mouth. “No?”

  “You heard me right. You don’t get to end things without trying to see them through first. You’re being extremely ungrateful. I’ve worked my ass off to take care of you. I’ve done everything you’ve wanted, as you’ve wanted, in order for you to give me a chance. We are not over. This is not over. So go cry him out of your system, because from here on out, you belong to me.”

  I shot from my seat, bumping into him because he wouldn’t move out of my way. With nostrils flaring, I elbowed him to get by. He caught my arm, forcing me to stop. Bringing his other hand up to my face, he brushed his knuckles down my cheek. The dimpled surface of the gold nugget ring he wore was cold against my skin. The same ring he’d split my lip with when he backhanded me.

  My cover story about how I’d injured myself was only half true. I had tripped over my shoes, but only after he’d backhanded me hard enough to make me see stars.

  “And if anyone tries to interfere in our relationship…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, leaving me to wonder what he would have said. When he dropped my arm, I left him standing in the kitchen, calling Lucy when I made it to the back door.

  Outside, the cool air brushed along my heated skin. Lucy ambled beside me, sniffing everything in her path. The backyard wasn’t huge, but there were a handful of trees and a swing my daddy had hung for me years ago. I sat on the worn board and wrapped my hands around the fraying ropes as if Daddy were there, holding my hands.

  What the hell was I supposed to do? Clint wasn’t going to leave without a fight. Lex would step in if I asked him to, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to go to him and cower. I had to deal with Clint myself. Had to put my foot down and end it.

  Damn you, Slade. Damn you for leaving me here, and damn me for loving you.

  Chapter 14

  Slade

  My life had become a series of robotic movements.

  Planned and executed.

  Each day almost the same as the last.

  It was maddening.

  It was monotonous.

  It was everything I wasn’t.

  I’d done it to myself. There was no one else to blame.

  Every morning, it took me longer and longer to get out of bed. To push myself into putting one foot in front of the other in my well-rutted path.

  I was miserable.

  “What cha’ doing there, slick?” My teeth ground together when I heard Gibs’ voice.

  I had enough to keep me busy. Didn’t need, or want, Gibs trailing behind me, getting in my way. He did it just for spite since he got his ass handed to him by Randy.

  I ignored him, continuing to wash out feed buckets. A job given to me after Gibs complained he had too much to do and needed some of his chores taken off his plate.

  Gibs swaggered over, beaming as he pushed his hat back on his head.

  “You’re pretty good at that,” he said, spitting a brown stream of tobacco beside my foot.

  “I’m busy, Gibs. Go bother someone else.” I dumped the dirty water out of the bucket, making an effort to splash him in the process.

  “Watch it!” He jumped back.

  My mouth turned up at the corners. Gibs hated getting wet. It was one of the things I’d learned a week ago, and I planned to take every a
dvantage to utilize that knowledge whenever I could.

  Lifting the feed bucket up, I held it out in front of me, hose pointed straight at it. Which also happened to be the same direction Gibs stood.

  I pulled the trigger on the hose, water spraying past the feed bucket and hitting Gibs in the arm.

  “You son of a bitch! You did that on purpose.” Gibs reached out and snatched the feed bucket from my hand.

  I didn’t release my grip from the hose, spraying him right in the face.

  “You're damn right I’m doing it on purpose. The same way you find some sort of fun out of being a pain in my ass. “

  Gibs lunged for me, but I twisted out of his way. His boots couldn’t find any traction, and he ended up falling forward, arms outstretched. His palms skidded along the ground, feet scuttling forward so he was forced to bear crawl with the momentum until he gained his balance.

  I could have helped him. Could have caught him and helped him stand, but I didn’t. After weeks of being a complete pain in the ass, Gibs had received a healthy dose of karma à la mode.

  He spun around, cheeks burning a deep red as his face contorted with rage. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

  I dropped the hose and beckoned him forward. “Take your best shot, Gibs, but you better make it count.”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched. “You’re about to get a lesson, slick.”

  I ducked when he swung out at me. His reach was not quite as long as my own. “You gonna teach it to me, Gibs? Or talk about it?”

  He snarled and lunged forward again. This time, I stepped into his punch, letting it glance off my shoulder, then pulled my own fist back and caught him in the stomach. His mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.

  My arm throbbed where his punch had hit a nerve, making it go numb. Oddly enough, I hadn’t felt so alive since I’d set foot on Benton Farm.

  “Come on, Gibs. You’re not even trying,” I taunted.

  He swung, missing, but barely. His lips curved. “You think you’re so tough? You think you can just waltz around here like you’re better than everyone else?”

  I smirked. “Jealous?”

  He lunged at me with a roar, hitting me like linebacker.

  We rolled along the grass, upending feed buckets filled with soapy water, which made our struggle a slippery one.

  I outweighed Gibs by a good twenty pounds, and had at least four inches to his stubby height, but he was angry and not going to back down easily. It reminded me of how it used to be when Lex and I got into it. There was no getting Lex to back off until he either knocked me down, or I got a solid hold around his neck.

  Lex being my brother gave him more of a right to land a couple of well-deserved blows on me. Gibs wasn’t blood. He wasn’t anything more than a puffed-up banty rooster. A bully. And I wasn’t about to let him get the best of me.

  I’d just got my arm around his neck, my foot hooked over his leg, when Benton came around the corner, hollering. “What the hell is going on here?”

  I tightened my hold against Gibs’ neck in warning to let him know I’d overpowered him once, and he better believe I could do it again.

  When I let him go, he scrambled to his feet and put his hand out to help me up. “Just blowing off a little steam is all.”

  Benton’s hands rested on his hips as he looked between us. “Do I need to remind you this isn’t a day care? If I catch you screwing around again, you’ll be packing your bags. Understood?”

  Gibs dipped his head. “Yes, sir.”

  I just gave a quick nod and went back to cleaning the feed buckets, hoping they’d go away.

  “Benton spent fifteen minutes chewing me out because you two can’t act like grown-ass men. Mind telling me what the hell you were thinking?” Randy asked. He didn’t look amused about having to deal with us about our blow up the day before.

  Gibs slumped against the tack wall, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his knife. He paused in his grooming to point it at me, “Slick sprayed me with the hose, so I taught him a lesson.’

  I snorted, bringing Randy’s attention to me. “Something funny about that, Owens’?”

  “Funny? No, I wouldn’t call it funny.”

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “Slick doesn’t know how to take a joke,” Gibs chimed in.

  “Slick?” Randy cocked his head.

  Gibs nodded in my direction.

  “I should walk out right now and let you two finish what you started. Only, I can’t do that because my job is on the line right alongside yours. If I lose my job because you can’t keep your mouth shut…” he said, looking at Gibs, “and you can’t keep from going all hotheaded, so help me, I’ll kick both your asses.”

  Gibs snorted. “You can try…”

  I’d been watching Gibs, when all along I should have been watching Randy. Maybe I would have seen it when he moved like lightning, fist shooting out and catching Gibs right in the jaw.

  Gibs didn’t have the slightest notion about what was coming at him. His head bounced off the wall with a hollow thud, his eyes rolled back in his head, and then he toppled over, knife skittering to the floor.

  Randy turned to me, shaking out his hand as he opened and closed his fist. “I wasn’t kidding when I said Benton threatened our jobs. Gibs might not be smart enough to understand what that means, but I know you are.”

  Gibs moaned as he raised himself up to a sitting position, and then cradled his head. The motion too much for him, he leaned over and vomited on the floor.

  Randy grumbled something under his breath as he walked out.

  I scrubbed my hands down my face with a drawn-out sigh. Gibs hadn’t moved much, hadn’t even picked himself up from the ground. It served him right, but I’d never been one to walk away from someone who needed help.

  I knelt in front of him. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Go away. I don’t need your help,” he answered, trying to get his knees under him.

  I hooked my hand under his armpit and helped him to his feet. He swayed, knees all but buckling under him.

  “I suppose you can make it to your bunk all by yourself?” I asked, pulling him along beside me, guiding him out of the tack room and across the yard to the bunkhouse.

  Benton had a pretty sweet setup for his hands. The building had a communal kitchen, but each hand had a bedroom and bathroom. Kitchen detail rotated between the hands, but everyone was responsible for the upkeep of their quarters.

  Once we made it inside the bunkhouse, Gibs had regained enough steam to make it on his own, but I stayed with him until he opened the door to his room. The last thing I needed was the fool to topple over and break his damn neck, making it look like I’d taken him out.

  “Word to the wise, Owens, Randy might look like an old man ready to be put to pasture, but he’s got a right hook that kicks like a donkey.” He worked his jaw back and forth, wincing. His hand came up and touched where it had started to swell.

  He left his door open and staggered over to his bed. Reaching under it, he pulled out what looked like a small first aid kit. From that, he dug out some aspirin and one of those ice packs that had to be activated. He swallowed the pills dry and then lay down, holding the ice pack against the side of his face with a grimace.

  There wasn’t anything more I could do, and really, I didn’t want to stick around and chitchat with him, so I closed the door, and then made my way back to the tack room. There was still the matter of Gibs’ vomit on the floor, and the longer it sat there, the worse the room would reek if it didn’t get cleaned up.

  Randy scraped the flat-head shovel against the floor, bringing what looked like cat litter into a pile, and then scooped it up.

  When he saw me, he smirked. “Knew you’d be back.”

  My eyebrows pulled together, watching him sling the contents of the shovel into a trash can just outside the door. “How could you know when I didn’t even know it myself?”

  He leaned the shovel
against the wall and then grabbed a push broom, sweeping what was left of the cat litter out of the tack room. “Because that’s just who you are, Owens. Tell me something—why did you leave your family ranch to come work here?”

  “The breeding program Benton has here is cutting edge. I wanted to learn about it, get some experience in it,” I answered as Gracen’s face flashed like a vision before my eyes.

  “And now that you’ve had a chance to see what it’s about, what do you think of it?” he asked.

  “Honestly? It’s a great program, but it’s not what I’d thought it would be.” I hitched my shoulder, leaving the rest of what I thought unsaid.

  “I come from a long line of ranchers who raised both cattle and crops. I’ve seen farms fall under the burden of many things. Money, mismanagement, taxes. I can spot someone whose blood runs in the lands as easy as I can someone who’s just along for the ride. But you? You’re straddling both those lines for me. The land is wrong… it’s not home, I mean, and the job you’re doing… that’s not where your passion is. You might have thought so in the beginning, but how much longer do you think you can fool yourself?”

  I kicked the toe of my boot against the floor, wondering how the hell he’d pegged me so perfectly. How I’d struggled to keep my sanity and force myself to make the most of my situation. The job I’d been hired for had been made to sound different from what it turned out to be. I didn’t want to outright lie to Randy, but I couldn’t tell him how I felt and risk Benton getting wind of it. I needed the job. “I can’t complain—”

  “Spare me the pussyfooting around. It’s a bullshit job, and you and I both know it. Can you look me in the eye and tell me this is what you expected when you got here? That you’d be the guy who shoved his arm up a cow’s backside with a turkey baster full of bull sperm like it is some sort of production line?”

  I had to laugh. “Well, when you put it that way.”

  “Our way of life is dying out, Owens. It’s going by the wayside to people who have more money than sense. Now cattle are bred for mass slaughter to companies that’ll pay the most for it. It’s not a way of life anymore. Ranch owners, like Benton, they’re just businessmen in designer blue jeans.”