Rough Stock

by Dahlia West

  Seth let go of Court’s arm. “Court got Rowan Archer pregnant,” he replied.

  Walker rolled his eyes and snorted. “You move fast. You just rolled back into town two months ago. Now you’re offering stud fees in Star Valley?”

  Court scowled and said nothing.

  “Not now,” Seth replied for him. “A while ago. Years ago. The little girl is about four, maybe five.”

  Walker’s eyes narrowed sharply at Court. “And you didn’t know? Or did you walk away from them, too? Are you ever going to grow up, become a real man?”

  Court looked positively stricken, like Walker had landed an actual blow. “I didn’t know!” he cried. “But you can be damn sure I’m going to take care of it now!”

  “Let up, Walker,” Seth warned.

  Walker only smirked. “I’ll let up when he stops letting everyone else down.”

  “That’s not fair,” Seth argued before Court could. “Dad never asked for help. You know that.”

  Walker wasn’t placated. “And somehow he couldn’t see that we were losing heads, letting go of ranch hands? No, he knew.” Walker half-turned and glared at Sawyer. “You both knew.” He turned back to Court. “I’m not giving you another dime. Not a single penny other than what’s already in your paycheck every week. You screwed the pooch on this one…or the prom date, I guess,” Walker amended. “You clean it up. If you can.”

  The gauntlet had been thrown down, and so Walker turned to leave.

  Seth probably wouldn’t have been as harsh about it, but Walker was right. It was time for Court to grow up, become a man, a father. Seth doubted that Rowan would have anything do with Court, but Seth believed what he’d told the man just moments ago—it wasn’t about Rowan or Court’s relationship with her that mattered. It was about that little girl.

  If Seth had a little girl, he’d move the Tetons themselves to give her everything she ever needed.

  “Come on,” he told Court. “Let’s get in the truck. I’ll drive.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” Court snapped.

  “Then stop acting like a baby,” Sawyer replied for Seth.

  The two of them got in Seth’s truck and headed down the highway toward the Archer farm. It was probably a good opportunity for a lecture on responsibility and setting a good example, now that Court was Seth’s captive audience, but they rode in silence instead, with only Court muttering the occasional Unbelievable under his breath.

  Seth hoped the silence would help the man calm down.

  He knew where the Archer place was even though he never been there himself. The spread was nice, a large, old farmhouse with a one-story barn adjacent. Seth didn’t know much about raising sheep, but he supposed it was like cattle ranching: feed, breed, and then to market.

  He couldn’t say how well the Archers were doing financially, but by his quick count they had two hundred head and the lights were still on. That was something, at least, in these difficult times.

  He pulled into the long, circular driveway shaped much like his own (Seth assumed sheep ranchers also used trailers), killed the truck’s engine and pulled the parking brake.

  “There she is,” Court growled, and for a moment Seth thought he meant Rowan.

  He turned to follow Court’s gaze but saw the little girl instead. She was in the sheep paddock, splashing in a mud puddle with little pink rubber boots. Next to her was a huge dog. It had been white at one time, judging from the patches of lighter fur peeking out from underneath the filth, but the puddle adventure had left the dog streaked with brown splotches. The girl looked up at them, frowning, obviously cautious around strangers. The dog maneuvered closer to her, eyeing them warily.

  “Hi, there,” said Court.

  Seth didn’t know if he was trying come off friendly and just failing or if Court was too angry to rein himself in. His words came out clipped, through clenched teeth.

  The little girl, wisely, didn’t respond.

  “It’s okay. I’m a friend of your mommy’s,” Court assured her.

  The girl looked from Court to Seth, inspecting each man closely. “You’re a friend of Mama’s,” she finally declared to Seth. “I remember. From the store.”

  “I’m a friend of your mama’s, too,” Court insisted, moving past Seth and closer to the girl. “Where’s your daddy?”

  “Court,” Seth warned quietly.

  The dog apparently felt the same way, because he growled, low in his throat, when Court moved in. Court hesitated, seemed to consider his chances with a dog who might actually outweigh him, and took a step back. The dog stopped growling but continued to keep a watchful eye on them. Seth had the impression that if either of them so much as touched the gate, they’d draw back a bloody stump.

  The little girl wrinkled up her nose. “My daddy?”

  “Yeah.”

  She shrugged.

  “You don’t know where he is?” Court pressed.

  “Court,” Seth repeated. “Let’s go to the house. Don’t do this. Not this way.”

  “He’s lost,” she told them.

  That surprised Seth and from the look of it, the word had Court thoroughly confused, as well.

  “Lost?” Court asked her.

  She nodded. “I hope we find him, though. If I had a daddy, he’d give me a real pony. Maybe.” She waved a plastic toy horse at them that had seen better days. Before either he or Court could say anything in response, Rowan burst out of the house behind them.

  She was running full speed—well, as fast as she could anyway, through the spring mud that hadn’t fully dried yet. “You get away from her!” she shouted.

  The dog on the other side of the fence barked loudly, startling the little girl. Seth watched as two more of the huge beasts came tearing ass around the side of the barn, the whole pack of them yipping and pawing the ground.

  Rowan made it to them, breathless and red faced. She surged past them, to the gate, and for a moment Seth thought she would open it, releasing the dogs. But she reached over the steel gate, lifted the girl into her arms, and hugged her tightly, ignoring the muddy pink boots that were splattering her clothes.

  “What the hell did you say to her?!” Rowan demanded, backing away from them.

  “Nothing,” Court snapped.

  Rowan turned and fled again, back across the yard.

  When Court started to follow, Seth grabbed his arm and held him back. When Court tried to jerk away, Seth dragged him for a few feet and pinned him to the front of his truck’s grill. “Hey!” he said firmly. “Let her go.”

  Court pushed at him, but Seth was slightly larger and unwilling to move. “I’m not letting this go!” Court declared.

  “Just give her a minute,” Seth ordered. “Just calm down, okay? Everyone needs to calm down.”

  “I am not letting this go!” Court repeated. Then louder. “I am not letting this go, Rowan! You hear me? I am not letting this go!”

  Seth glanced over his shoulder to see Rowan passing the little girl to her sister. They all disappeared inside the house, and Court growled his disapproval. He finally wrenched himself out of Seth’s grip and stormed past.

  “Now, God damn it, Court, she’s—”

  Just then the front door banged open again. This time Rowan came out armed with a shotgun. The sight of her caused Court to break his angry stride. Several feet away, the dogs were going nuts now in the paddock, having decided that Court and Seth were a danger. They snarled viciously and threw their bodies against the steel gate. Seth hoped it wouldn’t give way as he pulled Court back again.

  Rowan stomped across the yard, raising the gun and aiming it straight at them, not that it mattered. Even if she was a terrible shot, the spread would get both of them. And for some reason Seth suspected that Rowan Archer was a very good shot.

  “You stay away from my family!” she cried, stopping just a few feet away from them now. Her boots were caked with mud, and she was wearing only jeans and a sweater. She must have been cold, but she didn’t look
it.

  “Your family?!” Court snapped from behind Seth. “Oh, your family? Guess you’re all just cuddled up nice and cozy in there. And no one thought to tell me about this family I have.”

  Rowan’s eyes widened, and Seth saw her finger dance on the shotgun’s trigger. “You don’t have a family, Court. Not this one. She may be your daughter, but she’s not yours!”

  Seth saw the danger, immediately, how incensed Rowan was, while Court, as usual, was blind to almost everything around him. If his little brother shot off his mouth again, Rowan was going to, well…return the favor.

  He stepped out in front of Court, positioning himself between the two exes. He was glad to see Rowan’s hold on the gun waver just a bit, she was more in control than Court, it seemed.

  “Rowan,” Seth said softly. “You’re going to have to put it down. And hear the man out, at least. No one’s deciding anything today. No one’s doing anything today, especially not things we can’t ever take back.”

  She finally tore her eyes away from Court and looked up at him. “You said you’d keep him away,” she accused.

  Seth gave her a wan smile and took a single, very slow, step toward her. “Well, now, you didn’t exactly give me the whole story, did you?” he replied gently. “Now, you can either shoot through me…or you can give me the gun.”

  Seth stood in the twilight, with the sun setting just over the horizon. The brilliant-blue sky was aflame with soft hues of pink, orange, and gold. It was a sight he tried never to take for granted. As he gazed at it now, he hoped it wouldn’t be the last one he’d ever see as he held out his hand to her.

  Chapter Ten

  ‡

  Rowan blinked up at Seth through the tears welling in her eyes. He’d been so kind to her the other night, rescuing her from Court, lending her his jacket, listening to her cry about Dad. As angry as she was with Court, Seth didn’t belong in the middle of their problems. She took a deep breath and handed him the Remington. He gave her a relieved smile as she did.

  Rowan didn’t know any of the other Barlows very well other than Court, but she was struck by how radically different these two brothers were. Despite Seth’s failure to keep his earlier promise (which as he’d pointed out was more her fault than his), she was grateful he was here now.

  Court’s nostrils flared. He looked positively livid and on the verge of losing control. “She’s not giving anyone the whole story,” he snapped. “Least of all me, the only person who actually deserves it!”

  Rowan couldn’t believe what she was hearing, couldn’t believe he had the nerve. Fire rose up inside her again, and she charged forward, or tried to, but Seth caught her around the waist. He pulled her back against his torso, still gripping the Remington in one hand. She glared at the man who’d come to destroy everything, to ruin all their lives. “I didn’t tell you? Really? Really, Court?! That’s the story you’re going with? Is that what you’re going to say to people? That I didn’t tell you?”

  Court gaped at her. “Well, I sure as shit didn’t know there was a kid!”

  “Because you didn’t want to know! Don’t you stand here and put this on me. Don’t you dare! You tell the truth, Court!” she shouted. “You tell the truth. If you’d picked up the phone any one of the dozens—hundreds—of times I tried to call you, what would you have said?”

  Court just seethed at her, like it was her fault, like she was the bad guy in all this.

  “You tell me,” she insisted, voice breaking, tears streaming down her face. “Did you get that last message? The one where I had to say, in a voicemail, that I was pregnant, and scared, and didn’t know what to do?”

  Court’s face twisted, and it looked exactly like Rowan’s gut felt. Or maybe it was just Seth’s arm tightening around her. In her ear, she heard the elder Barlow’s voice. “Jesus Christ, Court,” Seth said quietly. “You knew?”

  Court was silent a moment. Nothing but the wind howled between them. “I deleted it,” he finally said. “I was drunk.”

  Rowan broke down, sobbing. She sagged against Seth, who held her in his strong grip, and God damn if it didn’t feel good to be propped up by someone else for a change.

  Court’s voice was strained but still belligerent. “And you never called again, never said anything. A year or so later, I heard you met someone. A doctor, got pregnant. I thought it was his. Didn’t think it was mine. I thought…I thought you took care of it.”

  “It?!” Rowan shouted. “It is your daughter, Court, and she has a name—Willow! She has your eyes, and a favorite bedtime story, and she does not need some asshole coming around whenever he feels like it! She doesn’t need someone in her life who’s going to abandon her when he gets bored!”

  “I’m different now!” Court insisted. “I’ve changed!”

  Rowan scoffed. “Really? Because I’ve got to be honest, I don’t see it, Court. I really don’t. You charged in here, throwing your weight around. I don’t see anything that I didn’t five years ago. I’m surprised you haven’t thrown a rope around her, or me, and wrestled us to the ground. Suppose you did, though, what then, Court? What happens next? What do you want?”

  Court didn’t seem to have an answer. He just stood in front of her, seething.

  “Maybe you should stop and think before you barge into our lives,” Rowan told him. “Then again, thinking wasn’t exactly your strong suit. And I can see that hasn’t changed.”

  Court’s jaw clenched. “You don’t know me anymore, Rowan! I told you, I’m different. I’m not that way now.” He ran a hand over his face, breathing out hard. “We should talk,” he added suddenly.

  Rowan stared at him.

  “That’s what I wanted the other night, anyway. To talk! Maybe…maybe we could work it out. I’m here now,” he told her. “I’m not on the road and—”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was surreal and nightmarish. Was he really suggesting they get back together? Just pick up where they left off? Did she have to remind him where they left off? Or rather that she’d left him in a travel trailer with two naked women and twice that in bottles of booze?

  “Have you lost your mind?!” she hissed. “Court Barlow, I will never, never subject myself to that again! Or our daughter. I didn’t deserve it then, and I sure as hell don’t deserve it now, whatever mistakes I’ve made along the way. And I am not going to spend the next few years crying myself to sleep because you’re out sticking your dick in some bimbo!”

  “I said I’ve changed!” Court shouted. “And I can see you have too. You’re a bitch, Rowan, holding on to shit that’s lifetimes ago.”

  Rowan fought against Seth’s hold, ready to pounce and claw Court’s eyes out.

  “All right, enough!” Seth bellowed loudly. The rumble of his chest vibrated against her back. “Court, get in the truck.”

  Court looked like he was about to argue, maybe take on Rowan and Seth at this point.

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing here; you don’t know what the hell you want. You’ve said your piece. You’re pissed. She gets it. Go get in the truck.”

  When Court still didn’t move, Seth’s tone turned positively venomous. “Get. In. The truck.”

  Incredibly, Rowan watched Court consider it only for a moment, shoot her a withering look, and then turn to walk toward Seth’s Ford. When he slammed the door on them, all the tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding onto seemed to evaporate from her body at once.

  Her knees nearly buckled, but it didn’t seem to bother Seth. He held her easily, clutching her tight. In spite of the sharp March air, the warmth of his body seemed to melt her very bones.

  “He’s unbelievable,” she declared. “Just unbelievable.” She finally found her feet and stood upright. Seth let go of her, and she turned to face him. “He can’t be serious.”

  Seth looked troubled, and why wouldn’t he be? This whole situation was a total mess. And it was wrong of her to ask him to take sides. Court was his brother, and blood
came first. Always.

  She glanced toward the house and was relieved to see no one in the windows peering out at them. Emma had taken Willow to the back bedroom, like Rowan had asked, and kept her there. She didn’t need to see this. Rowan wished she could disappear, too.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‡

  Seth studied Rowan’s face, to his own detriment. It was difficult to stomach seeing her in this much pain. He had known Court cheated on her; Sawyer had said as much at some point. His heart broke for her and what she must have gone through, what Court had put her through, young and pregnant, abandoned by his younger brother and having to lie to everyone about who the baby’s father was. It seemed wrong to Seth that Rowan had had to bear the weight of people’s judgmental looks when Court was every bit as responsible.

  And it had been hard to keep silent while listening to Court insist that he’d changed for the better. Seth had heard the words, but they didn’t exactly ring true, in his opinion. Court had been “different” for just a few days, and all he’d done, really, was pick up a reata and practice with it. Not exactly proof positive of long-lasting change. He still had to be hounded every day to help with baling and maintenance around the ranch.

  Rowan was right not to trust him, as hard as it was for Seth to have to admit that about his own brother. Seth’s every instinct vibrated like live wires inside him, wanting to protect her from further heartache. But he wasn’t sure how he could do that, wasn’t even sure it was his place to try. To say the situation was difficult was an enormous understatement.

  Seth wasn’t certain what he could do to make things any easier for the woman and her little girl, but as he racked his brain to come up with something, he was suddenly reminded of the sheep feed sitting in the back of his truck. It seemed like such a small gesture, but the idea made him feel good–like he was doing something, at least. He handed Rowan back the shotgun, confident she wouldn’t use it now, and walked to the truck’s bed. As he passed by the cab, he flashed a stern look at Court, a silent signal for the man to stay right there, exactly where he was. Seth lowered the gate and lifted the first sack.