Rough Stock

by Dahlia West

  Rowan stared at him, astonished. “What are you…what is that?”

  “Your feed order from Hellman’s,” he told her as he walked past her toward the barn. “You left in such a hurry you forgot to take it with you.”

  She hesitated, gazing after him, before falling into step beside him. “I didn’t pay for it, either, Seth.”

  “It’s taken care of,” he assured her as he stopped in front of the closed barn door. He nodded at it, and Rowan snatched at the steel handle, heaving it open. “Where should I put em?”

  “Seth…” She gaped at him, eyes blinking furiously. “Seth, this isn’t your problem. I can’t let you g—”

  “It’s already done, sweetheart. Now, this one’s kinda heavy…so where should I put it?”

  She still hesitated, and he was forced to shift the seventy-five-pound sack in his arms to avoid dropping it. “Oh God,” she gasped. “Here. Over here. Against this wall.”

  He followed her gesture and set it down gently, so as not to rip the canvas, then headed back out for the second, and the third. He saw her attempt to lean the gun against the sidewall and help him. Seth shot her a look as sharp as the one he’d given Court. She froze. “Don’t,” he told her. “Don’t even.”

  “I can get a few,” she called after him as he headed back for more.

  Seth grunted. “That’s not the point.”

  He finished in a few minutes, bringing in the last bag as full darkness settled around them. The overhead industrial light on the barn’s ceiling buzzed over the sound of restless sheep penned in for the night several feet away.

  “I…I can’t let you, I mean, I…”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw her pull out her billfold from her jeans pocket. Even from this distance, he could see she was broke. The single bill in her wallet might be the only one she had left. Her ears pinked from embarrassment as she stared into the tiny abyss, as though she could will more money to appear if she tried hard enough.

  Seth turned his head away quickly, adjusting the feed bag against the wall.

  “There are checks in the house,” she said. “Somewhere in Dad’s office. I’ll find one.”

  “You’re…” he began, but paused. Broke, he wanted to say, but of course he couldn’t. Seth’s tongue danced on his teeth as he tried to come up with something else. He realized he didn’t know what Rowan was, exactly. She wasn’t family, and they weren’t friends. She was a woman who needed help, though, and Seth couldn’t walk away from that. “You’re busy right now,” he finished, to save her dignity. “Worry about it later.”

  He stood up and brushed off his jeans as she frowned at him.

  “I can’t let you leave without paying you for this,” she insisted. “You never should have gotten them in the first place.” She bit down on her lip then, so hard Seth expected to see blood. He instinctively reached for his handkerchief then realized she still had it. “I’m sorry,” she amended. “It’s not…I’m grateful. I am. It’s just…”

  The silence hung between them for a moment before Seth finally said, “It’s cold tonight, Rowan. Go inside since you forgot to put on my jacket.” He smiled at her so she would know he wasn’t irritated or put out even the least bit. “We’ll see each other again,” he told her, though he wished like hell that it would be under better circumstances. A drink and a dance at the Silver Spur, while obviously having complications of its own, was so much more appealing than standing here in the dark watching her try not to cry.

  Seth walked to his truck and slid behind the wheel. He cranked the engine over on his Super Duty and let it warm. Beside him, Court was still acting as though someone had snatched away his favorite toy, face pinched, jaw clenched. He was acting more like a child than the father of one. They rolled out of the Archers’ driveway and onto the highway, putting Rowan in the rearview for now.

  Seth hoped that Court would remain silent, use the time to calm down and think about what should happen going forward. There were going to be a lot of adjustments, and a lot of details needed to be hammered out. Court would do well to start focusing on the future. It didn’t seem like he was ready for that, though.

  “Can you believe her?” Court snapped.

  It had just started, and Seth was already tired of this conversation. “No, I can’t believe you, Court. You knew. She called you, asking for help, and you turned your back on her. She was a kid, for God’s sake, scared and alone, and you just walked away.” Seth sighed. “It’s partly our fault. I know it. We all turn a blind eye to your bullshit. Oh, that’s Court. Someday he’ll learn. Someday he’ll grow up. But this? No, I can’t understand this. Because you were raised better than that. You’re surrounded by people who are better than that.”

  Court had the audacity to roll his eyes. “Oh, here we go. Saint Seth’s in his pulpit, ready to show us all how to live.”

  Seth ignored the jab. “Saint? No, Court, it’s common goddamn decency. You don’t abandon a woman after you get her into trouble. You don’t take a shot of whiskey and press a button and just delete the problems you don’t want to deal with.”

  Court did sink a little lower in his seat at that. “I did a dumb thing,” he admitted.

  A dumb thing? Really? That was all he had to say about it? “It’s beyond that, Court,” Seth pressed.

  “Okay, okay! I said I’ve changed!”

  “I’m not the one you need to prove that to.”

  “I get it,” Court insisted. “I will. I’ll show her. I’ll get her back.”

  That declaration didn’t make Seth particularly happy. “Court, it’s not about that. It’s not about getting back together with Rowan.”

  “Well, why not? She’s a nice girl…when she’s not being a bitch, apparently.”

  Seth’s hands flexed on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. He wanted to hit Court, knock some sense into him now before it was too late. Maybe it already was.

  Court shrugged. “She’s loyal and fun. She’ll be a good wife.”

  No word on whether or not he’d be a good husband.

  If Seth weren’t driving, he’d close his eyes and count to ten. As it was, he gazed intently at the road in front of them. “Just…just focus on being a father, okay?”

  Court nodded his agreement enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah. That’s good. That’ll bring Rowan around, definitely.”

  “Court, kids aren’t pawns,” Seth snapped, starting to really lose his temper. Court could be exasperating sometimes. “You can’t use them.”

  “Who said anything about using her? This is my family. You do whatever it takes for your family, right?”

  Seth kept his mouth shut, not knowing how to answer. How could Court get something so right and still so wrong at the same damn time? They finally reached their own spread, and Seth turned into the Snake River driveway, angling the Ford up to the Big House. Court jumped out the second the engine was off, leaving Seth to watch him walk away. He doesn’t get it, Seth thought to himself. Not at all. Seth sighed, hoping his little brother figured it out fast, for all their sakes. He eased out of the cab, muscles aching a bit from carrying the feed into the Archers’ barn. He headed up the wooden steps of the front porch of the Big House and would’ve gone directly upstairs to his room for a hot shower, but the smell of the dinner he’d missed out on had him finding his way into the kitchen instead.

  There, Dakota’s mother, Sofia, was sitting at the table with a mug of steaming coffee and her ledger. One look from her told Seth that she’d already heard about Court’s latest drama through the Star Valley grapevine. She rose up from her chair, giving him a sympathetic look. “I’ll fix you a plate.”

  Seth waved her away. “I can do it.”

  “No, no. Sit down,” the woman insisted.

  Normally Seth wouldn’t hear of it, but he was tired. He slid into an empty chair across from her. “Thanks, Sofia.” He peeled the hat off his head and hung it off one of the chairs, running his fingers through his hair, which was getting a
little long. He barely had enough time to wash it every day, it seemed. Going into town and having it taken care of would just have to be put off for another month.

  “What am I going to do with him?” Seth asked her as she slid a plate of chicken and dumplings onto the table in front of him. “He can’t see past his own nose, Sofia. How’s he going to raise a little girl? It’s ridiculous! He thinks they’ll get married, live happily ever after. It’s like he just doesn’t see all the pain he’s caused. He just wants the happy ending, right now, right this second, at the snap of his fingers.”

  Sofia sat back down into her own chair and looked at him. “Your father cast a long shadow,” she replied. “Walker, too. Court’s just trying to see where he fits in.”

  “But Court doesn’t have to live in Walker’s shadow,” Seth argued.

  “No, you don’t have to live in Walker’s shadow. And you don’t, because you’re your own man, Seth. But Court doesn’t know yet what kind of man he is.”

  Seth snorted. “He knows what kind of man he wants to be. He’s going to use Rowan and Willow to out–Walker Walker.”

  For better or worse, Walker had thrown down the gauntlet, and Court had picked it up. Seth didn’t like Court’s chances of living up to the example of the eldest Barlow.

  “All I know is, there’s a woman and kid here and they’re probably going to get hurt.” Seth felt guilty and offered the kind woman a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Sofia. None of this is your problem. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. Not right now. You have other things to think about.”

  It had been less than two months since Sofia had lost Manny in the storm. Court and his problems seemed so minuscule by comparison.

  “Life doesn’t stop,” she replied. “We all must go on, even though we don’t want to, even though it’s hard. You know, your father always worried about Walker, that he was driving himself too hard all the time, and Court because he never seemed to have any drive at all. But Diana, she worried about you the most. Even when you were young.”

  Seth was startled to hear that about his mother. “Me? Why me? I never caused problems.”

  Sofia smiled at him. “No. Never. You were too busy trying to solve everyone else’s. She said you gave too much and left nothing for yourself.”

  “She never said anything to me.”

  “She was afraid to, afraid you’d second-guess your nature. She never wanted to change your spirit, but she worried just the same.”

  Seth was troubled by that, by the idea that he’d been a burden to his mother in any way, especially when she had so much to deal with—raising five boys, trying to fight off recurring cancer. The last thing on Earth he ever wanted to be—to anyone—was a burden. It was disheartening to know that all his efforts to make things easier on his mother had seemed to turn him into that very thing.

  He finished eating and washed his plate in the sink so that Sofia wouldn’t have to. On the way up to his bedroom, though, he wasn’t sure she could fully understand the extent of the Barlows’ loss. Seth was certain that Sofia missed her husband as much as he missed his father, but he was equally certain that the woman hadn’t relied on Manny the way the Barlows had with Rafe. Dad had been their rock, their foundation. He’d have known how to handle Court. He’d have had it all figured out by the time the sun had set. Dad had never been one to sleep on his problems. He’d solved them, quickly, efficiently, and they usually stayed resolved.

  Dad’s office door was closed, but there were muffled voices coming from inside. Seth took a step toward it, debating whether or not to knock, or go inside, or possibly get Sawyer to help him break up the fight that was about to boil over. Before he had time to make a decision, the door flew open and Walker stormed out of it.

  He nearly ran into Seth, who had to jump back to get out of the way.

  Austin followed, hot on his twin’s heels. They both looked seriously pissed off. “If you’d just listen! I—”

  “Forget it, Austin!” Walker growled. “Just forget it! There is no way I’m funding you to dig for buried fucking treasure, all right? It’s not going to happen.”

  Austin’s mouth dropped open. “That’s…that’s not even what I’m doing with it! I want—”

  Walker raised a hand to cut him off. “We’re not kids anymore, Austin. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to take responsibility. We have a ranch to run. And you’re not going to ride off into the hills, away from our problems, to buy a silver mine and play prospector while we work our asses off down here. There are no choices here,” he spat. “There are only chores, and you’re not getting out of them. Not with Dad’s insurance money.” He turned and headed not to the stairs but to the front door, slamming it so hard that it rattled on its hinges.

  Austin sighed and glared at Seth as though the mere act of witnessing the exchange had somehow caused Walker to say no again. He stomped off, too, in the direction of the back door.

  Seth stood alone at the foot of the stairs, waiting for a moment for one or both of them to return. It was nothing but silence and darkness, though. He turned and head upstairs, slowly because he was bone tired. As he passed Dad’s shuttered bedroom, he found himself wishing he could go inside, find him there, and Mom, too, while he was fantasizing. He remembered everything about her, her hair, her laugh. Strange to think that she’d worried about him, even all the way back then.

  He passed by their empty room on the way to his own, pushed in the door, and closed it behind himself. As much as he wanted to strip down and stand under the hot water in the shower, he forced himself to look at the room, at the blue walls, the football trophies, the Boy Scout sash on the hook by the closet.

  It hadn’t changed. Not in three decades. It still looked exactly the way it did when he was growing up; yet somehow it seemed completely foreign to him, like it belonged to someone else. He supposed it was because he was so rarely here anymore.

  Seth spent so much time on the range, with the herd, that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at this room, really looked at it. He showed up to shower, and to sleep somewhere other than the dirt, whenever he could. He’d never given himself or this room much thought. It had all seemed temporary, just a place to keep his things until his life started.

  Somehow temporary had turned into thirty-one years without him noticing. Somehow Seth Barlow’s life had never actually started. Or, obviously it had, it had just never gone anywhere. He kicked off his boots and heaved a sigh as he unbuttoned his shirt. He wasn’t going anywhere tonight, that was a fact, and so he’d do what he always did, the opposite of Dad, it seemed. He’d shower and sleep and try to fix everything in the morning.

  Court and Rowan came first though, because their problems were bigger than his own.

  Chapter Twelve

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  Rowan tugged Willow through the hospital’s front doors and into the lobby. Even the parking lot didn’t feel safe. Ever since her argument with Court yesterday, she was looking over her shoulder, half expecting to find him standing there. He hadn’t called again, or come to the house, and he certainly wasn’t going to be in the hospital right now as they were visiting Dad.

  To the right she spotted the nurses’ desk but stifled a groan when she recognized another familiar face. Jill Sykes was talking on the phone. Normally it was a good thing to have an ‘in’ when applying for a job, but as Rowan forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, she didn’t think this was going to give her any kind of advantage.

  Jill saw them approach, hung up the phone, and looked at Willow. Jill gave her a smile. It was hard, though, thin lipped with a slightly cruel edge. When she looked to Rowan, she lifted her hand toward her own hair. On her left ring finger, a dazzling rock glittered under the fluorescent lighting. “Come to visit your dad again today?” Jill asked.

  Rowan nodded and lifted the sheet of paper in her free hand. “I thought I’d drop this off first, on my way through.”

  Jill continued to smile, though it looked
slightly painful. Rowan would’ve thought that fake smiling would be as easy as falling down to Jill Sykes at this point. Jill was pretty. Not Cassidy-Conroy-County-Fair-Queen pretty, but good enough to be runner-up. Every year. Though Jill would never have been nominated for Miss Congeniality. The tightness around the woman’s mouth and eyes told Rowan that flashing the ring had been intentional.

  Rowan smiled back anyway and pushed her resume across the counter. She was silently congratulating herself, though, on having already emailed the hospital’s staffing director, as well. Just in case Jill “misplaced” this one. The woman’s fingers twitched as she plucked it off the flat surface.

  Rowan could already picture it sailing into the trash the minute she turned her back.

  “I’ll see that it gets to the right place!” Jill chirped.

  Both women locked eyes, and it certainly felt like both of them were forcing themselves not to glance at the bin.

  Rowan nodded and headed toward Dad’s room, Willow in tow. The fake smile faded as they walked down the hall. She’d worked with worse people, though, and she’d have to suck it up.

  As Rowan entered the room, Emma saw the look on her face and knew something was up. “Hey!” she said to Willow, holding out her hand. “I was just thinking about a candy bar!”

  “Okay!” Willow replied, abandoning Rowan for her aunt, and the two of them whisked past Rowan as they headed for the lobby and its bevy of vending machines.

  Rowan watched them go then turned to Dad.

  “Is it that bad?” he asked with a wan smile. “Because I could’ve sworn the doctors said I was going to pull through. ’Course, they said some other things about bacon and beer, but I think I’ll focus on the positive for now.”

  Rowan huffed. “Dad! Don’t joke!”

  “Who’s joking? You look like someone ran over your dog. No one ran over the dogs, did they?”