by Dahlia West
“I will never, ever take your daughter away,” he amended. “She’s your blood, and I won’t do that. But Rowan…” He swallowed hard and shook his head. “Rowan doesn’t need you. She needs me. She wants me, Court. And I want her. I have never—ever—asked any of you for a God damn thing, not in my entire life. And I’m not doing it now. I’m taking it. I’m taking her. And I swear to God if you try to stop me, I’ll put you right back down in the dirt. I’ll stand here, and I’ll keep doing it, keep putting you down until you give up. Because I will never give up, Court. I will never give up on Rowan the way you did.”
Court pushed himself off the ground, and Seth tensed to deliver another blow. Not for any real reason other than he was so furious at Court, at life, at the hand he’d been dealt. His own bad decisions had put him here. He knew it, but he was still raw about it. As his hands flexed into fists, Court raised his own in surrender.
“I get it,” Court said quietly.
Seth snorted derisively.
“I do,” his younger brother insisted. “I do. I’ve seen it. In both of you. The two of you are in so much pain, pain that I caused. I came to tell you she needs you more than she needs me. I can’t do it, either, Seth. I can’t watch the two of you struggling so hard to push each other away for my sake. You need each other. You deserve each other. Though…I appreciate not being cut out of my daughter’s life.”
He said it with no hint of sarcasm, no sign of anger or contempt. All Seth heard was reason and regret. He blinked at Court, unable to quite believe what he was hearing. It seemed impossible that Court would give up anything willingly for somebody else. And yet here he was, backing down from a fight so that Seth could have the one thing he wanted most in the world. It was a small victory, only the first, Seth knew.
The biggest battle was still to come.
“It’ll…it’ll take the rest of my life to get her back,” he groaned. “I broke her heart into a million pieces. And I don’t know how I’m going to fix it, since she won’t see me. She won’t even look at me. She won’t even let me help her with her ranch when she so clearly needs it.”
Court actually smiled. “I’ve got an idea about that,” he said.
“About what?” Seth asked. “About how I can get her back? Or how I can save her place?”
“Yep,” replied Court, adjusting his hat.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‡
Rowan’s foot let off the gas the moment Dad said, “Slow down there, lead foot. None of them are chasing us.” She glanced at him guiltily and let the car slow even more. She was relieved to be heading back home, no more rude stares from the residents of Star Valley, no awkward silences at dinner surrounded by Barlows, none of whom she wanted to see again. She was grateful that Willow was still so young, so oblivious to the tension so often swirling around her. And to the Barlows’ credit, not one of them had made the little girl feel anything less than a new, welcome addition to their already large family.
“See, Pop-Pop! I told you my daddy got me a pony!” Willow declared, beaming in the backseat.
“Yep. You did tell me,” Dad replied.
“She’s borrowed, but she’s still mine. For a little while.”
Rowan fought the urge to set the record straight for the millionth time. Just saying Seth’s name out loud seemed like a Herculean task at this point. She let it go, let him go, and everything to do with him.
The hills rolled past, but the mountains beyond remained steadfast. Part of Rowan wanted to go home, but part of her just wanted to keep on driving, straight to the Tetons, and maybe never look back. Finally spying their driveway (and the gate Seth had repaired for them) she pulled to a stop in front of the house, parked the car, and gestured toward the porch as she got out. “Get the door, baby,” she requested, intending to help Dad out of the passenger seat.
Dad groaned, and Rowan rushed to his side. He was stiff, clearly sore from being out and about for so long. If it hadn’t been a holiday, she’d have insisted that they stay home so he could get some much-needed rest.
“No more going out,” she declared.
Dad tried to laugh, but it came out in a coughing fit. When it subsided, he said, “Well, sweetie, if I don’t go to church, how will I see your mom after the big one hits?”
Rowan glared at him as they shuffled up the porch steps. “You better be talking about an earthquake and not another heart attack.”
He shrugged. “Might take a heart attack over steamed vegetables. Though I wouldn’t say no to more of Sofia’s empanadas.” He coughed again, this time so hard she had to fetch him a glass of water.
“We didn’t have to go to Snake River,” she declared.
Willow held the door for them as Rowan helped him into the house.
Her father grunted. “Yes, we did. And you know why. They’re family, Rowan. Like it or not, you have to do things for your children that you wouldn’t do otherwise, not if it was just yourself.” The old man held her gaze as he looked up at her. “We can’t have them helping out over here when we need it just to turn our backs on them when we don’t.”
For a moment, Rowan’s stomach twisted as she thought he was talking about Seth, but then she remembered letting Court watch Willow the other day. Dad still didn’t know about Seth, didn’t know that the minute Rowan had come back to Star Valley she’d taken up with yet another Barlow and it had ended disastrously, as all relationships did, especially where a Barlow was concerned. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth or admit that it had been mostly Seth she’d wanted to avoid.
“Here, sit down,” she said, trying to change the subject.
She didn’t want to talk about it, but she was done making mistakes, that much was certain. Dad was on the mend, and she was moving back home, and that was all she needed, honestly, to make her happy now. Willow would grow up on the farm Rowan loved, with a grandfather who adored her. Dad was right, you did things for your children you wouldn’t do otherwise. Rowan would just have to give up on the idea of love, the thought of having a partner to share her life with, so that Willow could go on living the life she deserved.
She’d made a choice, years ago. She’d chosen her daughter’s health and happiness over her own. Rowan had been a fool, nothing less than a God damned fool, to think that she’d ever have anything for her own damn self.
Willow had a father, a grandfather, and a piece of land that had been in the family stretching back generations, if Rowan didn’t somehow manage to screw that up, too. Life here would be hard, harder still being mostly on her own, but as she watched Willow climb up into Dad’s chair, settle onto the man’s lap, and reach for the TV remote, Rowan knew it was the only choice left to her.
“We don’t need their help, Dad,” she said as the TV flickered on. “I can do it.” She didn’t wait for a reply. She headed out the front door, instead, leaving Seth’s borrowed jacket hanging on the hook, preferring the cold at this point. In the barn she flipped on the ceramic heaters and picked up a broom, telling herself that she could save the place with her own two hands, if that’s what it took.
She just had to figure out how.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‡
Seth stood behind Court as he pushed the office door inward. He was surprised to see Austin and Walker standing together in front of Dad’s large desk. It was clear from their faces they’d been arguing. Seth groaned inwardly, thinking that, quite possibly, every single Barlow was going to come to blows today over one thing or another.
Walker eyed Court as he and Seth entered the room. “Are you two ever going to stop fighting?” he asked wearily.
Seth leaned against the wall and gazed at the twins. Neither of them seemed worse for wear. Yet. “Could say the same about you,” he replied.
“We’re not fighting,” Walker insisted.
“Not taking swings at each other, at least,” Austin added. “But I can’t seem to get it through Walker’s thick skull that if we don’t do something,
we’re going to lose this place.”
“On that we actually do agree. We’ve got to do something,” Walker told them all. “Or we’re not going to make it.”
“I keep saying that!” Austin shot back.
Walker was quiet for a moment, tapping his fingers on the top of the desk. “It’s…worse than you think. We don’t have enough left in the business accounts to stay afloat another two years.”
Court sat up straight, and even Seth blinked at his oldest brother furiously. “Two years?” Seth cried. “What?!” Surely they had more than that, surely it was savings for at least another five. Maybe seven if they were careful about costs and didn’t have any cows that failed to breed.
“How is this possible?” Court demanded. “That’s not right. That can’t be right.”
Walker scowled. “I’ve been in this room,” he told them, “crunching these numbers all day, every day. This is the way things are. There’s money going out, but not much coming in. We’re paying too much for feed costs, paying outfits in Texas for God knows what.”
“Texas?” Seth asked.
Walker shrugged and gestured to a stack of papers scattered on the desk. “Bull services,” he replied.
“Bull services? We have Sampson,” Court argued. “Plus the frozen stock. What are we still paying for?”
Walker sighed. “I have no idea. I haven’t sorted it all out yet. Dad had a system, and we…” He paused and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I guess we thought we’d have more time, for him to explain it all. I think…” He looked at all of them, as though he was unsure what to say, exactly. Which was new territory for them. Walker always knew what to say and never had trouble saying it.
“I think he knew that if he started laying it all out for me ahead of time, all our vendors, all our expenses, if he did it before the storm, I might have cottoned on to what he was going to do. Or maybe he hadn’t planned it all that well in the first place. I don’t know. Maybe he’d been thinking about it, in the back of his mind, what he would do if one more storm came through. And then one did…and he had to go.”
“He didn’t have to go,” Court growled.
“Well, he thought he did,” Walker argued.
“I still don’t get why you think that, why you think he’d do that,” Court accused.
“It doesn’t matter,” Walker told him. “It’s just the way it is.”
Austin leaned forward in his chair, looking up at his twin. “We need to try something, something new, something different.”
“I agree,” said Seth.
“It’s putting us at risk,” Walker declared. “We could just end up losing Snake River faster.”
“We won’t,” Austin insisted. “I know we won’t. It’ll be a good spring, Walker.”
Walker frowned. “Not even you can tell what next winter will be like. Not this early.”
“No,” Austin admitted. “I can’t. But a good spring and summer is all we need, and it’s what we’re going to have. I can make this work. I swear to you, to all of you. I can make this work.”
Walker looked at each of them with a dour expression on his face. “We all have to agree. And where’s Sawyer, anyway?”
“Outside the door,” said Sawyer as he moved into view. “Just eavesdropping. And making sure no one throws another punch.” He grimaced, though, when he saw Court’s black eye. “Guess I’m late on that score.”
“So, we all agree?” Walker asked.
Everyone nodded.
“Yeah,” Court replied. “But how much of the money are you going to use?” he asked.
Walker frowned as he picked up the checkbook. “Why?”
Court shifted in his seat and glanced at Seth then back to their oldest brother. “Because we need some, too,” he replied.
Walker’s brow furrowed. “For what?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
‡
Rowan heard a truck pull into the driveway the next morning but couldn’t wash her hands from cleaning the kitchen fast enough to see who it was before there was a knock at the front door. Drying her hands, she peeled back the curtains to find Court standing on the front porch. Even through the windowpane it looked like the man was sporting a brand-new shiner. Not entirely surprising. Court could piss anybody off.
Next to him was a second, burly shape. Her heart knocked in her chest, thinking it was Seth. Certainly the large build and dark hair peeking out from underneath a white Stetson was familiar.
But he turned, and she saw it was Walker standing beside him. And then her heart knocked again for an entirely different reason.
“Rowan?” asked Dad from his chair.
Not knowing what to say about who their visitors were, she turned the knob slowly and eased open the door. In the gray morning light, they both looked serious, intense.
“Can we come in?” Court asked.
Rowan wanted to say no, for a whole host of reasons but she stepped aside anyway and let them pass into the entryway, then into the living room once she closed the door behind them.
“Daddy!” Willow cried and flung herself at Court’s legs.
The man bent and picked her up. He kissed her on the cheek, but he looked nervous, and Walker looked fierce, as always, Rowan supposed. The eldest Barlow’s face had the same sharp eyes, the same slightly downturned mouth that Rowan had come to associate with him. She braced herself for anything: damning accusations, threats, lectures, but the eldest Barlow brother only gave her a simple nod before he turned to her father.
“Mr. Archer,” said Walker in his deep-chested rumble.
Dad grunted. “Walker. Guess we’ve had ourselves a fair bit of trouble lately.”
Walker grimaced. “We have.”
Dad cast Rowan a furtive look then sighed. “I understand how things look, ’specially to folks in town.”
Rowan wanted to melt into the floorboards all over again remember the looks in church.
“And I’m not taking sides,” Dad continued. “Not badmouthing your brother there, to anyone, or silently. I’m not taking sides except to say that Rowan’s made up her mind about not marrying Court. I’m not going to try to change it for her, and frankly, it’s none of your business.”
Walker looked startled, caught entirely off guard. He glanced back and forth between Court and Rowan.
“We’re not here about that,” Court said quietly.
An awkward silence descended until Walker cleared his throat to break it. “We were thinking about your health problems. And about how difficult it will be to run this place for you now, under the circumstances.” He shifted a bit uncomfortably. “Given our…connection…to each other, we think we should sit down and discuss the future, of your ranch, and ours.”
Rowan’s jaw dropped.
“Realistically,” Walker continued, “keeping up with this place is going to be hard. Our dad was having trouble, there at the end,” Walker told them. “Could hardly mount his horse some days.”
Dad grunted. “Don’t have a horse,” he snapped, but she could see understanding in his eyes as he spoke. Dad may not have a horse, but lifting feed bags, filling troughs, shearing, lambing—it was more than enough for one able-bodied man. She could only imagine the way Dad had been struggling a bit more each year to get the chores done in his advancing age.
He didn’t want to talk about it, though, or even have it pointed out to him. That much was apparent. Walker must have sensed that he’d said as much as maybe should be said on the subject, because he switched gears. “We’ve all fallen on hard times, Mr. Archer. We’ve all had the same three winters in a row. I think if we band together, we can make the best use of what we have. Rowan can’t do it on her own, and it’ll just continue to get more difficult for you. We’re not offering to buy your spread. God knows we couldn’t afford to make a decent offer on the place, even if we wanted to. But we don’t want to buy it. We’re not interested in taking your land from you.”
Dad frowned. “So, what do you want
?”
Walker took off his hat, revealing the same wavy, dark-brown hair that Seth had—all the Barlows, really. He cradled the Stetson carefully in his hands before he looked back up at Rowan’s father. “I think we should throw our lots in together.”
Dad’s brow furrowed. “How’s that?” he asked. “You’re cattle ranchers. I don’t know anything about cattle. And you don’t know anything about sheep.”
“We’d like to lease your land, Mr. Archer. All of it. We’d like to split up our herd, keep some of them here to give our grazing lands time to fully recover from this nasty weather. This cycle of freeze, drought, freeze, drought has just about killed off our hayfields entirely. We’ve got a new venture, too, to try and solve our feed problems.”
“Lease,” said Dad, leaning back in his chair.
“Yes, sir,” replied Walker quietly, because everyone in the room knew what meant.
“Archers have raised sheep on this land almost as long as you’ve been raising cattle.”
“But we’re not just cattle ranchers, sir,” Walker countered. “And you’re not just sheep ranchers. Not at our core. At our core we’re pioneers, going back more than a hundred years. And not just our ancestors, Mr. Archer. Us, too, even now. We change. We adapt. We do what we have to because the bottom line is, we love this land and we don’t want to leave it.”
Walker cleared his throat and glanced at Rowan, then back to Dad. “Your granddaughter, my niece, one day my own children—this is what we’re leaving to them. What matters is that there’s something to leave, sir.”
Everyone was silent then, waiting for the old man to consider it all. Even Rowan, not a rancher by trade these days, knew there would be no going back. Sure, they could cancel the agreement, kick the Barlows off their land if they changed their minds. But selling the flock, all of the sheep, along with the ceramic heaters and the other equipment would be a point of no return. To buy it all back in the event of a falling out between the families just wouldn’t be possible.
