by Lexie Ray
I didn’t know how to explain how I felt. There was great sadness, of course, and camaraderie. I knew plenty of guys who didn’t make it back, and the fact that this guy—Hadley’s fiancé—was one of them gave me pause. It was a brotherhood even if we didn’t serve in the same country or the same branch of military. We’d both served, and we were connected in that sense. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t just a bit of jealousy, and if that made me an asshole, then I supposed I was an asshole. Even if Hadley had broken my heart, I still loved her—probably in the same way she loved me and didn’t want to.
She looked at me for the first time since she’d really started opening up. “I didn’t want to take your case, you know, but Chance was adamant. Said I was your last hope, and what a fuck ton of pressure that was. I knew you were different. You were a client. That was fine. You were injured in Afghanistan; he was killed in Iraq; and you were…not the type of man I would usually fall for.”
“Missing a leg?”
“Too much like my fiancé.”
And that’s when it became crystal clear to me, why she didn’t want to be in love with me, Hadley’s next words washing over me.
“It broke me so thoroughly that I didn’t so much as look at another man again,” she said. “Maybe I’m a freak, but I haven’t dated—haven’t had even the tiniest inclination to share any part of my heart or body with another man. I wouldn’t even accept a male lab partner when I finally did go back to school. They called me the ice queen. But you…”
She trailed off, looking away from me again. “It’s not fair, you know, to either of us. You’re so much like him, and that’s not fair to me. We’ll always wonder if I’m just using you as a substitute for him, even if he’s never coming back. We can never be sure of each other. And it’s not fucking fair.”
Whatever strength that had kept her from crying had left her, and she sobbed great big, gulping torrents of tears. She cried with no reservations, completely devastated, feeling her dual-edged loss at its fullest.
I stood slowly, warily, wondering what I should do, what needed to be done to respond to this torrent of truth. There was no coming back from this, no apologies or posturing.
“When I saw you with her, it was like losing everything all over again,” she said, hiccupping as she struggled for air. “Everything came rushing back, and I knew I couldn’t do it again, couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t expect to love someone again.”
I was suddenly and brutally happy I’d chased Eileen off. Even if she never understood the magnitude of her crime, it was big enough to break Hadley’s heart, and I wanted to protect that precious part of the woman weeping in front of me as much as I could.
I approached Hadley slowly, not sure how she would react to me, whether she would push me away. But I couldn’t just stand here and watch her cry. It would be easier to sprout wings and fly.
She stiffened when I folded my arms around her, then changed her mind, clinging to me like she was trying to save herself from going under again. She was right. It wasn’t fair for her to feel like this. This was too much for anyone to cope with alone.
“I’m here now, Hadley,” I said. “I’ll always be here for you. No matter what.”
“I can’t lose you, too, Hunter,” she said, her words muffled by the front of my shirt. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to come back from it.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m never going to speak to Eileen again. She knows better than to come back here.”
“I love you.”
“I know you do. I love you, too.”
“But there’s probably always going to be a part of me that wishes I didn’t.”
“Well, there’s always going to be a part of me that’s plastic, so no one’s perfect.”
She laughed through her tears, and I smiled.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yes. But you love me, so maybe you’re an idiot, too.”
“That’s fair. I am an idiot.”
Were there two more imperfect people in the world standing together right now? I drew back a little bit and looked at Hadley, her green eyes bloodshot from crying and exhaustion, her auburn hair greasy and falling apart. She was even more beautiful than she ever had been to me before, and I knew it was because, in spite of everything, all of the doubts inside of her own heart, she came back. She came back to me.
I kissed her, lightly at first, then deepened it as she grabbed at me. I felt that kiss creep up my spine, held her tight, tried to reclaim what we’d had, even though I understood this was a new phase of our relationship, completely different from the helpless attraction we shared. Now we came into this thing with clear eyes, because we wanted to be here. It was so powerful to realize, that things could return to a sort of new normal. I’d never have my leg back, but that didn’t mean life was over. Life was simply different, a new normal. After everything Hadley and I had been through, both separately and together, nothing would ever return to being the “same.” We woke up different people every single day. What mattered was that we stayed together and hung onto the fact that we loved each other no matter what.
“You gave me back my life, don’t you understand that?” I asked her, touching her damp cheek, sticky with tear trails.
“You did the same for me,” she breathed, and she kissed me again.
Epilogue
I hated it here.
That was the truest kernel of my soul, the one I kept most carefully guarded.
It was my truth. I hated it here. I hated the ranch. I hated living here, working here, being here. I hated all of it.
This hellhole had taken everything from us, from me, and the rest of my brothers were too blind to see it for what it was. We worked ourselves to the bone for something none of us wanted, a share in a place that was slowly but steadily dragging us under.
I should’ve hated my brothers, too, but I didn’t. I resented them, sure, but I didn’t hate them. They were misguided, and I didn’t like the way they more or less forced me into working the ranch right alongside them, but they were family—the only family I had left. I just wished they could see that life could hold so much more potential outside of this sun-scorched patch of earth. We could’ve gone anywhere we wanted, done anything we wanted, if we’d cut ties with this place and moved on. We’d had dozens of offers of fellow ranchers trying to buy the place, but it was a point of pride for my brothers to keep our parents’ dream alive and sink their entire existence into this place.
Why did all of my brothers love this place so much? Even the ones who had escaped the ranch came back, drawn like metal to a magnet. I didn’t understand why. I’d left and come back, too, but that was a much different story. Why couldn’t any of us Corbins get the hell out of here?
“Avery!”
I turned just in time to see myself nearly get run down by my baby brother on his favorite horse.
“Chance will never forgive you if you rob him of a ranch hand,” I reminded him, and that was true. I was nothing more than a ranch hand to my oldest brother.
“You got that right,” Hunter agreed. “He wants to see you. Something about the cattle logs being out of date. He sounded pissed.”
“He always sounds pissed.” Those damn cattle logs. They were the bane of my existence. I wished someone else would do it, keeping tedious and thorough details about each and every braying mammal we had on the ranch, but it was somehow my duty to be so boring. I loathed it, and I knew Chance had finally noticed that I hadn’t been keeping good records.
“What are you doing all the way out here without your horse?” Hunter asked. “Want to hitch a ride back to the house so you can deal with Chance?”
“Hell, no,” I said with a snort. “I’m taking a walk. I’ll get back to deal with Chance whenever I get back.”
“Don’t you get enough exercise working the ranch?” Hunter joked, more comfortable astride the back of the horse than he was on his own feet. Well, only one of them was really his. The other
was artificial.
“Walking’s not exercise,” I retorted. “I do it to think. Don’t you get enough horseback riding done while you’re working?”
“I like going fast all the time,” he said, clicking his tongue at the animal and rocketing away at an almost instant gallop. I watched them until they were a dot on the horizon, then nothing, lost to the expanses of this rotten ranch. He loved the damn place, had ever since his first ride on a horse in Tucker’s arms as an infant. I remembered Tuck catching hell from our parents for that stunt.
Fine. It’d been good to see Hunter get better, borne along by love for the ranch and love for Hadley. That’d been a high moment, but those were getting few and far between. That was just part of the ranching life. When things were bad, they were really bad. Right now, they were the worst they’d ever been.
Last year, Chance had taken out a loan to keep us going. We’d had to buy feed for the cattle in the drought, had to truck in water as the river dried up to sustain the herd. No substantial rain had fallen since that deal with the bank, and the money had already run out. We could hardly grow hay, let alone maintain all our cattle, but us idiot Corbins seemed convinced that everything would eventually turn around, that we’d have a windfall of cash or the skies would open up and pour rain and everything would get better again.
I’d abandoned my count of how many days we’d been without. It got too damned depressing. I could keep track just from the way the leaves fell off the trees, the grass crackled and snapped and broke, the desiccated fish skeletons littering what used to be the river bottom.
When were my brothers going to understand that this place was going to suck up all of our dreams? We were already drowning in debt. What would happen when the inevitable struck? How would we repay everything if the ranch wasn’t worth a dime? It would be impossible for any of us to start over, impossible for me to ever escape this place.
I wrenched the mailbox open—it was rusty as hell for how dry it had been—and took the bundle of catalogs and envelopes out. When was the last time anyone had checked the stupid mail? A couple of letters fell to the dust underfoot, and I stooped to collect them before the dry wind rasped them away.
My eyes widened when I saw the one that had landed on top, brushing the dirt away to make sure I was seeing it correctly.
“Foreclosure notice,” it blared in thick, red letters.
A hole opened up in my stomach, thinking about the rest of my brothers who gave a damn about the ranch. In spite of their best efforts, the bank was moving to reclaim this property. They’d all be gutted at the news, scrambling to figure out what to do, selling everything that wasn’t bolted down to try and get us back on our feet.
It was going to be an ugly time.
But could anyone blame me for feeling…if not elated, then relieved? We’d been limping along, trying to stave off the end for so long. Now, the end was upon us. We knew what shape it was taking.
I smiled, looking at that blessed envelope.
The ranch was done.
###
AVERY
Chapter 1
Chance was at full lather when I met him inside the barn, pacing as he pored over those damn cattle logs I had — or had not — been keeping. If he cared so much about them, he could keep them himself. It was brain-numbing work keeping track of each and every member of the herd.
My oldest brother’s eyes flicked up to me, and I realized that I was really in for it.
“What is this?” he demanded, slapping the clipboard he was holding.
“I’m assuming it’s the cattle logs,” I said, shifting the mail I’d just retrieved from the box under my arm.
“Wrong,” Chance said. “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at, Avery. If it’s the cattle log, I’m shocked. There’s no logging here. It’s either incomplete or incomprehensible. How are we supposed to know all the animals are getting their vaccinations?”
“All of them get their shots,” I said. “We all make sure of that.”
“I know all of them are supposed to get their shots, but I’d like to check and make sure in the cattle logs — which are nonexistent. You haven’t even added all of the new calves’ tag numbers to this, let alone their weight. What about the one we had to cull because of the broken leg? There’s no record of this.”
“It’s all in here,” I said, tapping my temple.
“It needs to be all in here,” Chance said, mashing his finger so hard against the clipboard it turned white. “This is the only way we can keep track of everything. I need to be able to look at this log and be able to track the progress of the herd. If I can’t do that, how can I know what’s right when I’m looking at our expenditures?”
“Ask me whatever you need to know,” I said. “I can recite the tag numbers by heart. I can tell you which calves need more grain than the others. And I still remember the weight of the one we culled — and the price we got for that veal.”
“That’s wonderful for you,” Chance said. “I don’t want to pull you down from your horse to ask you about a number when I need you out riding. That’s what the cattle log is for.”
“I hate the cattle log,” I muttered. “It’s ineffectual on paper — we should get an iPad or something to keep track of everything. There are apps —”
“Do you really think I would get you a tablet if I can’t even trust you to keep track of things on paper?” Chance glowered at me, all six-foot-three of him. “Of course this is ineffectual on paper when the records are incomplete. This paper would be better served wiping my ass than functioning as a cattle log.”
He threw the clipboard as hard as he could against the wall of the barn, papers fluttering out of order.
“I think someone else should handle the cattle log,” I said, staring at the papers spread across the dirt. “Someone who doesn’t disappoint you as much as I do.”
“Don’t be a shit, Avery,” Chance said. “Everyone has their own jobs. This one is yours. The cattle log is key to this entire operation.”
“Find me another job, then, if I can’t be trusted with the cattle log,” I said. I would kill for another job — particularly one away from this damn place.
“What would you suggest, then?” My oldest brother approached me, his physicality intimidating. “The horses don’t like you, you’re not interested in learning how to maintain the tractor or learning about growing seasons or baling hay, you’re hopeless at fence repairs, and you hate the cattle log. Should I put Zoe on a horse and have you keep house now?”
I scowled. “It’s not my fault that I’m not as good as the rest of you all at everything.”
“It’s not that you’re not good at things, Avery,” Chance said, relenting a little bit, looking like guilt set in at raking me over the coals like this. “It’s like you don’t even care enough to try. Do you want to be here or don’t you?”
And wasn’t this the ultimate question? I hated the ranch, hated living here, hated working here, hated how much of our lives it consumed. There were five of us Corbins, and people said ranching ran in our blood. It was true, in a way: The ranch itself had been in our family for countless years, a half-dozen generations, practically. But most of the time I felt like the passion that consumed the rest of my brothers about this place skipped me, somehow, that I was a genetically deficient Corbin because I didn’t like it as much as everyone else did.
Well, to be honest, I didn’t think anyone liked it very much right now. The ranch was in dire straits — worse than any of us could remember. I was of the opinion that there was never a moment in which the ranch didn’t seem like it was in dire straits. We worried if it didn’t rain, if it rained too much, if we had a freeze, if there was a threat of wildfire, if the cattle got sick or injured, whether they were reproducing, when they reproduced, whether the hay would grow, how much grain we might need if it wouldn’t, and a host of other problems. There was always something that needed to be done on the ranch whether it was related to the cattle or not. We
didn’t do weekends, here, didn’t have social lives or love lives or anything.
Well, Hunter was the exception on those fronts. He and Hadley were using some of our money — funds we’d diverted from the ranch to Hadley for Hunter’s physical therapy — to build a little cottage down by the river, apart from the big house. Chance never bugged Hunter and Hadley about cattle logs, I was certain, or conserving energy or trying to find some way to scrape together money to try and buy a load of hay since ours wasn’t growing.
But that wasn’t fair. Hunter had been through a lot, and he deserved his happiness, which included both Hadley and the ranch. They weren’t married or even talking about it, but she’d already made it clear that what was hers was Hunter’s. We might need her help sooner rather than later, especially with the bombshell I was about to drop on Chance.
If I had anything else to do, anywhere else to go, anyone else to be with, I wouldn’t be here. That was what I was convinced of, even if I tried to hide it from the rest of my brothers — Chance, in particular. Our oldest brother had really shouldered the majority of the burden in keeping this ranch alive. To him, it was a lot more than a ranch; it was a legacy. It was our parents’ and their parents’ before them and so on — that kind of bullshit. To badmouth the ranch would probably earn me a punch to the teeth.
“You’d better look at this,” I said, peeling off an envelope from the bundle I carried.
“You’d better answer my question,” he countered, grabbing the letter. Then, his eyes widened, and I felt much more guilt than I thought I would being the bearer of bad news. I thought it would be fun to take Chance down a peg or two, but he fumbled for a chair and sat heavily in it, just gazing at the envelope, at those thick red letters on the front of it, and I felt like an asshole.
