by Lexie Ray
“That’s terrible.”
“Toby needs a father,” she said, still sounding like she was lost in that nightmarish memory. “Someone he can look up to. You’re the one who married me, the one who adopted him. Can’t you find the time to do this? Or do you not have it in you?”
“He has loads of positive male influences in his life, now,” I said, unable to understand why I was squirming. I regretted calling Zoe. I shouldn’t have. It was a moment of weakness, and now she was practically eviscerating me. I should’ve just wallowed in my own misery instead of looking for comfort from Zoe.
“He needs you, Chance. He adores you. He understands what you’ve done — what we’ve done. He knows his mama married you, and that you’re in a position to be his father.”
“That’s not what I signed up for.” What was this strange stab of panic? I couldn’t explain myself to Zoe when I couldn’t even explain my own misgivings about being a father. My own father had only been in my life for such a short period. I couldn’t be a good father to anyone, and certainly not Toby, who came so damaged in the first place. Zoe was right. He needed someone really good to be his father, and I doubted I was going to fit that bill.
Then, she said something that made me lose myself.
“I would’ve thought that you, of all people, would’ve realized just how important it is to feel like you have a father.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand the fighting and the negotiating, the tiptoeing and the yelling. I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t cut out for this.
I hurled my phone across the room. It hit the wall, denting it, before shattering against the floor. Just one more broken thing in my life. It fit in pretty well here.
Chapter 8
I must’ve fallen asleep, lying on the bed for so long after that disaster of a phone call, and was surprised awake, the sun already low in the sky.
“Hey, will you come into the front room for a minute?”
My shoulders jumped at Tucker’s intrusion, but he didn’t apologize for startling me.
“What is it?” I asked, unable to feign even an ounce of real interest. I felt like shit because I was a shit. I regretted everything. I shouldn’t have ever married Zoe or adopted Toby. I hadn’t been cut out for it then, and I wasn’t cut out for it now. She was right. She was right about everything. I was a coward, and selfish, and everything else. I was only just now starting to understand.
“We need to talk,” Tucker said. “Now.”
“Now’s not a good time for me,” I said.
“You’re just sitting on the bed, brother,” he pointed out. “You’d have fooled me if you were in the office, but I don’t think you have any other pressing engagements at the moment.”
“I’ll reword it, then. I’m not in the fucking mood right now.”
If my venom cut Tucker, he didn’t show it. “We’re all out there. You know, your brothers. We’d like to talk to you about the ranch. About what the plan is moving forward.”
“You all are capable, grown men,” I said. “You can take care of it.”
“It’s not like you to shirk your responsibilities like this,” Tucker said. “Something major happened out there. We have things to discuss.”
“Do whatever you want,” I said. “I don’t care. I really don’t.”
“You don’t even want to know what we’re thinking about doing?” he asked, peering at me. “What the cops said? What our plans are? You don’t care about any of that?”
“You heard me correctly.”
Tucker shook his head and walked right back out of the room. I thought I’d done what I’d needed to get a little time to myself, but then the door opened again and all of my brothers filed in, all of them looking grim and sober.
“I already told Tuck, and now I’m going to tell the rest of you,” I warned. “I am in no mood to meet about the ranch right now. Don’t even try me.”
“You’re the CEO of this place, Chance,” Avery said. “Paisley’s been trying to get a hold of you all day.”
“My phone’s broken,” I said helpfully, pointing across the room, where it lay in pieces.
“What’s wrong with you?” Emmett asked. “Are you seriously rolling over right now? Now? Of all times to give up?”
“You know, maybe I am,” I said. “What words can I say that would convince you all that I’m fucking done with this place? I am fucking done. There. Does that do it? Does that make sense now? I don’t want to deal with this place anymore. I’m through. I quit.”
“You can’t quit,” Hunter said quietly. “You’re a Corbin. Your name is on this place along with the rest of ours. It’s our legacy.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a shit legacy,” I said. “I can change my name, if you think that’s what it’ll take. I’ll move out of the state. Out of the country. I don’t care. I’m just done with this. I can’t do it anymore.”
“I guess what we’re all having trouble understanding is that you’ve been the biggest advocate for this place up until now,” Tucker said calmly. “Every time one of us has come to you with doubts or fears or whatever the hell, you’re the one with the plan. The one who reassures the rest of us. What happened?”
“You saw it,” I said. “You were there. The herd’s decimated. We’re not coming back from this.”
I waited as patiently as I could for everyone to process that bit of information.
“I think that’s a little pessimistic,” Hunter offered first. “Yeah, a lot of cattle are dead. On some levels of the definition of the word, you could say it was decimated. Sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. We still have part of the herd. Will we have to readjust the budget? Of course we will. We might have to go without pay, but we’ve done that before. We might have to let some ranch hands go, or readjust money flow from the clinic and the horse rehab into the ranch again, temporarily.”
“You know we’d do anything to help,” Emmett added. “The horse rehab is doing really well.”
“And once we get to the bottom of all of this, we’ll be able to open the dude ranch,” Avery said. “There has been a lot of positive response. I’ve been marketing it on social media for several months now. We’re going to have a waitlist the moment we finally do get to have people out here.”
“What we’re trying to tell you, brother, is that this is bad, but it’s not the end of us,” Tucker said. “We’re better than this, and we’re stronger than this.”
If it had been another time, if I hadn’t been so personally crushed by all of my various failings, I would’ve at least been a little heartened to see all of my brothers coming together to address the problem. There were five of us, and we were as different as if we’d come from completely separate parents. The only things we shared were various shades of blond hair, blue eyes, and this ranch.
Only now I didn’t want any part of the ranch.
“I’m tired,” I said finally.
“Then get some rest,” Tucker said in a tone of voice that told me he was trying to be reasonable. I was probably irritating or scaring — or some combination of the two — all of them, but they still weren’t taking me very seriously.
“This isn’t something a fucking nap is going to solve,” I said. “I’m tired — bone tired. You all know what hard work living here on the ranch is, but I don’t think you completely understand it from my end. I think about it all the time. It consumes me.”
“We get it,” Hunter said. “We know how much you do around here. And we appreciate it, how hard you work. If we haven’t said it before, haven’t told you, then we’re telling you now. You’re essential to this place.”
“But don’t think that we’re not also working hard,” Avery said. “Chance, I took a bullet for this place. All of us have bled for it. And we’ll continue to bleed for it. This ranch is too important to give up on. We’ve put too much effort into it just to give up now.”
“Cut your losses,” I said. “Sell the rest of the herd. Sell the land. We can s
till walk away from this with a lot of cash.” The more I thought about it, the more that made sense. There were plenty of potential buyers out there. This was some of the best land in the region. Would they pave it over and make it into shopping malls and condominiums? Probably, but that wouldn’t be our problem anymore at that point. Once we all had a fat wad of cash in our bank accounts, we could walk away from this and find something else to make us happy — even though I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again. I’d put in too much and lost too much.
“We’re not idiots, Chance,” Tucker said. “We know this is about more than just the cattle.”
“Where’s Zoe and Toby?” Emmett asked.
“Gone,” I said. “They’re fucking gone.”
Hunter and Tucker exchanged glances. “Gone where?” Tucker asked.
“I don’t know.” I was so tired of this. “Somewhere far away from here.”
“But why?” Hunter asked. “It’s obvious to everyone how much you care for Zoe. Why did they leave?”
“Because she doesn’t think I’m capable of protecting her and Toby from her ex,” I said.
“Her ex is a son of a bitch, but we’ve handled worse,” Hunter scoffed.
“A lot worse,” Tucker rumbled.
I threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know what to tell you. She was scared for her kid, scared Forrest would take him and disappear into the swamps or some bullshit.”
“Why didn’t you let us know?” Emmet asked. “We could’ve reassured her. Convinced her to stay.”
But now I was the one who was the problem, not Forrest.
“It’s more than that,” I mumbled.
“Then tell us,” Tucker urged, exasperated. “Tell us so we can help you.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “I don’t need your help and I don’t need this ranch.”
I strode out of the house and no one did anything to stop me. I started the truck and kicked up dirt in my haste to flee this place.
Everything was going wrong. The ranch, my relationship with Zoe, even my expectations for myself. I didn’t care anymore about trying to make all of it work. All I cared about was some kind of momentary relief from everything that had come tumbling down recently, and I knew how to get that.
Sometimes, the drive from the ranch to town was too far. Other times, it was too close. Today, though, it fit just right, the road rumbling beneath the tires of the truck, the anticipation of that first shot of fire-hot whiskey chased by an ice-cold swallow of beer with frozen condensation sluicing down the bottle. I didn’t care that I was better than that, that I was always telling my brothers that they could make better use of their time and misery doing something productive. What I needed was the escape you can only find midway through a bottle, the singular pleasure of knowing exactly where the next one was coming from, the indulgence of a buzz so strong that everything else could sort of slip away for a while.
It had been a while since I’d been to the bar in town. It had been a haunt of both Avery and Paisley, and Emmett had first run into Peyton while seeking the same kind of comfort I was there for. I’d preferred trying to keep my brothers safe on the ranch, doing whatever drinking they thought they needed to do at home, and here I was, going against my advice.
Whatever.
“Shot of whiskey and a beer,” I said, settling down on the barstool. I was going to be in this for the long haul. I was going to get good and comfortable. It was that perfect time, waiting as the bartender rooted around in the cooler, not a single thought or worry about Zoe or the ranch or how, exactly, I was planning on getting myself back home after closing time. All I needed to be concerned about right now was waiting for the burn of that whiskey.
“Six dollars,” the bartender said, putting my poisons of choice in front of me.
“You can’t charge a rancher who just lost what this man lost. Put it on my tab.”
I turned, my eyebrows drawing together, to see none other but Bud Billings plop down on the barstool next to mine. This day had just taken a turn from the cosmically bad to the epically worse.
“I’m opening a tab of my own,” I said, looking back at the bartender. “Please put these drinks on that.”
“If you’re here to drink away what happened to your cattle, I’m afraid you’re probably going to be unable to afford it,” Bud said almost affably, like he was just pointing out a friendly fact. The bartender seemed torn, and that was just a testament to just what kind of pull the names Billings and Corbin had around this town. They represented very different things, but they were notable names. I had often felt the weight of mine, what it meant. And I had my family to thank for that — the good and the bad. It was something that bent me sometimes, made me hunch over with the pressure. Other times, it was easier to bear — like when things were going well. But things weren’t going well for the Corbin name right now. We might not bounce back from this. That was a possibility I had to face. Right now, though, all I had to defend was the right to pay for my own alcohol.
“I can afford it,” I said, not doing him the courtesy of looking at him while I was talking to him. “And if I can’t, I’d rather be in debt to the bar than indebted to you.”
“That’s a lot of hostility,” he remarked as I stared down at the drinks in front of me. “You need friends right now, Chance, not enemies. Now’s not the time to burn bridges.”
“What bridges have we ever had between our families?” I demanded, taking a sharp breath before tossing the whiskey back. I’d meant to sip on it for a while, thinking about everything that had happened and everything that had yet to happen, but instead I’d slammed it back.
“Another for Chance Corbin,” Bud said, signaling to the bartender.
“Yes, another, but on my own tab,” I said as commandingly as I could. I wasn’t usually one for hard liquor. That shot of whiskey had addled me a little bit — more than I wanted it to. I didn’t like Bud. I knew what he was capable of. He was a master manipulator, someone you needed to be sober in front of at all times. I wished that I could be stronger in this moment, but I just couldn’t. I’d lost so much.
“So what’s the plan?” Bud asked, watching my gulp down my beer. “You Corbins always have a plan. A way of bouncing back.”
I shook my head at him. “I’m really not in the mood for this.”
“Oh, come on, Chance. You and I go way back. You can tell me. Maybe I’ll have some ideas for you.”
“Your ideas would consist of you buying the ranch.”
He fumbled in his pocket for a few long moments before slapping down a fat checkbook on the bar. “All you have to do is tell me your price. I would pay it.”
“Ranch isn’t for sale,” I said.
“We would make good partners, you know,” Bud said. “Your parents were too set in their ways, but you’re still young. You could make a lot of money if you just listened to what I had to say. If you ran your ranch the way I run mine.”
“Yours isn’t a ranch,” I said. “It’s a travesty.”
“That’s your opinion,” he said. “You just watch and see. Make little changes, and you’ll be surprised at the big changes you’ll see within the year. Within months, even.”
Something tickled the back of my mind, but I wasn’t sure what it was. What had Bud said to dislodge that strange feeling? It was like I was fighting to remember something.
“You’ll have wished you had a camera to take photos of the before and after of your bank account,” Bud continued, oblivious. “That’s the kind of change I’m talking about. Dramatic.”
My mouth dropped open with a sudden realization. Son of a bitch.
“I can see that you’re slowly coming around to my way of thinking,” Bud gloated. “I can see it in your eyes. Something’s changed.”
“Something has changed,” I agreed, drumming my fingers on the surface of the bar in restlessness. I needed to leave. I needed to get home — or just somewhere private where I could focus, away from this asshole.
; “Name a number,” he said, opening the checkbook in front of us. “Go on, son. Any number. I’ll pay it. You know I can afford it.”
“I’m not your fucking son, you piece of shit,” I said, enunciating so that he wouldn’t fail to understand me. “And I’m not about to sell the ranch to you. That will never happen.”
I dropped a wad of bills on the countertop and tried not to make it seem like I was rushing out of the bar even if all I wanted to do was run out of there. Bud Billings was a crooked son of a bitch, but I could’ve kissed him on the mouth. He’d reminded me that not all was lost, yet.
I had security video footage to go through before I really gave up on everything.
Chapter 9
I hopped in my truck, my heart thundering in my chest. Could there be some shred of evidence for the crime that had been committed against the ranch on the security footage?
I fumbled with my phone a little, more high on the possibility of figuring out what had happened with the cattle than drunk on whatever I’d consumed inside the bar. If I had some smoking gun in my possession, if there was even a flash of someone on the feed from last night, it would be huge. There would be an opportunity to try to recoup something from our losses.
I opened the application on my phone and went back to the night of the poisoning. I wasn’t even sure that there was a camera that was near enough the trough to catch anything, but I had to try. I was excited at the prospect of catching someone, trying to put things right again, but I tried to tamp down on my rising hopes. I’d be crushed if there was nothing, no way to see what had happened.
I squinted at my phone, brightening the display as high as it would go. That was … that was it. The water trough was visible, but only just, right at the edge of the picture of one of the cameras. I swallowed hard and started watching the feed on high speed. Well past midnight, but before the break of dawn, there was movement that couldn’t have been bovine. I ended the rapid playback and watched it in normal time. Someone — a small figure, barely discernible, walked up to the trough. They shrugged and something slung around to their front — ah, a backpack — and drew something else out of it. Then, they dumped it right into the water.
