Page 19 of From Rivals to I Do

Chapter Six

“Ya!” I yell as I flick the reins on my stallion, working with Mitch and the boys to round up some cattle that had wandered off the

property. When I look up to see what the other three are doing, I see Mitch sitting on his horse, zoned into the job, a flat look on his

face. Something has seemed off for a few days, to be honest. In the month that he’s been here at the ranch, Mitch has made life, well,

interesting. He’s always joking around and smiling, chatting my ear off while we are trying to get work done, which I suppose I don’t

mind at all.

But he’s withdrawn all of a sudden, and it’s got me worried. Problem is, I’m unsure of how to broach the subject, and I try to wrack my

brain for a way to slip it in once we get all the cows back to where they should be.

“Hey Noah, Zack?” I call out once we get all the cattle back in the pen.

“Yeah?” Noah calls out.

“Can you check on the pigs? I don’t know if they’ve been slopped yet, and Eugenia is about ready to pop,” I reply.

“Sure thing,” Noah says.

“Should I check on Molly then?” Zack asks, referring to one of our mama cows that’s also about ready to have her babies too.

“Uh, yeah, that’d probably be good,” I reply with a nod as I hop off Whistler, and start leading him back to the horse barn, Mitch

quietly following along. I wait for a moment to check if I’m wrong, waiting for him to start yammering away. But there’s nothing but

awkward silence.

“So, everything alright?” I ask finally as we both walk our horses in and get them settled in their pens.

“What do you mean?” Mitch asks, barely showing any emotion and sounding tired. In fact, now that I’m closer to him, I can see the

bags under his eyes, purplish in color.

“You’ve been out of it lately,” I press, and Mitch stands there for a moment, his eyes flickering toward the hay-covered floor.

“It’s nothing really. . . just been dealing with some things, is all,” Mitch says with a shrug. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” I insist, and Mitch’s eyes look into mine for a moment before looking away again.

“It’s not your problem, Eli,” he replies. “I’ll figure it out, it’s just hard right now.”

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” I ask, and Mitch heaves a heavy sigh, appearing to be embarrassed as his cheeks redden a little.

“I lost the house,” Mitch replies.

“What?” “Well, I told you I was behind on some things, but. . . it’s worse than I let on,” Mitch says as he shoves his hands in his pockets

and leans against a pole. “I tried my best to dig myself out of it, I tried explaining my wife had died, I did everything I could. . . but the

bank doesn’t care about all that.”

“I feel awful, Mitch. Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

“Because we’d only just met, I didn’t want to leave a bad impression,” Mitch says with a shrug.

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