Page 10 of Dust Storm

Tripp took a step back to try and wipe the bulk of the manure on the grass, but slipped.

I clasped my hands over my mouth in horror as he pivoted to avoid the hitch again, and landed back in the pile of manure.

“Look at that,” Christian mused with a flat expression. “You live up to your name.”

Without another word about Tripp, he turned and hopped back into the saddle. “Cabin’s this way.”

3

CHRISTIAN

Libby was peeved as I rode out past my house to the cluster of cabins that had been sitting unused for the better part of a decade.

I couldn’t blame her. I was annoyed too.

I tipped my chin down to peer over my shoulder. Cassandra drove the rental car behind me while Tripp—still shouting into his phone as if a cell tower would magically appear—trudged along beside her, covered in shit.

I didn’t blame her for not wanting to be trapped in a car with the human cow patty, but he seemed like the kind of guy who could afford the incidental charge for fucking up the rental. It sure beat the mile walk out to the cabins. He was red as a cherry and seething in anger.

Tripp.

What kind of fucking name was that? Was it short for something?

Trippworth?

Trippington?

Tripped-over-his-ego?

Libby let out a displeased grunt as I hopped down. I used a manger knot to tie her to the post in front of the cabins for the few minutes it would take me to show Cassandra around inside.

Then I could get back to the never-ending to-do list that seemed to get longer and longer each day.

When I finished here, I’d get Libby squared away and head back to that fucking desk for another hour before I went to the house to oversee the girls doing their homework.

Then it’d be time for showers all around and bedtime before we did it all again tomorrow.

Thank God for aftercare at school, extracurriculars, and my mom being a taxi service.

There just weren’t enough hours in the day.

Cassandra pulled up in front of the cabins and hopped out. I could feel the displeasure radiating off her body.

Before we built the new bunkhouse right after Gracie was born, the ranch hands lived in the cabins.

That had been…

Shit. Gracie was eleven.

How was thenewbunkhouse a decade old?

“Home sweet home,” I said as I turned to face Cassandra.

I couldn’t get a good look at what was going on in her head behind those big sunglasses, but her face was passive.

Twenty feet away, Tripp had stopped to shout at someone through his phone, as if they’d hear him yelling halfway around the world.

Lord knows they weren’t hearing him through the call.

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