Page 24 of Wrangling Nash

Clay smiled, “I never wanted to go away to college like Nash did. Wylie went to a trade school in San Angelo, but I think he always knew, being the oldest, he was going to be expected to take over Cameron ranch someday. I enjoy working on the ranch - animals, harvesting, machinery. There’s a lot of skill that goes into managing a ranch, and we deal with it all. You really must be a jack of all trades.”

“I’m seeing that now and you're right, there's a lot you must learn to work here. Why did Nash move back? He told me he worked for the city of Houston at one point?”

Clay cast me a sideways glance, then looked back at the road. “That’s kind of a long story. I know I told you that our mom died when I was only 12 and it was so lonely without her here. Wylie's coping mechanism was to run-through every woman in town, and Nash's was to stay away. Anyhow, I begged Nash to come back when he graduated three months later, but he’d already accepted a job with the city, so I dropped it. Even as a kid, I understood that he needed to have his own life. That summer before he started his job with the city, he came back for three months; however, he only lasted for one. His girlfriend bitched at him every day about coming back to the city. She’s the primary reason he stayed in Houston and worked for another three years.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Ex-girlfriend now, thank God. She was terrible, and I knew that even at 12 years old.”

“What happened between them?”

“Nash was enjoying his job with the city, but anytime he visited for holidays after mom died, he and I would ride around the property, and I could tell he missed being here. My dad never pressured him to move back or anything. One Christmas, he returned to Houston early from his planned visit home and found his girlfriend doing one of his coworkers in the apartment they shared together.”

“Shit.”

“He said he packed his stuff, paid out the rest of his lease, and moved back to the ranch permanently that night.”

That explains his disdain for ‘city women.’

“Hasn’t he dated since? Doesn’t he know that not all women are the same?”

“Oh yeah, he’s gone on some dates with women around here, nothing serious though. I think he knows in his heart not all women are the same, but anytime my dad needs him to go to Houston for sales or auctions, he sends Wylie because he knows it brings up bad memories for Nash.”

“Damn.”

“She wasn’t just anything to him, too. Nash had recently asked her dad to marry her. He didn’t realize until after the fact that she’d mostly been after the old ranch money she thought he would inherit when my dad died. Once she realized he was never going to be satisfied living in the city, she was over it.”

“That’s terrible.”

Clay nodded his head. “It messed him up good. I think the whole situation caused him to distrust his judgment of the women he dated and associate people from the city as unreliable.”

I nodded again as we continued to drive in silence while the sun slowly peeked over the horizon. There was so much I still didn’t understand about Nash, and I wondered if it was worth the effort to change the mind of someone convinced that they knew who I was. But something about him kept drawing me in, igniting a new fire within me—a fire set on proving Nash wrong.

Chapter 20: Nash

Six years ago…?

“Brooke, pick up the damn phone,” I cursed into my cell while trying her number again.

Straight to voicemail.

It was Christmas day, and despite my plan to spend the holiday at the ranch with my brothers and dad, an unsettling feeling gnawed at me since leaving Brooke two days earlier to drive down to Lonestar Junction. She’d been standoffish, aloof, and despite my pleas for her to come home with me for the holiday, she’d insisted on staying in the city to catch up on work and errands.

This was supposed to be the day of my proposal, a plan I had discussed with her father three months ago, but her lack of interest in joining me for the holiday threw a wrench into those plans. After a Christmas Eve night of contemplation, I decided to say screw it; if she wouldn’t come to the ranch, I’d go see her and propose in Houston where we lived together. It wasn’t the proposal I’d originally planned, but what mattered was the love that I thought we had between us, not a flashy proposal.

With that said, things had felt different between Brooke and I over the past two weeks. There wasn’t a single moment that I could point to where the shift had started, but it was there, nonetheless. I’d told myself it was in my head, that I was just nervous about the proposal, and she was resistant to accompany me for the holiday because of what happened last time she was at the ranch, but despite repeating this to myself, the unsettling feeling persisted.

I drove the next 60 miles with uneasiness churning in my stomach until I reached our apartment in downtown Houston. Exiting the street parking, I headed up to our place, inserted my key into the lock, and opened the door, completely unprepared for what awaited me.

On the living room floor lay Brooke, on her back, with one of my coworkers from the city, and someone we’d gone out to happy hour with, thrusting into her repeatedly as she groaned.

“What the…?”

The scene was so shocking, so far from what I’d imagined I would witness, that I had no clue how to react. Brooke’s eyes locked onto mine as she screamed, pushing Mark off her. He fell backward, naked, his bare cock waving like a red flag in the air.

No fucking condom either.

Without thinking, I stormed over to Mark, contemplating lifting him up and delivering a punch I knew would knock him out, but his bare dick and fear-filled eyes made me reconsider that approach.

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