Page 29 of The Chances We Take

That morning, I’d shown up to Colter’s house bright and early. It still had the same forest-green paint, but now there was a larger front porch and an actual driveway. Over the past year and a half, Ellison and Colter had put in a lot of work to renovate it, expanding the double-wide to add in a guest bedroom and office.

Momma Carson was in the kitchen, cooking a big meal to bring out later for everyone, and Ellison was helping her.

I’d asked her, “Where’s Blondie?”

“She’s still sleeping.” She’d laughed, pointing toward the closed guest bedroom door. “Not used to waking up at the crack of dawn, I guess.”

“And Colter?”

“He’s outside. Why don’t you go help him and I’ll wake up Isa.” She had shooed me away.

After I found Colter, we’d gathered all the calves and put them in the corral. Colter and I usually had the job of roping the calves and dragging them out to be branded, a couple of the hands Colter’s family hired did the branding, and Colter’s momma did the vaccinations. Everyone else was tasked with holding the calves.

This year, though, I was willing to pawn off the roping task to Hayden to help some of the newbies, which really just meant Isabelle.

It was almost ten o’clock and there was still no sign of Ellison or Isa. Mikey, Hayden, and Jake had shown up an hour earlier, and we were pretty much just hanging around waiting for the rest of the crew to show up so we could start.

“You think we should go get them?” I asked, hands in my pockets.

“Nah, they’ll be out soon, I bet.” Colter shrugged me off.

Sure enough, about five minutes later, they both walked out. Normally, Isa was extremely well put together, always wearing flowy blouses and fashionable jeans, but I was damned if I didn’t think she looked good with her hair up in a messy ponytail and no makeup on. She had on a ratty old T-shirt—probably one Ellison gave to her so she wouldn’t ruin a nice shirt—but it was too big for her, even tucked into a pair of Wranglers.

She would look damn good in one of mine.

“Careful there, Lawsy, you’re gonna catch flies if you keep your mouth open too long.” Ellison laughed as she called me out.

I snapped my jaw so fast, I only hoped my face wasn’t as red as I figured it was.

“What can we do to help?” Isa asked as she walked over to us.

“Nothing quite yet. We’re waiting for everyone else to show and then we can get to work,” Colter explained.

“What exactly is going to happen?” Isa raised an eyebrow, resting her hands on her hips.

“You see all those calves?” I pointed to the corral, and she nodded. “They’re all getting branded today. You’ll learn the ropes, it’ll be okay.”

She didn’t look too convinced, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know the point of branding, I think, but aren’t there other ways to do it?”

“Well, there’s hot branding, which is what we’re doing, and freeze branding. But that takes more time and wedon’t have all week. Besides, this is the traditional way. They’ll be fine, I promise,” I reassured her.

“It’s a necessary thing if cattle get out or get stolen. There are only so many ways to describe them,” Colter added with a laugh.

Isabelle frowned, and I cut in. “You think you could describe that cow, just by looking at it, in a way that’s a good enough identifier from all the rest of them out there?”

“I-er,” she stuttered, trying to come up with something to say as she stared at the fifty-something head out in the field. “All right, I get it.” She rolled her eyes.

“It’s only a few seconds of pain and then they’re perfectly fine.” Ellison was used to this, having grown up on a ranch. I knew Isa didn’t grow up with the same lifestyle, but luckily for her, my favorite thing was teaching newbies the ropes.

“Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.” I winked. I mean, look at me. I didn’t grow up in a full-blown ranching family. Granted, I still gained experience from helping neighbors and getting invited to brandings by the families of high school rodeo kids, but I was a newbie once too.

“Yeah, Isa. Reid here didn’t even grow up around ranching and now look at him.” Jake ruffled my hair as I tried to fight him off me. “Didn’t even have a horse for a while.”

I glared at him as Isa cocked her head. “Really?”

“Yeah, I borrowed horses from other rodeo kids or neighbors.” I shrugged. “My family couldn’t afford to buy me a horse and everything required to have one. I got a job and also used any winnings to help get my own. All of my college tuition was paid for by scholarships too.”

I would rip a new one into Jake later for bringing upmy past. I mean, Isa knew about most of it already, but my pride still kept me from disclosing everything. I made do with what I had back then.

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