Page 38 of His Fresh Start Cowboy
Around eleven, Rose and Wayne packed up her food in the bed of his pickup and they headed out to Daisy. Avery and Colt followed in their rental. In some ways, Hugo was glad to see them go. He loved the idea of the Woods family spending the weekend together, enjoying good food, entertainment, and all kinds of games and contests for their grandkids. Part of Hugo wanted to be there, too, but the rest of him was glad to avoid any possibility of running into Mom, Frank, or Buck. Mom hadn’t tried calling him once since their conversation nearly a month ago, and that was fine. Hugo had said his piece, and that was it, apparently. She’d chosen her husband over her own son.
If Jackson clued into his melancholy mood that day, he didn’t mention it. Then again, Jackson was insanely discreet. He knew how to joke and make someone feel at ease, but he also knew when to back off and leave it be—a trait Hugo adored in his friend. That evening, Wayne and Rose came home with bags of kettle corn for each of them. Hugo shared the treat with Elmer that night as they worked on their newest puzzle: a five-thousand-piece image of hundreds of different dogs.
Hugo was pretty sure they’d never finish it, but he didn’t say that to Elmer. “Why on earth did you buy this one?” Hugo asked as he tried to find the border pieces. So freaking many of them.
“I didn’t.” Elmer snapped two pieces together. “Michael sent it to me for Christmas. Just didn’t get to it until now.”
“I didn’t think you and Michael still talked.”
“We don’t much. He knows I like puzzles. Keeps up my eyesight and dexterity, so I can keep up with my welding. He even sent me one of those weird-ass 3-D puzzles, but that just don’t seem right. Feels more like building with blocks than doing a real puzzle. I need to see it laid out flat, not going up.”
“Makes sense.” Hugo glanced around the dingy, almost dumpy farmhouse that Elmer had lived in for decades and, for the first time, felt a surge of anger toward Michael. A man he’d never met but who, according to Elmer, had a ton of money. And he let his father live in the middle of nowhere with practically nothing. “If you had a million dollars, where would you go?”
Elmer paused with two pieces in his fingers that did not connect. “Probably nowhere. Spent most of my life here, and here is where I’ll live it out, I expect. Wouldn’t mind a real good tomahawk steak once in a while, but I can’t complain about what I’ve got. I do wish I saw Michael more but the boy left to create his own life. Can’t fault him for that.”
Hugo saw an interesting comparison between Elmer and Hugo’s mother. Elmer had somehow driven Michael to leave for the big city and a new life. Hugo’s mother had driven Hugo west, seeking safety and freedom and a new life. Only, Elmer occasionally seemed to regret whatever had happened between himself and his son. Hugo’s mother did not. At least, not that she’d ever said or shown to him.
He didn’t comment on it that night, though. He went to his trailer and tried to sleep but had nebulous dreams about puzzle pieces smothering him in the hayloft, while Buck just stood there and laughed. He woke up in a cold sweat around four and stayed awake, watching shows on his phone until dawn made it seem okay to get ready for the day. The scooter didn’t run quite as smoothly as it had before the accident, but it got him to work and back, and Hugo arrived just as Wayne and the others were leaving for a long Saturday at the county fair.
A basket of fresh cinnamon rolls waited for him in the break room, so after he stowed his lunch, Hugo indulged. Rose mothered everyone on the ranch, even if they weren’t her own kids, and he appreciated the kindness. Plus, cinnamon rolls!
He and Jackson both occasionally checked their phones for texts from anyone in the family, even though the first blue ribbons wouldn’t be assigned until the afternoon. The animal ribbons would be assigned tomorrow, and Hugo couldn’t imagine how nervous Brand was right now. This was his dream for the future of the ranch, and their steer needed to place well. Those blue ribbons would look amazing outside a stall at the state fair.
After lunchtime, Jackson went out to ride the fence lines, while Hugo hung back to do a few chores around the barn and exercise the horses that hadn’t been out in a while. None of those majestic beasts deserved to stay locked up in a stall for days on end, and Hugo had done this dozens of times at his old job. He loved watching them run around the corral, muscles bunching, manes flying. Not as free as racing across the pastures and plains, but close enough for now.
He’d just put No Name back in his stall when the sound of an engine caught his attention. Not the regular engine of a pickup or even a car, but louder and more distinct. A motorcycle. Weird. In the two-ish months he’d worked there, Hugo had never seen anyone drive up on a motorcycle. But the guy who’d injured his hand back in February was supposed to come back shortly, so maybe it was him?
Hugo latched the stall door and ambled outside, curious who was there when the rest of the county was probably at the fair eating corn dogs, deep-fried butter, and candied apples. He wouldn’t have minded a caramel apple with peanuts but wasn’t about to ask his boss to bring one home for him. Maybe he’d manage the fair next year. If he was still here.
The roar of the motorcycle engine grew louder as it approached the barn and house, and it came to a stop not too far from where Hugo stood in the big barn doorway. A tall, muscled figure in a leather jacket put down the kickstand and climbed off. Alarms began clanging in Hugo’s brain even before the man took off his helmet and placed it on the cycle’s seat. Turned to face the barn.
Hugo’s insides clenched into a tight ball that nearly had him revisiting his lunch.
Buck stared at him from less than twenty feet away, as menacing as Hugo remembered. His brown hair was cut short, and his nose had a new crook to it, but it was still the same man who’d tormented Hugo for years. The terrified teenager deep inside Hugo wanted to flee into the barn and find a place to hide. The adult who was furious at Buck for daring to step foot in his new life wasn’t going to back down. Not this time.
“What are you doing here?” Hugo snapped. Up on the porch, Brutus gave a curious woof, as if stating he had Hugo’s back.
“Came up to say hello,” Buck replied, as bland as if he was ordering a burger and fries. “It’s been a while, little brother.”
“Not long enough. This is private property, so unless you’ve got business here, which I know you don’t because the family is at the county fair, you need to leave before I call the sheriff about a trespasser. That wouldn’t look great for your parole, would it?”
Buck’s eyes narrowed in a familiar, threatening way. “The fuck do you know about my parole? You ain’t gonna call the sheriff on me. Imagine how sad that would make your old lady. If I got tossed back in prison because of her own kid?”
Fear and anger continued to battle inside Hugo, and he didn’t know what to do. What to say to his waking nightmare to make him leave.
“Thought so,” Buck said when Hugo didn’t—couldn’t—speak. “You missed my welcome home party, little brother. That wasn’t very polite.”
“That’s because you aren’t welcome anywhere near me. You are not now, nor were you ever my family, Buck.” Finally, words. Angry words, and Hugo held on to that anger. “Go away.”
“You always were a disrespectful little shit.”
“Like you ever gave me anything to respect. You were an asshole to me from the day we met.”
Buck shrugged. “That’s not how I remember it. I remember a whiny little brat who never stopped talking about missing his real dad. Like my dad wasn’t good enough for you. Like you were somehow better than us, because you rented a house in town, and suddenly had to live in a trailer after our parents got married. Your mom wasn’t going to discipline you so someone had to.”
That was seriously how Buck justified all of the physical damage he’d done? Discipline? “So I guess that’s why you beat up your girlfriend, too, huh? It was just discipline?”
“She had it coming.”
