Page 11 of Ash on the Range
“Still a long way to go,” Gage murmured from where he banged a gate together, starting to set up for Red Hart’s apparently impromptu rodeo in the coming week.
I leaned my shoulders against a nearby fence post, using the upright wooden edge to scratch my spine without removing my gloves. “Yeah, they’re getting the hang of it, but we’re doing okay.”
“How are you holding up without her?” Gage never stopped working as he talked, a skill some of the younger men hadn’t yet acquired.
I shrugged when he nudged a cooler box my way. So much for not taking the gloves off. I stuffed them into my back pocket, and guzzled water. “Hell. That's all it is. Nothing more.”
“Yeah? You want space of your own yet?” He flipped a large metal panel like it weighed nothing at all and slammed it into place, jiggling the whole enclosure.
I grabbed it all before the lot toppled over on him.That’s exactly what I want. But I wasn't saying that. “Sure. I’d love aplace of my own sometime. And a steady job. Then a divorce because staying in one place leaves my feet itchy.”Lie.I could imagine settling down for Cassie just fine. Anywhere she liked, as long as it wasn't in the middle of a city, and I was with her.
Actually, screw that. As long as I was with her, I’d make it work.
“Uh huh. Get that other gate—yeah, that one.” We worked in silence for a while as I helped him out on my break for a bit. Gage didn’t stop but I knew he was turning it all over in his head, working out what he wanted to say. “If she’s worth waiting for, then she’s worth it,” he said finally. “You have to make that choice, kid.”
The old nickname that usually stung fit the situation too well. I did feel like a kid, well out of my depth in every possible way. I didn’t know how to care for myself, let alone for a girl who wasn’t out of college yet and grew up expecting a certain level of extravagance that I’d never be able to provide her, regardless of how many bulls I stayed on until the bell or not.
“Might not be my choice to make,” I muttered, staring down at hands already scarred and chapped from work at the ranch and rodeos around the country.
Who the hell was I kidding? I had a beat up truck that took my five solid years to save up and buy for myself. No trailer, no place to live. I slept out of bunk houses and in borrowed beds. The only money I had left I’d spent on motels on the drive here, trying to look after the only girl I'd cared about for more than one night. I didn't do anything to my name to show for my twenty five years more than a handful of hard earned calluses and another day’s promised work come sunrise tomorrow.
“Are you gonna look like that all day, or are you going to get some work done?” Jude’s raspy voice brought my head up and me out of my self-imposed sulk in less than a heartbeat.
“No, sir.” I yanked my gloves back on in record time. “Got the first part of the herd done that you left me, and we’re ready to roundup the next.”
I waved toward the boys milling around behind me, wasted and shaded as well as the herd. Both were bound to cause trouble, the younger ranch hands more if I didn’t get them working again soon. I knew that would have been what my crew did a few years back, and this group didn’t appear so dissimilar.
Shit, I left them on their own for too long.I officially needed a WWJD bracelet —theJDpart had nothing to do with our maker, and a whole lot more with the man who’d put a boot up my ass if I didn’t move it in short order.
“You’ve done that, huh?” Jude didn’t bother to conceal the surprise in his voice. He cast a sideways glance at Gage, who lifted his next fence panel. “Does he do a good job?”
“Decent.” Gage placed the panel down and kicked the next one in my direction so it fell toward me. I caught it with both hands, realizing how not light the damn thing was. “You fuckers gonna help, or just stand and watch me work on my lonesome?”
“Yeah, right.” I grabbed the next panel and pinned it in place, with Jude’s steadying hand. Then their chatter clicked into place. “Wait, you left me with a babysitter?"
Gage leaned over the railing he just set up and fixed me with a hard stare. “He left you with a watch dog to make sure that you didn’t get in over your head on your first time out, didn’t fuck up and to make sure you get the kudos when it’s due, alright?”
My jaw set, but I held his unflinching gaze in a way that me of two seasons ago wouldn’t have been able to, still unsure if I just got handed a load of deer shit or a complement covered in the stuff. “Alright.”
“Good.” Gage put his head down and kept working.
I glanced at Jude, knowing better than to look for praise from the usually silent foreman. “Which part of the herd do you want me to start on next?”
Long shadows followed me by the time we finished the next roundup. Snowball insisted on hovering around my ankles.
“You’re not gonna leave me alone, are ya?” I reached down to pet the lil guy’s head. He scampered off like I’d committed the worst crime in the world, daring to touch him. Apparently our relationship was a one way door. Who knew? But my shadow left me while I packed some of my kit for the day, at least.
“Not bad, kid.” Gage hammered nails into fence posts I swore he’d done earlier in the week.
I sighed. “Shadow one, meets shadow number two.”
He grinned at me from beneath his hat. “Did you think we’d cut you loose and let you roam free around the ranch with your own little team of misfits?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.” To be fair, I’d been kind of unsettled at the thought of running my own team alone with no pep talk from Jude or a word from Travis at daybreak, and now I knew why. “Am I getting shipped out tomorrow?”
“Maybe tonight.” Gage tossed me a cup of parrot clips. “Hold the top wire for me? Someone managed to cut this earlier with a misfire of clippers. Don’t ask,” he groused, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder at where a group of ranch hands I didn’t knowwell roughhoused in the dirt behind him. “Even if you think you know what you’re doing, most of the time you don’t. I’ll have words later, when I’m not ready to hand him his ass. But if shit like this happens again, he won't get an invite back next season.”
“Who was it?”
