Page 2 of Ash on the Range
I drew back from Cass, stealing a single moment where her eyes were still shut, her lips swollen from our kisses. I kept an arm around her and managed to push the door open with my other hand. Jude, RHR’s introvert of a foreman and the most capable teacher I knew, glared at me.
“Hey.” I cleared my throat. “Did you know there’s a fire up over the northern ridge?"
A muscle in Jude’s jaw flickered. I took that as a negative. He jerked his head at Gage, one of Red Hart’s older live-in cowboys. He took off on a farm bike, leaving a trail of dust behind him that coated my truck and everything in the yard, including the house, which I’d hoped to avoid, in dust. I winced. “You need a dose of rain, huh?”
“It’s good to see you, Will. Now get out of that truck and stop giving the boys a show to prove she’s yours.” Jude folded his arms over his chest, his glare never wavering.
I grinned, kissed Cass once more fast, and let her go, grabbing my hat and slapped it on my head before I climbed out of my truck.
Jude clapped my shoulder in the sort of friend welcome that might have dislocated the other side if it hadn’t been the bruised one.
I grimaced, and rolled the still tender joint. “Do you treat everyone you like that way?”
“A season’s work doesn't get done with soft bodies, kid.” Jude watched me with a hard eye. “You need the doc to check you out?”
“Nope.”
“Because—”
“I’m no good to you injured,” I supplied, reaching out to grab my bag from the back of the pickup, twice as glad my back was turned to him when my shoulder did more than twinged when I tried to take the weight of the canvas. “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
Cass watched me, her gaze narrowed, but thankfully she didn’t say anything. Her bright blue eyes told me I’d hear about it later, though if not from Jude then from her.
The foreman was still talking, and the white hot shot of pain that blocked out his words for a moment receded long enough to let me focus on the rest of what he was saying.
“Think you can stay on a bull for long enough not to disgrace the colors, Will, or are you going to stare at a pretty girl for the next few minutes and ignore me?”
I grinned again, swinging around, glad he gave me the out I needed. “What am I doing with a bull that I won’t do with a pretty girl?”
A raucous shout went up with the ranch hands already gathered in the yard who I ignored when we pulled up. I’d said the right thing to save my ass from trouble, thankfully. I’d always had an easy going nature here and a reputation for being a bit of a joker, as long as the work got done at the end of the day. Right now, that saved my ass, even if it colored Cass’s cheeks before I turned about.
“We’re hosting a rodeo here on Red Hart grounds. Figured you’d want in, if you turned up on time. Gonna ride for us, Will Kirk?” A very different voice reached my ears.
I turned away from Jude’s weathered facade to face Eve. Chestnut hair curled around her shoulders to just below her waist, longer than I remembered. A pristine white shirt, branded with the RHR antlers was tucked into tight blue jeans and boots I knew Archer had bought for her. I glanced around for him, but she shook her head, her bright smile dimming a little.
“Good to see you, ma’am,” I said softly, my heart clenching at the sight of her loneliness.
Cassie was right—Red Hart had become my home at some point in the last few seasons. I swallowed hard on a lump that threatened my next breath as Eve crossed the yard and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Quick hug, because that pretty girl you’ve brought with you is burning me to ash right now,” she whispered into my ear, and stepped back. “I swear you’re getting taller every time you come back here, Will,” she announced in a louder voice.
I rubbed the back of my neck that flared with a bout of sudden sunburn. “Yeah, might be,” I said, knowing I'd been the same five feet, eleven inches since I’d been sixteen, the year after I left home. I stopped growing and nothing seemed to make that change. I’d come to terms with that in the last seven years or so. Even though I wasn’t as tall as Eve’s twin, Travis, who strode out of the big house, dwarfing all of us, to clap my shoulder. The not so sore one. I grinned and gave him a nod. “Sir, this is Cassie." I cleared my throat. “I hoped she might be able to stay while I worked for a while?”
I posed the request with as much respect as I could, asking Travis, not Eve, knowing if I asked his sister I’d get a straight outyes.But it was Travis I’d be working for over the next however many weeks before I took Cass back to college like we agreed when we left the rodeo grounds a week ago.
Travis held my gaze for a long moment, his lips twitching. “Noticed you turned up with your own truck for once, Mister Kirk.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned back, nodding to Cass, then back to me. “It’s almost as rusty as mine. You’re both welcome as long as you need. She stays in the house. You’re in the bunkhouse with everyone else as always, understood?” Two eyebrows hiked to remind me I wasn’t to go upstairs with Cass at any point.
House rules were house rules, and upstairs was for family only. Cass got a decent bed though, and that was more than I could ask for.
I breathed out and grinned my relief. “Appreciate it always, sir.”
“Good man. Got a few hours left in the day. Are you ready to work?”
“Always.” I tossed my bag back on the truck’s flatbed beside Cass’s meager things we’d taken from her brother’s van before we left the last rodeo.
