Page 105 of Chasing the Wild
“All good there? No trees come down? No rockfall?”
No. Everything was perfect. Including the girl who I had moaning my name and coming on my tongue at four-thirty this morning.
Every ounce of her sweetness still coats me, and I don’t want to dare rid myself of any little thing related toLayla. Mostly because I’m terrified that it’ll suddenly be the last time I’ve gotten to have her, and I won’t have realized that would be it—that final finish line for the two of us.
“Can you hear me clearly, Colt? Is the connection cutting out?” Hayes jolts me back to earth.
“Yeah. Sorry. Everything was good.” Letting go of the speaker button, I cough into my fist to clear my throat for a moment before holding it down again. “No damage.”
“Shit, you had me worried there for a sec.”
“How’s the road looking?” I start the truck, put it into drive, and begin a slow crawl following the track, headed down toward the paddocks. Not really wanting to hear his update, but fuck, it’s obviously why he’s been trying to get hold of me.
“That’s why I was getting in touch.” Yup. There it is. “We’re making good time, still on schedule for the end of the week.”
My knuckles on the hand I’m steering with blanch around the wheel.
“Great.” Everything feels fucking hollow. It’s been almost forty-eight hours since he told me we had a week left.
“Best estimate, I’d say we’ll be cleared up to your ranch, oh, say another four days.”
I’ve never done mental math quicker than at this particular point in my life.
Another four days.
Three more nights.
At least seventy-two hours, maybe a little extra, if they run a day or so longer.
Jesus.
“Sorry we couldn’t get it done faster for you.” Hayes sounds so apologetic and I can’t help but puff out my cheeks, blowing a long fucking exhale. It feels shitty lying to him, he’s a friend, but honestly, there’s no one I can tell about any of this without the risk of blowing up Layla’s entire life and I’m not about to do that.
“Nah, you’re all good.” It’s the best I’ve got. Settling for an easy reply.
We keep it brief, getting off the channel as he heads back to work supervising the roading crew and their machinery part way down this mountain, and I pull up beside my tractor.
Sure enough, there are insistent, hungry bellows coming from the cattle who all look at me with curiosity and more than a little impatience.
I’m stuck going through the motions. Repeating the same goddamn process of feeding out that I’ve done every day for far too many years up here. Through wind, rain, hail, and fucking snow. This life is harsh and somehow rewarding all at the same time. I don’t know what else I would have wanted to do with myself if it hadn't landed in my lap through misfortune that I ended up here on Devil’s Peak.
Something tells me I would’ve ended up working the land some way or somehow.
You justknowwhen there’s a thing that sits right within your bones. Like you’ve done it a thousand times before. That part of you will go on into whatever comes next after your time in the sun runs its inevitable course, and you’ll end up using all those skills you’ve accumulated over lifetimes along the way in a similar fashion.
There’s no denying when you’ve got a connection to the land that feels deeper than from solelythis timearound.
My hands recognized this soil and the correct fit of a saddle before I could spell or read or goddamn figure out how to count to a hundred without fucking it up.
I know it’s not that way for everyone, which is why I’ve always tried to help others. To right the wrongs committed by my piece of shit grandfather, even if those who I’ve tried to help refused the hand being extended their way.
Yet, I’ve persisted, to my own fucking detriment, countless times.
Not only that, but I’ve wound up putting Layla into harm’s way, all because I can’t bring myself to be the one to pull the metaphorical trigger. I don’t want to be responsible for protecting awful men like the Piersons, but my shit is so intertwined with theirs. And no one else in this community has ever come forward with anything concrete against those assholes, despite all the ways they’ve fucked over others time and time again.
So, why do I have to be the one to have to do it? To have it staining my conscience that I was the one to goddamn blow the whistle on their bullshit?
Hayes was the one who told me I need to let the guilt go. He’s been ready to take action if I ever wanted to lay a formal complaint against them, if I ever provided solid proof they have been the ones messing with the ranch over the years.
