Page 93 of Chasing the Wild
That girl is too special, too brilliant, and too fucking beautiful. She’ll have someone proposing to her and sweeping her off her feet and buying her every horse she could ever want within minutes of leaving this place.
I swear to god I hear a molar crack beneath the force of my clenched jaw.
“You want me to feed them today, cowboy? Let me ride that big ol’ tractor of yours?” Layla gives my shoulder a playful nudge from her spot in the passenger seat and pokes her tongue out at me when I jolt back to earth.
I’ve spent the whole drive down to the cattle wrapped up in my own head with my fists strangling the steering wheel, and it’s her teasing that grounds me back to the present moment. I mean, she’s been quiet, too, maybe even thinking along the same lines as me. There are moments lately when I catch her staring off into the distance, lost in thought, or chewing hard on her bottom lip in that way she does when something is bothering her. But then she spots me and quickly shakes offwhatever shadow has been hanging around and kills me with that sparkling green gaze.
A part of me secretly hopes that she’s as tangled up in conflicted thoughts about our situation as I am, while another part of me wants her to head down that mountain and never give me a second thought.
That part of me is pretty goddamn tiny, though. In fact, it has just about withered away to nothing. The bulldog residing in my chest wants to snarl at any motherfucker who even dares breathe the same air as her for the rest of her life.
You know, the completely sane, normal reaction to having a girl half my age, who I absolutely cannot keep.
“Be my guest. I’ll happily wait right here in the warm with this heater blasting.” I flex my hands around the wheel, not missing the way her eyes snag on the place where my fingers curl. She’s commented, more than one time, on liking my hands. God knows why; they’re rough and cut up and been weather-beaten after all the years up here wrestling livestock and mending fences.
Fuck it, if she’s gonna eye fuck me in this truck, I’ll be a greedy dickhead and savor every last second before that final grain of sand trickles through the hourglass.
She twists her lips, cocking her head to one side. “Nope. Actually, that sounds like a much better idea. You go do your thing, while I hug this air vent, and enjoy the sight of your ass in those jeans.”
I’m defenseless against this girl. So, of course, I shake my head and hop out, leaving her looking mighty smug curled up on the passenger side. Would this be quicker with two of us feeding out the cattle? Probably.
But right now, I’ll let her watch me work and know she’s keeping warm. Apparently, I’m an old fucking fool and have developed an addiction to having her eyes on me.
It takes me no time to load up, distribute feed for the herd, give them a check over—especially keeping an eye out for any injuries or hint that the Piersons have been back up here messing with my stock—making good time to jog my way back to the warmth of the cab.
When I open the door, the sound of static and a metallic voice makes my stomach plummet to the icy ground beneath my boots.
Layla’s got the radio handset in one fist, and her wide eyes meet mine.
“Actually, Sheriff Hayes, Colt’s just here…” She speaks into the radio and holds it out for me to take over the conversation.
“Hayes.” I bite out. Damn near crushing the plastic in my hand as I slam the truck door shut behind me.
“Bad fucking news, Colt.”
My stomach flips.
“Talk to me.”
“I was just telling your ranch hand. Rock fall. It’s worse than a couple of years back when that part of the valley gave out.”
My mind immediately leaps back to the last time the road was nearly entirely wiped off the face of the mountain thanks to heavy snowfall and subsequent melt bringing down a landslide.
“What are you saying?”
“We’ve gotta source diggers and shit. Heavy machinery. I’m fucking sorry, man, hate to do this to you up there… but we can’t get any further until all this rock is shifted and we can make sure the road is stable.”
A drum beat thunders inside my chest. Probably shouldn’t be feeling fucking giddy about the prospect of half the mountain sliding down the valley, but here we are.
“Your crew ok? No one got caught up in it?” It’s taking everything for me to keep my voice level and not sound like I’m over the goddamn moon right now.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Layla watching me while I talk, and she’s twisting her fingers in her lap, no doubt piecing together this conversation because she’s quick as a whip this girl.
“Yeah, they’re all fine. It happened overnight, and we only discovered it this afternoon once we got past the hairpin bend. I wish we could get to you faster, but this’ll set us back another week I’m guessing.”
One. More. Week.
My eyes meet Layla’s, and she’s giving me an expression that I can’t read. Is she happy to hear that? Fuck. I don’t think I could handle it if there was an alternative answer. She’d better be fucking happy to hear that because as of this second, the selfish bastard inside me is crowing like every Christmas in my miserable life has come at once.
