Page 22 of Stirring Up Trouble
“Keaton will be in touch about delivery. Call him once the day’s events are over. He’ll be done with ranch chores by then.”
Hazel nodded, then waved as she drifted away. Her tight smile told me I wasn’t fooling anyone with my shortened attention span.
Leaving my office behind her, I stalked further into the arena. It had been forty-nine minutes since I’d last laid eyes on my—on Robin. He wasn’t mine. Not yet.
As I rounded the corner closest to the stalls, I caught sight of him talking with a small group of men. He held their full attention as he spoke. Every pair of eyes watched him closely. A few even looked like they wanted to take a bite out of him
What the fuck was wrong with people? First Corny tried to flirt with him. Now these motherfuckers thought they had a shot.
I’d ended up sparing my ranch hand from murder, though the hell raising I did to him made it clear he wasn’t supposed to flirt with any guest of the ranch. But these men weren’t under my rule. They didn’t have any loyalty to me other than participating in events for the rodeo.
Before I could figure out a plan to get them to leave him alone, Robin’s phone rang. His gaze when down to the screen as he was laughing about something. The smile on his lips died instantly.
“I have to take this,” I heard him half shout before he jogged in my direction.
Leaning back against the wall, I waited for him to pass. Instead, the man turned the corner to where I’d hidden myself and answered the line.
“What’s wrong?”
Since I couldn’t hear the other caller, I could only guess what was going on from this side of things. With how tightly Robin was holding on to his phone, I had to believe he was expecting the worst.
“Of course I think it’s something bad. You don’t ever call unless it is. Hell, you didn’t call for so long, I had a PI look for you. Remember that?”
I frowned.Who would he need to hire a private investigator to find?
“Well then tell me the good news, big brother. I’d love to hear why you’re calling me out of the blue.”
Big brother? Things were starting to piece together. His animosity, the call out about the search from before, and the level of sarcasm put it into perspective for me.
Robin and his brother had beef.
Long standing, if I had to guess.
And they didn’t talk often.
“I’m in the middle of a rodeo right now. I can’t come visit. If you wait, then I’ll come see you in a few weeks. Deal?”
There was a pause. A long one. Which told me his brother was giving his own spiel about the situation.
Eventually, Robin sighed. “Yes, that’s fine. Please give Gerald my best. Love you too, Wes.”
I realized too late I should have left before he turned around. The minute he spun around, I was there, an obvious observer to his private moment.
“Blaze!”
“Robin,” I drawled slowly. “You good?”
He shook his head, then stopped himself before nodding slowly. “I’m ok. Just… just talking to my brother. He wants me to come visit.”
“You don’t want to go.”
It wasn’t a question. We both knew as much.
His gaze went back to his phone as he remained quiet. Was he going to try to contradict me? Or did he feel different about the situation?
I wanted him to open up to me. I wanted to know every piece of the reasoning behind how he felt about this Wes fellow.
But I didn’t deserve all those details yet.
