Page 79 of When It Reins
Now, I just have to figure out how I’m going to face Mitch again after kicking him out.
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mitch
Throwingsmall bales into the hayloft is a good way to burn off some steam, and as the wranglers toss them up to me so I can stack them, I let my mind wander.
It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I saw Juniper’s face, since I watched her fold into herself, terrified that the love I had for her was false, and it fucking hurts.
Putting myself out there with her was not easy. It is something that does not come naturally to me as an introverted person, and to have that trust just stripped away makes my chest clench with pain.
I never knew that I could actually feel this hurt, this betrayed.
I do understand where she’s coming from. The timing I had wasn’t great. I could have made myself clearer in the beginning or told her why I was hanging around her the way I was at first.
I just never thought it mattered. Though we hadn’t dated, or I hadn’t allowed it, we were friends first. We were friends who progressed the more we spent time together, friends who confided in one another about our worries, our pasts, our dreams, and our fears.
A bale hits my calf when I miss and one of the wranglers, Covey, I think, apologizes. “Sorry, man. Thought you had that one.”
I don’t reply. I just send a glare at the bale and pick it up, stacking it with the rest. I watch Mason, Bonnie’s older brother, heave a bale off the flatbed with one arm, his other resting on a cane.
He came to work for the ranch last summer and started out confined to a wheelchair, then worked with Dani doing therapy until he was able to start using only a cane.
I watch in amazement for a moment, wondering what you had to do mentally to come that far, to go from being in a wheelchair, unable to get yourself on a horse without pain, to being a wrangler on a ranch and riding every day.
“So…” Maverick, the first wrangler CT hired to work here, catches my attention. “Everything good?”
I send my glare to him, wiping sweat from my forehead. “Fine.”
“Really? Because you never come out and help.”
“What is this fucker trying to do, getting into my business like this?” CT asked.
CT didn’t ask, but when I showed up at the ranch, looking for something to do to take my mind off of shit, something that would wear me out so that I could actually go home and sleep after not sleeping all night last night, he said they were unloading hay.
It is the perfect job to get your mind right, but being questioned by one of the wranglers is not something I am interested in.
“How is it working at the bar?” he asks, to initiate conversation again, despite my granite exterior. “I’m thinking of looking for some supplemental income.”
“They’re not hiring.”
“Who’s hiring?” Covey asks, getting involved in our conversation.
“I was asking if the bar was, to work some security or something,” Maverick answers, saving me from answering.
“Oh, are they? I’d love to work there. Get some face time with the boss over there.” Covey winks at me like I’m supposed to know what the hell he’s talking about.
“Hey, I wouldn’t go?—”
“That singer over there is hot as fuck. I’d let her boss?—”
Before he can finish his sentence, my fist lands in his face. Somehow, my body moves on autopilot down the stack of hay bales and into the face of the guy who was talking disrespectfully about Juniper.
He turns to me, anger all over his face, and adrenaline pushes through my veins. Excitement for a fight to come is all I can feel, and when he barrels into me, punching me in the gut, I’m all the more happy to retaliate.
The ground is slick in boots, but I find purchase and lift him up, taking him to the ground and landing another punch to his face. I am much bigger than he is, and taking him down is easy enough. He moves fast though and gets a leg wrapped around mine, flipping me over and landing a punch to my jaw.
“What the fuck!” Covey yells, blood spurting out of his mouth.
