Page 11 of Burned & Bound
“You go ahead, boy,” he replied. “I’m goin’ to spend a few minutes with my favorite girl.”
In other words: he wasn’t getting off my porch any time soon. Not uncommon for Mickey these days. I gave him leeway because no one worked harder than he did. The rest of my ranch hands could stand to learn a thing or two from him about work ethic.
The fastest way to the stables was by truck—though, sometimes I did take my horse, Zeus. That just depended on the level of forethought I had the night before. My truck jostled and bounced along the dirt road. I took it slow in case a cow got out. We had broken fences that needed fixing and temporary fences that didn’t do shit. As a result, my cows sometimes wandered. I didn’t mind it, but I had a strict slow the fuck down rule on my ranch. The last thing I needed was for someone to hit one of my girls because they weren’t paying attention.
The stables came into view, and it was a fucking mess. My ranch hands clumped together on the dirt in small groups, and all of them were watching West. I hopped out of my truck to survey the entire situation before getting involved.
We kept two stables: one for the working horses and one for my mother’s horses. Both stables had been emptied out with the horses kept in a nearby area. Water soaked the dirt, spilling out of both stables in rivulets. In the space between both, West stood bent over a horse with a hoof stand between his knees. He worked efficiently with a pair of nippers to trim down the horse’s hooves—and damn if that wasn’t the most fucking patient I’d ever seen Beamer while undergoing a trimming.
All the while as West worked, Bailey hovered with her snout pressed into his back. It was as if she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight again. It did something uncomfortable to my heart. I cursed under my breath. I didn’t needthatfucking complication in my life.
Every so often, West stopped to pull sugar cubes from his pocket. He alternated between feeding them to Beamer and Bailey.
This West was different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There was a softness to him as he handled the horses, talking quietly and moving carefully. It was like a glimpse into the past—of who he used to be.
That whole thought pissed me the fuck off.
“He say anything?” I demanded as I approached three of my ranch hands, specifically talking to Jake. Jake was young, but he was damn good at working my ranch—focused and driven. If he kept it up, he was my pick to replace Mickey when the old man finally retired.
“Just one sentence. Don’t touch him to get his attention,” Jake said. When I glanced at him in confusion, he just shrugged. “Don’t ask me, boss. I ain’t got a clue what it means.”
I grunted but said nothing else. Though, I did want to push the matter by doing the exact opposite of his request.
“So, uh…” Peter, a seasonal ranch hand, shifted uncomfortably. The kid had been working for me for years and still got awkward whenever he had to talk to me. I blamed poor social skills. Mickey said it was because I was a mean son of a bitch and scared the kid. “Does this mean we answer to both of you now that he’s back?”
My temper flared.
“Listen up, you lazy fucks!” I shouted to get everyone’s attention. It wasn’t hard. I was loud. I stepped back to make sure they all saw me. “Just because West McNamara is back don’t mean you work for him. It’s my name on your fucking checks. You work for me, you take only my orders or Mickey’s, and if you go behind my back at all to do a damn thinghefucking tells you, you best start looking for a new job. Do I make myself clear?”
The mumble of agreement that greeted my ears was sufficient enough. I didn’t bother looking at them. I watched West for some kind of reaction, but all he did was flick his gaze in my direction for a second before going back to Beamer.
“Now, I’m paying you to work, so get to fucking work,” I snapped. “There’s shit to be done so go do it!”
“But our horses!” Tyler said and motioned to the paddock.
“You got feet, don’t you?” I retorted. “Walk your scrawny ass to a fucking UTV and drive where you need to go, boy! And don’t hit my fucking cows.”
While they dutifully filed out of the area for the day, I made it my job to inspect everything West had done inside the stables. I stalked down the aisle and paused inside each stall to give it a good once over. Short of the mud I tracked in on my boots, the place was damn near spotless.
All the blankets had been tossed in the back with the washer and dryer on while a stack of clean ones were folded on a nearby table.Fuck, he’d even done their laundry.Buckets were clean, waterers cleaned and refilled, and the mats had been scrubbed clean. Hell, even the walls had been hosed down.
I stood with my hands on my hips, trying to find one thing wrong but couldn’t. This kind of work took time.A lot of time
“There ain’t no way in hell you did all this this morning,” I said to him as I exited the stables. “That’s too much work for a short fucking time.”
“Don’t sleep much,” West muttered, never looking up.
“Did you work all fucking night?” I demanded. His silence told me all I needed to know. “Nuh-uh. We don’t do that shit here. My ranch, my rules. My employees don’t work overnight.”
That was a whole legal can of worms I didn’t need to open.
“Then don’t fucking pay me for last night,” he replied. More soft words came out of him as he set down Beamer’s leg and rubbed the muscle. When he finally did give me the time of day, it was to glare at me. “The horses needed tending to so I fucking did it. If you’ve got a problem with the hours, whatever. I don’t give a fuck.”
With gentle hands and quiet words, he turned Beamer around and guided the horse into the paddock with the rest of them. Bailey remained practically glued to West during the whole thing. I had a feeling that horse would be attached to his hip unless he made her go away.
“You got something you want to say?” West asked after locking the gate. He pulled a small towel from his back pocket and wiped his hands.
I grunted again, passing by him to survey the second stable. Just like the first, it was damn near pristine.Fuck.I wanted to be mad. Hell, I was mad but not at the job he’d done. No one had done half as well in fucking years—my fault, not theirs. I just didn’t have the space to care as much as I should.