“WHAT’S GOING ON here?”
Boone stood just inside the back door of the house where he grew up, staring at the scene in front of him.
His mother sat at the long kitchen table with two other women. One he didn’t know.
One he did.
Mae Wells sat at his mother’s side, wearing a smile that was too tight to be genuine.
The sight of her should probably scare the hell out of him considering the last time he saw her she pointed a chef’s knife at the center of his chest.
But seeing Mae in this house brought on a feeling that was so much worse than fear.
Regret.
“Mae has agreed to help me find the general manager for The Inn.” His mother matched Mae’s smile. “Isn’t that sweet of her?”
Sweet was not a word he’d use to describe the woman in front of him.
Not anymore.
And the fact intrigued him more than it should.
“Awful sweet of her.” Boone got his boots moving in the direction he’d been headed. He tipped his head at the line of women as he passed. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He could feel Mae’s eyes on him as he walked toward the hall leading to the front of the large farmhouse. No doubt she was shooting daggers into his back. Daggers his mother most certainly believed he deserved.
She wasn’t wrong.
Boone hustled up the stairs, ready to get out of the house for more reasons than one. He grabbed a fresh pair of jeans from Wyatt’s closet before hurrying back down to the main floor. He eyed the front door, considering the convenient escape option.
But he wasn’t a coward.
Idle chat fell to silence as he entered the kitchen, all three women watching as he walked to the back door. He offered a smile. “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”
He didn’t wait for a response. There wouldn’t be one.
Which was fine.
By the time Boone made it to the barn Brody already had Wyatt out of his cow patty-covered jeans. He passed the fresh pants to his soon-to-be-official nephew. “You all owe me one. I coulda died getting those for you.”
“How’s that?” Brody helped Wyatt balance as the kid wiggled into the clean jeans.
“Mae’s in there with Mom and some other woman.” Boone bent to line Wyatt’s boots up so they’d be easy to pull on. “Luckily there were no weapons within reach.”
“I’m not sure that would stop her.” Brody crouched down to pull Wyatt’s jeans over his boots. He glanced up at the son he’d already claimed as his own. “Feel better, Little Man?”
Wyatt’s head bobbed in a nod. “A lot.”
“You smell better too.” Brody mussed Wyatt’s dark hair. “Ready to get back out there?”
“Yup. I’ll be careful getting off Abigail this time.” Wyatt tucked his shirt into his jeans as he and Brody walked toward the front of the barn where their horses were tied up.
“It happens.” Brody stood by as Wyatt mounted up, making sure the boy was situated before climbing onto his own horse. He grinned Boone’s way. “You aren’t the first man around here to find himself in a pile of sh—” his gaze went to the boy at his side, “crap.”
Wyatt was still giggling as they headed back out, leaving Boone standing alone in the yard, watching the father and son as they rode away.
Brody’s language wasn’t the only thing about him that had changed recently. Since his future wife’s arrival at the ranch, Brody was happier and more relaxed than he’d been in years. Originally, Clara moved to the ranch with her son Wyatt to work as the nanny for Brody’s twin daughters, but she’d ended up being so much more. They both had.
And now Boone got to watch their damn fairy tale from sunup to sundown.
“You gonna just stand there or are you gonna actually help me?” His youngest brother Brett stood at the open barn door, a hay bale in his hands.
Boone gave the house a sidelong glance as he turned. “I’m comin’.”
He’d been gone for almost ten years and the hierarchy in the family had most definitely changed.
And now he was at the bottom.
That meant when stalls had to be stripped he was the man for the job.
He spent the rest of the afternoon clearing out soiled straw and laying fresh. Scrubbing feed buckets and water troughs, clearing away the ick that built up in the warming spring weather.
By the time the barn was clean and fresh he was anything but, covered in filth and sweat and stinking to high heaven.
His body ached and his skin itched, but the manual labor was a welcome distraction. One he relied on day in and day out.
Boone took off his hat as he walked out of the barn, using a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow before putting each back in place. Brett rounded the barn with the final bale of hay to be dished out. They cut the ties and finished splitting it between the last two stalls just as the sound of voices carried into the barn from outside. Boone went to the open sliding door expecting to see his other two brothers coming back from the fields with their father and Wyatt.
But it turned out the voices he’d barely heard over the drone of the fans in the barn weren’t male.
“Who is that?” Brett stood staring in the same direction.
“Don’t know.” The other woman he’d seen with his mother and Mae was pretty enough. She had long, light brown hair and a curvy frame that probably caught the eye of most men.
Except when she stood next to someone like Mae.
Mae was something special. Always had been. It’s why she was his the minute he knew enough to convince her to be.
It was also why he deserved to muck stalls every day for the rest of his life.
Because ten years ago he was stupid enough to convince himself there was something better out there.
Not woman wise.
Life wise.
“I’ll be back.” Boone stepped toward where Mae and the other woman were walking toward their cars.
Brett laughed, leaning back against the barn. “Where you wanna be buried?”
“Shut up.” Boone kept walking.
He knew better than this. Mae wanted to stab him the last time they ran into each other. He saw it in her eyes.
And he would have let her. Maybe then she’d hate him less.
Boone caught up to them. “You find someone?”
The women turned his way, each set of eyes carrying a similar level of disdain.
Clearly Mae made sure her new friend understood what a piece of shit he was.
Boone wiped one palm down the side of his jeans before holding it out to the unidentified woman. “I’m Boone.”
The woman’s gaze dropped to his hand before sliding Mae’s way. She took the offer, shaking with a grip tight enough to solidify his suspicions. “Nora.”
“Are you the new cook?” Boone tried to look relaxed, but the way Mae’s eyes moved over him made him anything but.
Nora snorted. “Not a chance.” She backed away. “I’ll see you later, Mae.”
Mae’s grey eyes went wide as Nora abandoned her, the other woman ducking into her car with a wave and a smile before pulling away.
“Not much of a friend, is she?”
Mae’s gaze snapped his way, eyes immediately narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means she just ditched you with the man who broke your heart.”
Mae’s lips lifted at the edges in an unseen smile. “My heart’s not broken, Boone.” She lifted a brow. “It’s perfectly fine and tended to.”
“Tended to?” It was an unfair thing, his reaction. He was the one who fucked up. He was the one who left, walked away from something that was more than an nineteen-year-old kid ever could have realized.
But the thought of another man tending to Mae made his insides burn.
Not that he’d ever tended to her as a man. It was one of many great regrets he had in his life.
“You heard me.” Mae stood tall in front of him, back straight, chin high in the air. Not a trace of the girl he once knew peeking through the steel front she showed him.
That was his fault too.
“I don’t know what you thought happened when you left here, Boone Pace, but if you expected me to be sitting at home waiting for you to come back then you’re dead wrong.” Her eyes skimmed down him, appraising in a way he might have appreciated under other circumstances. “You aren’t the only one who moved on.”
“If you moved on I would have known about it.” It was the thing that settled him the most when he first came home. Knowing that no one else had done what he hadn’t been able to as a nineteen-year-old dumbass.
“You think?” Mae snorted. “I’m not the only one you left here, Boone.” Her gaze was cool as it held his. “If you think their loyalty still sits with you then you get to be dead wrong twice.” She turned away, heading for the shiny new SUV sitting next to his truck.
He should let her go. Let her walk away from him the same way he walked away from her.
But he was never good at doing what he should.
It’s what landed him here in the first place.
Boone went after her, his boots crunching across the gravel drive. “What’s his name then?”
He wanted to hear that he was right. That Mae wasn’t going home to a man infinitely smarter than he was.
He wanted to hear that he wasn’t the only one who never seemed able to move on. Never seemed able to forget what they had.
“His name is none of your business.” Mae didn’t slow down and she sure as hell didn’t look his way. “No part of my life is any of your business anymore.”
Boone raced her to the side of her vehicle, rushing to open her door, the manners his mother ingrained in him only half the reason.
Mae shoved her hand against the door, slamming it shut just as he opened it. Her glare was unwavering as she faced him down. “Go away, Boone. I don’t need you, or any other man, treating me like I can’t do for myself.”
That was an interesting statement. One that cooled the selfish burn of jealousy biting at his skin. “That’s good to know.” He leaned a little closer, her words relaxing him more with each passing second. “Wouldn’t want a man treating you like he planned to take care of you.”
Mae yanked the door to her car open and tossed her bag across the front. It bounced off the passenger’s door before landing in the seat, face down, contents spilling out.
But Mae didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were fixed on him.
And for one blessed second he saw the girl he remembered. The girl who stole his heart and hid it so well he didn’t realize she had it until it was too late.
But then she was gone, replaced by a woman he wanted to know better in spite of the fact that what she wanted was for him to be in a hole somewhere.
“Expecting someone to take care of you is the biggest mistake any woman can make.” Her eyes snapped down the front of him, one side of her nose lifting in response. “Go take a shower. You stink.” She slammed her door, scowling at him as she backed out from her spot and turned down the main drive.
That could have gone better.
Could’ve gone a hell of a lot worse too. He didn’t have a ten-inch blade between his ribs, and when Mae was involved that could be counted as a win.
“She’s right.” Brett was still in the same spot as Boone walked past.
“About?” Boone strode into the barn, Brett hot on his heels.
“You do stink.” Brett stuck right with him, following a little too close.
“You got more to say?” Boone dodged Edgar’s head as the horse stuck it over the gate, looking for affection. He reached up to rub across the gelding’s cheek.
“Nope.” Brett lifted one shoulder. “I don’t need to tell you what Mom’ll do to you if you try to chase Mae again.”
“Who said I was gonna try?” Boone leaned again as Edgar tried to bump him with his head.
“You’d be stupid not to.” Brett grinned. “Almost as stupid as you’d have to be to try.”
“Mae hates my guts.” He stroked down Edgar’s neck, working up the will to haul his stinking ass to the cabin where he spent his nights.
Alone.
“There’s a thin line between love and hate, Brother.” Brett winked. “Course if you’re on the wrong end of it you might end up worse off than you are now.”
“Now? What’s wrong with how I am now?” Boone gave Edgar a final pet before stepping away from his stall to avoid getting roped into standing there forever.
“Not a single woman’s been to that cabin since you moved back.”
“So?”
“So? You’ve been gone so long you’re fresh damn meat here. You could have a different girl in your bed every night.” Brett’s tone carried a hint of jealousy. “The rest of us are all old fuckin’ news. The least you could do is take advantage of it.”
He didn’t want to take advantage of it. He’d had his share of women. His share of one-night-stands.
They weren’t all they were cracked up to be. They all ended the same way.
Alone.
But thinking it and saying it were two different things. “Who says I’m not in their beds?”
Brett had the balls to laugh. “Your ass is in that cabin every night when the sun goes down. If you’re in and out of their beds before that then they should kick your minute-man ass out.”
The bell at the house started to ring, loud and clear.
“Shit.” Boone glanced down at his filth-covered shirt and jeans. His mother would kill him for coming to dinner like he was. “I’m heading out.” He’d rather deal with finding his own food than his mother’s wrath.
And she was most definitely going to be worked up after having the reminder of everything he’d done wrong staring at her all afternoon.
“Probably best.” Brett tipped his head toward the house. “Want me to bring you anything as I come in?”
Brett and Brooks, his younger brothers, shared a large cabin out near the row of smaller cabins reserved for hands and sons who ruined their mother’s lives.
“I’ll be fine.” Boone fished the keys to his truck out of his pocket. “See you in the morning.” He climbed into the cab, the enclosed space making just how bad he smelled even clearer than before.
Chasing Mae down like this probably wasn’t his best move.
Boone drove to the cabin he’d been living in since coming back from nearly a decade traveling the country as a rodeo cowboy, living out his dream.
What he tried to convince himself was his dream.
At first he was right. He loved the excitement. The notoriety. Getting to see places he’d never dreamed of.
But now that he was on the other end of it, everything looked a hell of a lot different.
He parked the truck and bailed out, ready to get cleaned up and call it a day. The cabin was silent as he went in, peeling off the layers of sweat-soaked clothing on his way toward the bathroom at the back of the small space. A hot shower and thorough scrub made him feel human again.
But it didn’t come close to touching the unrest that tainted every inch of his life.
Boone pulled on a fresh t-shirt and a pair of athletic pants before sitting on the edge of his single bed to tie on his running shoes. Skipping dinner sounded fine when all he could smell was his own stink, but now that he was clean his stomach was protesting that option.
Any other night he’d go raid the fridge at the main house, but the last thing he wanted right now was to listen to his mother remind him of everything he already knew.
He snagged his keys off the small table tucked into the front corner and headed out into the warm spring air. The sun was setting behind heavy-looking clouds as most of the hands filtered into their cabins, worn out from another long day.
He was right there with them, only his exhaustion wasn’t just from today.
And it was nothing a good-night’s sleep could ever fix.
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