Cowboy Up(41)

“You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me right now with that shit?”

He grunts and shakes his head. “Just repeatin’ what they keep yammerin’ about. Figured you should know that your love life is gonna make you an uncle sooner than you reckoned.”

I flip him off before guiding Midnight back into his stall. I do a quick check of the feed to make sure everyone did their work today. Not that I need to worry about how things are run here. I’ve been stepping back more, and it’s been refreshing. I trust my staff here implicitly, and by doing so, I free up more time to be with Caroline.

I never thought there’d be anything in this world that would have me wanting to spend less time on the ranch, but three weeks with her and I’m finding my happiness is directly connected to her and no longer to the ranch. She brings out a protective side to me that has only ever been shown to my siblings and the ranch. We spend as much time together as our complicated schedules allow, but it’s never enough. For the first time in my life, I wish I had some sort of normal career where I could take her on the kind of dates she deserves instead of us “dating” here at the ranch for dinners, movies, and just generally spending as much time together as possible. I’ve been getting her in my bed most nights, something I did the second I found out she was staying at the fucking motel in Law Bone. In the past few weeks, she’s only spent a handful of nights there, and each of those nights I spent unable to sleep, worrying about her. Between my responsibilities here on the ranch and her helping out at Hazel’s, we get little time even for our unconventional, ranch-bound dates.

“Heard you ran into Jess the other day,” he says, twisting his Stetson between his hands.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Also heard she’s been running her mouth ’bout y’all bein’ back together.”

I stop in my tracks and look over at Maverick. He places his hat on his head and walks over to stand next to me.

“You’re gonna want to get on top of that shit. That woman was evil when you were fuckin’ her, but you and I both know she’s not ready to believe it’s over forever, regardless of how much time has passed.”

We walk in silence toward the house, his words weighing heavy in my gut.

“Does Caroline know about Jess?” he finally asks.

“Yeah. Told her that night of the baby shower when she had dinner here the first time.”

He mulls over my words while straddling his ride home, not starting it up yet. “The girls know about Jess tryin’ to get back with you. They know she’s cornered you once and tried a few more times unsuccessfully. They’re worried about you dealin’ with that as a brother, but they’re worried about what could happen to Caroline if Jess manages to tear y’all apart. You’ve got my wife and our sister actin’ like worried hens and it’s startin’ to piss me off.”

I clamp my teeth together as my breathing speeds up.

“Don’t like hearin’ that, do you?” He turns the key on the four-wheeler, shattering the silence. “You should probably let her know that your ex is sniffin’ around again before she thinks you’re keepin’ it from her for some reason other than protectin’ her feelin’s. There won’t be anything good that comes from her findin’ that out from someone else.” With that, he hauls his ass back to his own house.

I never regretted selling him back Leighton’s family land when they got together. I didn’t need it, the Davis ranch being as huge as it is. But it’s times like these, when he takes advantage of being so fucking close by coming by to stick his nose into my life, that I question the sanity of my choice. Even the five hundred acres of our combined land don’t provide enough distance when he gets a hankering to start handing out advice.

It’s been a long-as-fuck week for Caroline now that the rebuild is under way on The Sequel, and the last thing I want is to bring this shit up tonight, but I know Maverick’s right. I’m not blind to why Jess started this bullshit again. She’s always made it clear she wants to get back together, and it’s my fault for not being more definite in my refusals. Now that she knows I’m seeing someone, it’s worse than ever, and seeing how Caroline’s mama—Jess’s boss at the salon—was with her the last time she tried coming on to me, it won’t be long until it gets back to my girl. And the last thing I want is her thinking that I was keeping that from her.

Fuck.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket and pull up the last text she sent me. She stayed at the motel last night, not wanting to drive in the storm we had roll through after leaving Hazel’s. I didn’t sleep for shit and my mood has been terrible, but when her text pinged through early this morning, I almost came in my pants. All day I’ve been dealin’ with the promise built off that message, and I finished my work twice as fast as normal.