Slow Burn Cowboy(11)

The rest of them were at least all living the same hell. But Lane... Well, to her they must look like a bunch of dysfunctional idiots.

“So,” Lane said, her tone a little too bright, which confirmed Finn’s suspicions, “Violet, what grade are you going to be in?”

“A junior,” she said. “Unless I end up having to repeat a grade because I’m not prepared for advanced tractor mechanics and cow-tipping.”

“I doubt you’ll have to take those classes. They probably fill up early,” Lane said, keeping her tone chipper. “Then again, I can’t speak from experience. I didn’t actually go to school at Copper Ridge High.”

“How much has the town changed in the past ten years?” Alex asked. “I figure that’s relevant since we are going to be living here now.”

Finn knew that Alex was just poking him now. It didn’t make the sinking in his gut any less real.

“Oh,” Lane said, shooting Finn a look of surprise.

“He was our grandfather too,” Liam said. “And this matters. It means something. God knows we’ll never get anything from our father. But we got this, and not him. For that reason alone, I want to stay.”

That hit Finn somewhere vulnerable. Somewhere he didn’t want to examine too closely. It made Liam’s reasoning seem almost justified. And that wasn’t what Finn wanted at all.

“Well, things actually have changed quite a bit here,” Lane began. “Just in the past few years we’ve been really revitalizing Old Town. For my part, I bought the old Mercantile, and I sell specialty foods.”

“Oh, that boutique food stuff is doing well right now,” Liam said. “If I was still doing start-ups, that would be something I’d look to invest in.”

Lane sent Finn a triumphant look. “Interesting.” She turned her focus to his brothers, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what she had to say next, “I’ve been trying to talk Finn into expanding the ranch’s dairy products so that I can sell them in my store.”

“Lane,” Finn said, his tone full of warning.

“Sorry,” she said, licking some sauce off of her thumb, which momentarily distracted him from his irritation. And that was even more irritating. “The business is just on my mind and it slipped out. Especially because I’m going to be starting those subscription boxes soon.”

“Smart,” Liam said. “I think it’s always a good idea to branch out beyond the local economy if you can.”

“See?” Finn asked. “Beyond the local economy. That’s why I have contracts with a larger dairy.”

“I didn’t mean it’s not good to be part of the local economy,” Liam said. “In fact, there’s such a big movement for local food, it’s a great area to invest in.”

“You don’t want to work on a ranch,” Finn said, pointing at his brother.

“Maybe I want to bring what I already do to the ranch. Did you ever think of that? I’m good at building businesses, Finn.”

No, he had not thought of that. Because that would mean giving Liam some credit, which he realized in that moment he never really did. Stupid, since he knew that Liam was successful in his own right, and that he wasn’t the sullen teenage boy that Finn had always known him best as.

“I think you should see how things actually run before you start trying to make changes,” Finn said, looking at his brother hard. Then he looked at the rest of them. There was no point arguing this out, he knew it. But, truth be told, he thought—no, he believed deep in his gut that a few weeks, maybe months, of the ranch life grind, and they’d be gone.

“All of you. My offer to buy you out is going to stand from here on out. This isn’t fun work. I know that you all spent some summers here, and I know you have a vague idea of how it all goes. But to do it year in year out, day in day out, spending your life up to your elbows in literal bullshit is not something any of you know about. So, if at any point it proves to be too much for you, I’ll buy you out. But, hell. Don’t let your pride stop you if after a couple of weeks your bones ache and you just want to sleep in and it proves to be too much for you. But don’t think you can stay then either.”

Violet made a face and glared at her father. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not doing any of that. Just because you’ve gone country and dragged me along with you doesn’t mean I’m getting involved in this.”

Cain looked at his daughter. “I’m sorry. I missed the memo that you were calling the shots now. If I give you chores, you’re going to damn well do them.”

“There are child labor laws, you know,” she said, taking a bite of pasta and shooting her dad an evil glare.

“Do you think anyone cares much about that out here in the country?”

“You’re the literal worst,” she said, putting her plate down on the counter and stalking out of the room.

Cain took another bite of his dinner. And he made no move to follow her.

“Should you talk to her?” Of course, it was Lane who questioned him, because the woman never could leave well enough alone.

Cain shrugged. “Maybe. But, trust me, my talking to her doesn’t ever smooth anything over.” Then Cain looked at Finn. “You think you’re going to scare me off with tales of early mornings? I’m already elbows deep in bullshit. At least here, it will be for a reason.”





CHAPTER FIVE

LANE KNEW THAT Finn was mad at her. The rest of dinner was tense—not that it had been extraordinarily calm in the beginning, but it certainly didn’t get better.

There was no easy conversation between the brothers either. Finn had told her that things were difficult between them, but until she had witnessed it, she hadn’t fully understood. She should have believed him. After all, she knew all about difficult families. She hadn’t spoken to her parents in years.

By the time she was finished eating and ready to head out the door, her sense of unease had only grown. She hated feeling like he was angry at her. It happened. They had known each other for a long time, and initially in the capacity of her being Mark’s irritating younger sister. Who lingered around in the shadows when they were trying to watch an action movie in peace, or who forced them to be guinea pigs for her latest cooking experiment.

But as they’d eased into adulthood, and into a real friendship in their own right, rarely had Finn ever looked at her like he wanted to drown her in the ocean. About now, he was looking vaguely murderous.

When she said her goodbyes to everyone and headed for the door, she wasn’t surprised when Finn followed her outside. He closed the door hard behind them, crossing his arms over his chest, then dropping them almost immediately. He let out a long, slow breath. “Are you going to apologize for that?”

“Me?” she all but squeaked. “You were being a jerk.”

“I’m sorry if you don’t understand my family dynamic, which consists mainly of us calling each other names while we try not to punch each other in the face. But that has nothing to do with you, and it’s definitely not for you to lecture me about. What was that stunt you pulled?”

She threw her arms wide, the cool night air washing over her bare limbs. “Oh, do you mean cooking you a delicious dinner? How dare I?”

“I mean bringing up the dairy stuff. I know it’s what you want me to do, but if you think you’re going to railroad me by going through my brothers—”

“Are you serious right now?” Anger spiked inside of her. “You honestly think that I was trying to manipulate you?”

“Can you honestly say on any level that you weren’t?”

She almost exploded with denial, then stopped herself, chewing on the words for a moment. Being honest with herself—really honest—she supposed there was part of her that maybe brought it up in front of other people to get a more positive consensus. Because she knew it was a good idea, and she figured that if someone besides stubborn Finn heard it, she would find an ally.

“I thought so,” he said, rocking back on his heels.

“You know me,” she said, instead of denying it outright. “I was just carried away by my own enthusiasm. That’s all it was—I promise.”

“The situation with them... I cannot believe that they think they’re going to stay here and take ownership of this ranch. It’s mine.”

She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she remembered what had happened when she’d done that the night before. It had been strange. It had left her fingertips feeling tingly. And she didn’t want to do it again.

Instead, she did her best to make her face sympathetic. “I don’t know what to tell you. Except that life changes and people suck.”

“Thank you,” he said, his tone deadpan.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules. If I did, unicorns would be real and we would definitely have figured out teleportation by now.”

“I’d vote for you.”

Something about that made her stomach curdle. Mostly because it made her think of Cord again. She had been thinking of him way too much over the past few days. She felt wrung out. And watching Finn go through this too... She wanted to curl into a ball and lick her own wounds, not deal with his.