AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2) (14 page)

“Shit,” I muttered, and did it again.

We had a big goddamn problem.

I rode my horse as fast as it would take me toward the Corbin barn, where I knew Paisley would be poring over billings and invoices and other records. It was where she came when she was upset, where she could lose herself most effectively.

I had learned that about her. I’d learned lots of things since our wedding.

With any luck, Chance would be there, too. This was a big problem, and I knew he’d want to know.

“Paisley,” I said, dropping down from my horse. She whirled around, her hand covering her heart.

“Christ, Avery, you scared the shit out of me.” For as drunk as she was the night before, she looked no worse for wear in the early morning light, her hair long and loose, casual in a T-shirt and jeans. Was it the same set as last night? I racked my brain and couldn’t come up with an answer, then cursed myself for my lack of observational skills.

“How are you?” I asked, feeling strangely awkward. I’d slept with my arms around this woman, and she probably had no memory of it whatsoever. It was just as well. I doubted my affection would be accepted.

“Working,” she said, gesturing impatiently at the papers spread out in front of her. “What do you need?”

“There’s something wrong with the count,” I said, shoving the clipboard at Paisley.

“You hate cattle logs,” she said, glancing up at me. “That’s what your brother said, anyway.”

“Yes, I hate them, but that doesn’t change the fact that something’s wrong with the count,” I said, pointing impatiently at the grid. “We’ve got cattle missing, and not just a few. Dozens.”

Her eyes widened. “An exact number, please, Avery.”

“At least thirty.”

“Fuck!”

“You’re telling me.” This was a disaster of near-epic proportions. Thirty head of cattle didn’t ever just simply go missing. Unless a sinkhole had opened somewhere on the ranch and swallowed them whole, there had to be a different explanation.

“Where’s Chance?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I thought he’d be here, but he’s not.”

“So you came looking for him, and had to settle on me.” She shook herself out of wherever that thought was going. “Never mind. That doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is figuring out where the hell those cattle got off to.”

I made a move to help her saddle her horse, but she swatted me away. I was only inconveniencing her. She had everything ready to go in just a matter of minutes, and we were off galloping across the ranch. I was worried about the herd, worried I’d gotten something wrong and was wasting our time, but there was something nice about pushing my horse full tilt right next to Paisley. I’d seen her ride before, hadn’t I? How hadn’t I noticed how magnificent she was astride her horse, her body moving seamlessly with the animal even at a gallop, as much at home atop one as anything else? She was beauty in motion, something truly special, and I was almost a little disappointed when we finally caught up with the herd.

“Do the count again,” she said, her hair wild and gorgeous. “I’ll help. Let’s rule out any human error.”

But it was the same the first time, the second time, the third time — making it the eighth time I’d counted them in the first place. There was no ignoring it, now. A big enough portion of our herd simply wasn’t here.

“A break in the fence?” Paisley wondered out loud. “Would that account for it?”
“Maybe, but then why aren’t we missing more? Why didn’t the rest of them amble along to see if anything really was greener on the other side?”

“If they just wandered off like that, though, someone would’ve noticed.” Paisley’s eyebrows drew together as she tried to focus, tried to puzzle out what had happened. “Someone’s with them all the time during the day. Someone else is riding the fence lines to the pastures before we shift them. Someone else would’ve seen them by now. I don’t understand what’s happened. Who was the last people with the cattle?”

I checked the log. “Tucker and Hunter.”

The line between her brows deepened. “They would’ve noticed if something was wrong. When was the last time the count was correct?”

“Yesterday. At dusk. The herd overnighted in the north pasture.”

“Let’s run the fence.”

I cursed bitterly as we slowed our horses to a canter, then a trot, at the farthest point from both the Corbin house and the Summers house. An entire section was down, which was hard to believe. The line would’ve been checked prior to the herd being moved here to avoid just this sort of thing. I dismounted and examined the posts and wire.

“What do you think happened?” Paisley asked, her face drawn with worry. “Maybe something made them panic and stampede, knocking everything down?”

“No.” I held up a length of barbed wire, careful to keep my bare hands away from the actual barbs. “Look at the end of this.” The piece I was holding had a rusty patina from being exposed to the elements, but its end was filed to a shiny, new point, as if someone had been sawing away at it with a pocketknife.

“It’s cut?” She absorbed this information for a few long moments. “But who would do such a thing?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Bored kids?”

“They’d know better. That’s just not done here.”

“People interested in seeing this operation fail?”

Paisley didn’t have anything to say to that. She knew just as well as I did that there were plenty of people interested in that — Bud Billings, in particular — but it was a dangerous thing to accuse anyone of cattle thievery or sabotage without explicit proof. It didn’t even make sense for Billings to be interested in that kind of crime. He had more than enough cattle and money.

“We have to do something,” she said. “This is horrible.”

“What is there that we can do?” I asked. “The ranch is huge, and we’re thin in numbers. This is a losing game whether any of us are willing to admit it or not.”

“Some of us aren’t willing to admit it because we still have faith in this place,” Paisley fired back. “Don’t you dare suggest we just roll over and take this.”

“Who are you going to accuse?” I asked. “Be realistic.”

“I don’t have to accuse anyone at this point. What I can do is deter.”

“Deter?”

“We’ll schedule chaperones for the herd at all hours,” she said. “It’s that simple. Do you think if anyone was out here last night whoever stole into here would’ve felt confident doing it?”

She had a point, but my stomach turned over the idea of overnighting with the herd. I spent my entire day on the ranch. Did I really have to start giving up my nights, too?

“You hate the idea of putting forth even a little extra effort to protect this place,” Paisley said, studying my face. “You want it to fail, don’t you?”

We’d had this conversation before, but not with everything at stake. Our marriage had perhaps only staved off what I believed to be inevitable: the fall of the ranch. It had to happen one of these days. If it wasn’t bank loans it was drought. If it wasn’t drought it was attempts at buyouts. If it wasn’t that it was wildfire. Sometimes, it seemed like every single thing in the world was against us succeeding, but I knew I was at the head of that pile. I honestly didn’t want to see us succeed because I didn’t want to be here anymore.

“Your silence tells me everything I need to know.” Paisley wheeled her horse around.

“Wait!” I couldn’t let her go like this, so I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “I love you.”

Both of us froze at that. Maybe it was true. I’d loved her even more now that I understood her.

But then she shattered every illusion I might’ve held about our marriage.

“Why the hell would you go and say a thing like that?” she asked, staring at me.

I swallowed hard, then put my heart right on out there. “I’m saying it because it’s true. I love you.”

“But the timing. The timing is why I’m really curious.”

“Is there a bad time for those kinds of revelations?” I asked, confused. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“I’m trying to figure out why now. Why, right now, have you decided that you think you love me?”

She was so exasperated that I almost backed down, but I couldn’t anymore. I had to be honest with her.

“You’re so strong,” I said. “I’ve seen you deal with such adversity. You’ve been very … surprising, Paisley, all of the things you know how to do. All of the things that make you the person you are.”

“I gave you a chance to get to know me,” she said. “I gave you multiple chances.”

“I know you did. I’m sorry it took me this long.”

“Here’s the thing, Avery,” she said. “I don’t know if you intended it or not — I certainly didn’t intend for it to happen — but I’ve finally stumbled upon an arrangement to this marriage I can live with.”

“And what arrangement is that?”

She shrugged. “We’re not lying to each other. Our marriage is as intact as it’s probably ever going to get, and I’m going to be frank — I enjoy my freedom.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I used to worry about what you thought, what you felt, and now I don’t,” she said. “I cared about keeping house, about trying to make my home your home, too, but I don’t anymore. I cared about vows and promises and all that bullshit, but I don’t anymore. Aren’t you relieved?”

I blinked at her. “I don’t think relieved is the word I’d use to describe it, no.”
“Well, you should be,” she said, the chipper tone of voice she was using belying her sarcasm. “Because we fought a lot back when I cared. Isn’t it nice that we’re not fighting?”

“We’re not fighting because we never see each other Paisley,” I said. “That doesn’t mean our relationship has enjoyed an uptick in positivity.”

“I’ve felt pretty positive about it,” she said. “You’re having your fun, and I’m having mine.”

“I don’t go to the bar anymore,” I said.

“Oh?” She was the very picture of polite. “I was kind of wondering why I haven’t seen you there lately. Do you have a new spot?”

“You know full well the bar’s the only place in town. I just go home after the ranch.”

“To the trailer?”

“No, home.” I fought to stay patient. “Our home.”

“Oh, my father’s home?” she asked, feigning surprise. “That’s so interesting. I really thought you preferred your bachelor pad.”

“Paisley, can’t we stop this? Can’t we drop whatever it is we’re doing and talk to each other — really talk?”

She was off her horse and down on the ground faster than I expected, her finger in my face, her face furious.

“No. No, Avery, you don’t get to fucking do this.”

“Do what?”

“This.” She poked her finger into the center of my forehead and screwed it around. “You don’t get to play these little mind games with me.”

“I’m not playing games with you,” I said, frustrated. “I love you. That’s true. I’m sorry for all of this. I’m sorry for making things bad. You were right. Everything you said and did was right. I was the one who was wrong.”

“You don’t get to just decide you love me one day,” she said. “That’s not fucking fair. You have jerked me around for months.”

“I know I have. I’m trying to tell you that I’m sorry.”

“And what do you want me to do?” she asked. “Do you want me to just collapse in your arms, suck your cock, and tell you all is forgiven?”

“I don’t expect any of that,” I said, holding my hands up defensively. “I don’t expect anything. I’m telling you with no expectations that I love you. I have loved you. I resisted loving you because I was forced into it. At least that’s how I felt. And I’m sorry that I caused you so much pain.”

“Okay.” Paisley leveled a look at me. “Is that infuriating?”

“What?”

“Answering entire diatribes with ‘okay.’” She stuck her chin out. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“I said that to you because I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond to some of the things you were saying,” I said. “I still don’t. We’re kind of dancing around each other here, Paisley.”

“Agreed. We are.”

“So you want to continue our marriage like before,” I said. “Separate. Even though there have been significant changes between us since then.”

“Yep. Pretty much.” She looked at me for a few minutes, like she expected me to contradict her.

“I respect whatever decision you make,” I said. “You deserve to do whatever you need to do to stay in this marriage. Because you are important to me, Paisley Summers. Maybe the ranch isn’t important to me. But you are.”

“The ranch is my life,” she said. “It’s the reason behind everything I do. If you don’t love the ranch, Avery, then don’t bother trying to love me.”

With that, she was back up on her horse, and I was left to follow and ponder all the various ways I’d fucked up recently. They were too many to count.

I started back toward the barn at a trot, but when my phone buzzed, I goaded the horse into a canter without even having to glance at the display. I knew it was Chance, and I knew he was calling a meeting.

I arrived with the last of the Summers ranch hands, gathering in the barn. I looked around for Paisley, but if she was in there, I couldn’t find her.