Rough Stock (33 page)

“We didn’t have to go to Snake River,” she declared.

Willow held the door for them as Rowan helped him into the house.

Her father grunted. “Yes, we did. And you know why. They’re family, Rowan. Like it or not, you have to do things for your children that you wouldn’t do otherwise, not if it was just yourself.” The old man held her gaze as he looked up at her. “We can’t have them helping out over here when we need it just to turn our backs on them when we don’t.”

For a moment, Rowan’s stomach twisted as she thought he was talking about Seth, but then she remembered letting Court watch Willow the other day. Dad still didn’t know about Seth, didn’t know that the minute Rowan had come back to Star Valley she’d taken up with yet another Barlow and it had ended disastrously, as all relationships did, especially where a Barlow was concerned. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth or admit that it had been mostly Seth she’d wanted to avoid.

“Here, sit down,” she said, trying to change the subject.

She didn’t want to talk about it, but she was done making mistakes, that much was certain. Dad was on the mend, and she was moving back home, and that was all she needed, honestly, to make her happy now. Willow would grow up on the farm Rowan loved, with a grandfather who adored her. Dad was right, you did things for your children you wouldn’t do otherwise. Rowan would just have to give up on the idea of love, the thought of having a partner to share her life with, so that Willow could go on living the life
she
deserved.

She’d made a choice, years ago. She’d chosen her daughter’s health and happiness over her own. Rowan had been a fool, nothing less than a God damned fool, to think that she’d ever have anything for her own damn self.

Willow had a father, a grandfather, and a piece of land that had been in the family stretching back generations, if Rowan didn’t somehow manage to screw that up, too. Life here would be hard, harder still being mostly on her own, but as she watched Willow climb up into Dad’s chair, settle onto the man’s lap, and reach for the TV remote, Rowan knew it was the only choice left to her.

“We don’t need their help, Dad,” she said as the TV flickered on. “I can do it.” She didn’t wait for a reply. She headed out the front door, instead, leaving Seth’s borrowed jacket hanging on the hook, preferring the cold at this point. In the barn she flipped on the ceramic heaters and picked up a broom, telling herself that she could save the place with her own two hands, if that’s what it took.

She just had to figure out how.

‡

S
eth stood behind
Court as he pushed the office door inward. He was surprised to see Austin and Walker standing together in front of Dad’s large desk. It was clear from their faces they’d been arguing. Seth groaned inwardly, thinking that, quite possibly, every single Barlow was going to come to blows today over one thing or another.

Walker eyed Court as he and Seth entered the room. “Are you two ever going to stop fighting?” he asked wearily.

Seth leaned against the wall and gazed at the twins. Neither of them seemed worse for wear. Yet. “Could say the same about you,” he replied.

“We’re not fighting,” Walker insisted.

“Not taking swings at each other, at least,” Austin added. “But I can’t seem to get it through Walker’s thick skull that if we don’t do something, we’re going to lose this place.”

“On that we actually
do
agree. We’ve got to do something,” Walker told them all. “Or we’re not going to make it.”

“I keep saying that!” Austin shot back.

Walker was quiet for a moment, tapping his fingers on the top of the desk. “It’s…worse than you think. We don’t have enough left in the business accounts to stay afloat another two years.”

Court sat up straight, and even Seth blinked at his oldest brother furiously. “
Two years?
” Seth cried. “
What?!
” Surely they had more than that, surely it was savings for at least another five. Maybe seven if they were careful about costs and didn’t have any cows that failed to breed.

“How is this possible?” Court demanded. “That’s not right. That
can’t
be right.”

Walker scowled. “I’ve been in this room,” he told them, “crunching these numbers all day, every day. This is the way things are. There’s money going out, but not much coming in. We’re paying too much for feed costs, paying outfits in Texas for God knows what.”

“Texas?” Seth asked.

Walker shrugged and gestured to a stack of papers scattered on the desk. “Bull services,” he replied.

“Bull services? We have Sampson,” Court argued. “Plus the frozen stock. What are we still paying for?”

Walker sighed. “I have no idea. I haven’t sorted it all out yet. Dad had a system, and we…” He paused and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I guess we thought we’d have more time, for him to explain it all. I think…” He looked at all of them, as though he was unsure what to say, exactly. Which was new territory for them. Walker always knew what to say and never had trouble saying it.

“I think he knew that if he started laying it all out for me ahead of time, all our vendors, all our expenses, if he did it before the storm, I might have cottoned on to what he was going to do. Or maybe he hadn’t planned it all that well in the first place. I don’t know. Maybe he’d been thinking about it, in the back of his mind, what he would do if one more storm came through. And then one did…and he had to go.”

“He didn’t
have
to go,” Court growled.

“Well, he
thought
he did,” Walker argued.

“I still don’t get why you think that, why you think he’d do that,” Court accused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Walker told him. “It’s just the way it is.”

Austin leaned forward in his chair, looking up at his twin. “We need to try something, something new, something different.”

“I agree,” said Seth.

“It’s putting us at risk,” Walker declared. “We could just end up losing Snake River faster.”

“We won’t,” Austin insisted. “I know we won’t. It’ll be a good spring, Walker.”

Walker frowned. “Not even you can tell what next winter will be like. Not this early.”

“No,” Austin admitted. “I can’t. But a good spring and summer is all we need, and it’s what we’re going to have. I can make this work. I swear to you, to all of you.
I can make this work.
”

Walker looked at each of them with a dour expression on his face. “We all have to agree. And where’s Sawyer, anyway?”

“Outside the door,” said Sawyer as he moved into view. “Just eavesdropping. And making sure no one throws another punch.” He grimaced, though, when he saw Court’s black eye. “Guess I’m late on that score.”

“So, we all agree?” Walker asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Yeah,” Court replied. “But how much of the money are you going to use?” he asked.

Walker frowned as he picked up the checkbook. “Why?”

Court shifted in his seat and glanced at Seth then back to their oldest brother. “Because we need some, too,” he replied.

Walker’s brow furrowed. “For what?”

‡

R
owan heard a
truck pull into the driveway the next morning but couldn’t wash her hands from cleaning the kitchen fast enough to see who it was before there was a knock at the front door. Drying her hands, she peeled back the curtains to find Court standing on the front porch. Even through the windowpane it looked like the man was sporting a brand-new shiner. Not entirely surprising. Court could piss anybody off.

Next to him was a second, burly shape. Her heart knocked in her chest, thinking it was Seth. Certainly the large build and dark hair peeking out from underneath a white Stetson was familiar.

But he turned, and she saw it was Walker standing beside him. And then her heart knocked again for an entirely different reason.

“Rowan?” asked Dad from his chair.

Not knowing what to say about who their visitors were, she turned the knob slowly and eased open the door. In the gray morning light, they both looked serious, intense.

“Can we come in?” Court asked.

Rowan wanted to say no, for a whole host of reasons but she stepped aside anyway and let them pass into the entryway, then into the living room once she closed the door behind them.

“Daddy!” Willow cried and flung herself at Court’s legs.

The man bent and picked her up. He kissed her on the cheek, but he looked nervous, and Walker looked fierce, as always, Rowan supposed. The eldest Barlow’s face had the same sharp eyes, the same slightly downturned mouth that Rowan had come to associate with him. She braced herself for anything: damning accusations, threats, lectures, but the eldest Barlow brother only gave her a simple nod before he turned to her father.

“Mr. Archer,” said Walker in his deep-chested rumble.

Dad grunted. “Walker. Guess we’ve had ourselves a fair bit of trouble lately.”

Walker grimaced. “We have.”

Dad cast Rowan a furtive look then sighed. “I understand how things look, ’specially to folks in town.”

Rowan wanted to melt into the floorboards all over again remember the looks in church.

“And I’m not taking sides,” Dad continued. “Not badmouthing your brother there, to anyone, or silently. I’m not taking sides except to say that Rowan’s made up her mind about not marrying Court. I’m not going to try to change it for her, and frankly, it’s none of
your
business.”

Walker looked startled, caught entirely off guard. He glanced back and forth between Court and Rowan.

“We’re not here about that,” Court said quietly.

An awkward silence descended until Walker cleared his throat to break it. “We were thinking about your health problems. And about how difficult it will be to run this place for you now, under the circumstances.” He shifted a bit uncomfortably. “Given our…connection…to each other, we think we should sit down and discuss the future, of your ranch, and ours.”

Rowan’s jaw dropped.

“Realistically,” Walker continued, “keeping up with this place is going to be hard. Our dad was having trouble, there at the end,” Walker told them. “Could hardly mount his horse some days.”

Dad grunted. “Don’t have a horse,” he snapped, but she could see understanding in his eyes as he spoke. Dad may not have a horse, but lifting feed bags, filling troughs, shearing, lambing—it was more than enough for one able-bodied man. She could only imagine the way Dad had been struggling a bit more each year to get the chores done in his advancing age.

He didn’t want to talk about it, though, or even have it pointed out to him. That much was apparent. Walker must have sensed that he’d said as much as maybe should be said on the subject, because he switched gears. “We’ve all fallen on hard times, Mr. Archer. We’ve all had the same three winters in a row. I think if we band together, we can make the best use of what we have. Rowan can’t do it on her own, and it’ll just continue to get more difficult for
you
. We’re not offering to buy your spread. God knows we couldn’t afford to make a decent offer on the place, even if we wanted to. But we don’t want to buy it. We’re not interested in taking your land from you.”

Dad frowned. “So, what
do
you want?”

Walker took off his hat, revealing the same wavy, dark-brown hair that Seth had—all the Barlows, really. He cradled the Stetson carefully in his hands before he looked back up at Rowan’s father. “I think we should throw our lots in together.”

Dad’s brow furrowed. “How’s that?” he asked. “You’re cattle ranchers. I don’t know anything about cattle. And you don’t know anything about sheep.”

“We’d like to lease your land, Mr. Archer. All of it. We’d like to split up our herd, keep some of them here to give our grazing lands time to fully recover from this nasty weather. This cycle of freeze, drought, freeze, drought has just about killed off our hayfields entirely. We’ve got a new venture, too, to try and solve our feed problems.”

“Lease,” said Dad, leaning back in his chair.

“Yes, sir,” replied Walker quietly, because everyone in the room knew what meant.