Page 11 of Wilder Heart

He physically shook himself. This place had him in his own head too much. He needed to focus on the present and stop dwelling on the past. Cash glanced over at him but didn’t ask.

Cash pointed out the entrance to the bunkhouse’s laundry room on the back side of the building, beside the foreman’squarters. On their way around the farmhouse, Wilder noticed clothes hanging out on the line. A pretty blonde woman was hanging them up, wearing denim shorts and a billowing linen shirt that mostly hid the modest swell of her pregnant stomach. A little girl stood next to her, in similar shorts with a pair of scuffed roper boots on her feet. The woman paused at the sight of them. Cash tipped his hat, giving them a wide berth, and Wilder reluctantly offered a two-fingered wave. The woman’s eyes burned into him, and he wondered what she was thinking. How much did he and Lain look alike these days?

The little girl waved cheerfully, and Cash chuckled.

“She’s a firecracker, I swear,” he murmured over the beat of the horses’ hooves on the grass. “Mary-Beth was pregnant with her when Lain hired me.”

Wilder did some quick math in his head. “You’ve been here quite a while, then. How’d he manage to afford a foreman like you when he was just an eighteen-year-old kid with… his own kid on the way?” He didn’t even know how quickly all of that had happened. It sounded like he and Mary-Beth moved pretty fast after Wilder disappeared.

Cash glanced over at him. “Yeah, he couldn’t, really. But I was living on the road at the time and didn’t have much in the way of prospects. I told him I’d stick around for a year if he’d give me a place to stay. It wasn’t easy. He took out some loans to get the place off the ground, used the money at auctions to get some cattle and the bare minimum of equipment. He just barely turned a profit that first year, but it’s been a steady climb ever since. He’s got a pretty good head for money. Knows how to spend it wisely. And he and Mary-Beth,” he shook his head, “they didn’t get married until Annalise was old enough to be the flower girl. I think she was three when they finally tied the knot. Had a little ceremony out here on the ranch and invited some folks from town. I didn’t ask too many questions back then,since I didn’t know them all that well, but I think Annalise was kind of a happy accident. I highly doubt Lain would’ve planned on having a kid at nineteen when he was swimming in debt and stressing over whether he’d be able to keep the ranch.”

That washed away some of the bitter sludge in Wilder’s heart. Maybe Lain hadn’t rushed off to start a new family, after all.

They slowed the horses down to a comfortable walk, riding along a fence line. Cash pointed out at the empty field beside them. “This’ll be where we put the pregnant heifers. If all goes well, you’ll be riding out with us the day we move the cattle closer to the house for the winter. We like to bring them in closer to home when the weather starts to cool off.”

They chatted about the harvest the other hands were off handling in one of the lower fields behind the house. They planted their own feed to supplement the herd during winter months when they couldn’t graze as much, although they still occasionally had to buy from a feed store. Cash was hopeful that their harvest this year would be enough and save the ranch the extra money, though. Wilder had never seen a combine on the property. There must’ve been, at some point, because before their mother passed, Blackwood Ranch was a booming business. But all of that was long gone by the time he was old enough to remember. Lain had also bought quite a bit of land around the ranch, and it was just over ten thousand acres total now. It was a fraction of that when Wilder last lived here.

Cash took him to a high point on the rolling hills. With a copse of evergreens behind them, there were fields in three directions. The farmhouse and main barn was visible in the distance on their left. It was beautiful, green and gold and blue stretching onward forever. The world seemed far bigger now than it ever had before his prison stint. With a sigh, he relaxed in the saddle, staring out at it all.

“You can’t see the whole ranch from here,” Cash said, which wasmind-boggling, “but this is probably the closest we can get. What do you think?”

He nodded, the words catching in his throat. It was beautiful. Lain had coaxed the land to its fullest potential, and for the first time, he wondered if it wasn’t just Dad who’d been holding this place back. Maybe they both had to leave for Lain to work his magic. Wilder couldn’t guess what would’ve happened if he’d been around for all of this. Maybe he would’ve just gotten in the way. Lain obviously didn’t need him. All his life, he’d thought they were a pair. Maybe all along he was just the extra. A superfluous, unnecessary hanger-on that Lain couldn’t shake.

After a moment of silence, Cash guided Hexie closer, and their stirrups brushed. “Wilder,” he said softly.

Wilder straightened. He wouldn’t show weakness. Clearing his throat, he guided Persimmon away and said, “We headed back to the barn after this?”

Looking like he wanted to say more, Cash replied, “Yeah.”

He clicked his tongue at Persimmon, who fell into a trot. “I’m gonna open her up, if that’s okay, let her run.”

“That’s fine. Only time that horse likes to run is when she’s headed back to the barn, anyway. Have at it. I’ll be right behind you.”

Wilder didn’t know how to respond to that. He nudged Persimmon into a run and didn’t look back, delighting in the pounding of hooves and the cool rush of the wind.

Mealsin the bunkhouse were far more stressful than meals should be. Wilder was used to communal eating spaces—hell, communal bathroom and recreational times, too—but theyalways came with their own pitfalls. He didn’t like sitting at the dining table while Clyde cooked, because the others all milled around, and having people at his back made him nervous. Instead, he found a seat in an armchair in the living area, tucked into a nice little corner where he could put his feet up on the coffee table and keep an eye on the room.

The only two things that kept his ass in the seat were the promise of food and Cash, who sat in the armchair across from him with an e-reader. He looked for all the world like he was ignoring everyone in the room, occasionally flipping the page on his e-reader while the rest of them chatted and played cards at the table. Having him there helped ease Wilder’s nerves. Against his more paranoid impulses, he was beginning to trust Cash.

When Wilder grew tired of the furtive looks, he slouched down in the surprisingly comfortable chair and tipped his hat down over his eyes with his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed on the coffee table.

He didn’t think it had been a particularly hard day. Riding always took quite a bit of energy, and he was up at dawn, and he’d spent most of the day after that in the barn grooming the horses and getting a feel for the place. But maybe he was more tired than he thought, because somehow he managed to doze off.

He heard his old roommate, Randall, humming that fucking off-key tune of his. Any time he couldn’t sleep, he’d hum that goddamn song, even if it meant waking up Wilder. Feeble from the heroin and twenty years older than Wilder, he was at least good with his mouth when it wasn’t humming. Wilder lashed out, kicking the metal footboard loud enough that it twanged, and Randall finally went quiet.

CHAPTER 5

CASH

Cash’s gaze lifted from his e-reader once again, this time drawn to the way Wilder’s leg twitched in his sleep. He honestly hadn’t expected the man to be comfortable enough to fall asleep with everyone around, but maybe he was more exhausted than he let on. Cash had stayed close throughout the day, keeping an eye on him. Lain would probably want an update later. He was surprised he hadn’t seen the boss at all today. He often came out to see how the ranch was running. Was he worried about interacting with Wilder? That was inevitable. Probably better to just get the awkwardness over with. Wilder was here for the next two years, for better or worse, unless he did something especially shitty and got himself the boot.

Cash didn’t think that would happen, though. Wilder worked like a machine in the barn, grooming the horses, cleaning the tack and saddles, mucking out the stalls. He’d even hopped on Persimmon and helped Darryl wrangle the wily mustang into a smaller paddock to keep him from roaming so far. Cash would need to see about that one soon. A problem for tomorrow, at this point.

“If that was anybody else,” Darryl said, pointing at Wilder, “we’d give him hell for falling asleep in here like that. Remember that time Art drew on my face for falling asleep?”

“What’s he got to be tired for, anyway?” Billy asked. “He barely did anything.”

“You think anybody sleeps peacefully in prison?” Clyde asked from the stove. “He’s probably got years of catching up to do.”

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