Page 10 of Red Hot Rancher

“I’m surprised you thought that about us. You aren’t around to notice who I spend my time with.” And I didn’t think you cared. He was going down a dangerous road, and he should stop. This was the first time he and Brigit had had an actual conversation in the last decade. But he couldn’t get over her wondering about him and Farah, or that it was awkward for her to mention it.

Brigit set her plate down on the counter, her breakfast half eaten. “I know you and I had a thing when we were kids. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out well, but our lives were going in different directions, and Mom helped me see that.”

Had a thing? It had been more than a thing to him. She had been his past, present, and future. He would’ve given up everything, gone anywhere, to be with her. Sure, he’d had plans to stay in Moore and go to the fire academy. But for Brigit? He could’ve done that anywhere, in any town. There were fire departments literally everywhere, and even if he’d had a hard time finding one willing to look beyond the ear gauges and the punk hair and give a wild kid like him a chance, he would’ve found one. He would’ve made it happen. Because as long as he’d had Brigit, it all would’ve worked out.

“Our lives went in different directions because you walked away.” He carefully set his plate down next to the sink and strode out of the kitchen before he could say something he’d regret. Why couldn’t you have talked to me? Wasn’t that night special for you? Was I just an experience to get out of the way?

This anger toward her was new. He’d dealt with the hurt, he lived with the pain of not knowing why he hadn’t been good enough, and he’d gotten used to the loneliness of not settling for anything less than what he’d felt for her. To have her so casually mention what they had and how abruptly it had ended? Fury. Disappointment. Rejection. Two of those emotions were constant companions. The other was not.

He jogged up to his bedroom and gathered his straw cowboy hat and his work gloves. The only reason he still had these items were because they’d been in his truck during the storm. He’d been on duty while his house had blown through half the county.

Wiggling his fingers into his gloves, he thought over the conversation with Brigit. Her mom had pointed out that things wouldn’t work between them? He’d always known Joan Walker didn’t think highly of him. In high school, most of his friends’ parents hadn’t. Their opinions were a hazard of his parentage. To say his mom had issues would be an understatement. He’d lived mostly with his grandma and grandpa. He’d wanted to live with his grandparents despite the arguments with Mom about the situation.

His dad, or at least the guy he called Dad, had been along for the ride, but not ready for fatherhood. The man had been sucked into Mom’s party orbit and either couldn’t get out or didn’t want to.

Caleb had never met his birth father. Apparently, the guy had left Moore long before Caleb was born—and long before his mom had figured out who his dad was. That, along with Mom’s lifestyle and caustic personality, didn’t endear her toward others. And people didn’t understand—or didn’t want to understand—that his mom was a product of her birth. She’d been adopted from an overcrowded orphanage in Colombia, where she’d gotten her basic human needs met, but not the TLC babies needed. According to Grandma, the orphanage had fed her but otherwise ignored her. Not that Mom shouldn’t be held accountable for the swath of hard feelings she left in her path, but there’d never been any compassion there for her in the first place.

Reactive attachment disorder. Grandma had learned about it too late to seek out adequate therapy before Mom was off on a life of few attachments and little responsibility.

So the residents of Moore held it against Mom that she was wild, “loose,” and less educated than the rest of them. And to someone like Joan Walker, those were all strikes against him.

He crushed the hat on his head. It acted like an instant signal to get to work. When he was on duty as a fireman, he looked the part and acted the part. He called this style his country-boy getup.

He fiddled with the collar of his light jacket, then dropped his hands and spun toward the door. Brigit didn’t give a damn what he looked like. Her mother cared enough for both of them.

He wove through the house, got his boots on, grabbed a heavier jacket, and banged out the door. There was no sight or sound of Brigit. Hopping in his truck, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Why couldn’t it have been simple between them? He’d thought it was back then.

A trip that normally loosened the knots of his neck and uncoiled the constant thread of tension he experienced on the job wasn’t working today. He was too wound up, and seeing the gaping hole where his house once sat added to it.

The day of the storm had been a long shift. He’d had to be the hero for everyone else, then he’d come back to his place, back to nothing. All of his neighbors had been okay, everyone had survived, and even all his cattle had been accounted for, but the fact that his house had been obliterated was a constant stress in his life.

He made decent money with his job, but not build-a-brand-new-house money. And while the place had been old and a fifties throwback inside, he couldn’t replace it. It’d been the only home he had known. Before Grandma had taken him in, he’d spent so many nights on strangers’ couches, on the floor, or even a few times shoved into a closet for the night. Not that he’d admit that last one to anyone.

So, yeah. He’d been a little…unrefined…in school, for a while. Maybe some outbursts in high school. A fight or two—for perfectly valid reasons. No one insulted his mom, or anyone else he cared about.

Turning down the path to his place, he scanned his property. The outbuildings still sported damage from flying debris during the storm. Large hunks of paint were missing off the barn, and his shop’s weathered siding was peppered with dents and puncture marks. There was nothing but a yawning hole where his house had been. Between the guys on the department and Justin’s family and their connections, the rubble had been cleaned up quickly, and for a lot less than it would’ve otherwise cost.

Caleb opened the shop doors. He kept his beater pickup inside and he needed to move it. It was a good backup truck, but mostly he couldn’t get rid of it because…memories. He was about to swing up into the tractor to stack hay bales when footsteps caught his attention.

“Hey, man.” Jesse strode in, dressed in his typical black work boots and grease-stained jeans. He had a red ball cap on his head and a worn black North Face coat to ward off the chill. “Thought I saw you drive up.”

Caleb’s property was divided from Farah’s by three rows of trees, most of which had survived the storm. “What were you doing out?”

“Electric fence went down, and the cows keep getting out. I believe Farah’s dad now when he says yearling steers are the teenagers of the cattle world.”

“Need a hand?”

“No, they’re all back in and I’m going to set up a solar box today to power the fence.”

“Nice.” With his mechanical talents, Jesse was perfect for ranch life. Just having him as a neighbor had saved Caleb more money than he could fathom.

“Farah’s dad was wondering when you want to work cattle.”

“Let Derrick know I have next weekend off and we can coordinate. We do yours one day and then we do mine.”

Jesse nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Farah’s off, too, so we were hoping that’d work. The more bodies the better. It’s my first time with fall work so I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”

---