Page 9 of Bound and Branded

And honestly he ought to have them. It’s safe and all.

My mouth goes dry and I close the drawer quickly.

I move to the bathroom, where I open up the medicine cabinet and look at his aftershave, his razor.

He’s not clean-shaven. He always has a neat beard and I would say that I don’t like facial hair on men. John was clean-shaven.

Clean-shaven and soft in just about every way. Easy.

Caleb could never be called easy.

I shut the medicine cabinet and exit the bathroom, then walk out of the bedroom. I’m tempted to explore the rest of the upstairs. I push open the next door and find a study. It’s full of books and I wonder if he’s read a single one or if it’s just part of the look. The proper adornments to give the room a homey feel.

I move into the room and over to the bookshelf. I touch the tops of the books, most of them leather bound with gold embossing on the spine. Which to me suggests aesthetic purchases rather than books bought to be read and treasured.

I make my way to the fireplace. There’s a book sitting on the side table next to a wingback chair. And I touch the cover. I realize that I’m snooping and if he were to walk in at any point, or if there was surveillance, it looks like exactly what it is. I move my hand away from the book, turn around, and walk out of the room.

It’s reasonable, I think, for me to see what each of the rooms on this floor are. But much less reasonable to be going through his things. I walk all the way down to the end of the hall and open the last door. The room is almost entirely windows. It faces not the view down below, but the mountain behind, surrounded by forest with no houses or humans in sight. It’s entirely different to the first bedroom that I walked into that I assumed had to be his. This one is done in soft, neutral colors. The bed is the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Not a standard size at all. The bedspread looks like it’s made of silk.

The bed is on a raised platform, with a headboard behind it. It’s a strange headboard. Smooth wood with metal rings fastened to the posts.

It’s like a spa, the kind of high-end resort that I’ve certainly never been to. There is a chaise lounge and another chair in the corner that almost seems incongruous. The whole room is incongruous with the rest of the house.

I wonder if it’s guest quarters. That would be about the only thing that makes sense, because it doesn’t seem to jibe with the whole rest of the place. Or with him.

I ease out of the room and close the door quietly behind me, not wanting to disturb a single thing in the space, though I don’t know why that instinct feels so strong.

I go downstairs and check the dinner, then busy myself straightening and cleaning as much of the already-clean house as I can.

When he walks back in the door, my heart leaps up in my throat. I stand at attention like a soldier, my hands clasped behind my back as he shifts his cowboy hat on his head and looks down at me. “Smells good,” he says, moving into the kitchen.

“I’ll just go now,” I say.

“You’re dismissed.”

The words are strange and formal and hit me hard in the pit of my stomach.

“Thank you. What time do you want me here tomorrow?”

“You can come at one. I’ll be expecting you.”

And with that, I make my way out of the house and back to my truck, taking the drive back to my house in near record time.

I feel guilty, because I know Dad had to eat left over sandwiches or something because I wasn’t there to cook for him. But the truth of the matter is, he’s a grown man who should be able to take more care of himself than he does.

I do it because on some level of always felt guilty about Mom leaving. Like it was my fault. Because things were okay with them before she had me, or at least that’s always the impression that I had.

Not that Dad has ever said that directly.

It’s just he’s always made it a point to tell me that I didn’t really know the woman that he fell in love with. Which means on some level I’m the one that changed her. I guess being a mother made her so miserable she had to go find herself in the beds of random men. And, eventually, out of state, and out of contact with her only child.

But right now I feel tired. Aware of the fact that this present situation is my dad’s fault.

I could leave. I could leave town and leave him. I could get a job at some other ranch. But then what am I? Our family land feels important to me, it feels grounding. I don’t have other skills. Just ranching skills. And yeah, I could give them to somebody else. I feel squeezed. Like I’m being weighed down by everything, which is why I shut myself in the room and open the Club app before I can even think. It would be so nice to take a break from all this. To stop thinking.

I open up The Duke’s profile. I message him. Before I can think better of it.

I think I’m getting closer to wanting to meet.

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