Page 128 of Rocky Mountain Devil
Rafe marched into the barn, eager to track down Gabe. Instead he bumped into another Coleman meeting, this time just breaking up.
His Uncle Mike was the last to leave, stopping to offer Rafe a solid man-hug-slash-pat-on-the-back. “I was telling Gabe I think you two have done a fine job taking care of your mom over the past while. I’m glad she’s got you.”
Mike looked older than Rafe remembered, his smile slower to come. “Thanks. You doing okay?”
His uncle shrugged. “Feeling my age, I guess.” He glanced at Gabe. “We’ll talk soon.”
“Yes, sir. Try not to worry,” Gabe added. “I’m sure he’s doing all right.”
Uncle Mike tipped his hat then left without a word as Rafe watched him go, heaviness in his soul. “Jesse?”
Gabe sighed. “Yeah, partly. Still can’t believe he up and left like that.”
“You did,” Rafe said bluntly. “Oh, sorry. You waited untilafterthe funeral to leave. That made it so much better.”
His brother gave him a dirty look.
“And if you spout some bullshit about how it’s not the same thing, I’ll prove that you’re my big brother in age only these days,” Rafe warned.
“You’re right, I was an idiot, like Jesse is being now.” Gabe slapped him on the shoulder. “Did you need something? Or did you stop in to be annoying?”
Rafe pushed aside the other issue for a minute. “When are you going to tell me what’s happening with all the sneaking around? You starting a secret Coleman society? Because I’m getting paranoid that I wasn’t asked to join.”
“I didn’t mean to keep it from you this long, but then life got pretty chaotic.”
Rafe shrugged. “It’s never going to be calm around here, so spill.”
“We’re working on getting the ranches together more. It was a fine idea they had to split things up back in the day, but the families didn’t really turn out even, did we? If we split the Angel ranch between us, and the Six Pack clan divvies theirs up—you can see it’s not going to work. But there should be room forallour family as far as I’m concerned.”
Not what Rafe had expected. “What brought this on?”
Gabe leaned back on the wall and folded his arms. “We started talking a year or so ago when Uncle Randy got sick and Steve didn’t know if they could keep things going at the Moonshine ranch. We’d been struggling over here, hoping the choice to go organic would work. And Karen—well, that woman can ranch circles around us, and Uncle George will never see it. It seemed like we needed to find a way to put on paper what we know already—it’s Coleman land. It doesn’t matter if it was given to Randy or Mike or Ben, it belongs toallof us, or it should.”
“You think that will make a difference down the road?”
“You tell me. What if Uncle George thinks it’s Blake calling the shots on Whiskey Creek land? Making decisions about breeding animals and crop rotations? Would he let him?”
Sadly, the answer was too clear. “In a second.”
“So if Karen actually makes the decisions for Whiskey Creek, but it’s down in the books asColemanplanning, the best decisions can be made without a fight. Although—we’re thinking more of everyone using what they’re best at. So Karen works with the breeding animals, and Joel helps us use those crazy computer programs of his for crop rotations, and we share what we know about going organic.”
It was actually rather brilliant. “I could see this working. It’s a good thing this isn’t likeDownton Abbeywith those third cousins inheriting,” Rafe said.
Gabe laughed. “God, Allison and Laurel are crazy about that show, and every time they put it on that’s the first thing I think of. Inheritances are crazy, bro.”
“They’re not watching it for that part,” Rafe pointed out. “Be glad neither of them have asked us to start dressing in suits.”
His brother shuddered.
Rafe got back to the point. “So this land business. Everyone in the family needs to approve?”
“Legally it has to start with the stakeholders—which means all three uncles—Mike, George and Randy. They needed to know we wanted this, without any of them knowing the parts about them—I mean, Uncle George thinks we’re doing this because the families didn’t breed evenly.”
Rafe snickered. “Yeah, he’d think in those terms.”
Gabe grinned in return. “We’re getting closer, but there’s a lot to figure out, including if Uncle Mark wants to be a part of the final agreement.”
Their mysterious uncle who’d never returned after dropping off Becky at his house and basically giving it to her. “The whole thing sounds pretty twisted, even for the Coleman clan.”
