Page 42 of Cabins Cows Critics
HaydenandIwalkbehind the cattle on their way to the milking barn. The donkey, Gordon, lingers behind with us as if he’s really the one looking after the herd. He might be a completely confused donkey, but he’s probably not wrong.
“This is definitely the weirdest farm I’ve ever been on,” Hayden says, and I nod.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Did you grow up on a ranch?”
“Sort of, yeah,” I say with zero clue why I’m telling him anything about my past. After hearing about the accident, I’ve been checking for updates online whenever I can, hoping that they report it’s under new management, disbanded, whatever it is they do with multi-million, or billion-dollar companies when their owners die. Instead, all I keep seeing is more and more posts about the search for the missing millionaire. Me. They’re sharing photos, too, all of them from my partying days, andthankfully, none really resemble the man I am now. Or at least I hope they don’t. After they first started the search, I set up an alert on my phone for one of the papers. Any new story that mentions the missing millionaire or the Richmont name, will trigger a chime like a message, and I can check it out. I’ve started leaving Lulu up at the house more often, too. If I do have to run, I can’t exactly take her with me. Poppy would take good care of her. They all would. They’re nothing like the family I ran from.
My grandfather disowned me, cut me off from the money, the name, the title, all of it, and I didn’t care. I left and started my new life. Okay, so I left, ran, in fact, and hid in countless quiet towns moving through the country until I stumbled on the Beaker Brothers Ranch. Thing is, now that I have my new life, I really fucking don’t want to go back to the person I was before. I was an entitled dick. I slept with more women than I care to admit. Now, I know that was all because no matter how much I hoped I would find the one that would make me feel less empty, it wasn’t a woman I was searching for at all. Hayden quietly walks beside me, not pressing for more information, just strolling in step with me, happy to just be. Maybe that’s why I feel like I want to tell him more.
Hayden shoves his hands into his back pockets.
“I went on a field trip with school, once. Actually, that’s the only time I’ve been to a farm. I guess my knowledge of what makes a farm weird can’t be trusted.”
I laugh. “You’re not wrong, though. This place is pretty weird, but that’s what makes it special. Every animal they adopt finds their home here.”
“Every cowboy, too, it seems.”
“Yeah. I can’t see myself ever leaving this place. Not if I can help it, anyway.”
“You sound like you’re not sure you’ll always be here?”
I shrug, patting Gordon along his back, his fur cool and soft under my fingers.
“No one knows what the future holds, not really,” I say, trying to sound blasé about it all, when really I’m so fucking scared this is all going to be taken away from me.
“Well, if you want to stay, I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it happen.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. You just seem like the type of guy who knows how to get what he wants.”
“I know I want to see you again tonight,” I say, and he smiles my way, making my chest swell.
Wendy appears at the end of the milking barn, waving the thermos of coffee.
“Took you two long enough.” She chuckles.
“Good things come to those who wait,” Hayden replies, jogging to her and grabbing the thermos. “I can’t believe I let you run off with the coffee.”
“You were…distracted,” she replies, glancing my way, and the way he blushes in reply tells me that she knows about where he’s been spending his time.
Gordon nudges me with his rear on his way past.
“Go on, fella, get in there, you fool, and pretend to be milked.” I laugh.
“I’ll hook him up,” Wendy says, and Hayden returns to me with the thermos.
“Do you want to get milked later?” he asks under his breath before sipping coffee. I turn to him, deadpan.
“Meet you at my cabin at eight.”
“I’ll see you then,” he replies with a wink and then jogs into the milking barn.
***
The snow outside means that the cuddle sessions are going to have to be contained inside the mini barn at the back. During the colder months, we layer straw over the ground and only spot clean to help create more insulation for the animals, but it also makes it smell a lot more, and if the single guy in cabin three is a critic reviewing this place over Christmas, being forced into a mini barn that actually smells like a barn probably won’t score many points. So I’m doing another spot clean and adding even more straw. Then I head up to the greenhouse. Sally-May had it built last year over the vegetable garden as a way to help keep the goats out. Those shits will destroy an entire garden in a night.
