S toney got Quartz to Miss Alanna’s room, grabbed his insulated coffee cup, and headed to the office. Maybe he could get the contact number of those hunters and get them out here with a private hunting guide.
Yeah. Okay, he could put together an attractive package, get with Geoff on a good menu for rustic but elegant.
Elegant.
He snorted at himself. Did that mean Chinet instead of generic paper plates?
“Morning,” Ty said when Stoney walked into the office. “Nippy out there today for so early in the year.”
“Yes, sir. Gon’ be winter before we know it.” He couldn’t hardly look at Ty.
“Sit down, son.” Ty’s voice had a little iron in it. “We need to talk.”
“Surely.” He kept his voice calm, kept himself from saying what the fuck are you doing?
He sat, knowing Ty had his reasons, even if that didn’t make it a bit easier. Ty always had an angle. Him? He was sorta round in his soul. Nothing bumped off him.
Ty sighed, turning in his chair to face Stoney. “I know I should have told you.”
“It’s your right to do as you want.”
Ty should have said something. Stoney had been managing this land for a decade, he’d raised Quartz, and he’d done every single fucking thing Ty had asked of him, without question.
Ty didn’t fucking trust him to….
Breathe. Just breathe.
“I was going to go to Grand Junction and leave it to you, Stoney. I was. But Harris kept not returning my calls, and that feller from the tax office kept calling, and I knew.” Ty shook his head, spreading his hands. “We needed someone like Ford.”
His cheeks flooded with heat, the shame almost too much to bear, and he swallowed around the ball that formed in his throat. “Yes, sir.”
Stoney couldn’t believe this. He couldn’t even start to wrap his mind around it. He’d thought…. Hell, he’d thought he was good at this. He’d really thought he was doing a good job—at being a good man, one hell of a cowboy, a decent dad.
Nothing like having one of them rugs yanked free to show the filth beneath.
Ty gave him a sharp look. “Now, you stop that. Got nothing to do with you.” Yeah, Ty always said he wore his every thought on his face.
“No, sir.” What the fuck does it have to do with, then ?
“I’m sick, Stoney. Real sick.” Ty’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“No worries. You just focus on getting better and taking care of that lady of yours.” He wasn’t getting into this with Ty. No way. Ty made his decisions for his reasons, and if Stoney was disappointed, that wasn’t none of Ty’s. “You coming to move your stuff soon? This isn’t it, right?”
He needed time to prepare his son.
“I’ll be back in about three days. I have a treatment tomorrow, and that will leave me puny.”
Yeah, the drop in blood pressure made Ty feel like hammered shit.
“Good deal. You be careful on your drive.” Stoney stood and held one hand out to Ty. “Have a good one.”
Ty studied him for a long moment, then shook with him. “Okay. I’ll call when I get in.”
“Call Quartz at bedtime, please. He counts on hearing your voice.” He needed a fucking cigarette, and he’d bet Angie and him could sneak one in the old barn.
“I will. I swear.” Ty hugged him, not letting him avoid it.
He patted Ty’s back, letting the casual smile fall from his face. He was going to let Ty have the office until he left, but Ty had been waiting for him, clearly, because he muscled past Stoney. “I’ll go on and get out of your hair.”
“Have a good one.” He waited for Ty to disappear, then texted Angie.
Smoke?
Meet you at the colt barn
K
Thank God.
He got his laptop turned on before heading out. It was so old it took forever to boot up. He could smoke a pack and come back to it.
Okay, he wouldn’t have a whole pack, but, damn, he wanted to.
He jogged out to the barn, searching for Angie.
“Psst. Geoff is out talking to the goats. Come on.”
“Oh, God.” Geoff would lecture them forever if he caught them. “I know, right? Last thing I need today is a lecture.” He was holding on to his temper with both hands.
“I get that.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Regular or menthol?”
“You have both?” Impressive.
“I couldn’t gauge your mood, and Doogie likes menthol with his coffee and Bailey’s.”
“Works for me, lady. Christ, I have a headache.”
“Well, make this one good, then. One smoke is enough.”
He lit up and took a deep draw. God, he wanted to throw his head back and scream. The cigarette smoke burned hard enough to satisfy the urge.
“You gonna tell me what’s up, boss?”
“Ty turned over his part of the ranch to Ford.”
Angie blinked. “The lawyer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why?” She waved the hand holding her cigarette. “Sorry. I mean, I know Ty is sick.”
“He said that he needed someone here who can run things better.”
“Oh. Oh, no. Are you not going to be the boss?”
“I own forty-five percent. He can’t fire me, can he?”
“No.” Her mouth firmed. “We’ll walk out.”
“So, I’ll be the boss until they drag me out kicking and screaming. It’s not like he’s going to be here, for God’s sake.” Right? Ford wouldn’t live out in the sticks. He’d been in Aspen, at the closest. Let him renegotiate the lease and shit. Then Ford would leave.
He’d raise Quartz up and then figure out what to do from there. That would be a few short years, the way the kid was growing like a weed.
He took another drag, his mind going a million miles a minute.
“So, what’s Ty going to do?”
“Moving to Grand Junction with his new lady.”
“Well, that will put him close to his doctors.” She chewed her lip. “Damn, Stoney.”
“Yeah. I know. Ford hates me.” Stoney couldn’t even blame the man.
“Why?” She blinked at him owlishly. She had to know some of the story, people talked, but Stoney tried not to think about Ford.
“We dated at UNM. He was… shit. I was a hick from Nowhere, Texas, and he was this out, sexual dude. We went together for two, two and a half years.” Then Stoney had failed out of college, and before he’d told Ford the truth, he’d come to the Leanin’ N and Ty offered him a job.
That was the big blowup, and he’d never had another chance to explain. Ford had gone on to grad school, and he’d grown roots in Colorado.
Then Brit and Ty had come to him, asked him to stand up as Quartz’s daddy, and he had a son and a home and a life better than any he was going to get otherwise.
Stoney wouldn’t do anything different now, except for telling Ford the truth back then. He’d had too much pride to admit he just wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough to run with the big dogs. He still couldn’t.
This was his speed.
Angie gave him a one-armed hug. “I adore you, bud.”
“You know, if either one of us was straight and your wife wouldn’t kill me, I’d make you happy.”
She chortled. “I know! She would brain you with a skillet.”
“She’d tear my heart out with her bare teeth.”
“I’m glad you respect her as she deserves,” Angie said.
“You know I adore her.” Hetty was a stud.
“I do.”
He stubbed out his smoke. “I need to work in the office.”
“Yuck. You want to ride out this afternoon? Check fence?”
Like they needed to ride fence. Still, by then he would need fresh air and freedom. “I do. Holler at me after lunch.”
“I can do that. Chin up, boss. We got your back. Ain’t no one going to mess up things for you and Quartz.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She waved him off, and Stoney figured he was getting old. One cigarette and he was all scratchy in the throat.
Still, maybe he could get those hunters out here and make them all some money.
It was worth a try.