CHAPTER 06

jackson

M ickey’s face wasn’t the first thing I wanted to see in the morning. I stood in my doorway wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else as I waited for my coffee to brew. I scowled at my foreman’s presence in my doorway, but as always, Mickey never flinched.

He did, however, spoil Tess with one too many treats as he stood there. Tess was my red border collie. She was smart as a whip, great at herding, and a big fucking baby for Mickey whenever he was around.

“What the fuck do you want this early?” I demanded.

“Mornin’ to you too, you grumpy shit,” he greeted with that toothy grin of his. “I got a question for you.”

“What?” Without explicitly saying so, I invited him in just so I could get my coffee. He followed, removing his hat and holding it close to my chest.

“What exactly do you want my boys doin’ this mornin’?”

“It’s stables day,” I reminded him. I fucking hated my mother’s horses, but I kept them as an honor to her. All we really needed were a few horses for the men to use to get around the ranch. Keeping a fucking herd didn’t interest me. It was just more work, more money, and more time wasted—things I didn’t need and didn’t have.

“About that,” Mickey began, “West did it all already.”

That sentence both gave me pause and made my blood run hot. I didn’t want West doing a damn thing on my ranch without my permission, and he didn’t have my permission to fuck around with my horses.

“West did what exactly?” I frowned. I certainly didn’t give him permission to do shit. And I didn’t need that man waking up before me just to show me the fuck up.

“Oh, he cleaned the stables, but he fuckin’ cleared it all out,” he explained. “Power washed that thing top to bottom. While that dried out, he’s been washin’ and groomin’ the horses. He’s takin’ his time with that one to trim their hooves too.”

I took a long sip of black coffee, doing my damnedest to process what he’d just said. It wasn’t even six. In the fucking morning.

“There ain’t no way in hell he did all that this morning,” I snapped finally. “Not unless he did a shit poor job.”

Which he probably did. As far as I knew, ranch hand wasn’t on his resume of odd jobs. There was no way in hell he knew how to take care of the horses. I highly doubted he remembered all that shit from when we were kids. Sure, West had always taken to my mother’s horses. He’d skip out on the lessons our dads taught us about running a ranch to go spend time with my mom and the horses. He’d lose himself in them for days on end if we let him.

“Nah, he did a damn fine one,” Mickey replied. “It’s lookin’ better than it has in fuckin’ years. “

“Give me five.” I didn’t wait for an answer as I stormed up the stairs. There was no way in hell West pulled off some shit like that. I refused to believe it until I saw it for myself.

It took me less than four minutes to get into clothes for the day. I found Mickey on the porch with Tess eating up every bit of attention he gave her. Snapping my fingers, I tried to get her attention, but she just gave me a judgy side-eye while Mickey laughed.

“Damn dog,” I muttered and didn’t mean it. Mickey just babied the hell out of her, and she lived for every second of it. “Let’s go, Mick. ”

“You go ahead, boy,” he replied. “I’m goin’ to spend a few minutes with my favorite girl.”

In other words: he wasn’t getting off my porch any time soon. Not uncommon for Mickey these days. I gave him leeway because no one worked harder than he did. The rest of my ranch hands could stand to learn a thing or two from him about work ethic.

The fastest way to the stables was by truck—though, sometimes I did take my horse, Zeus. That just depended on the level of forethought I had the night before. My truck jostled and bounced along the dirt road. I took it slow in case a cow got out. We had broken fences that needed fixing and temporary fences that didn’t do shit. As a result, my cows sometimes wandered. I didn’t mind it, but I had a strict slow the fuck down rule on my ranch. The last thing I needed was for someone to hit one of my girls because they weren’t paying attention.

The stables came into view, and it was a fucking mess. My ranch hands clumped together on the dirt in small groups, and all of them were watching West. I hopped out of my truck to survey the entire situation before getting involved.

We kept two stables: one for the working horses and one for my mother’s horses. Both stables had been emptied out with the horses kept in a nearby area. Water soaked the dirt, spilling out of both stables in rivulets. In the space between both, West stood bent over a horse with a hoof stand between his knees. He worked efficiently with a pair of nippers to trim down the horse’s hooves—and damn if that wasn’t the most fucking patient I’d ever seen Beamer while undergoing a trimming.

All the while as West worked, Bailey hovered with her snout pressed into his back. It was as if she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight again. It did something uncomfortable to my heart. I cursed under my breath. I didn’t need that fucking complication in my life.

Every so often, West stopped to pull sugar cubes from his pocket. He alternated between feeding them to Beamer and Bailey.

This West was different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There was a softness to him as he handled the horses, talking quietly and moving carefully. It was like a glimpse into the past—of who he used to be.

That whole thought pissed me the fuck off .

“He say anything?” I demanded as I approached three of my ranch hands, specifically talking to Jake. Jake was young, but he was damn good at working my ranch—focused and driven. If he kept it up, he was my pick to replace Mickey when the old man finally retired.

“Just one sentence. Don’t touch him to get his attention,” Jake said. When I glanced at him in confusion, he just shrugged. “Don’t ask me, boss. I ain’t got a clue what it means.”

I grunted but said nothing else. Though, I did want to push the matter by doing the exact opposite of his request.

“So, uh…” Peter, a seasonal ranch hand, shifted uncomfortably. The kid had been working for me for years and still got awkward whenever he had to talk to me. I blamed poor social skills. Mickey said it was because I was a mean son of a bitch and scared the kid. “Does this mean we answer to both of you now that he’s back?”

My temper flared.

“Listen up, you lazy fucks!” I shouted to get everyone’s attention. It wasn’t hard. I was loud. I stepped back to make sure they all saw me. “Just because West McNamara is back don’t mean you work for him. It’s my name on your fucking checks. You work for me, you take only my orders or Mickey’s, and if you go behind my back at all to do a damn thing he fucking tells you, you best start looking for a new job. Do I make myself clear?”

The mumble of agreement that greeted my ears was sufficient enough. I didn’t bother looking at them. I watched West for some kind of reaction, but all he did was flick his gaze in my direction for a second before going back to Beamer.

“Now, I’m paying you to work, so get to fucking work,” I snapped. “There’s shit to be done so go do it!”

“But our horses!” Tyler said and motioned to the paddock.

“You got feet, don’t you?” I retorted. “Walk your scrawny ass to a fucking UTV and drive where you need to go, boy! And don’t hit my fucking cows.”

While they dutifully filed out of the area for the day, I made it my job to inspect everything West had done inside the stables. I stalked down the aisle and paused inside each stall to give it a good once over. Short of the mud I tracked in on my boots, the place was damn near spotless .

All the blankets had been tossed in the back with the washer and dryer on while a stack of clean ones were folded on a nearby table. Fuck, he’d even done their laundry. Buckets were clean, waterers cleaned and refilled, and the mats had been scrubbed clean. Hell, even the walls had been hosed down.

I stood with my hands on my hips, trying to find one thing wrong but couldn’t. This kind of work took time. A lot of time

“There ain’t no way in hell you did all this this morning,” I said to him as I exited the stables. “That’s too much work for a short fucking time.”

“Don’t sleep much,” West muttered, never looking up.

“Did you work all fucking night?” I demanded. His silence told me all I needed to know. “Nuh-uh. We don’t do that shit here. My ranch, my rules. My employees don’t work overnight.”

That was a whole legal can of worms I didn’t need to open.

“Then don’t fucking pay me for last night,” he replied. More soft words came out of him as he set down Beamer’s leg and rubbed the muscle. When he finally did give me the time of day, it was to glare at me. “The horses needed tending to so I fucking did it. If you’ve got a problem with the hours, whatever. I don’t give a fuck.”

With gentle hands and quiet words, he turned Beamer around and guided the horse into the paddock with the rest of them. Bailey remained practically glued to West during the whole thing. I had a feeling that horse would be attached to his hip unless he made her go away.

“You got something you want to say?” West asked after locking the gate. He pulled a small towel from his back pocket and wiped his hands.

I grunted again, passing by him to survey the second stable. Just like the first, it was damn near pristine. Fuck. I wanted to be mad. Hell, I was mad but not at the job he’d done. No one had done half as well in fucking years—my fault, not theirs. I just didn’t have the space to care as much as I should.

“From now on, you don’t do shit on my ranch to my business without fucking telling me,” I clipped. “I run my business my way. I ain’t about to have you come in and try to change that. One year you’re mine. That means you do what I say when I fucking say it. I ain’t got a fucking problem telling the lawyers I can’t work you and then firing your ass. ”

I wasn’t actually sure if I could fire his ass, but he didn’t know that. Definitely needed to ask Maggie about that one.

“No,” West said. So fucking close. His shoulders squared off as my eyes narrowed. “You ain’t the boss of me. Not with this.”

“The hell did you say?” I demanded, my temper flaring. I stepped up close and watched his entire body go rigid.

“You’ve done a shit job taking care of them. They’re animals,” he continued all too brazenly. “They deserve to be treated with respect and to be taken care of. They’re your horses. You’re fucking responsible for them, and until you get your head out of your goddamn ass and realize that, I ain’t taking orders from you.”

“You keep talking and I’ll put your ass on the ground,” I warned.

“Try it, and I promise you won’t get back up again,” West replied. There was an odd calmness to him as he chewed his stupid gum and stared me down. It was both unnerving and infuriating.

Intimidating him wouldn’t work. I had to switch tactics.

“You want to take care of the fucking horses, fine. They’re all yours since you’re so fucking keen on everything.” I gestured between the two stables. “All of this, my men ain’t helping you. You think you know better, then you figure it all out.”

“I will.”

“Good,” I told him with a smirk. He had no fucking clue what he was getting into. “Mickey’s horse is Annie, Peter’s horse is Checkers, and Jake’s horse is Lucky Luna. The three of them are here at five every fucking morning. The horses need to be fed, brushed out, saddled, and ready to go before they get here. Not a minute later. Javi’s horse is Ruby Rider, Tyler’s horse is Thunderstruck, Nicky’s horse is Noir, and Caleb’s horse is Pippa. They get here at five-thirty. I expect the same shit with their horses. And my horse is Zeus. I leave at six.”

“And I’m guessing you’re about to fucking tell me I can’t ask who or what to figure this shit out, is that right?” His gaze slid over the mingling herd of horses.

“You bet your ass that’s right. You want to fuck around on my ranch, you’ll find out I ain’t playing games.”

His jaw ticked as he simply nodded. I would’ve given anything to know what the fuck was going on in that head of his.

But I knew one thing: I wasn’t letting him out of my sight. I strode back to my truck and dropped the tailgate. Making myself comfortable, I stayed silent as I watched West because I didn’t trust him to not fuck everything up. Mickey could run shit for me for the day. I knew he wouldn’t steer me wrong. But West? I didn’t trust him in the least.