Chapter Two
Colton
"God damn it," I muttered to myself as I got out of bed the next morning. It was a new day, but I was still angry about last night.
Out of habit, I looked back over my shoulder to make sure Mama wasn't there to catch me swearing, but of course, the room was empty. She didn't approve of bad language, and as far as she was concerned, taking the Lord's name in vain was the worst kind.
I felt like a complete heel for the way I'd acted at dinner last night, fighting with Mama and being rude to Bethany Foster. It had just caught me by surprise to see her pull up on the ranch yesterday in her little blue hybrid car with all her college stickers plastered all over it. At first, I thought maybe she was a colleague of Thomas’ coming to talk to him about work. Then, when she stepped out of the car, it made my heart skip a beat and I had smashed my thumb inside the stapler on my desk.
Her golden, shoulder-length hair shimmered in the sun, and her eyes were as blue as the sky above. She was tiny with a petite frame, but her breasts were full and round, and I’d felt a stirring I hadn't felt in a long time. I had wanted to go out to greet her, but of course Brett beat me to it. He may be the baby of the family, but he was always determined to do things first, like he had something to prove.
It was all for the best. I was up to my neck in bookkeeping and couldn't really afford to leave the office out by the barn just to shake hands with a girl, no matter how pretty she was.
So, I buried my head in my work and forgot all about her. That was until I headed into the house for dinner and heard the sweet sound of her voice at the dining room table.
I hung my Stetson up on the hook by the door and smoothed my hands over my hair. A quick glance in the mirror across the room disappointed me, and I struggled to straighten my tie and button my jacket. My brothers got to enjoy the comfort of wearing jeans all day, but I had a lot of meetings with important bankers, investors, and clients. I'd discovered that I got a lot more respect when I met with them looking like a businessman, rather than a cowpoke.
That's why it had been so important to Dad that I get a degree in business to hang on the office wall.
"Times are changing, son," my father, James Hutchinson, had said to me before he died. "Men no longer conduct business with a handshake in the back of a barn. Now it's all done on computer by executives who have never even stepped foot on a farm. They take one look at a man like me and think I'm a know-nothing, redneck, hillbilly fool.
“You're going to end up running this ranch one day, and you need to be able to negotiate with them on their terms. Go to college, get a degree, buy a fancy suit, and show them that Hutchinson men are as good as anyone else."
So I had, and when I came home, Dad and I ran the business side by side while my brothers worked outside with the cattle. It was terrific, and the Hutchinson Ranch thrived – until the day someone shot Dad in the chest. It had been two years ago, but it still felt like yesterday. The pain, the shock, the horror, and the heartbreak were all still raw and fresh, although nobody talked about it.
Instead, we worked the ranch, raising Angus cattle and selling them by the pound to some of the top meat processing companies in the country. Things weren't the same without Dad, though, and about eighteen months ago, the ranch started losing money. I found bigger buyers and made better deals, but the ranch still wasn't showing a profit. In fact, this last quarter, we lost even more money than the one before.
It wasn't making sense, and worrying about it kept me awake at nights. There was something I was missing. Some important detail that was slipping past me; or maybe the market had turned and a cattle ranch just couldn't be as profitable as it once was.
It didn't matter why. The fact remained that if I couldn't turn things around and get this place to start turning a profit, the Hutchinson Ranch wouldn't be able to sustain itself.
I had talked to Mama about it. I didn't want to, but she caught me pacing in the night and forced me to confess.
"What's wrong, Colton?" She'd crept up on me in the kitchen around 1:00 a.m.
"Nothing. I just thought I heard a noise," I’d lied.
"Yeah, I did, too. Turns out it was you pacing a hole in my floor."
"Sorry." I smiled with chagrin as I looked down at the old worn hardwood floorboards.
"I know when something's on your mind, and you've been walking this kitchen floor every night for the past two weeks. When are you just going to fess up and tell me what's bothering you? You know I'll find out, anyway."
"Nothing, really," I’d lied again, even though I knew it was futile. She'd get the truth out of me just like when I was a kid and had broken the window of Dad's truck with my B.B. gun.
Still, I felt an obligation to protect her from the truth. Mama would be devastated if she learned I had run the family ranch into the ground. Dad had entrusted the administrative side of the business to me, and I had failed him. We were deep in debt, and soon we would have to sell everything off bit by bit just to survive.
Mama had given me that look of hers – the same one she used on all us boys when we were being less than honest about something. I’d cracked immediately and told her the whole ugly truth.
"Well, if we have to sell, then we have to sell, but there's still time. If anyone can find a way out of this, I know it's you." She'd kissed my cheek, like I was still a little kid.
Now, just a couple of weeks later, she's hired an artist to paint pictures of the ranch so we always have something to remember it by. What a huge waste of money at a time when we needed to watch every penny. What's worse is Mama did it as a safeguard for when I fail. Talk about a slap in the face. It was hard not to feel pissed off by such a betrayal. Did she have faith in me or not?
The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I felt. I needed to get away. Passing through the house, I searched for my hat so I could make a hasty retreat.
"You're in a hurry. Don't you want something to eat first?" Mama called out to me from the kitchen. She was holding a coffee pot in her hand and my favorite mug in the other.
My brothers were all seated at the dining room table, piling bacon and eggs onto their plates from the platter Mama had set in the in the center, while Bethany sat between them, looking like a delicate flower in the middle of a bramble bush. Our eyes locked for just a moment, and I had to turn away.
"No thanks. I've got an early phone call I have to make." I spotted my Stetson on a hook and grabbed it on my way out the door.
I headed to the office Dad had built next to the barn, picked up the phone, and got right to business. We needed more supplies, and I wanted to get the order in.
The call really could have waited, but I needed an excuse to get out of the house. I couldn't sit at a table with everyone staring at me after what had happened last night, least of all the pretty blonde artist.
No sooner had I hung up the line than Brett came in with a mug of coffee in one hand and a breakfast sandwich in the other. He set them both down on my desk and then plopped himself down in the chair I kept for guests.
"Mama says you've got to eat," said he announced, as if I didn't already know that's how she'd react. There was no passing on a meal as far as Mama was concerned, no matter what the excuse.
My stomach rumbled at the smell of her cooking, and despite myself, I picked up the eggs, bacon, and cheese on toast and took a hearty bite.
Brett propped his feet up on the edge of my desk and said, "That Bethany Foster sure is hot. Did you see that dress she's wearing today?"
In fact, I had. Despite my attempt to exit the house quickly, the sight of her sitting at the table had been impossible to ignore. Her blonde hair had been pulled back into a sexy ponytail, and she'd been wearing a pink sundress with lace around the neckline that framed her cleavage to perfection. Everything about her was feminine, delicate, and sweet.
In answer to Brett's question, I just took another bite of my sandwich and acted like I hadn't heard. In typical fashion, my baby brother just kept on talking, listing all the physical attributes he liked about her best. Finally, it was more than I could take.
"Aren't you going out with the pastor's daughter?" I asked pointedly.
"Nah. Things with her are moving too slow. Bethany's from the city. Those girls know how to have good time, if you know what I mean."
Irritated, I knocked his boots off my desk, and his feet fell to the floor with a harsh thump, making him sit up in his chair.
"You can't try to have sex with someone Mama hired to work here," I glared.
"It's not like she's an employee of the ranch. She's a freelance artist with a mind of her own. Mama said she needs someone to guide her around the ranch so she can pick the most scenic views, so I volunteered. Now, if she should develop feelings for me during her stay here, what kind of host would I be if I turned her down?"
The implications of Brett's warped fantasy were clear, and for some reason, it pissed me off.
"Shut up, and get out of here," I barked at him.
"Okay, don't be jealous. She's my age, not yours," Brett said with a cocky grin. "No way would she be interested in a stuffed shirt like you when she could have a real cowboy like me."
"I'm not jealous. I don't have time to hit on women. I just have a lot of work to do, and you're in the way."
"All right. Well, since you're not objecting, I'm going to go check on Bethany and see if she's ready for her tour." Brett winked to make sure I got the gist of his intentions and left.
Frustrated, I grabbed the papers in front of me on my desk and crumpled them into an angry wad before throwing them across the room. The paper ball rebounded off the closed office door and rolled back to land at my feet. I picked it up and threw it in the trash can by my desk with a defeated sigh.
Brett was always hitting on women and blustering about his conquests, so why was I so irritated? He was right. Bethany would never be interested in a guy like me, and even if she would, I didn't have time for a girlfriend. I had too much work to do. The fate of the farm was on my shoulders, and I was letting everybody down.
I stared at my computer, trying to concentrate on my work, but it was impossible. All I could see was Bethany's face. I needed to get away; I needed to ride.
Turning off my computer, I stormed from the office into the stable past the barn where the one female who always understood me stood waiting. Whiskey, my dark-brown quarter horse, had been my companion for the past five years. Whenever I needed to clear my mind and feel like myself again, all I had to do was let Whiskey take me away, galloping across the ranch, with the sun on my shoulders and the wind in my face.
That's what I needed now, and so we rode away.