AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I was taking it out to them when I saw your truck pull up, so I turned around."
"You're carrying each bale by hand?" Aiden asked incredulously. "Don't you have a feed truck?"
Seth was beginning to look annoyed. He glared down at the broken saddle tree as if he wished it was Aiden's neck. "Radiator's busted," he said irritably.
"Ouch." Aiden paused. "How many head of cattle are you running now?"
"Forty."
That wasn't even a quarter the size they'd maintained when David was alive, but hauling enough hay out to the herd to supplement their winter diet would still be an exhausting ordeal without a truck. A distressed sound caught in the back of Aiden's throat, and Seth's head came up. His expression turned vicious, and Aiden quickly deflected.
"Tessa's—what? Nineteen? Twenty?" he asked. "She's got to be bored out of her mind up here with only you for company. Why don't you bring her into town and let her help with the prep for Winterfest? It's all anybody can talk about."
Seth grunted but didn't bother replying. Aiden didn't let it discourage him; he was just warming to the topic. He'd always loved Tessa. She was thirteen years younger than her older brother, and she used to have the worst crush on Aiden. It was obnoxious how she'd followed him around as if attached by an invisible leash, but he never minded much. He'd always wanted siblings, and he'd take a cute little girl with messy pigtails over the silence of his own house any day.
"The mayor's been trying to rope folks into a skijoring competition," he continued, blithely ignoring Seth's disinterest. "Can you believe that shit? Letting a horse in a full-on sprint pull people on skis through a jump course? The guys are hoping to get me to try it, but nah. I'm not crazy."
He'd left himself wide open for ribbing with that last remark, but Seth didn't take him up. That was fine; Aiden could easily carry a conversation for two. He'd broken the ice accidentally the day before, so he figured he could break this ice on purpose. It wasn't even a struggle. Even after all these years, he slipped effortlessly back into their old pattern: him sitting there jawing; Seth listening quietly while he worked.
There was something so calming, so grounding, about watching Seth work. Everything he did was meticulous; his attention to detail was always immaculate. That was just his nature, but Aiden supposed his habits were much stronger now, reinforced by past mistakes.
After all, the one and only time Seth had been distracted had resulted in the biggest mistake of his life—a mistake that destroyed his father's business overnight. After a night of hard drinking with Aiden, a hungover Seth had mixed the wrong dose of supplement into the herd's winter feed. Within a matter of days, nearly two hundred cattle had died. They dropped by the dozens each day, bloating in the fields, and not even Doc Riley could cure them. It had felt like a battleground, treating animals for pain where they lay and then hauling away the carcasses with the help of shocked and judgmental neighbors.
Aiden still felt nauseated whenever he thought about it.
"You want me to bring that busted saddle into town for you when I leave?" he asked impulsively.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because Gus hates me." Seth's tone was flat, but he yanked at some loose stitching around the stirrup with extra viciousness. "He stopped doing business with me years ago."
The alfalfa straw dropped from Aiden's open mouth. "He—what? Why? That old man doesn't hate anyone."
Seth's hands stilled, white-knuckled on the busted saddle tree. He turned his head ever so slightly as if he wanted to look at Aiden from the corner of his eye but was holding himself back. Frustration was etched into the harsh lines of his face when he asked, "How else was he supposed to react? Dad was one of his best friends, and the strain I put him through drove him to an early grave."
"That's bullshit!" Aiden sputtered, nearly choking on his indignation. "He can't blame you for a heart attack."
Seth shook his head like he was trying to dislodge a gnat buzzing at his ear, and that gnat was Aiden. "A heart attack right after he was forced to declare bankruptcy. That's all that matters to most folks."
"But that's crazy," Aiden protested. "What have you been doing all these years? Driving all the way to Baker City whenever you need a repair?"
"I make do."
Aiden jumped off the haystack, too outraged to sit, and paced around a bit while he gave it some thought. It was true that public sentiment had turned brutally against Seth in those first few years. He'd gone from golden boy to devil incarnate in people's eyes seemingly overnight. Small towns gloried in a good scandal, and folks rolled around in Seth's scandal like pigs in mud, but the whispers had eventually faded. Everyone went on with their lives—everyone except Seth. He was still living in the past, frozen in a moment, just like the ranch falling down around his ears.
"I don't think it's as bad as all that," Aiden said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "You've just spent too much time up here alone. How would you know how the town feels about you? You're never there."
Seth's jaw tightened, and Aiden caught a flash of darkness in his eyes. Irritation or anger, he couldn't be sure, but it turned those whiskey-brown irises nearly black. Without warning, Seth reached out. Aiden jerked back instinctively, bracing for a strike that never came. Seth's touch was fleeting, brushing against Aiden's bruised temple where the elk's antlers had clocked him. His fingers were unexpectedly gentle, but Aiden's cheek flinched at the rough scrape of calluses on his inflamed skin.
The unexpected contact shocked Aiden into silence. He stared mutely, wondering who this man was and how the boy he'd once known better than his own beating heart could have become such a stranger.
"Does it hurt?" Seth whispered.
"Nah." Aiden tried to smile, caught off guard by the sudden tenderness. He locked his jaw, clamping down hard on the shiver threatening to run down his spine. "You know how it is. I'm always banged up. That hasn't changed."
"You could've died so easily," Seth said, sounding angrier than Aiden had ever heard him—except maybe after the bear incident. He'd been furious that night, ready to finish what the bear had started and tear a strip off Aiden for his foolishness. Aiden was long familiar with being jumped on for every mistake, big or small, but Seth hadn't been angry because he'd screwed up. Seth was angry because he was scared—for him. To this day, no one had ever cared about Aiden so much. Aiden had forgotten what that felt like. He'd willed himself to forget. It made the betrayal of being shoved aside more bearable.
