Lori Armstrong - Mercy Kill

No need to beat around the bush with Jake. “Was it all bullshit? The speech you gave me last summer about embracing my heritage and us finding a way to work together since we were both tied to the ranch? Or were you feeding me lines so I wouldn’t sell?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

Jake stared into his coffee cup, avoiding looking me in the eye, so I knew what he had to say wouldn’t be easy for either of us to hear.

“A combination of things. I remembered something Wyatt had said to me right before he died. He warned me not to push you too hard and too fast if you returned. Said you’d burn out quickly and be full of resentment that you’d made the wrong decision.”

Not the answer I’d expected, and I couldn’t contain my skepticism. “Really? You just conveniently remembered that while I was gone?”

His cheeks flushed with color. “Actually, unci brought it up right after we’d sent the cattle to market.”

I frowned. “The ones that tested negative for pregnancy, right?”

“Yep. You mentioned to her that the burdens of being barren were the same in bovines and human females-shipped off for slaughter or forced out to pasture to die alone.”

Man. I did not remember saying that. “Had I been drinking?”

He nodded. “A couple days later you went off on a tangent about how you’d lost everything that’d ever mattered to you. You said you’d sunk so low as to look for life answers in manure.”

“To which you responded I wasn’t gonna find answers in the bottom of a whiskey bottle neither,” I murmured. Some of the conversation was coming back to me. The ugly parts. Hell, knowing me, it’d probably all been ugly.

Jake drained his coffee and refreshed both our cups. He sat down and looked me in the eye. “I understand your loss. First your dad, then Levi…” He cleared his throat. “But then I realized you weren’t only talking about human loss. You were talking about losing your career, your livelihood, losing who you were. None of us knew that side of you, Mercy, although soldiering played a big part in who you’ve become. I don’t know what that’s like. Going from being highly trained with specialized skills. Ranch work is all I’ve ever known. Ridin’ the range. Fixin’ fences. Birthing, feeding, and selling cattle. Military work is all you’ve ever known. And I imagine you’d be pissy if someone said your life had been a big waste of time and the skills you honed were useless. You said a trained monkey-”

“Could do your job.” That jab I remembered. Guilt vibrated through me. What a drunken self-righteous jackass I’d been. In voicing my frustration, I’d leveled the biggest insult on Jake and how he’d chosen to live his life. No wonder he hadn’t wanted anything to do with me. At this point I wanted nothing to do with me either.

“I ain’t proud of it, but I stopped trying with you right away. I expected you’d get in my face and accuse me of bein’ set in my ways, cutting you out, but you didn’t. Not once.”

“So you backed off completely.”

“To be blunt, when you came back from the war, nothing changed for me. Stuff around here still needed done, no matter who did it. So yeah, I resented you and the luxury you had of tuning everything and everyone out.”

The truth of my selfishness, meanness, and stubbornness sucked the air from my lungs.

I don’t know how long I sat there, mired in flashbacks of my self-indulgent and self-delusional behavior.

Jake repeating my name brought me out of my stupor.

Embarrassed on so many levels, I don’t know how I mustered the guts to look him in the eye. “Jake. I’m sorry. So damn sorry.”

He studied me for several long seconds that felt like minutes. Then he said, “’Bout time,” and finished his coffee. “Chores ain’t gonna get done with us sitting here yakking about the past. Come on, let’s get a move on.”

That was that. I never appreciated Jake being a man of few words until right then.

The salmon rays of sunrise reflected off patches of dew like pink pearls. With the wet spring, the pastures were laden with newly sprouted grass. But it also meant the cow/calf pairs were relocated frequently to prevent overgrazing.

We’d taken the four-wheelers and managed to move part of the herd. One calf got tangled in the barbed-wire fence. He bleated in fear while mama kept trying to bump us out of the way so she could get to him. Be hard for her to untangle him without opposable thumbs.

Exasperated, Jake said, “Keep her away, or we’re gonna lose this calf.”

“How do I do that? Got a red cape handy?”

“No, and I ain’t got a cattle prod either. Block her line of sight, and nudge her when she gets too close.”

Nudge a fifteen-hundred-pound agitated animal? Right. I’d definitely be buying my own cattle prod. I gritted my teeth and pushed. “Come on, Bessie.”

She huffed a weird noise at her baby.

I blocked her view of the calf with my body. She put her head down and butted me in the stomach. I lost my balance and almost fell into the damn fence.

“Watch it,” Jake said.

I patted Bessie on the neck, slyly attempting to turn her head to the right. “Hey, look! They are some hot bulls in the next field. Man are they hung. Check it out.”

That actually got a laugh out of Jake.

But Bessie? Not so amused. She flicked her tail at me with the precision of a cattle driver wielding a bullwhip. The sting could’ve been worse, had I been closer. I shoved her fat ass. “Knock it off, you old sow.”

Finally, Jake freed the little guy. The young steer trotted after Mama into the herd. Mama, who’d been willing to take on both Jake and me mere minutes ago, now ignored her precious baby.

“Let’s break for lunch,” Jake said.

Back at the house, I eyed the freshly dug flower beds running the length of the porch. Sophie hadn’t yet planted petunias, zinnias, snapdragons, and geraniums, but the promise of the bare dark earth bursting with blooms buoyed my mood. I wiped my feet on the welcome mat, the scents of coffee and laundry detergent teasing me through the screen door as I stepped into the kitchen.

Sophie had braced one hand on the counter and one on her hip. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I’ve been out with Jake. He said to tell you he’ll be along shortly.” I chugged a glass of tap water and poured another. “How are you today?”

She shuffled to me, placing her hands on my forehead, checking for goose eggs or skull fractures. “Did you slam your head in the pickup door again?”

“You are such a riot, Sophie.”

“I’m happy to see you.” She patted my cheeks affectionately. “I miss you hanging around, brooding, snapping at me. You hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Lucky for you I was gonna fry up some egg sandwiches.”

“Sounds good.” I sipped the water, noticing the quiet in the house-highly unusual with a fussy five-month-old baby. My gaze hooked Sophie’s, and I lifted a brow.

“Sleeping. Both of them. Finally.”

“Rough morning?”

“A rough night, according to Hope. You didn’t stay here?”

And things had been going so well. “I work late nights, Sophie. Rather than get my ass chewed by my sleep-Nazi sister for waking up Joy, I crashed at the cabin.”

Sophie muttered, “It ain’t right.”

“What?”

“You not being able to come and go in your own house.”

“It’s Hope’s house, too,” I reminded her. “As long as she’s happy here, I don’t mind.”

“What makes you think she’s happy?”

That stopped me. “She’s not?”

“Ain’t my place to say.”

I snorted. “Since when have you ever let that stop you?”

Hope came into the kitchen with Joy cocked on her hip. As always, the pleasure at seeing my niece was laced with wariness. Ironically, the same feelings Hope brought out in me.