Maisey Yates - Down Home Cowboy

“Well, you don’t have to bear witness to it today. Lane is giving me a ride into town.”

Cain frowned. He still hadn’t been in to see Violet at work. In part because she clearly didn’t want him to. But, he had assumed that once she was established and feeling independent she wouldn’t mind if he took her.

Clearly, she did.

“Great,” he said, “I have more work to do around here anyway.”

“The life of a dairy farmer is never dull. Well, no, it’s always dull, it just never stops.” Violet walked over to the couch where she had deposited her purse yesterday and picked it up. “Same with baking pies, I guess.”

“I have yet to sample any of the pie you make.”

“I’ll bring some home if there’s any leftover,” she said, working hard to keep from sounding happy. At least, that’s how it seemed to him.

“Are you ready to go, Violet?” Lane came breezing into the room looking slightly disheveled, Cain’s younger brother Finn close behind her, also looking suspiciously mussed.

Absolutely no points for guessing what they had just been up to. Though he could see that Violet was oblivious. If she had guessed, she wouldn’t be able to hide her reaction. Which warmed his heart in a way. That his daughter was still pretty innocent about some things. That she was still young in some ways.

Hard to retain any sort of innocence when your mother abandoned you. And, since he knew all about parental abandonment and how much it screwed with you, he was even more angry that his daughter was going through the same thing.

Though she was actually a little more well-adjusted than he’d been.

Sometimes he was almost tempted to take the credit for that.

Not that it was very great credit. His own mother had been a drunk gambling addict when his father had left, so the threshold for being better than her was not a high one.

“Ready,” Violet responded.

Even though it was a one-word answer, it lacked the edge usually involved in her responses to him. He supposed being jealous of his brother’s girlfriend was a little bit ridiculous.

“Have fun,” he said, just because he knew it would irritate her.

He had lost the power to make her laugh. To make her smile, with any kind of ease. So, he supposed he would just embrace his ability to irritate.

At least he excelled at that.

He could tell he had excelled yet again when she didn’t smile at him as she left the room with Lane.

“Wait,” Finn said, walking past him and grabbing Lane around the waist, turning her and kissing her deep.

It was all Cain could do to keep from groaning audibly. Between his horndog younger brothers and his incredibly happy other brother he felt like sex was being thrown in his face constantly. Except not in a fun way that involved him having it.

Just him watching other people get it.

Lane and Violet left, and Finn walked back into the living room. “I’m going to marry that woman,” he said, the self-satisfied grin on his face scraping at Cain’s current irritation. He had a feeling he and Finn had the same smile. But it had been so long since he’d actually smiled it was hard to say.

“Have you asked her yet?”

“Not officially. But I’m going to.”

“She might not say yes,” Cain said. He was feeling like an asshole, so he figured he would go ahead and be one. “Or, worse, she might say yes.”

Finn was not deterred by Cain’s bad mood. “I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

“That’s a long time. Trust me. Married years are different than regular years.” He had way too much experience living with somebody who didn’t even like him anymore. Way too much experience walking quietly through his own house so that he could avoid the conversation that needed to be had, or avoid the silence that seemed magnified when the two of them were in the same room.

He didn’t think Finn would suffer the same fate though. Finn and Lane had known each other for years, and they had been friends before they were a couple. Cain and Kathleen had been stupid and young. He had gotten her pregnant and wanted to do the right thing, instead of doing the kind of thing his father would do.

All in all, it wasn’t the best foundation for a marriage.

For a while, they had tried. Both of them. He wasn’t really sure when they had stopped. He couldn’t blame her for that part. For the silence and the nights when it was easier to pretend he was asleep when she slid between the sheets than it was to try to make love with someone who didn’t have two words to say to you.

Ironically, he would be thrilled to make love with someone who didn’t have two words to say to him now. But hooking up was different than marriage. At least, he vaguely remembered that it was.

“I hope they are,” Finn said, obnoxiously cheerful. “I hope every year with her feels like five. Because my time with her has been the best of my life.”

Given the way they had grown up, he really didn’t begrudge Finn his happiness. He was glad for him, in a way. When he wasn’t busy feeling irritated by his celibate status.

Of course, if he really wanted to do something about it, he could. But for a long time it had suited him to stay unattached in every way possible.

Though, in fairness to him, figuring out how to conduct a physical relationship while he was raising a teenage girl was pretty tricky. He had to set some kind of example. And casual sex wasn’t exactly the one he was aiming for.

He figured he had to at least try to be a model of the kind of man he wanted his daughter to be with. In twenty years or so, since he wasn’t in a hurry for her to be with anyone.

But that good example thing was simple in theory, and not all that enjoyable in practice.

“Good for you,” he said, sounding more annoyed than he had intended.

“How’s the barn coming along?”

Cain was grateful for the change in subject. “It’s coming.”

“Show me.”

His brother grabbed his hat off the shelf by the door, and Cain grabbed his own. Strange how this had become somewhat natural. How sharing a space with Finn, Alex and Liam—while annoying on occasion—was just starting to be life.

He took the steps on the front porch two at a time, inhaling the sharp, clear air. It was late summer, and in Texas about now walking outside would be like getting wrapped in a wet blanket. That was also on fire. He could honestly say he didn’t miss that part of his adopted home state.

The Oregon coast ran a little cold for his taste, but he had to admit it was still nicer than sweltering. The wind whipped up, filtering through the pine trees and kicking up the smell of wood, hay and horse. If green had a smell, it would be that smell that rode the coastal air across the mountains. Fresh and heavy, all at the same time.

It was fastest to take a truck out to the old barn on the property, the one that had originally stood near the first house that had been built when their great-grandparents had bought the land. The house was long gone, but the barn still remained, and with all of his near-nonexistent free time Cain had been fashioning the place into a house for Violet and himself.

“You know,” Finn said, as they pulled the truck up to the old structure, “you could always hire Jonathan Bear to finish this out. If you keep going like this, it’s going to take you forever.”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve done. Anyway, are you in a hurry to get us out of the house?” In the month since they’d come to live with Finn, he’d never seemed to mind them being in the house.

On the ranch in general, yes. But not in the house.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t make much difference to me. Even if you and Violet aren’t in the house Liam and Alex will be. So Lane and I aren’t going to start engaging in public sex anytime soon. At our house. However, there’s a reason she held on to her cabin.”