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  “Have you thought any more about it?” she asked. “Seeing your brothers, I mean?”

  “A little,” I said. “I just don’t know.”

  “Well,” she said, kissing my cheek and standing, “I’m sure whatever you pick will be right.” She opened the tiny fridge and pulled out a plastic container that had some leftovers from a pasta dinner we had a couple of nights before. I was amazed to see it made the trip without making a mess. If I tried something like that, I’d be cleaning up red sauce for a month.

  “You know, though,” she said, eyeing me sideways, “if I had the chance to spend one more afternoon with my mom, despite everything we went through while I was growing up, I’d take it.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Time isn’t guaranteed to anyone. You never know what could happen. Maybe not to you, but who knows? If we are already here, why not?”

  “What if they don’t want to see me?” I asked.

  “Well, you don’t have to stay,” she said. “You could drop by there and say hi. Maybe have dinner or something. But since you’re already all the way out here, you should make an effort.”

  “I thought you said whatever decision I made would be right,” I said.

  “It will be,” she said. “It might not be the kind of decision I would have made, but that doesn’t make it wrong for you. Whatever you choose will be right for you. What I am saying is if it were me, I would go.”

  “Ahh,” I said.

  “Nothing is more important than family,” she said, turning to me. I could see the pain in her eyes, even though she was hiding it down deep. She wasn’t trying to shame me or hurt me. But she was telling me from experience something she’d learned a long time ago. “Don’t your brothers deserve a chance to see you too?”

  She had a point, and I nodded in thought as she turned back to her pasta, sticking it in the microwave to warm. My brothers had no idea where I was or when I was coming back. And while some of them might not be terribly happy to see me, the others might. I owed it to them to at least try to see them, and I owed it to the family to try to be part of it. When I came home, I always had a place, even if I felt like leaving immediately. The price for that was that I couldn’t escape being a Montgomery.

  That meant when I was close, I needed to come around.

  She was right. I needed to go.

  Chapter 22

  Leah

  “For obvious reasons, I didn’t really get to have pets growing up,” I said. “I really wanted one, but my mother was so flaky, and we never knew where we were going to be from month to month, so it wasn’t exactly practical. Not to mention there were times when she just stopped working and we didn’t even have enough to feed ourselves. There would be no way to feed an animal.”

  “Yeah,” Colt said from beside me. “That would make it hard to have a pet.”

  I waited for more, but it didn’t come. I nodded and kept going.

  “Well, just because I couldn’t actually have a real pet didn’t mean I didn’t try to make whatever animal I could find into my pet. If there was a stray or a bird or a squirrel, I was going to claim that as my pet and try to take care of it. I even named them all. I remember there was one place we lived in that was kind of tucked back in a bunch of trees. I would spend hours digging around in the leaves under the trees trying to find as many acorns as I possibly could. Then I would put them in little piles on the front porch.”

  Colt still didn’t engage in the conversation I was trying to have with him so I continued on. “Eventually, the squirrel started coming up and eating them. I would sit by the window and watch him. Sometimes, I would bring my own food in there and we’d eat together. I was sure we had a deep bond.” I laughed.

  “He must have liked the acorns,” Colt said without any emotion in his voice.

  His eyes hadn’t moved away from the road in front of him. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Colt’s truck as he drove. We had left the rodeo grounds a little while before and were headed to Green Valley. The decision to go back to the ranch and see his family had come about kind of suddenly. I was sure he was secure in not wanting to go and was pretty well positive we were going to ride out with the carnival and put this area of Montana behind us without even getting a glimpse of the Montgomery Ranch.

  Not that I didn’t try everything I could to change his mind. I understood he was conflicted, and it wasn’t an easy decision for him. Family tension was never easy, and sometimes, it seemed like it would be better to just avoid it altogether rather than trying to face it.

  But I also knew all about regret and how hard it was to look back and know things might have been different. Telling him about my mother and all the challenges we went through wasn’t easy, but I trusted him with it more than I had trusted anyone ever in my life. I felt like he needed to hear it, like he needed to know he wasn’t alone and that I could understand what it felt like to struggle with family.

  I also wanted him to hear how much I would have wanted to see my mother again. It didn’t matter what we went through. It didn’t matter how much pain she caused me or how many difficulties I had to suffer because of her. At the end of the day, she was still my mother. I had happy memories with her. There were a few bright spots in my life where I knew at some level she loved me.

  And even if she didn’t at the end, even if she never thought about me again when I left the farm, she was the reason I was on this Earth. I would always regret not at least trying to do something to mend the chasm between us. Whether we ever got close or even saw each other again after that, I would at least know I had made my peace.

  Colt understood that from his own experience. He carried the regrets about the end of his father’s life. But he didn’t want to associate those feelings with his brothers. He wanted to be able to compartmentalize and not have to deal with it. Maybe it wasn’t my place to say it, and I would have understood if he got upset with me for saying it, but I had told Colt what he needed to hear.

  That he needed to go home. He needed to see his brothers and they needed to see him.

  I didn’t know if he really internalized what I said or if it meant anything to him. I was glad he wasn’t angry and didn’t tell me I needed to back off and mind my own business. But it was still a surprise when he came to me that Monday morning and announced he was ready to go to the ranch and see his family again.

  As confident as he seemed when he told me we were going, as soon as we got in the truck, I could see his nerves picking up. He was starting to think too much about it, so I chatted inanely just to fill the silence and keep his mind off things.

  “Of course, when we moved on to the farm, I had all those animals around me and thought that was just the greatest thing. I know I named all of them. I can’t remember most of them. But Renegade was my favorite. He and I just had a special bond from the very beginning, and I knew I would never be able to leave him behind.” I kept going on about my previous life.

  “Sometimes I think maybe it was actually him that gave me the courage I really needed to finally leave. I had wanted to get out of there for so long. For as long as I can remember actually. Even before I was anywhere near old enough to start thinking about being on my own, I tried to come up with plans to get away and have my own life. But I never did it. Not until I knew I had Renegade to go with me.”

  “I’m glad he was there,” Colt said.

  “Me too,” I said. “He made sure I got away. And he was there for me when I was going through all the aftermath. It sounds really stupid now, but when I was first running away, I really thought it was going to be so much easier when I was away from them. That all I had to do was break free and everything would be good. I didn’t really think so much about how hard it is for a high-school dropout to get started in life. I mean, maybe it would have been easier if I had decided to try a more normal approach to life. If I had just gotten a job or tried to get my GED so I could go to college. But no, I decided I was going to join the r
odeo,” I said with a little bit of a laugh.

  “It worked out for you,” Colt said.

  I nodded. “It did. That took some time. It was hard to get my foot in the door. Nobody would take me seriously when I was a pint-size teenager. They barely even wanted to give me a chance. But as soon as I got in the ring with Renegade, that changed. I think that’s an important lesson for life. All people need is a chance to prove themselves.”

  “We all did our best to prove ourselves to my father,” Colt said.

  I was so surprised to hear him start talking, I almost didn’t know how to react. “What do you mean?”

  “He was a hard worker. Always had been. That was how his father raised him and how his father raised him before him. I don’t think he ever expected to have a whole brood of sons. Not that he resented us or didn’t want us or anything. It was just a lot. And he idolized Cassidy. That’s the oldest. When he came along, my father had somebody to pass everything along to. He had his legacy. And that never went away. All of us always knew Cassidy was going to be the one to carry on the ranch after Dad couldn’t anymore.” Colt paused for a moment collecting his thoughts.

  “And he is. He runs the family ranch with the same iron fist our father did. Sometimes I really wonder why my brothers stuck it out instead of making something of themselves on their own. But I guess I do understand it. Loyalty and everything. If nothing else, we have to keep going just to spite the Hayes family. We can’t let them get a leg up on us,” he said.

  “The Hayes family?” I asked. “Who’s that again?”

  Colt hadn’t mentioned them much before, and the heaviness that entered his voice when he talked about them now told me they played a significant role in his life. I was curious to find out more about them.

  “Another ranch family in Green Valley. There’s been a rivalry between the two families for as long as anybody can remember. Our families don’t associate with each other in anything close to good terms. If any Montgomery boys are anywhere near any of the Hayes boys, you can be sure there’s going to be a fight soon. They’ve been giving my family a run for our money around every corner and done everything they could to destroy us.”

  I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. “Sounds like a good old-fashioned Western conflict.”

  I thought the joke would be a cute way to break up the tension a little and put him more at ease, but Colt clearly didn’t agree. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even look in my direction. If anything, his face got harder.

  “It’s a serious thing, Leah. This isn’t some stupid land dispute where we steal underwear off clotheslines and let our cattle eat on each other’s fields just to be obnoxious. People have gotten hurt. We lost dozens of heads of cattle because the Hayes family just came through and slaughtered them. They are not people to be messed with.”

  The message was sobering. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Haven’t you called the police? Tried to get the law involved with it?”

  “Hard to get much done with the law when you’re up against one of them,” Colt said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Roy Hayes, one of the brothers, is the deputy sheriff. He throws his weight around as much as he can and makes sure he uses his position to his full benefit.”

  I hated the pain and anger in Colt’s voice. And even though I didn’t even know the Hayes family, I hated them, too, for everything they had done to his family. I couldn’t even imagine dealing with something like that. It made more sense now that the Montgomery brothers would feel such a fierce loyalty to the ranch and to the family.

  It went beyond just the expected attachment to family. It was about defending themselves and the ranch their family built from people determined to bring them down. No matter what was going on with the different family dynamics, they were driven to stand up against their rivals and not be bested.

  I fell quiet after that and spent most of the rest of the drive thinking about what Colt said and wondering what I was about to encounter when we got to the Montgomery Ranch.

  Chapter 23

  Colt

  “Crap, he’s waiting on us,” Cassidy said from somewhere above and to the left of me.

  I had fallen down into the floorboard of Cass’s backseat and was blearily trying to regain some semblance of balance. The only thought running through my head was that Cass would kill me if I puked in his new truck. It was so nice and had all that room in the back. I had an idea why he wanted all that room in the back. I’d seen the girls he was chatting up.

  “Thass fine,” I mumbled from deep in the light grey carpeting.

  “Christ, just get up, Colt,” Cassidy said. “There’s no use sneaking. He’s standing in the damn driveway. This is going to suck. Try to be a man about it.”

  “Huh?” I said and sat up. The words were flowing in and out of my ears like water. I wasn’t comprehending much of it, but when I finally got to a seated position, my eyes stared out of the windshield to see my father in his bathrobe and cowboy boots over white boxers and nothing else. All the words hit me like bricks. “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh, shit doesn’t even begin to cover it, Colt. Oh, shit is the tip of the fucking iceberg,” Cass said. He looked pissed, though I wasn’t entirely sure if he was pissed at me or at the situation. He was the older brother and had done this exact same thing for Boone and Wade before me. All of us had found ourselves out with friends, drinking way too young and being hauled home to safety by Cassidy.

  The only thing that made mine different was I was fifteen. My hazy memories of Wade and Boone had been just the year before. For some reason, sixteen and seventeen were far more acceptable ages for having a little fun, as far as Cassidy was concerned. Or as much as I had ascertained through the ranting he had done while I slowly found my way to his floorboard.

  Cass made his way out of the truck, and I could hear Dad yelling before he even shut the door. I had half a mind to just lay back down, pretend I was passed out, and see if they’d let me sleep it off. But I knew that wasn’t the case, deep down. Dad would haul my unconscious ass into the house and dunk my head in the sink if that was what it took to wake me up so he could yell at me. He’d do anything to yell at me, it seemed.

  “You should know better than to try and cover for him,” I could hear my father screaming. “I expect a lot of foolishness out of you boys on account of me being the one to raise you, but I expected you of all of my boys to be the responsible one, dammit. Going out there and finding your brother is one thing, but to try to sneak him back home so I wouldn’t know is a low I didn’t expect you to sink to, Cassidy.”

  “Dad,” Cass tried interjecting. It was foolish, but he was trying. “He’s only fifteen. He doesn’t know better.”

  “Did you know better at fifteen, Cassidy?” Dad hollered. Cass went silent and I knew I was really going to be in for it. “Are you saying I didn’t raise you boys to know that this kind of behavior was unacceptable? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, Dad,” Cass said, sounding defeated.

  “Are you sure? Because that sure sounded like what you were saying. Wade and Boone, they got it out of their system once. I’ll give you that. Boys do that. But they weren’t fifteen, Cassidy. What would the Hayes boys do if they found out my fifteen-year-old boy was drinking? They’d have our ranch, Cass. They’d put me in jail for negligence and they’d take it all. You know that. You are smarter than that.”

  “Dad,” Cass tried again.

  “Don’t you Dad me,” he said. “Now go get your brother so I can have a talking to him too.”

  The silence was deafening, and when it was broken, it was by boots on gravel. I knew what that meant. The fancy truck’s fancy back door was going to open, and I was going to get tossed out on my fancy drunken keister whether Cassidy had to yank me out by my legs or not. I decided not to give him any more grief and opened the door for him. Stumbling out, I tried to get my feet under me and tripped, landing hard on my knees.

  I trie
d to look up and could hear him sigh above me. Then his hands reached down and hooked under my arms. I was a big kid for fifteen, and there weren’t many people capable of hauling me to my feet. If I had been told Cassidy could do it, I would have been skeptical before that night. But he did it, and he did it like I didn’t weigh nearly two hundred pounds of muscle and beer. I swayed when I got to my feet, but my eyes tried to focus on the two Cassidys in front of me.

  “He’s going to light you up,” Cass murmured. “Just take whatever he gives you and I’ll get you to bed when he’s done. And for God’s sake, don’t argue.”

  I nodded groggily and tried to follow him by holding on to the front of the truck as he walked back to Dad. I could hear the huff and puff of my father as he disgustedly spit when he saw me nearly tumble again. When I could focus on him again, leaning back against the truck to stay upright, he was shaking his head.

  “Colt Montgomery, I am absolutely disgusted with you right now,” he grumbled. The words hurt, but not as much as they would have a couple of years before. I had grown to know his disgust for me in recent years. “You are supposed to be better than… than this. What is all over your face? Is that blood?”

  “Stupid Roy,” I mumbled.

  “Oh God,” Dad said. “You got into another fight with Roy Hayes?”

  I nodded slowly. Dad clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth for a moment, his hands on his hips. It was Angry Dad stance, and he looked, with his robe pushed out behind him, like he was auditioning to be a pro wrestler. The thought tickled me and I felt myself trying to suppress a grin.

  “Are you laughing?” Dad said. “Is this funny to you?”

  “Colt, stop,” Cassidy said, but by then, just calling out that I was grinning made me laugh stupidly. I shook my head, and when I focused again, Dad was just inches from my face. I could smell the toothpaste on his breath and realized he must have just gone to bed when he heard the truck. Which meant he had been waiting up. For me.