Page 35 of Awaiting the Storm (Wildhaven #1)

I turned off my phone and tossed it into the bottom drawer of my nightstand without listening to any of the messages that Caison had left.

It’s been two days since I saw him at The Buckhorn, clinking glasses with my horse trainer. Two days, and I’ve only grown angrier.

I glance down at the folder of résumés sitting on my desk.

Barn manager, grooms, ranch hands, and a horse trainer—we need them all.

Now that Holland Ludlow’s money has finally hit our account, we can afford to hire them.

I should be happy, but I find myself staring at the folder instead of reviewing the applicants’ qualifications.

Frustrated, I push it aside and open the ranch’s email. There’s a message from Ironhorse. I click on it, and it’s addressed from the desk of the ranch manager, Caison Galloway. The message contains just three words.

Can we talk?

No, we cannot. We will not. I don’t need an explanation to understand exactly what that night meant. He was never on my side. He never really saw me. I was a box to check on the way to Holland Ludlow’s big expansion. Just an insignificant bump in the road to Ironhorse glory.

So, now, I’m done. With him. With all of them.

Shelby tried to talk to me yesterday. She said I should hear him out, that maybe there was more to the story. I told her to stick to barrel racing and leave my love life to me. Charli—God bless her—tried as well, but she’s always been more loyal than logical, and even she’s angry.

Carl, of course, is acting like he deserves a medal, showing up at the barn yesterday as if he were expecting a parade.

While I appreciate him clueing me in about what was happening right under my nose, I’m not about to hop into his arms. God knows I considered it for one brief moment.

I thought about backtracking to the time when the ranch was thriving and I was happily engaged, but you can’t go back.

All you can do is move forward. So, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I’m done with men.

The only men I need in my life are Grandpa, Daddy, Uncle Boone, and Cabe. They’ve never lied to me, never pulled wool over my eyes. Perhaps not everyone gets the fairy-tale love my parents had. Maybe not everyone finds a soulmate. Maybe true love isn’t meant for someone like me.

And you know what? That’s fine.

I’ve got the ranch. Horses. Family. I’ve got work to do.

I accepted Giles’s resignation without making a scene. He showed up in the barn on Monday morning with his hat in hand, looking like he’d aged a decade overnight. I wasn’t moved. I didn’t make it easier for him.

“You don’t need to work the two weeks,” I told him. “You can pack your things and go today.”

His jaw tightened. “Matty, I didn’t mean for it to go down that way. I was going to tell you, but Caison wanted to talk to you first.”

“Doesn’t matter. I saw what I needed to see.”

“I loved my time here,” he said quietly. “I came to think of you Storms as family.”

I nodded once. “Good luck, Giles.”

And that was it.

I exit the email without responding to Caison, pull up the client list, and begin sorting through it.

I mentally assess which clients we may be at risk of losing to Ironhorse.

If they’re bringing in a team of top-notch trainers with Giles overseeing their program, many people may decide to leave us.

You’re creating problems that don’t even exist.

Charli walks in while I’m knee deep in spreadsheets and leans on the edge of my desk with her arms crossed. She doesn’t say a word until I stop what I am doing and give her my full attention.

“I want the job,” she says.

“What job?”

“Head trainer.”

I blink up at her. “You? ”

“Yes, me. I know this operation inside and out. I’ve worked every season since college. I trained under Giles. Hell, I’m the one who trained Jupiter for Shelby, and we just placed second in Cheyenne.”

I exhale slowly. “Charli, I know you’re talented, but this situation involves more than just one horse. We have twenty boarders and eight training contracts with outside clients. Ironhorse is about to launch a competing program, and we can’t afford to take any chances right now.”

“I’m not a chance,” she insists. “I’m the best option.”

I shake my head. “We need someone experienced and proven. If we don’t maintain our performance, we’ll lose clients. You’re not ready yet.”

She doesn’t flinch. “I am. You just refuse to see it.”

I look away, jaw tightening. “This isn’t personal.”

“It’s personal,” she says. “Because I give a damn. I love this ranch just as much as you do, and I’ve earned a shot. Give me one month. You don’t like how I’m doing? I’ll step down. No argument.”

I study her. My little sister, who’s not so little anymore. She’s stubborn as a mule, and she’s never backed down from a hard day’s work. She’s been here fighting for this ranch as hard as I have been.

“One month,” I say. “If things don’t go well or if you get into it and realize it’s too much for you, I’ll bring someone else in. Deal?”

Her face breaks into a grin. “Deal.”

Daddy ambushes me the next morning. He catches me in the barn as I’m saddling Luna.

“I’m hungry,” he announces.

I glance over at him. “Okay?”

“I want something good. Not oatmeal or turkey bacon. Let’s go to Ryse & Shine. Imma Jean makes those honey biscuits I like on Wednesdays.”

I groan. “I’m not in the mood to be social, Daddy.”

He crosses his arms and gives me the look. The one that says this isn’t up for discussion. “Too bad. You could use a little sugar and a strong cup of coffee too.”

And so I find myself in one of the booths at the Ryse & Shine Café, nursing a cup of coffee with a slash of sweet cream while Daddy chats up Imma Jean, flirting like he’s twenty years younger and his daughter isn’t sitting right here.

She sets down our plates—biscuits, sausage gravy, crispy bacon, seasoned fried potatoes, eggs over easy—and winks at him. “Let me know if you want something sweet for the road.”

“You wanna come home with me?” he asks.

“Oh my God, Daddy,” I gasp.

Imma Jean laughs and pats his shoulder before walking away. He watches her with a grin.

“You’re so embarrassing,” I say.

He shrugs. “What?”

I take a bite of biscuit and sigh. It’s so good that I moan.

“Grandma would have both our hides if she knew we were eating this,” I say.

“That’s why we’re not gonna tell her,” he says as he takes a bite.

After a minute of chewing, he sobers. “You talk to Caison yet?”

I freeze for a beat, then mutter, “No. And I’m not planning to.”

He nods, like he expected that answer. “He reach out?”

I shrug. “Texted. Emailed. Might have left a few voicemails.”

“And?”

“I turned my phone off.”

“Matty—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I snap. “He lied, and he used me. I would’ve never sold them that land if I had known what they were planning.”

He leans back in the booth. “You mean if you knew they were building a thoroughbred training facility?”

I blink. “Yeah, that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I knew.”

My stomach sinks. “What?”

“I knew that’s what Ironhorse wanted to do with the land. Caison told me when he asked for my support.”

“You knew and didn’t tell me?”

“I told you it was a fair deal. That’s all I said. Because it was.”

I push my plate away. “You were supposed to have my back.”

He folds his hands on the table. “I did, and I do. And I gave you the truth. We sold that land because Wildhaven Storm needed the money. Not because we liked what they were gonna do with it.”

“But Giles—”

“I didn’t know about Giles,” he says. “That blindsided me too. But I don’t blame him.

He’s going to be working with multimillion-dollar horses, Matty.

Triple Crown bloodlines. You think he was gonna turn that down to stay with us?

We can’t offer him anything close to that.

He’s got to think about himself and his family.

They were offering him a chance at a career. All we could offer him was a job.”

I look away.

“I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt,” he adds.

“I’m just saying what Holland does with his land is his business.

We don’t have the right to control that, just as he doesn’t have the right to tell us what to do with ours.

If we decided tomorrow to purchase ten thousand head of Black Angus cattle, neither Holland nor any other cattle rancher around here would have the right to stop us. ”

I set my fork down and turn away.

“Matty,” he says, his voice softer, “you know I’m right, sweetheart. And as far as the Giles thing goes, we’ll hire someone else.”

I chew the inside of my cheek. “I just … I didn’t see it coming.”

“No. You didn’t. And that’s why it hurts.”

I stare out the window at the square, quiet in the early light.

Daddy sighs. “I like Caison. I think he’s a good man. One who wants to make everyone happy. But that’s not always possible.”

“He had a job to do,” I mutter.

“He did. And his heart got in the way.”

I frown and turn back to him. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. I’ve seen it happen before, both to myself and to your uncle Boone, as well as to a dozen other men who tried to balance business and romance. He made some mistakes, of course, but I don’t believe he ever intended to hurt you.”

I don’t say anything for a long time. Just sit there, my plate untouched and my coffee getting cold.

“Call him,” Daddy says as he digs back in.

“I’ll think about it,” I say finally.

He nods. “That’s all I’m asking.”