Page 30 of Baker (Bastian Brothers #1)

Chapter Fourteen

“ A re you in or what?”

I snapped out of a gauzy recollection of Hanley and the siblings playing Monopoly at Easter a few weeks ago.

I’d opted out. Board games weren’t exactly my thing and someone on the damn ranch had to feed critters.

The memory lingered not because it was something scandalous and sinful, or even because something dramatic happened.

I think the damn remembrance kept floating around like a cloud of gnats because it was so simple a moment.

Simple yet knitted tightly into a warm shawl of familial happiness.

Everyone was enjoying themselves, even if Ford and Bella were joining forces to bankrupt everyone else.

Even poor Dahn was feeling the tight fist of the rich, but he did own some railroads, so he was scraping by.

Just. I’d never experienced an evening quite like it.

“Sorry, yeah, I’m in.” I tossed a few poker chips into the pot.

Ollie was our perma-host to our games because gambling in this state, even home poker games, was considered illegal.

Unless you were on tribal lands in a licensed tribal casino.

Which we were. There were a few other card tables with games going around us, and the clatter of slot machines could be heard nearby, but overall, no one bothered us, and we could speak privately if we kept our voices down.

Legacy Winds Casino—managed by Ollie’s uncle Gordon Ahoka—offered a wide variety of gambling that ranged from the one-armed bandits through craps, roulette, and baccarat.

I only came here on poker night because there was lots of temptation in this place.

The bar was the biggest lure, and of course, betting, which wasn’t my addiction of choice, but surely could become it if I wasn’t careful.

Cross-addiction was a thing. “I was thinking about Easter.”

“Easter was that dreamy, was it?” Aiden asked innocently, but I knew he was busting my balls. He’d been out to the ranch midweek to check on the now uncomfortably pregnant goat does and had had to nudge me from a cloudy daydream at least twice.

“Ham will do that to a man,” Ollie commented as he sat staring at his hand as a server moved through the tables to see if refills of cocktails were needed. The Legacy Winds employed over five hundred people, the majority tribal members, but not all. “It’s the other white meat.”

Aiden snorted in amusement as he laid down two pairs. I rolled my eyes and folded. Ollie did the same.

“That’s pork,” I said and watched Aiden scoop up his chips.

“Same thing. And I was making a crack about white meat.” Ollie took a sip of his orange pop before passing the deck to me.

“Technically, ham is a specific cut of pork, the smoked leg,” Aiden interjected as he took the cards and began shuffling.

“But it’s still pork. If you smoke a trout, it’s still a trout,” Ollie argued, leaning back in his seat to stretch the kinks out of his bad shoulder.

A few rolls, a pop, and a wince, and he was better.

He’d suffered a labral tear playing football in high school and then had the same shoulder dislocated in an altercation with a drunk.

Not me, thank God, but some rowdy asshole who had rolled into town on a bender about five years ago.

The dude took umbrage at being asked to vacate his car after he had driven through Polly and Deke Heston’s woodshed.

A small scuffle ensued. Ollie came out victorious, but his shoulder had been wrenched out of the socket.

Now, every time it was about to rain, Ollie felt it in his shoulder.

“True, and I’m not saying that ham isn’t pork. I’m just saying that—”

“Right, so the white meat part of my comment,” Ollie slid in to stall a pig talk from the resident vet. “Are you getting any meat from the picture taker?”

“That’s kind of personal,” I quickly replied, my gaze shifting to the measly stack of remaining chips to my right.

“The question stands.” Ollie leaned back, folded his arms over his substantial chest, and waited as Aiden continued to shuffle. “If you’re not, I might be willing to stop by his little traveling camp and see if he needs company. Gets awful lonely out there on the prairie at night.”

“He’s not lonely,” I snapped far too quickly. Aiden cocked an eyebrow.

Ollie smirked, his arms resting on a well-worn TWO SPIRITS, ONE NATION tee that hugged his pecs like a second skin.

“You keeping him company?” Ollie enquired. A shout from the slots room floated past. Someone is either winning big or losing big.

“We’re enjoying each other’s company,” I icily replied.

The two of them exchanged looks. “No, it’s not like that.

We’re just fucking. He’s leaving for Canada in a week, and I have a ranch to run, family to sort, and too much damn work to get involved with someone again.

I told myself after I blew up my marriage that I was done with commitment. ”

“I don’t think anyone brought up the word commitment,” Aiden offered as he began dealing our five cards.

“You’re also a different man now than you were when you were married to Tanya,” Ollie pointed out and picked up his new hand. I did the same. I had a shit hand. Like, so shitty it could be spread on a corn field for fertilizer. Holy flipping hell.

“He’s right, Baker. Seems like your life is suddenly full of new and exciting things. New family members, new animals, new boyfriend…”

I held up a hand to stall that train of thought. The soft murmur of our fellow card players blanketed the well-lit room like a cloud of smoke.

“Nope, don’t use that word. He’s a wanderer, freely admits that, and I am not interested in trying to tie the man down.” I plucked three miserable cards from my hand, laid them face down, and got three new ones. “It’s just sex. That’s it.”

“Okay, that’s fair. So tell me how Dodge is doing. He fitting in around the ranch? I hear his son is there for a week or so,” Ollie said, switching the conversation neatly.

“And how is Ford making out?” Aiden enquired with a look of pure innocence.

I shook my head as a smile broke out on my face.

“God, you two are ridiculous. Dodge and his son are fine. You could swing by to see them, you know,” I said to Ollie before turning my attention to Aiden.

“And as for Ford, you just saw him two days ago. Make your damn moves, guys. Those who sit around on their thumbs miss out on the dick.”

“Words of wisdom,” Ollie dryly stated before tossing his flush to the table with panache. “I’ll get that on a T-shirt.”

“I take an extra-large,” Aiden quipped.

They both started laughing. “I don’t know why I hang out with you two.”

“We’re the only queers in town that you aren’t related to,” Ollie pointed out as he raked in his winnings. “You in or are you heading out to get some of that fine shank?”

I left them sitting there singing an old Tennessee Ernie Ford song about a ham bone as I stalked off.

Dumbasses. Loveable dumbasses, but dumbasses just the same.

***

Just to prove a point about me and Hanley, I drove back to town to get my broken arm another X-ray at the hospital. Yes, I was shifting. Yes, it sort of hurt. No, I did not care. I was over being ferried around like Granny. A man had to have some pride.

The drive to the ER was uneventful. We didn’t have a GP at the moment in Bastian Grange.

Old Doc Weatherbee used to have a nice practice for many years, then he up and died a few winters back.

His office was at his home, and when his wife sold off the house to move to West Virginia with her son, there went the only doctor we had.

Someone bought the house and turned the office into a craft shop, which soon went belly up.

Rural living made it hard on new businesses.

It was just as hard luring doctors into a poor country town.

I got it. Things were faster paced in the big cities.

They could make more money, have access to specialists, and a long list of other reasons why our town, and many others across the country, were considered “doctor deserts.” It also explained why we went to the hospital for things that an MD like old Doc Weatherbee used to handle.

This overtaxed the emergency room and hiked up insurance rates, but what choice did we have?

Says a lot about an area when a large animal vet can make a good living but a medical doctor can’t pay his bills.

If it were possible, I’d run out to the rez to see their doctor, but non-natives weren’t eligible to get care at the reservation Indian Health Service facility.

Otherwise, I’d have chugged out there to see one of their providers.

Nothing against the ER staff, but it was just a large bill in the making that the ranch would have to cover.

If I’d been thinking and not riled up over the teasing about Hanley, I would have asked Aiden to X-ray my arm.

A broken bone is a broken bone, be it a human or a cow.

He could have seen if it was healing properly.