Page 24 of Just (Fake) Married (Calloways vs. McGraws #1)

I walked down the wide center aisle of the barn.

The swallows dive bombed my head, and the dust motes glittered in the light coming through the dirty windows near the roof line.

It smelled like horses and hay, and I realized how weird it was that I hadn’t smelled that smell in over five years.

I wouldn’t have said I missed it, but standing in the barn, the horses bringing their heads up over the stall doors to sniff at me, I could say it was a good smell. A really good smell.

“Anyone here?” I shouted.

There was nothing but silence.

Exiting the other side of the barn, I saw a group of men down by the south gate of the paddock. Tag was among them.

The bunk house, which was set apart from the barn and paddock area, but within easy distance for the cowboys to have access to the barn, was a two-story building painted white and black. Today, despite the freezing cold, the doors were thrown wide open.

One of the hands was carrying out garbage bags of stuff. Back here, the snow settled in drifts. There were big swaths of clear land, while the snow piled up against the buildings. The wind had always been weird back here.

Furniture sat on the frozen, snow free grass between the barn and bunk house. This was an age-old process that Tag’s dad always called, “airing out the stink.”

Sunlight and a stiff breeze did a lot of the work.

I didn’t want to interrupt Tag, who was talking to a few of the men, but when I walked up, Tag nodded hello. The other guys turned and stared at me. Half of them I didn’t know.

Curtis was there though, and he’d been there since long before I was born.

Always just a cowboy. Never wanted any of the responsibility that Tag’s dad had.

That Tag had, now that he’d taken over as foreman.

Curtis looked exactly the same as when I was a kid, which was to say, older than dirt. Tougher than rawhide.

“Son,” he said, giving me a hard pat on the back.

“How you doing, Curtis?” I said, patting him right back.

“Oh, you know,” he said, and coughed. I didn’t like his coloring. Not at all. The skin around his lips was white, and the way he was pulling in air, I wished I had an oxygen monitor, because I’d bet my Peloton that his was low.

I also knew better than to say anything in front of the other men. Maybe I could pull him aside later and get him to agree to go into the clinic in town. The Swinging D didn’t offer health insurance, but we had a deal with the clinic that all employees had access to any care the clinic could offer.

Cowboys, being cowboys, didn’t take advantage of that enough.

“Hey,” I said, waving at the rest of the guys who grunted back at me. I looked at Tag, “can I talk to you real quick?”

Tag nodded and we walked a few feet away. Tag’s attention was still over on the guys. “Curtis look all right to you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I mean, no. He looks like a guy who's smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for his whole life.”

“I swear these men need a keeper,” he said.

“I thought that was you,” I said.

He shook his head. “What’s up?” he asked me.

“Do you have Harmony’s cell number?”

“Yeah.”

I blinked at him. “Can I have it?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have it and I figure I should.”

“Drive into town and ask her.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Well, how do I know if she wants you to have it?”

“I’m her husband,” I said.

“You’re her fake husband,” he reminded me.

“Why are you being weird about this?”

“As a rule, I don’t give other guys girls’ phone numbers.”

Oh man, Tag and his ethics. He was a gentleman through and through and usually I could respect that, but right now it was a pain in my ass.

“But,” he said. “I’ll make an exception since you are married, if you do something for me.”

“Are you joking?” Tag stared at me and I lifted my hand. “Right. You don’t joke. What do you need?”

“Can you give the guys physicals?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Physicals. For all the hands. The clinic had to reduce its hours because they’re down staff. Not that these fuckers take advantage when they can get appointments. Some of them, I don’t think, have seen a doctor in years.”

“There’re like twenty full time hands.”

“We’re down to twelve if you count the equipment manager.”

“I’m not licensed in the state of Wyoming,” I protested.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

I sighed. Yeah, I wasn’t exactly going to worry about someone reporting me to the American Medical Association.

“They need to get checked out. You’re a doctor, and it’s not like you’re doing anything else at the moment.”

I glared at him. “Okay,” I said. “Give me Harmony’s number first.”

I thought of where, at the ranch, might be the stuff I would most likely need. I had my blood pressure cuff and my stethoscope. I could use a scale and a flashlight.

“The barn still equipped with the first aid station?”

The station was a closed off section of the barn dedicated to treating injuries that ranged from minor cuts, to separated shoulders, to tracheotomies. It wasn’t the clinic, but it wasn’t just a couple of Band-Aids and rubbing alcohol, either. And it would work as a space to see patients.

“Yeah. Fully stocked too.”

He pulled the phone out of his pocket and showed me Harmony’s number. I added it to my contacts. “Why do you have her number, anyway?”

“I help her out from time to time.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. Helped her out how? Suddenly the idea of my oldest friend seeing Harmony’s face as she came made me furious. If he’d tasted her? I might have to murder him.

“Calm down, Ethan,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “I help get raccoons out of her mother’s shed and I snow blow their driveway so they can get their trucks out.”

That was good neighborly stuff. Neighborly stuff none of the McGraw men did for them.

Leroy McGraw wouldn’t have lifted a hand to help the Calloway women, and neither would his sons. I wanted to go back in time and kick my own ass. And my father’s ass for letting us believe that they were people who deserved to be treated that way.

Did that change because I now knew his animosity toward them was most likely born from a broken heart?

I tried to imagine my father longing for a woman he’d loved, then betrayed, and never got over. Which ultimately turned into a type of resentment toward her.

Is that why he was always offering to buy their land? Did he just want to remove Monica from his proximity because it hurt too badly? That version of Leroy McGraw was not the same man who had never been affectionate with my mother in front of us.

It didn’t matter. Because it didn’t excuse his behavior.

“Thanks, man,” I said. “Tell the guys I’ll post a signup sheet on the barn. And make sure they do it, too. I’m not going chasing after them.”

“You got it, Doc E,” he said, and actually smiled.

“Tag?” I asked, suddenly feeling this weird hit of nostalgia. “Do you and my brothers still go camping up at the north ridge?”

Tag smiled. “Only when Seth comes back to town.”

“He still bring the warm beer?” I asked, with a smile that I didn’t quite feel.

“It’s cold these days, and he buys it now, instead of stealing it from Curtis.”

I’d never once missed what I’d left behind when I went to college and didn’t look back. But now, oddly, I missed it a lot.