Page 12 of The Earl’s Wrangler (Cowboy Nobility #3)

THE HOUSE was quiet, and Randall had the window open for some fresh air, otherwise it would be stifling.

The wind rushed outside, insects sang, and cattle made their soft sounds.

A few days ago it would have been unsettling, but not tonight.

He knew what the sounds were now, and they were comforting.

What he didn’t expect was a creak on the floor outside his room.

Randall listened for the sound again and quietly got up, slipping out of his room and down the hall.

Not that he expected that someone had broken in, but his mind refused to turn off.

“What are you doing up?” Sawyer asked as he stood at the sink in the kitchen with a glass.

Randall swallowed hard, his throat dry. Sawyer wore a pair of shorts and nothing else, his skin tanned and golden in the light from above the stove.

Damn, his imagination had filled in some of the detail when he closed his eyes, but he really needed to work on it—he had definitely come up short.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Randall said. He got a glass himself and opened the refrigerator for some juice. He was about to sit down when Sawyer went to the living room and sat near the front window. “Is this what you do when you can’t sleep?”

Sawyer shrugged. “Sometimes, I guess. I don’t know.

Usually I work hard enough that by the end of the day, I fall into bed and just sleep.

Then I get up and do it all over again. I guess that’s the product of an honest, hardworking life.

” He sighed and turned to look outside again.

“At least that’s what I thought I was doing. I don’t know now.”

“Your father isn’t you, and he isn’t a reflection of you,” Randall said.

“Look, my father was a drunk most of the time. He called it social drinking, but it was too much by whatever name he wanted to give it, and it rotted his brain. So I know what addiction and compulsion can do to someone. I also know what they do to their family.” He sat in the chair next to Sawyer.

“And this has nothing to do with you. I can promise you that.” A flash came from outside, and Randall leaned closer, watching as it came again.

“There’s a storm,” he said quietly. “I hope it makes its way over here. We could use the rain.”

“I hate storms,” Randall whispered. “I used to lie in my bed with my eyes closed and tremble. My parents were usually in bed, and I was never allowed to go in their room. And my nannies… they wouldn’t stand for it.

So I suffered through it alone.” He turned back to Sawyer, unable to look away from him.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Sawyer asked. “I was an only child.”

“I had an older brother and a younger sister. My older brother died before he was a year old. He was born with a heart condition, and there was little they could do for him. That was so hard on my mom, at least that’s what she told me.

Then she had me, and I was healthy, and she always said she was happy.

Then she and my father had Rachel. She was their favorite, I know that, and they doted on her.

But when she was five, she was at a friend’s playing and the kids went outside.

Rachel apparently ran into the street to get the ball and she was hit by a car.

” He remembered all of that, every miserable moment.

Including the funeral, and then the way the grief seemed to tear his mom and dad apart.

“It was never the same.” That was the understatement of the century.

More flashes lit the night, getting brighter, the rumbles of thunder louder.

Randall pulled out his phone and brought up a radar app, then showed the approaching area of green and yellow to Sawyer.

He turned away from the window. “What are you doing?” Sawyer asked when Randall’s gaze stopped on him. It refused to move.

“Watching you,” he answered honestly before he could think of some sort of cover.

“Oh,” Sawyer said as a roll of thunder rumbled through the house.

Then he jumped up and hurried back toward his room.

He returned a few minutes later with a shirt on and boots.

“We need to get the horses inside.” Sawyer hurried out the door as Randall returned to his room, where he pulled on his boots and a pair of his new jeans before following him outside.

The wind whipped as he crossed the yard, moisture filling the air.

He hurried into the barn and opened one of the paddock doors.

The horse came right inside and into the stalls.

Randall closed the sliding door and latched it before heading to the next one.

He whistled when the horse wasn’t waiting to be let in, and she trotted over and into the stall, heading right for the hay.

He did the rest for all the stalls on that side the barn before coming to the final stall.

When he opened it, the horse shied away, racing to the far side of the paddock.

Thunder cracked, and he reared. Randall stepped out, speaking softly, letting the wind carry his voice. “It’s okay. Just relax. I’m going to get you inside where it’s dry and you can eat all the hay you want.” He drew closer, the horse listening and staying on four legs.

“Randall,” Sawyer said from behind him as he reached the harness, taking it and patting his neck.

“It’s okay,” he said gently, leading the horse to the barn, hoping to all hell that another clap of thunder didn’t spook him again.

As soon as he got close enough to see the hay and the stall, he took off inside just as lightning lit up the night and thunder split the air.

The horse bucked, and Sawyer hurried outside and closed the door behind him, leaving both of them in the paddock as the sky opened up.

They were drenched in seconds. “Are they all inside?” Randall asked.

“Yes.” Sawyer hurried toward the front, and they climbed the fences until they reached the front of the barn. Sawyer pulled the door closed and then they ran to the house, stopping in the mudroom.

“Everything okay?” Alan asked once they had closed the door.

“Yeah,” Sawyer answered, pulling off his boots and turning them upside down to drain out the water. Randall’s jeans clung to him, but he got his boots off and stood dripping on the tiled mudroom floor. “Everything is fine. Randall here even got Hurricane in the barn.”

“How?” Alan asked. “That horse freaks out at every storm.” He smiled. “Good job. That’s no small feat.” He yawned and tossed towels at both of them. “I’m going back to bed. Turn out the lights behind you.” He yawned again and his footsteps retreated.

“I need to get out of these jeans,” Randall groaned. “But I think they shrank on me.” He tried to get them down, but the damned things didn’t want to budge.

“Unbutton the pants and jump up on the washer,” Sawyer told him. Randall did as he asked, and Sawyer tugged at the bottom of the legs. The jeans began to slide, and once he raised his hips, they slid off his legs. Sawyer dropped them into the wash tub with a splat. Randall couldn’t help laughing.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get those on again.”

“It’ll be fine. We can wash them in the morning and stretch them a little. For now, we should get out of the rest of these wet clothes and go back to bed. It looks like it’s going to rain for a while, and in the morning, we’ll have to clean up whatever the wind decided to blow around.”

“Will it be bad?”

“Probably not, but you never know,” Sawyer said, and Randall followed him down the hall and to their rooms. He went inside and got out of his wet shirt, then pulled out something dry to sleep in before quietly sneaking across the hall to the bathroom to hang up the wet things.

When he opened the door, he found Sawyer outside, and it seemed it was his turn to stare.

“Sorry,” he whispered, and Randall scurried around him and headed to his room. He made it to the door before a hand rested on his shoulder. Randall turned, staring into huge, surprised eyes.

“Yeah?” he asked, ready to go back to bed. In an instant, Randall remembered what his back looked like and why those marks were there. “Look, I….”

“Who the hell did that to you?” Sawyer asked.

His voice was soft but vehement, his eyes blazing with suppressed fury.

He touched Randall’s back, and Randall flinched for a second, but Sawyer was gentle, his fingers warm and only a little rough.

“What kind of person would beat you like this?” He drew closer, and Randall felt the heat washing off him.

He didn’t dare turn around, even though tingles radiated from each point of contact.

“My father,” Randall finally answered. “I told you he drank too much, and when he did and I did something he didn’t like…

.” His voice ached with the old pain. “He used to have a razor strop, and he’d wield it like a whip when he was drunk and angry, which was most of the time.

He never controlled himself very well, so even today, when someone has too much to drink, I avoid them.

I got really good at being away from my father when I was on school breaks.

I had a hideout in the stables that he didn’t know about, and I even had one in the attic of the estate and one in the kitchens.

My father rarely went down there. He might have lost his temper, but he always did it when we were alone.

The staff had no idea. Well, most of them didn’t. ”

Sawyer placed his hand on his right shoulder blade.

“Your father really did this to you? And I thought mine was a jackass and a half, but this takes the cake. How could anyone do this to someone else?” He drew closer, his hands gliding over his skin and along the lines Randall’s father had carved into his hide. “It’s just mean. Did your mother know?”