Page 71 of The Mountain Echoes

“My father taught me that if you can’t run your ranch, you’ve got no business owning it.”

I catch Earl nodding appreciatively as he grunts.

The sun climbs higher, pleasant now.

We head back to the pens. There’s still fencemending to do, salt blocks to place, and a sick calf in the east pasture that needs checking.

I pass the mirror in the tack room on my way to grab a fresh vet kit.

Dirt smudges my cheekbone, and sweat’s soaked through the back of my shirt. My eyes are steady. My spine is straight.

I gleefully think that I’ve never looked better.

CHAPTER 16

maverick

“Idon’t know, Mav.” Celine looks at me with her baby-blue eyes, the ones I always thought were harmless, though I have reassessed my opinion since the reading of the will.

“The Gunnison Auction is just a few weeks away. Look, it’s not going to work out anyway. And then she’ll be happy to sign Longhorn off. Now, she’ll just fight you the whole way.” I nod at the bartender at Blackwood Prime when he looks at me.

Yeah, I need another drink. I’ve been trying to convince Celine to allow the sale of thirty acres to go through for the past hour and a half. We’ve had lunch. She’s had three glasses of wine. I’m heading to my second beer, which I never do in the middle of the day, and she’s still batting her eyelashes at me.

“What if she doesn’t fail?” Celine chews her lower lip.

She’s desperate for money. That much is obvious.

I’ve heard from those who know, one of them being my foreman, Zane Bishop, that Hudson has been playing high-stakes poker in underground games over in Aspen, where the buy-ins are obscene and the people around the table don’t forgive debts, they collect.

Our man Hudson is in debt. The only thing saving his bones is the fact that his wife is coming into a shit ton of money now that Rami Delgado has passed.

“She’ll fail,” I assure her.

The words taste bitter in my mouth. I don’t want Aria to fail. I want that strong woman to succeed.

She lets out a deep exhale. “She’s saying she wants to hire an extra hand.”

“She probably needs to.”

Celine taps her fingers on the bar counter. “Okay. I’ll…let Mac know that I’m fine with the sale.”

“And that the money goes back into the ranch.” She’s slippery, and I want to cross all my t’s and then some.

“Yes, of course. We have to give her a chance to fail, don’t we?” She smiles. “You know, Mav, you’re a whole lot more of a mercenary than I thought you’d be.”

I arch an eyebrow.

“Aria thinks your offer is generous. When she finds out you’re just giving her enough rope to hang herself…well, I’m going to be there to tell her,I told you so.” There’s malice in her expression. It makes me flinch.

The Celine you see from a distance is like a well-fenced pasture—pretty, clean, orderly. But get closer, and you realize the fence is patched with baling twine, thegrass is dying, and there’s a rattlesnake coiled under every Goddamn rock.

Kaz texts me just as I’m about to hit the shower—after which I fully intended to call it a night with a cold beer and a ballgame.

Apparently, Aria is getting good and drunk at The Rusty Spur, and her tongue’s loose enough to make it a show.

Thirty minutes later—ten of which I spent scrubbing off the barn—I’m pushing through the doors of The Rusty Spur, bracing for a sloshed Aria.

Country music’s thumping from the stage—live tonight, a local band whose lead singer’s too good to still be playing in bars, but maybe he loves the Canyon too much to leave it.