The Lonely Heart (8 page)

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THE LONELY HEART K.M. Mahoney 49

To Isaiah’s surprise, that drew a hearty laugh out of Tony. “I should say so,” he finally said. “Edmonton has been around since God only knows. They’re pretty traditional.”

“Most towns in this area are.”

Tony sat back in his chair and tilted his head at Isaiah. “How much do you know about the history of our little town?”

“Not much,” Isaiah admitted. “But my boss has lived around here his entire life. He thought Barton might be a better fit for Josh than Edmonton.”

“Your boss?”

“Grady.”

“Ah, Grady.” Tony’s face split into a wide grin. “I haven’t seen him around here in quite some time. How is he?”

“Fine,” Isaiah said with a shrug. He wasn’t really surprised that the two men knew each other. The miles between here and the Branch might be considerable, but the number of people wasn’t. Edmonton was also a touch smaller than Barton. Isaiah had been known to send his men to Barton on more than a few occasions, when what they needed couldn’t be found in the closer town.

“Grady could have benefited from spending more time in Barton. He still could,” Tony added the last in a mutter and moved on quickly. “Barton is an eclectic place. You won’t find many towns like ours, particularly in such a conservative part of the country.”

Thinking of Lydia’s offbeat appearance, Isaiah would have to agree.

“Fact of the matter is Barton grew out of a hippie commune that was formed here in the early Seventies.”

“Huh.” What else could you say to that?

Tony laughed, a rich and amused sound that invited any who heard it to join him.

“That is probably the mildest reaction I’ve ever gotten from that statement.”

Isaiah shrugged again. “As long as Josh is treated well, I couldn’t care less if it started out as a zoo.”

Tony seemed to find that statement hilarious. When he finally got his laughter under control, they went back to the mountain of forms it seemed the government required for just about anything these days.

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THE LONELY HEART K.M. Mahoney 50

Isaiah noticed that several times, Tony gave him speculative looks. He brushed it aside, but about the fifth time it happened, he started to wonder if maybe he’d forgotten to shave this morning. He rubbed his chin. Nope. Stubbly, but not bad. So, not a lack of a shave.

When it happened again, Isaiah stared back, arching one eyebrow at the principal.

Tony blushed. “Sorry. I just…oh, hell, I may be completely off here, but I don’t suppose you’d be interested in getting some dinner with me sometime?”

Huh. Okay, didn’t see that one coming
. Josh’s new principal was asking him on a date?

Barton really was different.

Tony was cute, nice. Normally, Isaiah would have accepted without even thinking about it.

Isaiah found himself shaking his head without making a conscious decision. “You seem really nice, but I’m kind of involved with someone right now. Thanks for the offer, though.”

The words popped out and Isaiah could only wonder what the heck was going on in his subconscious. And why the word ‘involved’ conjured up a picture of a smiling Grady. They weren’t involved, weren’t a couple. Hell, Isaiah didn’t even know for sure that Grady was gay. The man played it too close to the chest for Isaiah to have ever come to a definite conclusion on that one.

Tony was giving him another speculative look, this one followed by a knowing smile.

“Cool. Just thought I’d ask. I don’t get a lot of hot gay cowboys wandering into my office, you know?”

Isaiah laughed. When he said his goodbyes and collected Josh an hour later, it was with a relieved smile and a much lighter step. Tony and Lydia were realistic—they understood the extra work needed to fit Josh into the school, and were matter-of-fact about dealing with his needs. He had the feeling that between the two of them, there was little that they couldn’t handle. They would take good care of Josh and see that he made a place for himself.

Isaiah fired up the truck and pulled out onto the street with a much happier little boy riding beside him this time. That was one worry taken care of.

Only about a hundred more to go.

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THE LONELY HEART K.M. Mahoney 51

“Well, screw you, then!”

Grady looked up as Isaiah slammed down the phone with a low curse. Peering at the ticked-off man warily from across the room, Grady cleared his throat.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Oh, no, everything’s fine.” Isaiah sent him a smile, but it looked incredibly fake. “So, Joseph had some thoughts about—”

“Isaiah.”

“What?”

“Who was on the phone?”

“It’s no big deal, Grady, I swear.”

Grady wasn’t buying it for a minute. “Isaiah.”

“I was thinking about those damned accidental cross-breeds we’ve got. Jensen said he might be willing to—”

“Isaiah.”

“Huh?”

“You tryin’ to distract me?”

“Maybe.”

“Try harder.”

“Boss!”

The bellow bounced off the walls, accompanied by the slamming of the front door.

Joseph appeared in the office doorway seconds later. His face was ruddy, and his breathing heavy.

“Boss,” Joseph repeated with urgency. “We’ve got a fence down and cattle wandering into Murphy’s pastures.”

Isaiah sighed. “All right, I’m coming.”

He’d only taken a step when Micah burst through the front door and slid down the hall, nearly crashing into Joseph as he tried to skid to a fast stop.

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THE LONELY HEART K.M. Mahoney 52

“’Nother fence down,” he gasped. “Brutus and Hector are loose and headin’ for the hills. By way of Campbell’s place.”

“Shit!” Isaiah’s face paled with panic. “Damn it to hell, Campbell will kill me if our boys get in with his girls.”

“Damn right,” Joseph agreed.

Isaiah grabbed his hat off the corner of Grady’s desk and was gone before Grady could blink. Grady groaned, grabbed his own hat, and hustled out after them.

It was too damn early to be dealing with crises—barely nine a.m.. The bulls wouldn’t wait for Grady to have his third cup of coffee, though. Campbell and him didn’t get along at the best of times. If Grady’s bulls threw calves with some of Campbell’s heifers…well, it wouldn’t be pretty. Grady mostly bred mixed Hereford stock while Campbell was extremely picky about the bloodlines of his Black Angus.

Cowboys streamed to the barns—his entire crew including his four main hands and the six temp guys were moving fast. Grady wasn’t overly fond of a couple of his temporary employees, but the ranch and pastures needed to be readied for the encroaching winter. Fall was looking to be short this year and his regular crew wasn’t going to be able to get the job done. Grady would let the extra workers go in a week or so, but for now, he was extremely grateful they were still around.

Someone had already saddled up Lance for him, so Grady grabbed the reins and hauled ass. He stopped just outside the barn, tightening the girth and zipping up his coat. Grady gathered the reins and had one foot off the ground when something slammed into his side.

He went reeling. Lance danced to one side and snorted, panic imminent.

“What the hell?” Grady yanked Lance’s head down. He ran one hand over the gelding’s side, trying to soothe his boy down.

A mumbled apology reached his ears, and he saw James rush past without stopping.

The man didn’t look sorry, though. In fact, Grady would have sworn he saw a smirk.

For the love of God, he didn’t have time for this. Growling low, Grady swung up in the saddle. Lance pranced a bit more, still worked up. Grady spun him in a circle and urged him forward, putting that nervous energy to better use.

“You, me and Joseph are going after the bulls,” Isaiah shouted from atop Tobias. “I’m sending everybody else after the loose herd.”

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Grady nodded his acknowledgement, guiding Lance through the teeming, barely controlled chaos with practiced ease. Horses and men milled about, the frantic energy making it seem like the crowd in the yard was twice as large as it actually was.

Grady caught up with Joseph, scowling fiercely. “So, how come I’ve got cattle roaming everywhere but where they’re supposed to be?” he snarled. “All at the same damn time?”

Joseph shrugged and wouldn’t meet Grady’s eyes. “Just bad luck, I guess.”

“Bull. Shit.”

“Ease off, Grady,” Isaiah said in a low voice. “Let’s get everybody back where they belong. Then we can worry about the whys and wherefores.”

To Grady’s complete and utter relief, his two big bulls were moving slow. It took them just a little over an hour to track them down and pen them up. Thankfully without a female in sight.

With the worst crisis behind them, it was off to join the others. Isaiah urged his mount through the busted fence first, Joseph loping past once they hit the other side. Grady hung back, easing his big grey gelding to a halt at the break.

He swung down, eyes scanning the terrain. In the distance, barely visible over the horizon, figures weaved back and forth. Whoops and hollers floated on the wind as men rousted cattle out of the brush.

Grady already knew what he was going to find when he shoved on the post. The break was long, stretching nearly a good hundred feet across the brown grass. Two posts were ripped out, like the herd had hit the fence going top speed.

But they hadn’t. Crouching down, Grady cursed silently. The wire had been shredded, cut in multiple places. The posts themselves
had
been ripped out, but going by the tire tracks, it had been done by somebody with four-wheel drive and a couple of thick ropes.

Goddamn it.

Grady shoved back his hat, rubbing at his forehead. As if he didn’t have enough to deal with—now they were getting sabotaged.

“What did you find?”

Grady stood, shaking his head. “Deliberate,” he spat.

Isaiah sighed heavily. “Why am I not surprised?”

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Grady rubbed at his jaw, pissed off and annoyed in equal measures. Goddamn it, why couldn’t people leave well enough alone? He stayed mostly to the ranch, kept his head down.

Why did they have to push? He remounted, barely keeping his anger under control.

“We’ll worry about it later,” Isaiah said. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

Grady nodded wordlessly and kneed Lance to the left, cutting off an ambling steer. The big dumb critter lowed at him, turning reluctantly. God, Grady hated this. Riding the land, training horses—that was what he loved. The cows, though, drove him nuts. They were big and smelly and stupid and he was a rancher, for God’s sake. He wasn’t supposed to hate his stock.

James cantered past and Grady saw his mouth move. This time the disgust on the cowboy’s face was easy to read. Grady was grateful he couldn’t hear the words, certain they were uncomplimentary and bigoted.

Another steer charged, Lance wheeling easily away before cutting off the animal’s retreat. After the third time an animal ‘got away’ from one of his hands, Grady began to detect a pattern.

“Don’t get angry,” he muttered to himself. “They’ll be gone soon.”

He only hired extra guys for certain times of year and couldn’t claim to know any of them very well. At the moment, he figured that was a good thing. He probably wouldn’t like them.

“Steady, boss,” Tommy warned as they tag-teamed a pair of worked-up heifers. “We’ll be done soon. Then you can give them all the boot.”

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one noticing the crappy behaviour.

Grady pulled off to one side to give Lance a breather. His eyes sought and found a familiar figure, and a smile tilted the corners of his mouth for the first time in hours. Isaiah and Tobias weaved and dodged, in perfect sync. It was a sight to behold, stirring in more ways than one. Isaiah dodged a mis-flung rope, for once the action not deliberate, and laughter deepened the creases in his cheeks.

Grady’s half-smile widened. Now this, he liked. Watching man and horse, breathing crisp air and listening to the sounds of nature—minus the blasted cows, of course.

He wondered if maybe it wasn’t time to make some changes. For once, the thought didn’t make him feel that guilty panic. Sure, the Grady family had run cattle on this land for www.total-e-bound.com

THE LONELY HEART K.M. Mahoney 55

damn near three generations. That didn’t mean they had to keep running cattle for another three.

The thought hit Grady hard. He didn’t have to keep doing this, didn’t have to keep pretending. He could stop dealing with the temporary hands, stop dealing with cut fences and wandering herds and…just
stop
.

Why the hell had it taken him so long to realise the truth? No one said he had to be a cattle rancher for the rest of his life. The bank account was healthy and the ranch was turning a profit most years. He had a bit of a cushion, enough to take a few risks. He could sell off the rest of the herd in the spring, start fresh—build the business he wanted, not the one his family had started.

A surge of confidence came from nowhere, swamping over him. They could keep the current horses, do some training. Micah was damn good with the horses and so was Isaiah.

Joseph might be at a bit of a loss for a while, but Tommy could handle anything Grady threw at him.

Maybe it was time to get those Shires, whatever Isaiah’s objections.

Grady smiled again then let loose a small laugh, garnering some strange looks. But the relief and the certainty were undeniable. For so long Grady had tried to do what was expected of him, trying to make people approve of him. And they never did, never.