EMMETT (The Corbin Brothers Book 3) (2 page)

A single phone call wasn’t going to change that, and I started to feel better about not troubling Chance with it. He didn’t really need to know. It would only cause him to worry.

I arrived at the horse barn — by far, my favorite place on the ranch. I liked the smell of it, the solitude, the ability to truly do what I wanted to be doing. I remembered my parents the best here, both of them teaching all of us to care for the animals who helped us do our jobs. The rest of my brothers followed along grudgingly; I was the only one who really took to grooming and everything else. All of my brothers liked the wind in their hair, but none of them were terribly interested in helping the creatures that gave them that wind. All of the horses knew me and liked me, and I spoke soft words to them as I passed by their stalls, pausing in front of mine, Sugar. Sugar was a sweet old mare, slower than some of the others in the stable, but dependable. The rest of my brothers had turned their noses up at riding her, preferring the more spirited ones, but Sugar was their loss and my gain. She was a pretty thing, too, gray with a white mane and tail I kept brushed to a glossy shine.

“Hey, there, sweet girl,” I crooned as she nuzzled the palm of my hand. “You want to go for a ride?”

Riding horses had been expressly forbidden by Hadley, but I figured if I galloped up to the clinic that doubled as the house she and my baby brother shared, she’d be persuaded to end my medical leave of absence from the ranch.

Securing a saddle to Sugar was like second nature to me. Most horses fidgeted or kicked or blew up their bellies so you couldn’t get a true fit, but she seemed to like the attention and activity, waiting patiently until I fastened all of the buckles.

Now came the true test.

I’d wrenched my knee and torn some tendons fetching a calf out of the gorge several weeks prior, which necessitated rest and the enormous brace on my leg. Hadley had warned me against overexerting myself and doing further damage to my knee, but she also said there was a possibility that I could return to my normal duties today after a quick checkup down at the clinic.

I wasn’t going to drive down there when I had a chance to ride.

My knee gave a couple of twinges of protest, but I mounted Sugar with relative ease, confident that I would be even less awkward without the brace, and set out.

It was going to be hot today. It was already uncomfortably warm outside, a lazy wind doing little to cool my face as I urged Sugar forward alongside the road leading down to the river. It was very nearly finished thanks to the dedicated efforts of the paving crew, but I knew the realities of maintaining such a road. If we had freezes and snowstorms come winter, it would require scraping and salting. With the change of each season, it would likely need repairs to cracks and potholes as the pavement expanded and contracted according to the weather. I wasn’t sure Chance understood what he had signed on for with this road, though maybe he did and that was one of the many reasons he despaired so much lately.

The road forked off in another direction — that was going to be the way to the barracks for the dude ranch. That had been a surprising brain child from Avery of all people, but Chance and Paisley agreed it was a great way to bring in more money and educate people about life on a ranch the way it was supposed to be done. The idea was that if people understood how happy the cattle stayed and how well taken care of they were, they might be more likely to support ranching operations like ours and buy beef from us or others like us. It cost just a little more in stores, but that was because so much more effort went into the care for the herds — unlike other operations that were little more than feed lots. Those operations were loath to invite the public onto their ranches because of the foul conditions the cattle endured to turn such a pretty profit.

The dude ranch would benefit us. I wasn’t about to rain on the parade that was Avery’s sole major contribution to the ranch. He’d dug his heels in for whole years about working here, so it was good he finally was experiencing some form of ownership and investment in the ranch.

I just wished I could contribute in the same way, in something highly visible that would finally distinguish me in the Corbin family legacy. I already worked so hard — well, prior to my injury — around the ranch. I was the superior horseman, I knew how to read the herd, and I could run a fence line and fix it better than anyone. I was more meticulous with logs than any of my brothers, neatly and carefully making notations and then helping analyze them. On top of that, I cared for everyone’s horses. But did I get any recognition for that? Did Chance or anyone ever take me aside and tell me just how important all of my hard work was for the survival of the ranch? Nope.

“Emmett Corbin, I better be hallucinating. I hope that I can rub my eyes and not see you on a horse I expressly forbade you to ride.”

I’d reached the clinic without realizing it, and Hadley was waiting outside for me, her arms crossed in front of her body. She was not happy. Not even a little amused.

“I just wanted to see if I could,” I said, defensive. “And look. I can.”

I hopped back down to the ground with little difficulty and just a few of those odd twinges, giving Sugar a pat on the neck for getting me here in one piece.

“And what if you’d hurt yourself again?” Hadley demanded, just as unhappy with me off the horse as on it. “That would mean that all the work we did would’ve been in vain.”

“But I didn’t hurt myself,” I reminded her gently. “I’m just fine.”

“Ugh, Emmett.” She uncrossed her arms and rubbed her face. “All of you Corbins are just alike. Stubborn as hell and impossible to deal with and deaf to reason.”

“Problems with Hunter?” I guessed.

“Don’t even get me started.”

She waved me inside the clinic and past a couple of walk-in appointments already sitting in the waiting room.

“It’s not a problem, Hadley,” I said, looking at the old man holding his elbow and the younger man with a padded boot on one of his feet. “If these guys were ahead of me, I can wait.”

“You’re the one with the early appointment,” she said grimly, opening a door to one of the examination rooms and waiting for me to pass through. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Hunter wants to be back out on night patrols, doesn’t he?” I guessed again — right enough to press on the nerve that made Hadley stop glowering and start talking.

“I don’t understand why, when he had such an episode after Avery got shot,” she said, jerking her thumb at me in a gesture that I was pretty sure meant she wanted me to sit up on the examination table. “I know it’s PTSD, but he really wasn’t well. He wasn’t himself. And now he wants to go out there like everything is fine? Who in this family does Hunter listen to?”

“Well, you,” I said, unfastening the Velcro that held my brace in place. “And maybe Tucker, after you.”

“What I say to him doesn’t mean shit,” Hadley said. “Maybe I’ll deploy Tucker and get him to hammer some wisdom into Hunter’s head. He doesn’t need to be out there at night with all those guns and the potential for something to happen.”

“Is he talking to anyone?” I jerked as Hadley tapped on my knee with a little rubber mallet, testing my reflexes.

“He barely talks to me about it,” she said, gesturing for me to lie back on the table. “I didn’t think ranching was going to be like this.”

“This … this is a little different from what ranching usually is,” I allowed as she tested my range of motion. I was no physical therapist, but even I could tell that my knee was much better than the first day, when she’d taken me to her Dallas office for a proper assessment. I’d come a long way, and now I was ready to resume my real life.

“When is it going to be back to normal?” she asked, opening my file but not really looking at it. She was worried, a rumpling between her eyebrows. I couldn’t really blame her. Things were pretty distressing right now.

“Normal is kind of a relative term,” I admitted. “Are you asking when the ranch is going to be normal? Because it never really is. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. If we got the cattle theft problem to go away, we’d still have money worries. If we got those resolved, we’d still have the weather to obsess over. At least it’s not boring, right?”

But that last question fell a little flat. “I’m just worried about Hunter,” Hadley said. “After the episode with Avery, he just kind of shut down. I’ve been trying to read up on PTSD and everything, but I’m nowhere near qualified to help him deal with this.”

“I don’t think you have to solve anything for him,” I said, sitting up and gathering my long hair back into its topknot. “Just be ready to listen when he’s ready to open up. That’s all you can really do — unless he can be compelled to see a professional.”

“He can hardly be compelled to do anything,” Hadley muttered. “Now, about your knee.”

“I’m ready. I can feel it.”

“I want another week with you resting it,” she said, making me groan in consternation.

“Another week? What’s seven more days going to do?”

“Make sure you’re completely healthy before running off and doing something stupid.”

“Seriously, Hadley, riding felt just fine. I can do everything I used to do. It’s the brace that’s holding me back.”

“I’m the physical therapist, not you,” she said, finally making a notation in my file and snapping it shut. “I know what’s best for you even if you don’t believe me.”

“It’s just that Chance needs me out there,” I said, trying to find the argument that would work on her. “They’ve been down a man this whole time. I hate the idea of people making up work I’m supposed to be doing. This place has gotten a lot bigger.”

“All I can do is make recommendations,” Hadley said, putting her hands on her hips. “Even if none of you Corbins ever listen to me.”

“Does that mean I can get back to work?” I asked eagerly.

“Would you at least do me the favor of waiting for tomorrow? Resting for the remainder of today?”

“Sure!” I exclaimed, never feeling as excited as I was to get back to work. I could forget about the horsing operation, drive the worrisome phone call from my mind, and maybe even run some Hunter reconnaissance for Hadley if I could just get back on a horse and out on the ranch.

“Well, get on out of here, then,” she said. “I’ve got people who need more help than you do.”

I exited the examination room as Hadley beckoned the old man with the bum elbow on in. That’s what I liked about Hadley. She was no-nonsense, no frills about her practice. Every time I came here for therapy throughout my recovery, she was always moving the patients through quickly, not wanting to keep them away from their various professions for too long. Of course, the majority of her clientele were ranchers. It was a hard life, getting beat up all the time.

“You look pretty happy,” the young man said, glum in his seat, foot still encased in the padded boot. “I’m guessing you’re good to go.”

“Practically,” I said, still carrying the knee brace in my hand. “Guess I won’t be needing this anymore.” I set it down on the countertop.

“I won’t mince words — I guess I’m pretty jealous of you,” he said, staring hatefully at his foot. “I’m just at the beginning of my road to recovery — or whatever.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Goddamn horse stepped on my foot,” he said, huffing an offended sigh and rolling his eyes a little. “Broke my damn foot, and it still hurts like a bitch.”

“That’s some tough luck,” I said. Horses were dreadfully heavy.

“You’re telling me. I wish I never had to lay eyes on another horse again.”

“You’ll have to avert your eyes, then. I rode my horse up to the clinic. She’s waiting outside.”

He sighed again. “Your horse doesn’t bother me. Hell, I shouldn’t be bothered at all. It would cost me my job if I decided I was serious about never having to look at another horse again.”

“What outfit are you with?” I asked, just to be polite. I was still too excited about my positive diagnosis to pay proper attention to what he was saying.

“The breeding operation at Dax Malone’s.”

And then my focus narrowed again. “Dax Malone, did you say?”

“I did, that mean old son of a bitch. Laughed himself silly when I had to hop to the truck to take myself to the hospital. It’s a living, I guess. Maybe things’ll be better when his kid takes over the place.”

“Good luck to you in your recovery,” I said, already striding out the door, feeling strong and confident and with a plan in place. It was all the better that Hadley asked me to save going back to work for tomorrow. I had business with Dax Malone.

I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. I’d learned from plenty of people around the region to build my knowledge of the horses, shadowing vets and folks who’d learned equine know-how from facts passed down from their ancestors. But I’d never stumbled upon the idea of actually going to Dax Malone and learning about a breeding operation from a breeder himself. Probably because he was a rotten bastard. And because I didn’t want it to get back to my brothers.

I put Sugar out to pasture after removing her saddle — she deserved a little fresh air — and commandeered a truck. We had three we juggled among ourselves, which was usually enough. They weren’t used for much more than Zoe making a supply run for groceries and toiletries, or Tucker going in to town to drink a little bit every so often. I wondered whether Chance was still poring over all the bills and cattle logs inside before hauling myself up and retrieving the keys from the sun visor.