Ride It Out Page 4

  “Exactly. What’s the L?”

  She smiled. “The subway.”

  “I didn’t even know Chicago had one.”

  “And I bet there’s ten million things I don’t know about ranching.”

  “Tell me what you do know, then.”

  She squinted skyward, finding the first stars. “Well, let’s see . . . I know all the cows are boys. Wait! I mean the cattle, not cows. And I know boy cattle are called bulls—”

  “Steer,” he said. “Our stock are steers.”

  “Is that . . . Jesus, I feel like I’m on Wild West Jeopardy! Okay, so let me guess. A steer is a male who’s not bred yet? Like a what’s it called?”

  “What’s what called?”

  “You know, one of those virgin lady-horses?”

  Miah snorted.

  “What are they called?”

  “A filly?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “No, not even close. Also we don’t really toss around the concept of virginity much when it comes to the animals.”

  “All right then, smart-ass—educate me.”

  “A steer is a castrated male. For bonus points, a castrated male horse is called a gelding.”

  “Noted. And all the cattle here are steer?”

  “The vast majority.”

  “Are all the horses one type or another?”

  “Nope. We use several different breeds for our stock horses, males and females.”

  “Gotcha. Ready for some more stupid questions?”

  “Bring ’em on.”

  “Are you a cowboy, technically speaking?”

  “I prefer cattleman, though in the broad sense of the term, I guess I’m a cowboy. But around here a cowboy is a ranch hand who rides the range, herding the stock. That was part of my job when I was foreman, but I haven’t really been a cowboy since I was twenty-five.”

  “Okay, I’m catching on. And you guys don’t do any of the dude ranch stuff, I’m assuming.”

  “No. Though if we go belly-up, there’s an outfit salivating to buy the place and turn it into one.” His tone had gone bitter or grim.

  “I’m sure you won’t. And I’m sure your forebears made it through times just as tough in the past five generations. Jesus, five generations . . . When was Three C founded?”

  “Eighteen ninety.”

  “Wow. That must have been back in the gold rush days.”

  “The most infamous gold rush was in the eighteen seventies, though actually they didn’t find much gold here until the nineteen sixties. This is called the Silver State for a reason.”

  “Oh.”

  “Fortuity was founded around gold mining, only a couple decades before Three C opened. That all dried up, though.”

  “Your family come out here looking to strike it rich, then switched to cattle when it didn’t pan out? Wait a second—is that a gold-mining term? To pan out? Was I just unspeakably clever without even meaning to be?”

  He laughed. “I don’t know. Probably, though. And no, the Churches actually made their fortune during the railroad boom. My great-great-however-many-greats grandfather Arlo was the family rebel. He fell in love with the badlands and took his inheritance and decided to become a rancher.”

  “Guess he was a natural.”

  “Guess so.”

  She caught herself before she could ask another question. “Damn it, you just said you weren’t after shop talk, and here I am grilling you about your work.”

  “Oh, this isn’t shop talk. This is nice,” he said, catching her with a sidelong look. He was way too handsome in the crimson wash of the sunset. “Ranching is my entire world. It’s nice to think maybe it seems exotic to somebody, when really it’s all I know.”

  “Very exotic. And I can’t wait to start dropping my knowledge of steer and geldlings—”

  “Geldings.”

  “Gelflings, whatever. I can’t wait to start dropping my knowledge on people. Earn myself some street cred. Er, range cred.”

  She caught him smirking. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Deputy.”

  Sound advice, considering her body was starting to hatch some dangerous intentions regarding his.

  Last thing I need right now is a man. Leave it to me to get a crush on one whose job makes him unavailable and who’s crippled with grief. Either her libido had no sense at all, or else it was a genius. Perhaps it was a case of, what better man to fall for than one who was a thousand percent unavailable? Maybe what she really needed right now was an infatuation. No harm there, right?

  “Hear that?” Miah asked. She’d been so lost in her head, his voice rang out strangely in the dusk, sounding new. Sounding deep and rich and rousing as the darkening sky above.

  “Hear what?” As the words left her lips, she caught it. A faint hush growing louder with every pace. “Wait, yeah.” It sounded like a freeway, but that couldn’t be right. Not wind, either, but not unlike it.

  “There’s our destination.”

  She squinted and through the grass and brambles she saw it—a ribbon of red twisting across the earth. A creek reflecting the sunset, looking nearly like lava. “Aha.”

  They tromped through the brush to a well-worn patch of ground, the grass abutting a smooth rock seam flattened from frequent visitors, ones no doubt in need of a refreshing dip on a scorching summer afternoon.

  “Very scenic— Whoa.” Was that steam peeling off the current? “What is this?”

  “Hot springs.”

  “No way.”

  He laughed. “I’m not much of a liar, so, way.”

  “That’s awesome. I didn’t know Nevada had hot springs. I mean, I know nothing about hot springs period, so take that as you will . . . Oh, hold up. I do not skinny dip, FYI, if that’s what’s going down here.”

  “No, no. But I know my feet could stand a soaking.” He set his rifle aside and sat to pull off his boots.

  Nicki stooped to unlace her sneakers. “How hot is it?”

  “One oh two, usually. My mom likes to brag that it’s the exact temperature of most Jacuzzis.”

  “Well, count me in.” She wadded her socks into her shoes and rolled her jeans up to her knees. When Miah sat at the spring’s edge and dunked his feet, she followed suit, keeping a polite distance and setting the lunch bag between them. The water enveloped her calves to mid-shin, drawing a groan that was half shock, half ecstasy. “Jesus Lord.”

  “I know. It’s usually deeper than this, too. You can sit on the ledge there and sink all the way up to your neck.”

  She flexed her toes, rolled her ankles, cocked her head back, and sighed skyward.

  Miah chuckled, a soft, intimate sort of sound. It made her wonder what he sounded like when a woman kissed his throat. And when he’d last made that sound. And who for.

  She watched the rushing water burble past, making that sunset ribbon shimmer and sparkle. Fuchsia now, fading to mauve.

  “This is heavenly. This all part of your land?”

  “Yeah. No doubt part of the appeal to that dude-ranch developer that was prowling around.”

  “No doubt. Dude ranch-cum-wellness resort. Though it’s neither here nor there, right? You and your mom are calling the shots, and you’d never sell.”

  “Not if we can help it.”

  There was a stiff weight to his voice, and a long moment passed before she found the right words. “How thin a line are you walking exactly?”

  “We’ll make it through this year. We have good relationships with our suppliers and the bank. But if this drought goes on until next summer . . . It’s not pretty. We wouldn’t survive it.”

  “Your family made it through the Great Depression.”

  “It’s a different game now. They had it rough, but they didn’t have competition from massive conglomerate operations or overseas markets, and they didn’t face the sort of property taxes we do now. There’s a really slim margin between profit and failure, and we’re dancing right on it.”

  “Yikes.”

  He nodded, gaze on the water. “Fortuity without Three C is a nasty prospect, too, especially with the casino on pause again. The mines shut down a few decades back, and with us gone it’d just be the quarry, as industry goes. And it’s not like this town’s exactly thriving as it is.”

  “No.” She watched the water lapping at her calves, trying to square the physical pleasure with the sadness of the topic. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Not if we’re here to unwind.”

  “It’s all right. It’s just how it is. And to be honest . . . Normally I’d never admit that we’re that close to shutting down, but losing my dad . . . It’s taken the fight out of me.”

  “How could it not?”

  “But you’re right—enough about that. Tell me more about you. Did you always want to be a cop?”

  “No, not always. When I was little I wanted to be a dancer. Turns out you need talent for that, so by the end of high school I was thinking maybe advertising or PR.”

  “And?”

  She smiled, remembering that brief, disillusioning period of her life. “I did three semesters of college studying that, and with every month that passed I grew more and more jaded. It all sounded really slick and smart, all that marketing stuff, but once I was stuck in it, it felt . . . I dunno, like trying to come up with clever ways to get people to buy crap they don’t really need.”

  “Amen.”

  “It wasn’t for me. And I was living with my parents still at the time, and more and more I was thinking about what it was my father did, how hard it must be, how real it was, how ugly and important and brave and essential. And I thought, why can’t I do something like that? And that turned into, well, why can’t I do something like that?”

  “It’s hard work. Crazy hard. Especially in a big city, I’m sure.”

  “No kidding. But I couldn’t keep studying marketing—it was eating my soul. So I told myself, just see if you can make it through police academy. Then you’ll know.”

  “I guess you found your answer.”

  “Oh my God, I loved it. I never could have guessed how much I’d love it, helping actual people. I can’t imagine how I ever wanted to work on ad campaigns or make shit go viral. Pardon the cuss.”

  Miah laughed again, that soft and intoxicating rumble. “I don’t mind your swearing, I promise. You clearly don’t hang around with the Grossiers.”

  “It’s autopilot. I hate slipping up in front of Matty. Anyhow, that’s my life, capsule-format. What’s yours?”

  Miah leaned over to unzip the lunch bag. He handed Nicki a sandwich and a beer. Huh. Funny how her stomach had been howling when she’d parked, but she’d all but forgotten about food since they’d set out across the range.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Beer’s a twist-off.”

  Two bottles hissed open in unison and she held hers out. Miah gave it a tap with his.

  After a deep drink he sighed, then said, “My capsule-format life . . . I don’t even need a capsule. My life’s been the same since I was born, basically. Lived in the same house—hell, the same room. My work duties have changed over the years, but the business is largely the same. If I can be honest with you, losing my dad has been the most jarring thing that’s ever happened to me. The biggest—and really, the only—major change I’ve ever gone through.”

  “Huh.”

  “I mean, I’ve never moved. I’ve never been married, never had kids, never even fucking changed jobs. The next most momentous thing that’s ever happened to me was probably graduating high school. How sad is that?”

  “Doesn’t have to be sad. It’s not like you’ve never done anything. You run the most respected business in the county, for crying out loud.”

  “I know. But my world’s just really small. I’m realizing that now.”

  Small and in danger of blinking out completely, she supposed, if his talk of the business going under wasn’t mere pessimism. What would that feel like, she wondered, starting over so utterly? She knew what a major move felt like now, but through it all, she’d had constants at her side—her mother, her son, the essence of her career.

  “Before,” Miah said, “I thought my world was huge. I mean, my best friend grew up on a half-acre lot, and I grew up on the range. My family owns half the county, practically. But all I’ve felt since my dad was murdered is small. Small as a speck of dirt.”

  She nodded. “Weak.”

  “Yeah. Small and weak and . . . and impotent.”

  She understood as few people could. She tasted her beer. It was mild and still cool, making the steaming spring feel all the hotter, the air more dusty and dry. It had to be the best thing she’d ever tasted.

  “You said you got shit when you were a kid, for being half Native American?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah. Tons. You know . . .” He affected the tone of a half-pint bully. “‘Which are you, Church, a cowboy or an Indian?’ That kind of crap. Or else people assumed I was Mexican, so I got to sample the bull the Hispanic kids have to deal with around here.”

  “Fun.”

  “Did you grow up in a mostly black community?”

  “It was a pretty good mix, actually, black and Hispanic and some whites. Real working-class. I grew up in the same house my dad did, so when I was growing up it was us and my grandmother, very multigenerational. You don’t see that much these days.”

  “You have siblings?”

  “Yeah, younger sister and an older brother. My brother’s still in Chicago. My sister moved to Charlotte with her husband.”

  “Either of them cops?”

  “No, but my brother’s a firefighter.”

  “So are you.”

  “Volunteer, yeah.” She flinched at an unwelcome memory from the day Miah’s father had died. She’d been on duty with the Brush County Volunteer Fire Department that day—her day off from patrol duty. She wouldn’t be forgetting the heat or the smell or the color of that blaze anytime soon.

  “Pretty noble.”

  She nodded. “It is.”

  “My childhood friend, Alex Dunn, used to be on the fire team.”

  “I heard.” And it was Alex Dunn’s death that had brought her here, in a way. The position she’d filled had been vacated the night he’d been killed—a murder made to look like a drunk-driving accident, and staged by none other than the former sheriff of the BCSD. He, in turn, had also been murdered. And she’d come here looking for a safer gig?

  “Tell me about him,” she said, feeling and sounding dreamy, her words half lost to the burble of the water and the hum of stirring insects. “Alex.”

  “He was a good man.” Miah paused. “A good man with some nasty demons.”

  “Drinker,” she supplied, having heard plenty from her colleagues.

  “Yeah. Bad drinker. Never on duty, but real, real bad. He didn’t deserve to die, but there’s a part of me that sometimes wonders if it happened that way for a reason. Quick, as opposed to whatever health problems he was headed for.”

  “Are you religious?”

  Miah shook his head. “No. You?”

  “Kinda, yeah. Haven’t been to church in ages, though. I’ve been meaning to check out a service at the Unitarian place, but I keep finding excuses not to.”

  “You avoiding God or the townsfolk?” Miah asked, a smile in his voice.

  “The latter. Avoiding finding out how welcome I might be. Cowardly, huh?”

  “Nah. Anyhow, it’s more important that we all be good to each other than that we get seen sitting in the right building on the right day of the week.”

  She held her bottle up in salute of that wisdom. “Very true. I miss the community of my old church, though. I guess what I’m really avoiding is finding out officially that I’ve given that up.”

  Miah leaned forward, rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and dunked his hands into the water. She could just make out the flexing tendons in his forearms, telling her he was balling and unballing his fists. He was thinking about something, probably something heavy, and she waited patiently to see if he gave it voice.

  At length, he asked, “Anything else you left behind in Chicago?”

  She blinked, surprised by the question, and not entirely sure what he was asking. “Like what?”

  “House, hobbies, friends. Relationship?”

  Aha. “The house is still there—my mom owns it. My brother moved in there with his fiancée, and I think he’s going to rent out the spare bedrooms. It was never the same with my dad gone, but then again, nothing was. Seems like my brother’s having an easier time adjusting to it than I did. Probably because he never lived there with my dad as a grown-up.”

  “Hobbies? Friends?”

  “Plenty of friends. Plenty of coworkers I adored, too. Hobbies not so much. I didn’t leave myself much time for hobbies, between work and motherhood.”

  A pause. “Relationship?”

  “Nah. Not my priority since my divorce.” Why do you ask?

  “How long’s it been?”

  “Four years. Shit, four and a half.”

  “You two get along okay, for Matty?”

  “Oh, yeah. Getting along was never our problem. We were always great friends. We were one of those couples where the passion just kind of . . . withered. Like if passion is helium, our balloon just slowly made its way to the floor.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “When was your last great romance?”

  He sighed. “Oh, three years ago, now. Though to be honest it was pretty much a summer fling. Summer fling with a good friend, though, so there was some baggage built in. ‘Fling’ sounds a bit too petty.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Likely. Raina Harper? She owned Benji’s until last winter. Her dad was Benji Harper.”

  “No, I haven’t met her, I don’t think.” She’d only been to Benji’s a couple times, and only for lunch with Matty and her mother over the summer. It had always been the red-haired Grossier behind the bar. Though now she was dying of curiosity over what this mysterious Raina Harper looked like . . .