In Bed With My Ex's Brother-in-Law novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: The Headgate

Rance was already pulling his boots on.

"I'll take the boys up there now," he said. "Four of Coy's pups and a padlock. We'll be back by lunch."

"As wolves?" Kacey said. "On Jessup land?"

He stopped with one boot half on.

"You put nineteen Bridger wolves on Jessup ground in fur, and Noreen calls it a raid," Kacey said. "She's got seventy. She's been waiting two years for you to do something that stupid."

"Then I'll go up in my truck."

"The headgate's six miles up a horse trail in the timber," I said. "No truck's getting up there. And Coy's boys will hear an engine before you cross the cattle guard."

They both looked at me.

"They change guards at first light," I said. "I used to pack their lunches. The night boys go down the logging road, the day boys come up it, and for twenty minutes there's nobody at the headgate but a padlock."

"And how do we get six miles up the mountain in twenty minutes?" said Kacey.

I looked out the window at the round pen.

The grulla was standing with her head over the rail, watching the house.

"We don't walk," I said.

Kacey went back before Noreen could miss her.

At the truck door she hugged me, hard and fast, and said into my hair, "Thank you for laughing at that woman."

Then she was gone in a spray of gravel.

I spent the rest of the day with the grulla and Rance.

I had him saddle her, and unsaddle her, and saddle her again, until she stood for him with the cinch loose and her eyes half shut.

At four o'clock I walked down to Crooked Creek, put two fingers in my mouth and whistled.

On the far bank, in the Jessup horse pasture, a big bay head came up.

Tonka cleared the fence I'd mended with baling wire.

He splashed across the creek and came up the bank to me and shoved his nose into my jacket pocket for the sugar he knew was there.

"You're going to steal a Jessup horse," Rance said from behind me, "to break into a Jessup headgate."

"I'm going to borrow him."

"That's what horse thieves say."

"Horse thieves don't bring them back with their feet trimmed."

We rode out at four in the morning.

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend