Chapter Twenty-Eight
Toby trotted Cimarron back to the stable as Sam did the same beside him on another mount, slowing the horse to a walk, then dismounted as the sun began its afternoon descent. Drawing the reins over the horse’s head, he pushed open the metal gate so they could walk the animals through. Once he’d brushed out Cimarron’s painted coat; fed and watered him down; taken his saddle, blanket, and bridle to the tack room; and saw him shut in his stall with a fan turned on, he looked through his saddle packs for his pliers and wrench so he could go to the barn to finish up the repair work there. His other men were out rounding up the cattle to finally move them onto the next pasture so they could begin the daunting task of more mesquite removal, and the solitary construction work in the barn would suit his poor mood.
“You go on now,” Toby said to his foreman. “Don’t you have a doctor’s appointment in town?”
“Yup. Got me another melanoma. The doc’s gonna cut it out today. Nothing too major.”
Toby nodded to the loyal employee who’d come to work on this land decades ago for his granddad. “Do what you gotta do, man. You need more time off, you got it.”
“It ain’t nothin’ ten minutes at the clinic won’t fix.”
Toby nodded and started walking across the corral toward the barn. “Go on, git then.”
He tried to smile as he passed the older man by, but his foreman stopped him.
“You been all right, boss? Ain’t said much today. Lord knows you ain’t had that stupid grin on your face.”
No, Toby hadn’t. But slaving away from dawn to dark so he could collapse tonight and sleep was the only way he’d made it through the day in one piece. The only breaks he’d taken were to the cell phone store first thing that morning and the police station right after, and to talk to Tyler and send an email to Rose, though he’d been too much of a chickenshit to dare open his email and see if she’d replied or, worse, hadn’t.
“You missin’ that little boy?”
Toby’s teeth clenched, and he refused to look at his foreman.
“You missin’ Rose Morales, maybe?” the man hedged. “Ain’t no shame in heartache, son.”
Toby stalked away. He couldn’t answer that question without revealing how much his heart felt like it was squeezing out of his chest. Ill-shaven, irritable, and now annoyed that his thorniness was obvious enough that others were noticing, he needed to get his hands busy again working.
Toby’s text messages rang. He wiped his sweat and, jostling his tools into one hand, pulled out his new phone and tapped in his password. Travis had sent a message. Travis? Since when did Travis offer a text these days? Getting a simple reply to one was like pulling mountain lion fangs without sedation, and Toby hadn’t expected a reply when he’d messaged his brothers his new number.
Travis:Heard you got a girl. ’Bout time.
Toby smiled wistfully. So many words strung together was a special treat from his once-talkative brother. Naw, bro, I don’t have one. If Travis had heard about Rose, it had to have been from Tyler. Which meant Toby’d created more than just a ripple through the family pond. But he still hadn’t told Tyler that it was over, as if he wanted to live in the illusion a little longer that Rose was still his, and Sage… Man, that kid was a trip. He’d opened himself to being something in that boy’s life, and to have it ripped away so suddenly ached.
He stared blankly at his phone as his boots crunched the gravel, then finally wrote back.
Toby:Yeah.
Travis:I met someone, too.
Really? Travis had met someone? Travis was finally dating again? Good.
Toby:That’s great, man. You should come home to visit and tell me about her. She pretty?
He’d tried more than once to get Travis home. His requests were never rewarded.
Travis:I might just do that, bro.
Another smile creased his weary face. Yes, come home, Trav. It’s in your blood and where you belong.
Travis might have finally finished his medical residency, but horses were in the man’s bones. Toby’d always thought that front patch to the Legacy would make a great equestrian center or rescue, and wouldn’t it be cool if Travis could turn that inkling into a reality now that Pops wasn’t standing in the way, ready to stamp his foot down on the notion? Changing course, he decided to dash inside the main house and grab some food. Funny enough, he’d hardly felt like eating all day, but this one little gift from Travis had restored his appetite a degree—
The phone was ringing in Shirley’s office. He jogged down the step, across the great room, and up the other side to push into her office and pick it up.
“Dixon Cattle,” he said, setting down the protein bar he’d grabbed and stretching for a pen and paper in case it was another message for Shirley to add to the accumulating stack.
“Hello. I’d like to speak to Toby Dixon,” said a man’s voice, soft-spoken and with a strong accent.
Okay, so not for Shirley.