Blame It On The Cowboy

“Well, unless Helene has started secretly pooping in the pastures, it doesn’t,” Lucky confirmed.

Logan was almost afraid to motion for Lucky to continue, but he finally did. Curiosity was a sick thing sometimes.

“You haven’t been to the house, well, in a couple of months,” Lucky went on, “but I had thirty bulls delivered to those pastures and corrals we talked about using.”

So, definitely not a Helene problem. And Logan knew which pastures and corrals Lucky meant. The pastures were on the east side of the house, and with the right mixture of grasses for the young bulls they’d bought so they could be trained for the rodeo.

“The wind must have shifted or something because, this morning, all you could smell was bullshit in the house. Everybody’s complaining, even Mia,” Lucky added.

A first for Mia. To the best of Logan’s knowledge, the four-year-old girl never complained about anything. Unlike her thirteen-year-old sister, Mackenzie. Lucky and Cassie had guardianship of the pair, but the girls were yin and yang. If Mia was complaining, Logan didn’t want to know how much Mackenzie was carrying on. Or the longtime housekeepers, Della and Stella, who also lived at the ranch.

“You’re sure it’s bullshit and not cat shit?” Logan asked. Because along with inheriting guardianship of the girls, Lucky and Cassie had also inherited six cats. Five of those cats were now at the ranch.

Lucky shook his head. “Definitely bullshit, and I should know because I’m a bullshit connoisseur.”

Since Lucky had been riding rodeo bulls for more than a decade, that did indeed make him an expert. Not just on the crap but the bulls themselves.

“That means I’m going to need to move them,” Lucky went on, “and I was thinking about the back pastures. But Rico said you were planning on putting some horses back there.”

He was. Or rather, Riley was since he was in charge of the new cutting horse program that they’d started. And Riley and Logan had indeed discussed that with Rico Callahan, one of their top ranch hands.

Logan sat there, debating on which would smell worse—horseshit or bullshit. It was a toss-up. “Move the bulls to the back pastures,” Logan finally said. “When the horses arrive, I’ll have Riley split them in the other pastures for the time being.”

It was a temporary fix since Riley would eventually want the cutting horses together so they’d be easier to train, and that meant they needed to prep one of the other two pastures they weren’t using. The problem at the McCord Ranch wasn’t enough land—there was plenty of that—but with their operation expanding, they needed someone who could manage the ranch grounds themselves. Someone more than just the hands.

“Hire whoever you need to fix this,” Logan told his brother.

Whenever he was talking to Lucky, his twin, Logan always tried to tone down his voice. After all, Lucky could have been co-CEO, but in his will, their father had named only Logan. Logan supposed he felt guilty about that, but then until recently Lucky had shown zero interest in being part of McCord Cattle Brokers. Since it was something Logan had always wanted—all of his siblings helping him with the family business—he didn’t want to push any of Lucky’s buttons that might be waiting to be pushed.

Lucky mumbled that he would hire someone and checked his watch. “Say, it’s lunchtime. Wanna go over to the Fork and Spoon and grab something to eat?”

Logan figured that was Lucky’s plan all along, to get him out of the office because Lucky could have just called with the bullshit problem. Lucky did have an office just up the hall, but he rarely used it. He wasn’t a behind-the-desk kind of guy. Plus, he still had his own rodeo promotion company to run. What with raising two kids and being in a fairly new relationship, Lucky didn’t have a lot of free time.

Which meant this was a coddling attempt on Lucky’s part.

“No.” Lucky held up his hands in defense as if he knew what Logan was thinking. Maybe he did. Logan had never experienced that twin telepathy thing, but it was possible Lucky did. Of course, telepathy wasn’t needed since Lucky had seen what Helene had done.

“You’re not here to check on me?” Logan clarified.

Lucky shook his head. “Della’s on a health kick and is making baked chicken and salad for lunch. I want a mystery-meat grease burger and soggy fries from the Fork and Spoon.”

Logan gestured for him to go for it.

Lucky huffed. “The waitresses,” he said.

And Logan got it then. Not from telepathy, either. But Lucky had a reputation as a player, and despite the fact that he was now involved with Cassie, the waitresses and some other women in town seemed to enjoy testing Lucky’s commitment to Cassie. His brother must want that burger pretty bad to go through another round of that.

“I’m not running interference for you with women,” Logan warned him.

“No need. They’ll be feeling so sorry for you that they’ll leave me the heck alone. The last time I was in there, Sissy Lee spilled ice tea on my crotch and proceeded to wipe it off. Really hard and fast. I think she was trying her damnedest to give me a hand job.”

If that had come from any other man, Logan would have considered it an exaggeration, but women did stuff like that to Lucky all the time, and it’d started around the time they hit puberty. Logan didn’t get it. Lucky and he were identical, but if you put them in the middle of a bunch of horny women, 90 percent of them would go after Lucky first.

“You won’t run into Helene,” Lucky continued. “She hasn’t come back to town since everything happened.”

Yeah, Greg had mentioned that, but when his assistant had tried to give him more details, Logan had told him to get his butt back to work. He didn’t need details about anything that involved Helene.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from her?” Lucky asked.

Logan managed to stave off a scowl. “No. And I don’t expect she’ll call because I doubt she’ll want to explain what was going on in her office that night.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I know what was going on.”

Yes. Logan was sure of that, too. Helene had been fucking a clown.

In hindsight, it was sort of surreal, like a perfect storm of Logan’s nightmares. Well, it would have been if he’d had nightmares about Helene being unfaithful. He hadn’t because it hadn’t even been on his radar. But the clown nightmares? He’d had plenty of those since he was nine years old and had sneaked a copy of Stephen King’s It from his dad’s office.

“Still no idea who the clown was?” Lucky went on.

This time Logan did give him a scowl and no answer. Because no, he didn’t have a clue. Nor did he want to know.

Once you saw your girlfriend screwing a clown, it didn’t matter who was wearing those big floppy shoes and was behind the white face, red lips and red squeaky nose.

“So, what do you say about having a burger with me?” Lucky pressed when Logan didn’t budge, answer or quit scowling. “I want to talk to you on the walk over. Nothing else about Helene, I promise. This is something else. Something personal.”

Since the Fork and Spoon Café was only a block and a half up from the McCord building, it would be a short conversation, but he wasn’t sure Lucky was going to give up on this. Besides, Logan wanted a grease burger now, too.

Logan slipped on his cowboy hat, grabbed his phone and headed out. “Don’t make a big deal about this,” he warned Lucky, and then gave the same warning to Greg when they walked past his desk.

The lanky assistant jumped to his feet as if trying to contain his excitement. Maybe because it was the first time Logan had left the building in more than a week. Easy to stay under the roof of the converted Victorian house when he had a studio apartment on the third floor. It was even easier now that he was having his groceries delivered. The only time he left was for a business meeting out of town.

“Not a word,” Logan added to Greg because Logan thought he needed to say something to wipe that gleeful look off his face. And Logan tried not to look too displeased that the guy was wearing a purple suit. Yes, purple. “And do the paperwork to finalize the sale of those cows I just bought from Jason Murdock.”

Greg nodded, too eagerly, and Logan was sure he was still eager-ing when Lucky and he walked out the front door.

Logan immediately had to pull down the brim of his cowboy hat to shield his eyes. He’d gone too long without sunshine, and it would continue. The less contact he had with people right now, the better. In a couple more months when the gossip died down, he’d try to get back to normal.

After he learned what normal would be for him, that is.

“Two things,” Lucky said as they walked. “How are you? And before you blast me, Della put me up to it. She and Stella are worried about you. I’m not. Because I know if your head was still messed up, you’d tell me.”

No, he wouldn’t. Logan wouldn’t tell anyone, but he was semipleased that Lucky would think that. Or maybe Lucky knew it and was playing a mind game to get him to talk.

“I’m fine,” Logan assured him.

That wasn’t even close to the truth. He’d had two migraines in six days, and it felt as if another one might be tapping on his shoulder. He wasn’t sleeping well, and when he did, he kept dreaming about what he’d seen in Helene’s office. Part of him wished he’d asked her for an explanation. Any explanation. But then again, what was she going to say? Nothing that would have helped Logan understand, that’s for sure.

“By the way, I’ve never told you this, but before we walked in on Helene, I didn’t know what she was up to,” Logan said to Lucky. “I had no idea she could, or would, cheat on me.”