Slow Burn Cowboy

You couldn’t bullshit the earth. He liked that. You had to work, and the rewards were merit-based. Sometimes the weather swept in and messed things up, but living on the coast in the relatively temperate Oregon climate and with modern conveniences, that was not the biggest concern for a dairy farmer.

He had good contracts with one of the major dairies in the state, and additionally had been working on developing some other avenues for selling their products. Yeah, he was a laborer, but he had always been proud of it. Better to be like that than like his father. Running around the country screwing anything that moved and trying to get out of having to work for a damn thing. He had never understood how his grandfather’s only son had managed to turn out that way.

The old man was a hard-ass. Possibly because he was compensating for what had happened with Finn’s father. But either way, he had taught Finn the value of an honest day’s work. And he was grateful.

It had also shown him the value of staying. Investing. Which neither of his parents had managed to do.

And it had given him a way to have some control in his life. After spending his childhood being jerked around by the whims of adults, figuring out he could actively affect the world around him had been a revelation. That he could work at something, cultivate the land. Build up something that no one could take from him.

Except, apparently, when his grandfather died and left the land to his brothers. That felt much closer to losing his foundation than he would have liked.

“I don’t know about that,” Lane was saying, pulling their food out of the microwave. “I don’t actually think you’re as grumpy as Mark is.”

Lane turned around and nearly ran into him. Finn reached out to steady her, gripping her shoulders and holding her there. Her shirt was soft, and so was she, and it made it hard to pull away as quickly as he should.

He cleared his throat, releasing his hold on her. “Maybe I’m just not as grumpy with you.”

The moment extended, her blue eyes locked with his, then slowly, a tight smile curved her lips, slackening as the air between them seem to clear. Some of the tension loosening. Then her expression turned amused.

“If that’s the case, I really would hate to see you with other people. You might not be as cranky as Mark, but you’re not exactly rainbows and sunshine.”

“If I were rainbows and sunshine you wouldn’t like me. Anyway, without a thunderstorm you wouldn’t have a rainbow.”

“You are my very favorite thunderstorm, Finn.”

He ground his teeth together, still feeling the effects of his earlier lapse in self-control. Still feeling the impression of her warmth beneath his fingers. She did not seem similarly affected. “Happy to be the dark cloud in your life.”

“Stop scowling at me. I’m making you dinner.”

He did his best to relax the muscles in his face and to give her something that looked a little bit less surly. He would only ever do that for Lane.

Right when Lane took his plate out of the microwave, there was a knock on the door. He let out a heavy sigh. “If it’s another casserole...”

“Who else is bringing you casserole?” Lane asked, her tone full of mock offense. “I’m just kidding,” she said, smiling. “I know that no one else is bringing you casserole. At least, no one under the age of eighty.”

“Maybe I like older women,” he said, lifting a shoulder.

She arched her brow. “To each his own, I guess.”

His scowl returned and he walked out of the kitchen, heading toward the front door. He jerked it open without bothering to look and see who was on the other side. And when he saw, he froze.

“Hi, little brother. It’s been a while.”

As Finn stared at his older brother, Cain, he had to concede that it had probably been more than a couple of years since they had seen each other. Cain’s dark hair was longer than the last time he’d seen him, his face a little more lined. Around his eyes. Around his mouth.

When a girl who could only be Cain’s daughter started to make her way toward the door from the car, her expression sulky in that way that only teenage girls could accomplish, Finn amended that timeline to way more than a couple of years.

The last time he’d seen Violet, she had been a little girl. This half-grown young woman in front of him was definitely not the child he remembered.

Her hands were stuffed into her sweatshirt pockets, the hood pulled up over her head, her shoulders hunched forward. She came to stand beside her dad, looking incensed.

“It was a long drive,” Cain said.

Finn looked past his two relatives to the beat-up truck with the Texas license plates that was parked in the driveway. He hadn’t realized Cain was going to drive. The very thought of driving halfway across the country with only a teen girl for company made Finn want to crawl out of his own skin.

Though, actually, the idea of driving halfway across the country with his brother made him feel that way too.

But more concerning than any of that was the trailer hitched to the back of the old truck. Suspicion lodged itself in Finn’s chest.

“Why didn’t you fly?” he asked.

“Wanted to have the truck.” Which didn’t answer the unspoken question about the trailer. Cain looked past him. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

As if it were an option to leave him out there on the porch. A large part of Finn wished it were.

Finn fought against the desire to say something confrontational, and focused on the reality of the situation. No matter how he felt, Cain had a right to be here.

But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“You own exactly as much of this house as I do, Cain,” Finn said, the words sticking in his throat on the way out. “You don’t really have to ask my permission.”

“That’s how it is then,” Cain said, walking past Finn and into the house.

Violet remained stubbornly rooted to the porch.

“Violet,” Cain said, his tone full of warning. “I thought you were going to like, freeze to death. Maybe you should come inside so you don’t die of exposure.”

Violet rolled her eyes and crossed the threshold into the house. She pulled the phone out of her pocket and immediately busied herself by tapping her thumbs on the touch screen.

“Say hi to your uncle Finn.”

Finn had never gotten fully used to the idea that he was somebody’s uncle. But then, it was difficult for him to believe that his brother was a father. Actually, it was even stranger now that Violet wasn’t in diapers.

The last time Finn had seen her she had been maybe seven or eight, looking at Cain and at all of her uncles like they were gods. And Cain had still been married. Maybe that was another reason this was so strange. Seeing Violet as something other than the bright-eyed imp who worshipped the ground her dad walked on.

And being treated to her total and complete ambivalence when before his very existence had made him as unto a god.

He supposed he didn’t really have a right to feel much about that either way. It wasn’t like he had been very involved in her life.

Though in fairness to Finn, Cain hadn’t made much of an effort to involve him.

“Hi, Uncle Finn,” Violet said, not looking up from her phone. “My, how you’ve grown.”

Her response stopped him short. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he said.

“Sure.”

“I wasn’t,” he returned.