Page 44 of Wilde Hearts

“You coming or what?” Gatlin asked, clearly tired of waiting.

“Yep,” I said, as I took hold of Ceres and swung up into the saddle.

“Thanks for exercising them. With two of our guys on vacation and me not able to find time to ride lately, these guys are in desperate need of exercise.”

“I never need an excuse to ride,” I assured her.

“Thanks, guys!” Emeline called out again, as she turned and headed back into the barn.

“Ready?”

Smiling back at my younger brother, I replied, “Let’s go.”

Ceres followed Luna as Gatlin headed to a trail that was normally used when Emeline held her summer camps. I knew it was one of his favorites, leading up to a large pasture where we always held the chuckwagon dinner the last night of camp.

Once the trail widened, I moved up alongside him. “Do you remember when we used to come up here as kids to play?”

He gave me a grin. Lord, my baby brother was handsome. So was my older brother, Caden, but Gatlin had a certain spark about him. He lived life as if every day were his last. Everyone adored him, and women especially fell all over themselves just to talk to him—and he was absolutely clueless about it all.

“Remember the time you tied me up and left me for hours up here?”

A sudden laugh burst from me. “I forgot all about that!”

He glanced at me and tried to frown. “I didn’t.”

“Mom and Dad were so worried when they couldn’t find you. I was afraid to tell them where you were, and I couldn’t get back out to ride up and cut you loose.”

“How’d they find out?” he asked.

“Mom was about to call the police, so I confessed. I was grounded for three weeks. No horses, no playing…pretty much stuck in my room and only allowed out to eat.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Why did you leave me up there for so long?”

“When I got back to the barn, Caden made me help him with chores, and by the time I was finished, it was dinnertime. I tried to saddle up a horse first, but Uncle Mike told me I couldn’t go by myself that late in the day.”

“And you didn’t think to tell him you left me up there?”

“At least I put you in the shade.”

His head dropped back with another round of laughter. He shook his head. “I was so hungry, and my throat killed me from yelling for help.”

I chuckled. “Dad said halfway up the trail they could hear you screaming. He said you sounded like a mountain lion.”

Gatlin rolled his eyes. “I was going through puberty.”

We rode in silence until we got to the pasture. Gatlin slid off, tossed the reins over the saddle and let his horse graze. I did the same.

“Where’s your favorite spot on the ranch?” he asked, as we walked.

“Granddad took me to a spot on top of a hill, on the west side of the ranch. There’s a beautiful view of the river below. I go there a lot when I need to think, or just to try and reconnect with myself.” Glancing at him, I asked, “What about you?”

“There’s a trail that leads to the BLM lands that goes up and over that one small mountain. From the top, you can see the entire river valley. It faces west, and man, the sunsets up there are unreal.”

“It’s a good spot to watch the storms roll in, too. Dad told me that was where our great-great-grandfather Lawrence used to go to gauge the storms coming in.”

He let out a sigh and shook his head. “It sucks we lost all that land down there.”

My eyes traveled toward the BLM land that had once belonged to our family. Our grandfather had sold it to the state with the promise it would be Bureau of Land Management property, and that we could still graze our cattle there. It was peppered with cattle even now.