Page 9 of Cattle Stop

Across the barnyard, a hay bale falls from the loft and lands in the aisle of the barn. A second one follows, puffing up dust, and then boots swing onto the ladder, pants neatly cuffed above them.

Cooper cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, “Do you know where the wrenches are?”

Whit carefully picks his way down the last rungs of the ladder. Cooper sighs. Whit can hear him, even if he isn’t bothering to answer.

“The wrenches,” he calls again as he jogs over. He has to blink against the dimness of the barn, his eyes straining after the brightness outside. Socks yawns at him, his pink tongue curling and one paw dangling off the edge of the loft. “They’re not in the shop.”

Whit doesn’t even bother to look over. “They’re in the truck.”

“Which truck?”

“The truck,” Whit says again and bends down to loop his fingers through the baling twine.

“Your truck or the farm truck?”

“The truck.” Whit points with his chin toward the barnyard.

Cooper breathes in slowly through his nose. “Okay.”

“I’m using them,” Whit says.

“It looks more like you’re feeding the cows.”

“I’ve got to get the fences fixed before we start grazing.” Whit has his weight on one leg, the bale on his hip, his shoulders bulging against his coat. Don’t look, Cooper tells himself, and then looks anyway at that swell of muscles. “Don’t take those wrenches.”

“I just need them for a second.”

“Don’t,” Whit calls after him.

“A minute, tops,” Cooper calls back. Four wrenches sit in the cupholder of Whit’s truck. Cooper raises his hand and shouts toward the barn, “Thanks!”

“The two of you,” Penny says when Cooper pushes open the door to the kitchen. “I can hear you and the windows aren’t even open.”

Cooper salutes her with one of the wrenches. “Whit missed me, what can I say?”

Penny sets the heavy cast-iron Dutch oven on top of the stove. “Of course he did.”

Upstairs, the room Cooper normally stays in is chilly, like the heat’s been off all winter and the door left closed. Cooper touches the brown watermark on the wall near the window, and sure enough, the plaster gives.

Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t visit over the winter, then—trying to survive any length of time in Whit’s presence aside.

Cooper kneels and fits a wrench to a bolt in one of the bed’s legs, though he pauses at the stamp of feet up the stairs. He doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to know Whit’s standing in the doorway.

“I’m using those,” Whit says.

“Actually”—Cooper gives the wrench a quarter turn—“I am.”

“The gate in the back field needs to be replaced and I—”

“Took every single wrench on the farm while you were feeding out hay? Isn’t it your day off?”

He can nearly hear Whit cross his arms. “I had to stop back in, so—”

“And you figured you’d work all damn day? Hey, quick question, the gate you’re fixing, isn’t that the one the cows break every single year? Maybe—” Cooper twists the bolt free with a grunt. “Maybe this will be the year you convince them not to use it as a scratching post, tear it down in their itchy glory, and then escape onto the road to the delight of the neighbors and our enduring embarrassment.”

“Can I have those back?”

“M’nearly done.”