Page 18 of Cattle Stop

“That’s why he’s so bent on getting the house fixed.”

“Well, there’s a hole in the roof.” The words sound stupid falling out of his mouth like that, weak and uncertain. “He didn’t say anything.”

“It’s not like you’re ever around.”

Cooper grabs Whit’s arm. “Bullshit, we talk all the time. He would’ve told me.”

Whit looks down at Cooper’s hand, where he’s gripping tight enough his knuckles whiten. “Apparently not.”

Something this big, this important? Cooper tightens his hold on Whit’s arm. “He would have.”

“Well, seems like he didn’t.”

Whit pulls away and shoos the last of the cows into the pen. Cooper lets his hand drop and watches Whit walk into the barn. He comes back with the hose and sets it into the cows’ trough, where it dribbles its slow, feeble stream of water.

“You gonna shut that?” Whit asks.

Cooper looks down at his feet, where the gate’s still lying in the mud. Right. He bends down and picks it up again, fitting it against the fence post. The only thing to secure the gate is a twist of wire. No wonder the herd got out, if that’s what Whit’s using to keep them in.

No need to invest in improvements if Drew’s selling the place off, he can nearly hear in Whit’s voice. With numb, wet fingers, Cooper wraps the wire over the rail of the gate.

“I’m going to go get started on the fencing,” Whit says and he walks away, leaving Cooper there, cold mud pressing against his boots, and his sweatpants doing little against the morning’s chill.

Chapter Four

In Whit’s bathroom, Cooper rinses mud and grit from his hands, warming his fingers under the hot water. Sell the farm rings through his head, too loud and harsh.

He picks up the mug of coffee he set on the edge of the sink, then sets it down again without taking a sip.

Work clothes. He came up here to get dressed, so he needs to put on his jeans and hope the dew and cow snot on his sweatpants dries before he leaves.

Right. ’Cause he’s leaving. Though he just slowly strips off his sweatpants and stares down at his legs, winter pale and now goosefleshed in the chill of Whit’s room, trying to swallow the fact that he might never, not ever, come back here.

He sets his sweatpants down. Picks them up again, lays them over the foot of the bed, and plucks a piece of hay from the fabric. Someone else would live in this house if Drew sold the farm. Mow the fields, work in the barn, tend the flower bed that Drew’s aunt used to weed every summer, dirt up to her wrists and her huge, floppy hat bobbing among the blossoms.

Or no. Maybe whoever buys this place will tear the front yard up. The fields too, subdividing the land for a housing development. There’ll be tiny quarter-acre lots dotting the hills and a paved road cutting through what’s now stone walls and tumbling creeks.

But that’s impossible. It’s Drew’s farm. His uncle’s before him, and his grandfather’s before that. Cooper takes a bite of the toast he brought upstairs with him for his breakfast. The butter’s warm and the sweet peach jelly’s made from the fruit of the trees that line the backyard. This is Drew’s place, just like Caroline’s is Caroline’s, and Brad’s is Brad’s.

Was Brad’s. And isn’t, now.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Cooper looks up slowly at Whit. “I thought you were working on the fences.”

“It’s going to be warm out today, so I came to get a different shirt.” Whit glances over Cooper, in his sweatshirt with his legs bare where his boxers end mid-thigh. “Though you’re apparently dressed for the weather, I see.”

Cooper looks down at himself too. Work jeans. Socks. He should get on that. Instead, he takes another bite of toast and frowns as he chews, his stomach knotting. Sell the farm. What an awful set of words to string together.

“Are you eating up here?” Whit asks.

Cooper looks down at his toast, jelly smeared over his finger, and a drop of melted butter pooling on the plate. “Is that a trick question?”

“There’ll be mice.”

“Drew’s really selling the farm?”

“Can you not get hay all over?” Whit asks and with the side of his foot, pushes a couple pieces across the floor, away from his own bed. “I told you, he’s thinking about it. Mice added to the squirrel issue might seal the deal, though.”