Cole ground his teeth together. He knew Easy was close to retirement. In fact, no one knew that better than Cole, which was why Cole thought of this place as his ranch and why he didn’t want these scavengers on it.
Damn it.
“This is a ranch,” he made himself say calmly. “In the middle of summer, for godssake. How are we going to take care of the cattle and—”
“They’re my stock, Cole. You think I’d do this if it put them in harm’s way?”
Cole shifted and jerked his chin in acknowledgment, the most acquiescence he could manage at the moment.
“The stock’s all up at summer grazing anyway. At worst, it’ll inconvenience the men. You’ll have to work around these folks, and they might be underfoot around the bunkhouse. But you don’t even have to worry about that, so what’s the problem?”
“You know what my problem is.”
“This ain’t the past, Cole.”
“Isn’t it? Because it sure as hell feels like you trucked in a scene from my life I’d rather forget and set it up like a damned surprise party for me!”
“This might be a good thing for you.”
“Good?” he snapped. “How do you figure that?”
“You can’t work full-time. Not on a horse and not doing physical labor. But this kind of thing is mostly waiting around. Maybe you can put in a few extra hours. You know about this film stuff. Maybe you could—”
“Easy! Jesus. You want me to jump back into this? Christ. We haven’t talked about it much, but I’m sure my dad filled you in on it before he died.”
Easy took a slow drink of coffee and kept his eyes on Cole. “I know he didn’t like what you were doing,” he eventually said. “He said it was trouble, but—”
“Trouble,” Cole growled, wishing he could put everything he was feeling into that one word. Trouble. Right.
“You’re not a kid anymore, Cole. And this ain’t L.A. You don’t have to piss your pants over it.”
“Jesus. Are you kidding me?”
“I ain’t gonna allow mischief out here, and if these people want to party, they’ll go into town.”
“Easy,” he said, but the words he wanted to say slipped away. His face burned with shame. They’d never talked about it, not in anything more than the most general terms. The
parties and money and sex. “I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can.”
Just three words. A few letters each. But they went through Cole like a blast of heat. Easy didn’t sound the least bit worried. And the surety in his words made Cole’s stomach twist into a hard ache. “I’m not working with them.”
“It’ll make you money.”
“I can earn money working the ranch. I can earn even more when I’m back in the saddle. Two weeks—”
“Farrah said it wasn’t definite. Has anything changed since then?”
Goddamn it. He really wished he hadn’t used Easy’s niece as a physical therapist. After all, for a small town, Jackson had quite a few PTs. Skiing meant lots of broken bones and a high density of world-class athletes.
“I’ll be fine,” he managed to grind out.
“You might be, but if you ain’t, then you need all the hours you can get without a saddle.”
“You know why I don’t want these people here. What the hell are you trying to do to me, Easy?”
“What the hell are you so afraid of, Cole?” Easy countered.