Cowboys Don't Have a Marriage of Convenience by Jessie Gussman

Author:Jessie Gussman [Gussman, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jessie Gussman
Published: 2019-06-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Rem gripped the steering wheel tightly, the windows down, letting in the sub-zero North Dakota night. His radio was up as loud as it would go, and his truck hadn’t seen double digits on the speedometer since he’d passed the last exit.

That was one nice thing about this frozen hellhole—there was plenty of empty space for a man to work out his anger.

At one twenty, his needle tacked out and his right wheel had a little shimmy. He was angry, not suicidal, so he slowed back down to one ten.

The straight, flat road disappeared past his headlights, the yellow dotted lines blurring together.

He didn’t even know where he was going. Nowhere, really. Just needed an outlet for the fury that burned hot and deep inside of him.

He’d never been a brawler, but he’d sure wanted to grab a hold of James.

How could a man treat a woman, his wife, the way that man had treated Elaine?

She’d taken out a second mortgage to give him his half of the ranch. He wasn’t paying any support—not for his wife, not for his kids—and Elaine was struggling to even put food on the table.

Rem’s hands tightened on the wheel, and his boot had the accelerator floorboarded again. He forced the appendages to relax.

He wasn’t going to be able to think about James. Obviously the guy was a jerk who didn’t deserve a family like he’d left, but that didn’t keep Rem from wanting to punish him for the position in which he’d left his wife and kids.

Elaine was partly to blame. She should have sold the ranch. She could have walked away with a pile of money and no worries.

But Rem could understand the desire to hold on. To have a piece of land one called their own. To work the land one’s ancestors worked. Yeah, he got it.

Especially when he figured that Elaine had married James and borne his children under the assumption that they’d work beside each other for the rest of their lives. He was sure she hadn’t planned on doing it alone.

He wasn’t sure he could see James without feeling the need to rearrange his face, and the hot eruption of anger still bubbled in his chest, but the intensity had lessened. He still wasn’t ready to go back, but he needed to.

All those bills and no money. They needed to figure out a plan. Not tonight. It would be too late when he got back. Tomorrow. Soon.

His money was enough to pay most of her bills and keep them through the winter, but they needed some type of income. Something that generated enough to pay the mortgage at least. Fifty-odd head of cattle with calves by their sides and no feeder steers would keep them for a while, but they were borrowing from their future to sell the cows now.

It was well after one a.m. when Rem pulled his pickup to the barn, hoping that by parking out there it didn’t wake any of the kids up.

The light over the stove was on in the kitchen as he sat and took off his boots.

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