Rancher's Return
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Maisey Yates
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Chapter One
Welcome to Lone Rock...
He hadn’t seen that sign in years. He wasn’t sure if he felt nostalgic or just plain pissed off.
He supposed it didn’t matter. Because he was here.
For the first time in twenty years, Buck Carson was home.
And he aimed to make it a homecoming to remember.
“You look like you want to punch somebody in the face.”
“You look like you got in a fight with your own depression and lost.”
“You look like someone who hasn’t learned to successfully process his emotions and traumas.”
Buck scowled, and glared at his three sons, who were only just recently legally his. “I’m good,” he said, as his truck continued to barrel down the main drag of Lone Rock, Oregon, heading straight to his parents’ ranch, where he hadn’t been since he’d first left two decades ago.
“Are you?” Reggie asked, looking at him with snarky, faux teen concern.
“Yes, Reg, and I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t, because I’m the parent.”
“I don’t think that’s healthy,” Marcus said.
“I think that somebody should’ve taught you not to use therapy speak as a weapon,” Buck said to his middle son.
“You’re in luck,” said Colton, his oldest, “because I don’t use therapy speak at all. Not even in therapy.”
“Yeah, the therapy hasn’t taken with you,” Marcus said.
“Hey,” Reggie said. “Leave him alone. He’s traumatized. By having to go through life with that face of his.”
“All right,” Buck said.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t known what he was getting into when he’d decided to adopt these boys. But becoming an instant father to fifteen-, sixteen-and seventeen-year-old kids was a little more intense than he had anticipated.
When he’d left Lone Rock he’d been completely and totally hopeless. He’d been convinced he was to blame for the death of his friends, and hell, the whole town had been too.
After everything his family had already been through, he hadn’t wanted to bring that kind of shame to their door. So he’d left.
And spent the first few years away proving everything everyone had ever said about him right. He had been drunk or fucked-up for most of that time. And one day, he had woken up in the bed of a woman whose name he didn’t know and realized he wasn’t living.
His three best friends had died in a car accident on graduation night, driving drunk from a bonfire party back to their campsite. He had also been drunk, but driving behind them in his own car. He had made the same mistake they had, and yet for some reason, they had paid for it and he hadn’t.
They’d only been at the party because of him. All upstanding kids with bright futures, while Buck had by far been the screwup of the group. Their futures had been cut short, and for some reason, he had gone ahead and made his own future a mess.
That day, he woke up feeling shitty, but alive.
And when he had the realization that he still drew breath, and that he wasn’t doing anyone any favors by wasting the life he still had, he had gotten his ass out of bed and gone into a rehab program.
But in truth, he had never been tempted to take another drink after that morning, never been tempted to touch another illicit substance. Because he had decided then and there he was going to live differently.
Because he’d found a new purpose.
After completing the rehab program, he had limped onto New Hope Ranch asking for a job. The place was a facility for troubled youth, where they worked the land, worked with animals and in general turned their lives around through the simple act of being part of the community.
Buck had been working there for sixteen years. Those kids had become his heart and soul; that work had become his reason why. And five months ago, when he had been offered the position of director, he had realized he was at a new crossroads.
There were three kids currently in the program who didn’t have homes to go back to. And he had connected with them. It had been yet another turning point.
But that’s when he had seen himself clearly. He had a trust fund he hadn’t touched since he left Lone Rock. He had been living on the ranch, taking the barest of bare minimum pay. He had no possessions. He was like a monk with a vow of poverty, supported by the church. Though the ranch was hardly a church.
He used his paycheck for one week off a year, where he usually went to some touristy ski town, stayed in reasonable accommodations, found a female companion whose name he did know and spent a nice weekend.
But otherwise... He didn’t have much of anything.
And he could.
He considered taking all his money and donating it to the ranch, but it was well funded by many organizations and rich people who wanted to feel like they were doing good in the world while getting a write-off on their taxes.
And then he remembered he had a unique resource.
His family.
He could give Reggie, Marcus and Colton a family. A real family.
Yeah, he was an imperfect father figure, but he had found that made it easier to connect with the kids at the ranch. Additionally, he had a mother and a father, six brothers and a sister. And they were all married with children of their own. He could give these boys a real, lasting sense of community.
And that was when he had decided to adopt those boys, buy a ranch in Lone Rock and reconnect with his parents. They had met on neutral ground, at various rodeo events over the summer.
His dad had been angry at first; his mom never had been. But he had explained what he had been through, what he had been doing and why he had been absent for so long, and ultimately, they had forgiven him. And welcomed him to come back home. He also knew they had done some work priming his brothers and sister to accept his presence. Or at least, the presence of the boys.
But...
He also had the sense all was not forgiven and forgotten when it came to his siblings.
Even so, he was looking forward to today’s reunion.
At least he was pretty sure the sick feeling in his stomach was anticipation. And maybe some of the anger that still lived inside of him. At this town, at himself.
Well. Hell.
He supposed he didn’t have a full accounting of all his emotions.
There was nothing simple about the loss this place had experienced all those years ago. His friends should be thirty-eight years old. Just like him. But they were forever eighteen.
He looked at his sons, sitting on the bench seat of the truck, with Marcus in the back.
It wasn’t a coincidence that he had adopted three of them, he supposed. A more obvious mea culpa didn’t exist. But then, he had never pretended he wasn’t making as firm a bid for redemption as he possibly could.
Yeah. Well.
It was what it was.
“So we’re meeting your whole family today?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah. For better or worse.”
“You haven’t seen them in twenty years,” Colton said.
“No.”
“God, you are so old,” Colton said.
“Yeah. Really ancient,” Buck said. “And feeling older by the minute around you three assholes.”
“I do think you have more gray hair since you adopted us,” Reggie said.
“I’ll probably just pick up more girls with it,” Buck said.
That earned him a chorus of retching gags, and genuinely, he found that was his absolute favorite part of this parenting thing.
Driving the kids nuts.
It was mutual, he had a feeling.
But he took it as a good sign that they felt secure enough to mess with him. They all definitely had their own trauma. Marcus didn’t mess around using therapy speak by pulling it out of nowhere. He’d spent a hell of a lot of time sitting on a therapist’s couch, that was for damn sure.
He turned onto the long driveway that was so familiar. But he knew everything else had changed. His parents had built a new house in the years since he had left. His siblings had been kids when he’d gone.
They were entitled to their anger, his siblings. They had already lost their youngest sister when they lost him too. And life had proven to be even crueler after that. So maybe his running off had been part of the cruelty, rather than the solution. Sobriety and maturity made that feel more likely.
But at the time, he had simply thought everybody would be better off without him. Hell, at the time that had probably been true. That was the thing. He had self-destructed for a good long while. He was pretty sure he would’ve done that even if he hadn’t left.
So whether his family wanted to believe it or not, he really did believe that in the state he’d been in then, it had been better that he wasn’t around. And then he had been afraid to go back. For a long time.
But his dad hadn’t cut him off. His trust fund had still come available to him when he turned thirty. He supposed that should have been a sign to him. That he was always welcome back home.
But he’d left it untouched. Maybe that was the real reason he hadn’t used it till now. He had felt on some level that he would have to reconnect with his family if he took any family money.
And it was the boys who had given him a strong enough reason to do that.
He followed the directions his mother had given him to the new house. It was beautiful and modern. With big tall windows designed to make the most of the high desert views around them.
“I didn’t realize this place was a desert,” Marcus said. “I thought it rained all the time in Oregon.”
“In Portland maybe,” he said.
“There’s nothing here,” Reggie added.
“There’s plenty to do.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s plenty to do,” Colton said.
“You’ll be fine.”
“How come there aren’t any cactuses?” Marcus asked.
He gritted his teeth. “Not that kind of desert.”
“Are there at least armadillos?” Marcus, again.
“Still not that kind of desert,” he said.
“What a rip-off,” Marcus replied.
“I don’t think you want armadillos, from the sounds of things. They’re nuisances. Dig lots of holes in the yard.”
Then, talk of armadillos died in the back of his throat. Because he was right up against the side of the house. He got out of the truck slowly, and the kids piled out quickly. And it only took a moment for the front door to open.
His parents were the first out. His mother rushing toward him to give him a hug. She had been physically demonstrative from the first time they had seen each other again.
“Buck,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
“Hey,” his old man said, extending his hand and shaking Buck’s.
“You must be Reggie, Marcus and Colton,” his mom said, going right over to the boys and forcing them into a hug as well. “You can call me Nana.”
He could sense the boys’ discomfort, but this was what he was here for. For the boys to have grandparents. To have family.
“You can call me Abe,” his dad said.
And that made the boys chuckle.
He heard a commotion at the door and looked up. There were all his brothers, filing out of the house: Boone, Jace, Chance, Kit and Flint. Buck was about to say something, when a fist connected with his jaw, and he found himself hurtling toward the ground as pain burst behind his eyelids.
“Boone!” He heard a woman’s shocked voice, though he couldn’t see her from where he was lying sprawled out on the ground.
“Oh shit!” That, he knew was Reggie.
“Fair call,” Buck said, sitting up and raising his hand in a “hold on” gesture. “Fair call, Boone.”
“Violence isn’t the answer, Boone,” came a lecturing teenage voice.
“Sometimes it is,” returned an equally lecturing different teenage voice. “Sometimes a person deserves to get punched in the face.”
“Maybe not right now,” the angry female voice said.
Buck stood up. And looked his brother square in the face.
“Good to see you again, Boone,” he said.
“Don’t think I won’t hit you again,” Boone said.
“Hey,” said his brother Jace, moving over to Boone and putting his hand on Boone’s shoulder. “Why don’t you guys punch it out on your own time.”
“I don’t have anyone to punch,” Buck said. “And I’ll take one. Maybe two. But no more than that.”
Chance and Kit exchanged glances, like they were considering getting in a punch of their own. For his part, Flint looked neutral.
For the first time, Buck got a look at the woman who had defended him.
“I’m Wendy,” she said. “I’m Boone’s wife.”
And he had a feeling the two lecturing teenage girls were Boone’s stepchildren. His mother had filled him in on everybody’s situation, more or less.
Right then, another woman came out of the house with a baby on her hip.
Callie.
His baby sister. Who had been maybe five years old when he’d left. He knew it was her. She was a mother herself. He had missed her whole damn life.
He was sad for himself, not for her.
There hadn’t been a damn thing he could’ve taught her. He hadn’t been worth anything at the point when he’d left. But he sure as hell felt sorry for himself. For missing out.
“Buck,” she said. Her eyes were soft, no anger in them whatsoever.
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s me.”
And he realized this whole reunion was going to be both more rewarding and more difficult than he had imagined.
Because his family wasn’t a vague, cloudy shape in the rearview mirror of his past anymore. His family was made up of a whole lot of people. People with thoughts and feelings about this situation. About him.
Hell. He had spent a little bit of time with the therapist himself.
“Why don’t we go inside?” his mother said. “But no more hitting.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Boone said, looking ashamed for the first time.
This didn’t have to be easy.
Buck was used to things being hard.
But he was home.
For better or for worse.
He was home.
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