Noah Read online

  “The truth. You say he was a loser and you dumped his stupid ass.”

  She covered her face. “Maybe I’m just a shitty girlfriend. Maybe I smother him.”

  “Maybe he’s just a douche. Look, Bells, you’ve been a good girlfriend. I think it’s time you realized that there’s other guys out there that would treat you better.”

  She pulled her hands away from her face and let out an air-filled laugh. “Don’t even go there, cuz. You forget that I know your secrets. If you’ve taught me anything, it’s that you can’t trust a man.”

  “That ain’t true.” I don’t know why it offended me so much. “Just because I don’t want a serious relationship don’t mean that men can’t be faithful. It’s a choice. Do you really think your daddy, or even mine would consider strayin’? You know they wouldn’t.”

  “They’re old, though. Who knows what they did when they were our age?”

  I shook my head and laughed. Knowing for a fact that my dad was crazy about my mom, I knew there was hope for mankind after all. Sure, I was shameless, picking up women for a good time without a single call afterwards. It filled my need and left me without the stress of having to impress someone twenty-four-seven. I needed freedom, and it was for that reason that I was living in an old double-wide instead of with my parents or at the main ranch house on the property with my grandmother.

  I wasn’t the type of man to deal well with people ordering me around, especially my father. Just because my family thought I’d be the next person in line to run the ranch, didn’t mean it was going to happen. Sure, ever since I’d finished college, well the two years that I attended, I’d done nothing else but help run the ranch. There hadn’t been a single day that I didn’t wonder if there was something else out there that I’d enjoy more. For now I was stuck, and as long as I had my space I’d be all right with it.

  “I ain’t goin’ to argue with you about this right now, Bells. I’m tired and I need to get up early.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  While following her to the living room, I scratched my head. “Well, you’re always welcome to stay here. You know that. Out of anyone alive on this earth you’re the only person I’d be okay livin’ with.” Imagining living with a woman, who I was in a relationship with, was like hitting my own hand with a hammer. I’d avoid it at all costs.

  She looked over at me with those big, bright green eyes that we both inherited from our parents. “I was hopin’ that you’d say that. I’m tired of North Carolina, Noah. I need to get away from everyone.”

  “I feel ya. As big as our family is, sometimes they just need to mind their business.” I sat down next to my cousin and put my arm around her. “You know, my mom’s been tellin’ me to get a woman to clean up after me and wash my clothes. Now I don’t need to go lookin’.”

  She shoved me away and finally gave me a hint of a snicker. “Shut up! I’ll never be your maid, Noah Mitchell.” She over-annunciated my name. “You need to find someone else that is willing to touch your dirty boxers. You keep forgettin’ that I know some of the shit you get yourself in to. There ain’t no way I’m messin’ around with your drawers.”

  I chuckled. “Well then that might be a deal breaker, Isabella Mitchell.” She hated her full name being called out and rolled her eyes immediately.

  I always got a kick out of picking on her. While we’d been around the same height as kids, she’d stop growing around the age of fourteen. Being that petite, she wasn’t exactly someone that I looked at as strong, both mentally and physically. Since I stood a strong six-four, I towered over her tiny frame.

  “Oh shut up. You know you miss me like crazy.” The room got quiet for a second. “Now I just have to tell my parents.”

  I hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t fully alert until she’d made that statement. “Don’t tell me you’re doin’ it this weekend. Bells, you can’t ruin my parent’s anniversary party. Please, just wait until the family heads home. Promise me.”

  She let her head fall against my arm and sadly replied. “Okay. I promise.”

  As she closed her eyes I stared out into the kitchen. My cousin Bells living with me wouldn’t be so bad. Dealing with her drama and my unhappiness with my own life was going to be the deal breaker. “If he shows up I’m kickin’ his ass. You know that right?”

  “Yeah, I’m countin’ on it.”

  I woke up later with a heavy feel to my arm. My cousin was sound asleep with her feet tucked up on the other end of the couch. I slid myself off of the furniture and covered her up before heading in my room and climbing on my bed, though sleep wouldn’t come.

  My mind was filled with what ifs. My cousin showing up had only reminded me of how I’d been denying my own happiness. Something had to give. If I didn’t respect my parents so much I would have left a long time ago. They couldn’t hold me down forever and expect me to marry and raise my family on the farm without other options. Life felt forced. It wasn’t fair when I was a kid, and certainly not as an adult. Not one person had ever asked me what I wanted to do with my life.

  Not one.

  The older I got the more I knew I needed to have a talk with my parents. Obviously I wasn’t my father, and the sooner everyone realized that the better my life would become.

  Noah

  Being an early riser, I woke up before daylight and found my cousin on the couch, exactly where I’d left her only hours before. She’d kicked off the cover and was on her stomach appearing to have been trying to keep warm. After tapping on her back, and waiting for her to sit up, I picked her up and carried her to my bed. There were other rooms, but she’d need to be comfortable. The family would be coming into town, and I knew I could lock my bedroom door and keep them from bothering her, for at least a little while.

  Bells smiled at me when I covered her up. “Your sheets better not be crusty, cuz.”

  I snickered. “Like I would tell you.”

  “You’re sick!” She nestled her head against my goose-down pillow and closed her eyes. “I still love you though.”

  I grabbed my keys off the dresser and headed out of the room. “Sleep in, Bells. You know where to find us later on. And if I catch you callin’ that asshole, I’m goin’ to beat you with a willow switch.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “You better not find out.” A pillow came flying toward me.

  “Get out of here!”

  I don’t know why, but I felt more protective of her sometimes than I did my own sisters. It was probably because Christian never needed me to be a big brother. She was sort of quiet, didn’t talk to boys, and spent most of her time buried in a book. Addy was the one that I was soon going to worry about. She’d just had her fifteenth birthday and was already giving our dad indigestion. She was constantly having her phone taken away, and most of the time she deserved a lot worse. A few weeks ago she’d come to me and asked if I could get her and her friends alcohol that they could keep hidden in the barn.

  She was pissed at me for saying no, but I knew there would be hell to pay if I’d done it. The thing was, I think if Christian would have asked me, I probably would have been okay with it, as long as I could chaperone. Unlike Addy, she refused to party and socialize, putting all of her focus on education and some big picture.

  Christian was the lucky one. She didn’t have my dad forcing her into a career that she didn’t want. In fact, they’d already gone and looked at colleges far away, in hopes of my sister enrolling in some kind of Marine Biology major. I would have given my left nut to go away to college and do something else with my future.

  At least they could say one child made it somewhere big, if she succeeded, because Addy wasn’t going anywhere at the rate she was going. Just the weekend before our mom had found out that she’d spent the night where she wasn’t supposed to be. Instead of being at her friend’s house, she’d gone and stayed with a group of kids, including her boyfriend. My mom had found pictures she’d taken of herself on her computer and h
ad to take that away, too. Then they had to put a password on the WIFI so that she couldn’t access the Internet. It was getting worse by the day. Bells and I had a fifty dollar bet going that she’d be pregnant by age sixteen and forced to live with my Grandma.

  Maybe she just did it to rebel. My dad was a hard-ass. He’d push us to be our best, but only when it was with something he approved. Either he’d given up, or he was going soft in his older age, because there is no way in all of Hell that he’d allow me to do the things Addy got away with.

  I found my dad in the back pasture with a thermos of coffee in his hand. He was reading some kind of blueprint when I walked up and I watched him tip his hat like he was already sweating. “Mornin’.”

  “Late night?”

  I shrugged. “No. Why would you say that?”

  “I seen a car parked outside your place this mornin’.”

  I knew I probably shouldn’t have opened the can of worms so early, but I didn’t feel like hearing my dad’s shit about priorities and weekdays. “Bells is here.”

  He nudged his head and acknowledged silently that he’d been mistaken. I wasn’t hooking up in the middle of the night when I knew I had a heavy day the following morning. “I thought she was comin’ with everyone else.”

  I shrugged. “She said that ridin’ in a car with her brothers is like gettin’ needles stuck in her eyes.”

  Jake and Jax were bad. Co-captains of the football team in high school, and even better at baseball, they strived to get on the nerves of anyone around them. Since college I hadn’t seen them much. They’d both decided to stay in North Carolina and it was a good thing. My uncle Ty had them working on the ranch on weekends and breaks. I honestly don’t know how Bells was able to put up with them the way she did. Maybe she was just immune to their antics.

  Surprisingly, Jake had a girlfriend that he obsessed over, while his twin didn’t want anything to do with being tied down. He often bragged about getting laid, like it was something he deserved a trophy for. I remembered going through that when I was still in school. For me it was easy. I’d always looked older than I was and the ladies told me that my green eyes drove them nuts. I suppose there were a few times when I used my looks to my advantage. I sure as hell knew I wasn’t ugly, so why not?

  “Your mom wanted to know if you’d be alright if they stayed with you. We’ve got a full house. I think Uncle Conner said they are stayin’ over at Grandma’s house.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Boy, don’t act like there’s no room. You and I both know there’s plenty.”

  I shook my head and put my hands on my hips as I replied. “It ain’t that. I just think Bells wants to be away from them.”

  “That ain’t my problem.”

  I turned away from him and mumbled something under my breath, “Asshole.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said nothin’. Are we goin’ to work today, or stand around talkin’?”

  In the past few years my dad and I had brawled on occasion. It freaked my mom out and I hated to see her so upset. For me, it was like a stress reliever. My dad wasn’t the easiest guy to deal with. He was set in his ways and left no room for change, whatsoever. “I heard what you said, Noah.”

  “You didn’t hear shit.”

  “Boy.”

  Before he could slam me, I held up my hands. “Seriously, the family is comin’. Let’s just get all this done so we can enjoy the weekend.”

  He sighed and shook his head, finally looking down at the blue prints again.

  “I’m thinkin’ that we need to tear down the feeding facility in zone one and rebuild closer to zone two. These were drawn up last week. Take a look and tell me what you think?”

  I moved closer to him, secretly wondering if he was going to punch me in the arm for getting smart with him. My dad was still strong from working the farm everyday, but he didn’t lift weights like me. If I wanted to I knew I could take him. The design was similar to what we already had – another reminder of him keeping things the same. “Looks fine to me. Are we buildin’ it or havin’ someone come in and do it.”

  He started putting his work gloves back on. “I think this time I’m goin’ to pay to have it done.”

  That was a relief. He’d wait until the hottest or coldest day of the year and decided that was the time to start. “So, why are you even tellin’ me?”

  “You know why. This is going to be all your responsibility. Your mother’s really gettin’ on my ass since I took that fall. When I was your age I was runnin’ it all.”

  “Dad, I –.”

  “I get that it’s a lot bigger, but we got good workers to help you manage. I can still handle the finances of it. All you need to do is focus on the labor.”

  My head was starting to pound. I knew it was the worst time to mention it again, but something in me was itching and I had to spat it out. “What if this ain’t what I want to do?”

  “Boy, we’ve talked about this. Now get your ass out there and do your rounds.”

  I stood still and looked him right in the eyes. “I’m not you, dad. This ain’t my forever.”

  “The hell it ain’t. I’ve spent my whole life makin’ this ranch what it is, and that’s what your granddaddy did for me. You’ll learn to like it.”

  “Yeah right,” I whispered as I turned around and started walking away.

  “Dinner’s at six,” he yelled.

  I clenched my jaw and kept moving, knowing that once again I’d gotten nowhere with him.

  By lunchtime my mood hadn’t changed. I stopped by my place to grab something to eat and check on Bells. She was fresh out of the shower and on her phone. I could see it on her face that she’d already forgiven the prick.

  She gave me a dirty look when I shook my head at her.

  “Babe, I got to go. Noah just walked in.” She looked right at me. “Yeah, I love you, too. See you tonight.”

  I didn’t care if she hadn’t hung up yet. “What the fuck, Bells?”

  “Don’t start, and don’t you dare threaten to beat me with a switch.”

  “You seriously have a problem. There’s a ton of men out there that would treat you right. Why do you keep goin’ back and lettin’ him mess you up?”

  “Because we love each other. You wouldn’t understand. When’s the last time you’ve been in love with someone other than yourself?” She hugged her knees after pulling her feet up on the couch. Her blow was low to my ego, but then again Bells knew exactly how to push my buttons.

  “You’re bein’ a bitch!” She was my cousin and I could call her that and not feel bad about it. “I’ve had a shitty mornin’. You’re lucky I give a shit about you enough to still be around. Don’t judge me for my relationships when you fuck yours up the way you do.”

  “How did I fuck things up? I’m a good girlfriend.” She stood up and got in my face.

  I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. “Just because I don’t want to get serious doesn’t mean I can’t love. After seein’ how your relationship works I don’t feel the need to be in one.”

  The door swung open and a cocky voice made us look in the direction of the kitchen. “You two sound like a married couple. Maybe you should just commit incest and get it over with.” Jax smiled at his comment. I let go of my cousin’s shoulders and walked back out of the house, after nudging my cousin hard into the wall.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” he yelled through the cracked back door.

  This weekend was going to test my nerves for sure. Between dealing with my dad, playing counselor to Bells and dealing with the twins in my house, I was going to need to drink, heavily.

  Noah

  Bells found me near the old willow tree at the far end of the pasture. It was a far walk unless you were on a golf cart or a horse. Even though my father had wanted to sell them, we still had a few horses that my sisters rode on occasion. The biggest one was named Oz. It had been a while since I’d ridden him, but I knew it would
get me away from everyone else. With a bottle of whiskey in my satchel, I took him out in hopes for some peace and quiet.

  “I knew I’d find you out here. Maybe you should answer your phone from time to time.” She climbed off and led the smaller female horse named, Puddles, over to tie her up. “It would have saved me the hassle of saddllin' this one up. She’s tough to deal with.”

  “She doesn’t like to be ridden anymore, that’s why.” I took a swig of my dark colored beverage and looked out at the woods.

  My cousin plopped down beside me and grabbed the bottle from my hand. She took a few sips and handed back, while scrunching up her face. “That is awful.”

  “It does the job.”

  “So you’re tryin’ to get drunk? That’s real classy with the whole family here.”

  “If you’re here to give me shit you can just turn your little ass around and go back to the house.” As much as I missed her, I wasn’t in any condition to hear her giving me advice.

  “What is your problem? I know it’s not just me. You forget I know you better than that.”

  I covered my head with my hands and closed my eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore, Bells. I need to get the hell off of this ranch.”

  “You mean tonight? We can go out –.”

  “Not just tonight.” I looked over at her. “For good. I’m so fuckin’ sick of it here.”

  I’d mentioned it to her before, but I don’t think she’d ever believed me. Usually it was after some heated discussion with my dad, where I just needed to vent.

  “This again?”

  I stood up and walked away from her. The rustle of the dried grass let me know she was following behind. “Just stay out of it. I’ll wait until you all leave to tell my parents.”