“Really?” Connor sighed and looked right at him. “Fine. Do you want theranch? And don’t bullshit me. If you want it, we’ll figure it out. But if you’re feeling obligated, things are much easier.”
“It—how could I not want it here?” How could anyone not love it here? “I’m going to try and commute down on the weekends maybe, see if I can hire someone…”
Connor shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. I know how this has to go, at least short term, and so do you.”
“So what about the boys? They’ve got another month of school? I’m going to have to be in Denver for that, one way or the other.” If he spent the summer here, training a foreman with Demming, then he could be with Connor and the kids most of the school year, for sure. He’d just get his dad’s help and figure it out.
“It’s a month. I think I can keep us all alive at least that long. It makes more sense for you to stay.” Connor picked up his wine and leaned back in his chair. “And who needs summer camp when you have a ranch?”
“What about you? What about your work?”What about missing me? Needing me?
“I don’t know.” Connor sighed. “That one is going to take time to figure out. I obviously can’t—I don’t know, Early.”
“I don’t know either. Maybe I’ll come home Mondays and head out Thursday nights after the kids go to bed, until I can figure something out.” Everyone could deal with shit for a few days a week, right? He couldn’t just walk away from this place.
Connor shrugged. “That sounds exhausting. Maybe I should bring the kids out on the weekends?”
“Do you really want to spend eighteen hours a week in a car with the boys? Come on.” Connor would rather eat raw tarantulas.
“Well, no, but is any of this about what we really want to do right now? This is about a short-term solution until we come up with the long-term plan, you know? You have a shit ton of issues to deal with here. Calves and mustangs don’t care if it’s Wednesday, and school is important too. So maybe we just… Zoom for a few weeks and suck it up. I can bring the kids down as soon as school is done. By then maybe we’ll have the rest of it figured out.”
Connor was too damn practical. He couldn’t tell at all what his husband was feeling behind all that problem-solving.
“I—” Shit. “I’m not sure this is a great idea. The boys are going to drive you batshit crazy.”
“Probably. Especially if Jaxson remembers he had a mouse before we left.” Connor gave him an uncertain smile. “What’s really going to drive me crazy is sleeping without you. I don’t remember the last time we did that.”
“Me either. Maybe…maybe I ought to just put it on the market. Let it go.” Just saying the words made him sick to his stomach and a little pissed off, that Rick put him in this position without planning.
“I promised you we wouldn’t do that. You need to get this place stable and running, and then we can talk about the future. But with Demming and the taxes and everything…look. We’re adults. We can handle a month apart. The kids will be busy, and I’ll just make sure I’m around more, so they won’t be without a parent.”
“I’m not worried about that. You’re a good dad.” But he had to wonder how good of a father he was right now. He wanted to just…bring everyone out here and have them love the ranch like he did.
“We’ll stay out the week, and then I’ll rent a car to drive back to Denver.”
Just that easy? How could it just be this easy? “Do you want me to drive you? Or hell, I have Rick’s truck, but I can drive y’all.”
“No, that’s like a thirteen-hour round trip. Don’t do that. We’ll be fine.”
He sat there and stared at his drink. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He was just about overwhelmed, and he just didn’t know what to do next. So he sat and watched his drink throb with the beats of his heart.
Connor was quiet long enough to sip his wine and set it back down. “I keep thinking…you have inherited this amazing land, an amazing house, a place you’ve loved as long as you can remember and we’re agonizing over what to do about it. How does that make sense?”
“I just—you have a whole life in Denver. I know that.”
“I have a great life in Denver, but that life includes you.”
“I sure as shit hope so.” He stared at his husband, his heart pounding. “I don’t want to fuck us up because I’m selfish.”
Connor grabbed his hand and held on tight. “I feel the same way. Exactly the same. If I asked you to come home, look what you’d be giving up.”
He just squeezed, telling himself to chill the fuck out. They inherited a multimillion-dollar ranch. It was just a month, and then they could plan.
This wasn’t the end of the earth, dammit.
“I love you.”
“I know. I know that with my whole heart. We can handle a little time apart while school finishes up, and then I’ll take some summer vacation time and…there’s an answer. We’ll find it. We just need some time.”