Christmas at Fox Ridge

23. Lucas

Chapter twenty-three

Lucas

March 25

I toss a hay bale over the paddock fence and yank my phone from my pocket. My sister’s obnoxious personalized ringtone has gone off no less than four times in the last half hour.

“Fucking Christ, Holly. This better be an emergency.” I wipe a bead of sweat from my eyebrow and start the trek back toward the hay shed. The piece-of-shit skidsteer broke again , so I’m hand-bombing hay out to every animal on the property. Flames lick at the muscles in my back with each movement, and my shirt’s drenched in sweat despite the cool temperature.

“Oh, it’s about to be if I have to drive out there and wring your neck.”

I reach for my water bottle sitting on the fence post to pour equal amounts into my mouth and overtop of my head. “What for now?”

“Eira,” she spits into the phone.

Her name clobbers my heart with a steel pipe. I already know I’m fucking things up with her—praying it’ll be worth it if she sticks this out for a while longer.

“This isn’t a good time to get a lecture from you.”

“You’re going to lose her, Lucas. And I know you don’t want to.”

She’s right on both counts.

Shoving the phone into my T-shirt chest pocket, I heave another bale over my shoulder with a grunt. “You do, do ya?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m listing the ranch, all right? Happy now?”

My words are met with rare silence from my younger sister.

“Trust me when I say I wanted nothing more than to see Eira last weekend—and every fucking weekend. But my realtor and lawyer need to go over a bunch of shit with me so we can list it, since the cattle operation is going with it.”

I drop the bale to the ground then use the unending silence as an opportunity to shove armfuls of scratchy loose hay into a hay net, kicking the leftovers under the fence rail to my old mare.

“You said you’d never sell it,” she eventually says, skepticism layered in her tone. “Are you just listing it to get everyone off your back about it?”

“No. I’m listing it with the intent to sell.” I look out at the fog-blanketed mountains, blindly scratching a horse’s neck. Sure, I’ve thought long and hard about this decision for weeks, but it still scares the shit out of me. “It’s time for a change of pace.”