Rough in the Saddle

Evernight
Publishing ®

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright©
2015
Jenika
Snow

 
ISBN: 978-1-77233-328-2

Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor:
Karyn
White

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
 
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

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ROUGH IN THE SADDLE

The Sterling
Brothers, 1

Jenika
Snow

Copyright © 2015

Chapter One

“She
left me everything?” Pearl Connor asked, but she was mainly talking to herself,
and not really asking a question. She looked at her grandmother’s Victorian
style home. She’d come here just twice since her grandmother had bought it
years ago, and although she’d seen her grandma several times when she’d come
and visit Pearl’s family
 
in Ohio, this
place had always kind of scared Pearl. She looked over at the attorney who had
met her at her grandma’s place. He handed her a folder of paperwork, and she
stared at the manila file.

“She
did. I have not gone over any of her personal belongings or documents that I’m
not obligated to examine, because she specifically left directions in her will
that she wanted everything left as-is. You can sell it if you want, but the
market nowadays, and the fact the house is in desperate need of updates, might
make it a tough sell.”

Pearl
nodded, but her head was fuzzy, her brain barely working right now as she
remembered all the times she’d spent with her grandmother throughout the years.
The attorney stayed for another ten minutes, but once he left she stood on the
porch and watched as his BMW pulled away from the curb and disappeared down the
street.

She
shut the door, the hinges creaking, and instantly the feeling of being alone
settled into her. Turning away from the door, she leaned against the wood, felt
the hard coldness seep into her bones, and closed her eyes.

The
house smelled like her grandmother, right down to the light floral fragrance of
perfume that her grandma had worn for the last several decades. Pearl opened
her eyes and looked around the house. It was a large home, with a basement,
main level, upper level, and attic. The house was decorated in normal grandma
fashion, with floral print furniture, handmade crafts lining the wall, which
her grandma had painted herself, and of course pictures of her family.

Pearl
pushed away from the door and went over to the row of pictures right in front
of her on the opposite wall. The picture she stared at was one of her mom, dad,
herself, her Grandpa Steven, and her grandmother when Pearl was only about five
years old. It was an old picture, one that had been before her Grandma Shirley
left them and moved out here because her grandfather had been transferred for
his job.

But
now everyone was gone except her, and Pearl felt even more isolated than
before. She had no one, no one that she loved anyway. Her mom and dad had
passed away the previous year, and although she should have moved out here with
Grandma Shirley, Pearl couldn’t bring herself to leave her job and what she’d
worked for. But none of that mattered anymore because she’d been laid off. Her
parents were gone, and now the rest of her family was, too. That was the
problem with not having any siblings, having her parents being only children,
and not having any immediate family that she could lean on.

Seeing
her reflection in the mirror right across from her, she smoothed a hand over
her cheek. She’d gotten her grandma’s smooth, chocolaty complexion and flawless
skin. Her black hair was currently in two braids, and although she was a little
old to wear her hair like that, she didn’t have time to properly do it since
receiving the phone call to come to Granite, Colorado. She’d get a perm, smooth
the curls out and try to make herself not think about all the times her granny
had told her stories as she combed out her hair and put it in braids before
bed.

Pearl
moved away from the pictures and started making her way through the house.
Leaving her bags by the door, she realized she should have kept them so she had
something to hold onto and keep her hands busy. She kept twisting her fingers
together, her nerves, sadness, and anxiety moving through her. She tried not to
cry, and tried not to feel the guilt that swamped her. Pearl should have been
here more for her grandmother, should have visited more after her grandpa died.
Pearl felt like a shitty granddaughter, but there was nothing she could do
about that now.

Sitting
on the couch and staring at the fireplace, she felt this chill move through
her. What she needed to do was get a job. After receiving the call she knew
what her future would now consist of. Losing her job in the city had been hell,
and she’d been depressed, not knowing where she would work that would make her
enough to be able to pay her bills in her current apartment. But it seemed fate
had other plans.

She
didn’t plan on leaving this small town, not since she’d made the decision to get
away from the city, away from everything she’d called home for so long. Granite
was now her home, and she’d have to make the most of it. The house situation
was covered, and at least she didn’t have to worry about rent or mortgage, but
Pearl did need to worry about eating, paying electricity and gas, and all the
things that went with that. But could she find a place in this small town?
Would they even accept an outsider like her, even if her grandma had been a
resident of this town for decades?

****

Travis
swung the bale of hay into the back of the pick-up truck, and then wiped the
sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It was a hot fucking day, or
maybe he was just working especially hard, trying to get this shit done? The
hay was leftover from last year’s crop, and all he was thinking about was
getting all the work done, heading over to the bar, drinking, and fucking. He
needed to find a woman for tonight, wanted to be balls deep in her and relax.
He’d been working nonstop for the last two weeks, barely able to take a piss
because of the workload.

“I
think that’s about it for tonight,” his younger brother Colton said.

“It’s
about fucking time. My balls are sticking to my thigh,”
Jace
,
the youngest Sterling brother, said. He took off his Stetson, wiped his
forehead with his forearm, and grinned at them.

“Dude, too much information.
I don’t want to have the image
of your balls in my head for the rest of the night,” Colton said, and Travis
grinned. His two younger brothers were only a year apart from each other, but
five years younger than Travis’s thirty-seven years.

“All
right, enough talk about balls,” Travis said, put his hat back on, finished the
last of the work, and the three of them headed inside to the farmhouse, the one
they’d grown up in, helped their parents tend, then watched them die in.

It
wasn’t hard to live in the house anymore, but at first it had been hell. Seeing
the room where they’d taken care of their mom when she was sick every day,
walking by it, still feeling her presence, had been hard on everyone, their
father included. And then one day their dad had just decided it was the time to
give up. They’d found him dead in the bathroom, a bottle of pills beside him,
and an empty bottle of Jack still in his lap. Maybe he hadn’t meant to take so
much, but the end result was the same. They’d lost both their parents in the
span of a year when they weren’t much older than their teenage years.

He
went into the kitchen and grabbed a pitcher of water out of the fridge, and
three glasses from the cabinet. The sun was starting to set, and the three of
them would head over to Dickie’s, the local bar in the town of Granite.

“Just
a heads up, I’m
gonna
be bringing home a woman
tonight, so if you hear the headboard banging don’t come in,”
Jace
said and grinned, taking the offered glass of water
Travis gave him.
Jace’s
place was far enough away
from the main house that they’d never hear anything banging, but Travis knew
his brother was just trying to get a rise out of them.

“Shit,
if we can hear
the headboard banging all the way from your
place you’re
doing somethin’ right,” Colton said and started laughing,
which caused
Jace
to do the same. All Travis could do
was
shake
his head at the immaturity of his brothers.

They
all lived on the rolling, lush and green twenty-acre property that had been in
the Sterling family possession since when their great-grandfather owned it. He
and his brothers had built two smaller houses on the property a mile apart from
the other and the main farmhouse. It allowed them to stay on the farm, help
with the work so the ranch stayed afloat, and also to give them privacy.

Although
he loved his brothers and wouldn’t mind sharing space with them, they were
grown adults and listening to his
brothers
fuck was
definitely a mood killer. So, years ago they’d built the separate houses,
brought home random women to let off steam, and worked from sunup to sundown.
It was hard, straining farm work at times, but this was their home, their
mother and father’s home, and the Sterling brothers weren’t about to let it go
no matter what.

“Well,
I’m going to get cleaned up, and I suggest you guys do the same,” Colton said
and stood. “
Ain’t
no woman
gonna
want your sweaty asses for the night. And damn,
Jace
,
you’re smelling
extra rank today.”

Jace
flipped him off as he finished
off his water. He set the cup down and grinned. “This is the smell of a real,
hardworking man.”
Jace
stood and clapped Colton on
the shoulder, and Colton jabbed him in the gut.

His
brothers left, and Travis was left thinking that they would never grow up, not
until they found some good, decent women to keep their wild asses in line. But
even though they were some of the wealthiest farm owners in Granite, the small
town still looked at them as if they were a stain on the land. If their father
hadn’t died the way he did, hadn’t gotten hooked on the prescription
painkillers, and washed them down with pills, they wouldn’t have had to seem
like they had this weakness.

The
town of Granite was old, with families inhabiting it for generations. When
something like this rocked their “village”, it affected everyone. Even all
these years later the older generation looked at the Sterling brothers funny
when they walked by. They might not invite them over for lemonade and talks on
the porch, but hell if they wouldn’t come to them when they needed hay or
lumber, or anything else Sterling Farms supplied and produced on the property.

Now,
the younger generation in Granite couldn’t give two shits about stains or funny
looks. They partied hard and socialized up the ass with them.

Travis
turned and looked out the kitchen window, watched as his brothers got in their
vehicles and drove over to their places, and thought about all the shit they’d
been through over the years. To be honest he couldn’t care less what anyone
thought about him or his family. He didn’t care if the older folks looked at
them like a stain on their perfect little town. The Sterling family had been in
Granite for just as long as anyone else that called this town home, and
wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. They were here, they weren’t going anywhere,
and even after those old geezers were gone and in the ground the Sterling men
would still be here.