“Maybe no one lives here,” he mused. He didn’t know who his father had sold the ranch to, and it had been ten years anyway. The property could’ve changed hands more than once by now.
The pasture gave way to the house and lawn, but it too looked abandoned. No one lived here, that was for dang sure.
“Look,” Bryce said. “There’s a sign. Is the house for sale?”
Tex’s heart jumped right up into his throat. If this house and ranch was up for sale, he wanted to buy it. “Is it?” He slowed the truck he’d owned for years and turned into the gravel driveway. Weeds and grass grew through the rocks, along with some pretty pink wildflowers Tex had long forgotten the name of.
He brought the vehicle to a stop long before the end of the driveway, which would take him all the way to the back steps. His mother would throw a fit if she saw the state of the front porch she’d once loved and tended to.
Tex could remember trimming this lawn behind a push mower, and he knew how to fix fences, tend to horses and cattle, and paint houses. His father had made his boys do all of it as they grew up, and he’d pitched in plenty.
He must be so disappointed in us, Tex thought as he looked at the house. Half of the brothers had passed on inheriting the ranch because of the band. The twins were still heavily entrenched in the rodeo and had barely been out of the house when Daddy had decided he was too old and too weak to keep up the two-hundred-acre ranch.
“Dad,” Bryce said, and Tex blinked his eyes to get himself to stop looking at the peeling paint and the faded front door. He hadn’t even noticed his son getting out of the truck. Bryce stood on the lawn—the crispy, brown grass—and waved at Tex to come over.
He heaved a sigh and got out of the truck, the heat of the day punching him in the lungs. It wasn’t usually hot in the mountains, but the whole country was experiencing a heat wave this week.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s an auction on this property,” Bryce said. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Tex arrived and looked at the sign, but the type was way too small to hold his attention for long. He’d always had such a short attention span, and he forced himself to read the big, blocky, black letters.
The property would be sold as-is to the highest bidder. The auction would be at the library at ten a.m. in the morning, and Tex’s only thought was that he better be there.
“We should go,” Bryce said. “You have some money, right, Dad?”
“A little,” Tex said. Enough to buy a house with a loan. This was a cash auction, and Tex wondered how much it would go for. In Coral Canyon, Wyoming? A town of maybe twelve thousand? After a rush of growth? With other houses sitting empty?
“Let’s look at the market,” Tex said.
“I want to sit on the porch where you kissed Nina,” Bryce said, chuckling as he jogged across the grass.
“That was eons ago,” Tex called after his son. He returned his attention to his phone, and he started looking up the real estate market in Coral Canyon. The town had enjoyed a boom a few years ago, but the growth had stalled, and Tex didn’t see anything out of his price range.
A broken-down, abandoned ranch further from town? No one would want this place, and Tex suddenly did. He could call Otis, Blaze, and Trace and find out if they’d like to go in on the ranch with him.
The band was taking a break this summer, as his brothers were trying to figure out if they wanted to rebrand Country Quad into Country Trio—or some other name—and continue making music, or if anyone else was ready to do something different with his life.
Tex knew Blaze didn’t want to keep traveling. He’d been talking to a woman pretty seriously over a dating app, and he’d gone to Florida to meet her. Tex was expecting a text announcing his brother’s engagement any moment now.
Otis and Trace had stayed in Nashville for now, but they were taking time off. Tex could text them both about chipping in for the ranch and get them out here to Wyoming by next weekend.
Cash only, streamed through his head. Country Quad had kept their calendar booked, but they weren’t mega-stars. And