Brett woke up fully clothed with his boots still on and a wicked headache. He kept his eyes closed and tried not to move, think or breath. It was light out, the air in his room was warm and he could see light through his aching eyelids. The smell of fresh baking wafted into his room: bread and cinnamon and chocolate: he wondered what time it was. He rolled onto his side, hoping he wasn't too close to the edge, and cracked an eye open. The numbers on his clock were distorted through a glass of water and a white bottle blocked part of it: with a groan he sat up, holding his head while the room spun.
He took three of the headache medication and drank the water down, easing some of the cotton ball feeling in his mouth. 11:42. He swore and tried to get up but dizziness overcame him and he sat back down. He didn't remember much at all.
"You'll live," Ned was in the doorway, a half smirk on his face. "But the chores aren't going anywhere to it's high time you brush out the cobwebs and get at it. Maisey cooked up a fine storm this morning."
There was a fuzzy memory of Maisey with a pool cue in her hand, "Is she how I got home?"
Ned nodded, "Andy followed her in and did the hardwork, bless her but the girl was all for leaving you to sleep it off in your truck."
"I'll have to thank Andy for talking her out of that. How is she?" Brett's eyes were still half closed, waiting for the pills to start working.
"Don't know," Ned told him, "She baked up a storm at some point and took off, haven't seen her since she brought you in."
Brett was up too fast and regretted it, "I need to check on her, I think she was at Slim's last night."
Ned stopped him, "You're not hearing, son: the girl isn't here. Now get yourself cleaned up and out to do chores. She'll turn up when she's ready."
Brett wanted to argue, he thought of Maisey on the side of some road blacked out or worse, her truck wrapped around a tree. Ned starred him down: and he realized Ned knew where she was and calmed down. With an ashamed nod Brett headed for the shower.
Ned didn't want to tell Brett that Maisey hadn't slept. He surveyed the kitchen: cinnamon buns, cookies, three loaves of bread--he didn't even know you could make bread in a slow cooker--and 4 pizzas cooked, sliced and wrapped into bundles of 3 slices each. The last were stowed in the freezer already. She had cooked up chicken breasts and sliced them up, and in one of the slow cookers he knew she'd put in some dish she called smoothered chicken. For breakfast she'd still fried up bacon and eggs for him and told him it would be the last bacon she cooked him. When he'd gone to the fields the woman had gotten in her truck and driven away--a glance at her room told him she'd taken everything with her: he didn't want Brett to know that either. Something told him that she had somethings to work out but that she'd be back.
Brett's stomach rebelled at the thought of food, but he took some with him when he went to work. He had a lot to do to catch up his chores and he owed Ned an apology. The apology would have to wait though, Ned had been gone when he came out of the shower, his tractor slowly moving away from the house. He shot a quick text of the kitchen to Andy with the words 'thanks for helping out last night, looks like you have your pick of thank yous.'
He jumped in his truck and drove out to where he next fencing needed repairs. His mind went to Ned's announcement. The Bogs without Ned seemed wrong, but he felt honored that the old man had chosen him as the heir. He knew Junior would still be a problem but needed to focus on getting ready for the cattle sale.
He loved the Bogs, he'd never thought of leaving, not even when Junior drove him crazy as they grew up. The other boy had spent a lot of time with his maternal grandfather, it had changed him. Junior had become obsessed with money and prestige, Brett was happy to get up and mend fences all day long. They'd had it out when they were 17 and Junior had left to stay with his grandfather indefinitely, now he only came back to push at Ned to sell. He would have loved to have heard Ned put his biological son in his place, it would have been something amazing, he smiled and then frowned, he wondered if Junior knew about the heart attacks.
He usually left the cattle sale details to Ned and decided if Ned was leaving the place to him it was time to pay attention. He thought back to the previous year: there'd been food and drinks and a big barbeque with meat from one of their own cows. He'd never thought about the food before, he wondered if he could get Maisey to help him with the barbeque, but then he remembered the tall heavy set George McMasters had run the grill for as long as he could remember. He wondered if Ned had already arranged it. There was a lot to talk about with his uncle.
His head ached and he drank more water, wishing he could remember more of the night before. He didn't know for sure that Maisey was there but he was having flashes of her, and of dancing with Addie and another girl. He shook it off and focused on the wire he was bending. Too much about ranching meant someone could get hurt if they didn't pay attention.
In the distance he could hear the distinct sound of a quad engine revving. Sometimes he missed the carefree days of his teen years: he'd always helped Ned but there'd been a lot of trips fishing and to one of the local lakes. Camping on somebody's land. He wondered who he could hire to help him on the ranch when Ned left. He started thinking about all the men and women he knew and couldn't think of a single one that was out of work or looking for extra. He'd have to put out advertising, he'd never done that before and wondered if Ned had. He needed to learn about the accounts, the loans, the leases, the crops and the cycle of fields. He started to wonder if Ned's faith had been misplaced.
When he stood up to take another swig of water he could see dust coming from the house. He looked at his clock: it was nearly six. The little grey truck barely stopped when Lucas yelled out the window, "Andy's been calling you for an hour, get in the damn truck, there's been an accident."
Brett dropped his tools and jumped into the truck without a thought, "What's happened?"
"Andy's called us all in, some hot rod teenagers were street racing, whether they knew our town existed or not they were going too fast to stop. They plowed into the grocery store, it was full of people being Saturday, there was a car fire they had to put out before it was safe to get at the people. They've got a triage started and Andy needs our help with getting them out."
"Was Maisey there?"
"Maisey? Why would she be there? Anna said she was planning to scrub the house today to prep for your sale, it's why she didn't come hiking today."
Brett was frowning, "She baked this morning and left before Ned was back to get me-- badly hungover" he admitted.
"Anna would have said if she was there."
Lucas slowed as he pulled onto mainstreet. Nate was there with his tow truck, the firemen were storing their hoses so they could get out of the way. Andy was calling out orders for care of transport of patients while Anna directed them to a row of camping cots that had been dragged out of homes and campers.