Page 28 of Cattle Stop

“Were you going to bother to tell me you were getting those cattle guards from Brad?”

“You came back to keep yelling at me?” Cooper dumps his belt on his bed and tosses his phone next to it. “Did you park behind the barn, just to be really sneaky? What the hell?”

Cooper’s phone chimes. That cheese is some good stuff, the text reads.

“Is that the farm in Oregon?”

“Why, you counting down the days until they give me a start date? Nope, still haven’t heard from them, which I’m sure you already know, but thanks for your ongoing support. Feels great, bud.”

“Is it Brad?”

“What the hell is your problem with him?” Cooper starts to flick the message away, but Whit’s still looking at him, so he takes the time to type back, There’s plenty more where that came from.

“He wants to keep helping you,” Whit says.

“And that’s an issue for you? That he doesn’t want to see another farm go belly-up?” Cooper yanks off a sock. “God forbid he be generous.”

“You think that’s what he cares about?” Whit puts his hands on his hips. He looks bigger like that, his shoulders filling out his shirt.

Cooper hops on his other foot to get that sock off too. Then he just drops to sit on the edge of his mattress, his elbows on his knees and his feet braced on the cold floor. With both hands, he digs his fingers into his hair. He’s tired. His back is sore. He probably should scrounge up some dinner. And he needs his own damn room where he can shove the door shut and not deal with Whit in his face.

“I don’t want to fight with you.” Cooper takes a deep breath and lets it out again, trying to calm the heat burning through his chest. He really doesn’t want to fight. Or he does, just not like this, incessant and unending, and with Drew and the farm at stake, not their normal half-amusing, mostly petty disagreements about which type of grain scoops are the best and how to coil a hose.

“Okay.”

“I mean it.” Cooper tightens his fingers in his hair, the strands long enough to brush the backs of his hands. “I think we’re driving Drew nuts.”

“Then stop.”

“You stop,” Cooper mumbles. It’s driving him nuts, too. He drags his hands down his face, scrubbing at his eyes. His skin feels gritty with the salt of the day’s sweat. He really does need to shower. And put on a clean change of clothes. Cool off, get away from Whit, get some food, and let this latest argument blow over.

To his surprise, Whit sits on the edge of his own mattress. It’s more obvious how close their beds are like this, the narrow lane between them only the nightstand’s width apart. If Cooper wanted to, he could nearly knock his knee into Whit’s.

The shirt Cooper dropped sits right in the middle of that cramped space. It’s probably driving Whit nuts, just lying there. He sighs, leans over to grab the shirt, and tosses it toward the pile of dirty laundry he’s amassed. Right beside it is his duffle bag, which is more a yawning pile of mostly clean clothing that they both have to step over to reach the bathroom. This room is too damn small, and as Whit’s eyes track Cooper rubbing at his forehead, Cooper’s entirely sure that they’re both thinking that same thing.

“I know that Drew values your…innovation,” Whit says slowly. Cooper snorts. That must be a much nicer word than Whit probably wanted to use. “But I’m not sure this is the year to be coming up with all sorts of new ideas.”

“It’s not new,” Cooper says. “Farms all over the place use cattle stops to—”

“The farm needs to be making more money, not just reinventing the wheel.”

“There’s nothing wrong with cattle stops.” Cooper rubs his hands down his thighs and forces in a slow, deep breath. “Whit. You—you get freaked out and then you get paralyzed and you don’t do anything. Someone around here has to, or that’s going to be Drew next spring with a new job and a new apartment, and you and I both know what that would do to him. He got handed his family’s farm, and now he thinks he’s going to blow his shot running it.”

A frown pinches Whit’s mouth. “I don’t do that.”

“You don’t?” Cooper waves a hand toward the window and the barn beyond it. “How many times have you taken down those gates, fixed them, and put them back up? And the milking lines? You know that pump is bad and other dairies aren’t even using that model anymore. Aren’t you supposed to be taking some of this stuff off Drew’s plate this summer? Didn’t he put you in charge around here this year? He’s up to his elbows in Camembert, and if you’re not keeping an eye on these things, who is? Penny? Sadie?”

“The pump works fine.”

“The pump works fine when it works,” Cooper says. “Are you just going to sit by while the farm falls apart the rest of the way?”

“Apparently, you didn’t need me to tell you the farm isn’t doing well financially, if you know so much.”

Cooper spreads his hands out. “Calling it as I see it.”

“And you really think that changing those gates for cattle guards will make the difference?”

“I think changing them for cattle stops will. And I think it’s a start, and I’ll figure out the rest of it, because apparently your plan is to keep your head down and just do what you’ve always done, year after year. I think it’s pretty clear how far that’s getting you.” Cooper pushes up to his feet, and dammit, his pants leave behind bits of hay all over his quilt.