torched// kayce dutton

5

"Who are you?"

I turned my head towards the voice only to find a small boy staring at me. I squinted my eyes at him, feeling like he looked vaguely familiar. I scrambled my brain trying to find any memory of him but found none; my brain was sluggish anyways due to me nursing a killer hangover.

Kayce had become a regular around the bunkhouse recently, joining us for most card games and whatever other bullshit we were doing to eat up the time. I enjoyed his presence, but he always seemed to convince me to have just one more beer with him. One more often ending in us sitting and talking for hours with one another. Which is how I ended up running on two hours of sleep and a handful of ibuprofen on a Wednesday.

I looked over the boy's shoulder to find Kayce walking towards us. Seeing the two close together I saw the resemblance, this had to be Tate, his son.

"Who are you?" I shot back at him with a teasing smile.

"Uh, I'm Tate." He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "What's your name?"

"Gabby" I replied with a gentle smile. I generally liked kids, I just found there was always an air of awkwardness within any conversation I had with them, never knowing quite what to say.

"Where'd you get your buckle from?" Tate reaching a hand out, pointing at the large belt buckle that sat upon my waist.

"It was my mom's, she won it bull riding when she was a teenage. She was a bad ass. " I replied back.

Tate let out a giggle when the swear word left my mouth, "That's really cool, does she still bull ride?"

"Ah not anymore, she past away when I was around your age." I said awkwardly, talking about my mother wasn't something I did often.

"My dad's mom died too," Tate replied, nodding his head, "did yours get killed by a horse too?"

I had to hold back a laugh at Tate's question, kids had no filter what so ever. "No, not a horse. She had cancer."

Tate focus shifted to the rope I had in my hands, because looking back at me. "You know any rope tricks?"

I rolled my eyes slightly at the off topic question, wow, way to bounce back from the dead mom talk Tate.

I nodded to him, "I know a couple."

At that Tate looked at me with excitement, looking like he was readying to bombard me with questions.

"Tate?" Kayce called out. "I thought you were going to find your grandfather?"

Tate looked at his father shyly, "I know Dad, but I wanted to say hi."

"Seems like you already did that, now go on up to the house." Kayce instructed, rolling his eyes slightly at Tate's antics.

With that Tate jumped down from the fence, moving towards the large house. "Bye, Gabby." He left with a small wave.

Kayce turned towards the house, watching him make his way. "I hope he wasn't bothering you."

"Oh he's fine, I think he wanted me to show him some rope tricks."

"Nope, you're not giving my son any ideas about the rodeo." Kayce turned towards me teasingly.

"Oh now I'm definitely showing him."

Kayce rolled his eyes, seeming to accept defeat on the topic.

His smile faded slightly, and he looked around to see if anyone else was near.

"I kinda needed to talk to you about something."

My stomach dropped slightly at his words, that phrase never meant anything good. I took a deep breathe before motioning for him to continue, "About?"