A Gambling Man // Ryan x OC

37

Kayce got in the truck ready to leave for the office when he saw his father on a horse, heading up the mountain.

"Are you trying to die?" Kayce grumbled to himself before driving down to the stable to get a horse so he could follow his father.

"What in the hell are you doing?" Kayce asked when he found his father soaking in the hot spring.

"Well the doctor said soak in warm water twice a day," John replied.

"I think he meant in a tub, not on top of a mountain," Kayce replied, thoroughly amused by his father's stubbornness, "and you're not supposed to be riding either."

"He said no driving. Never mentioned nothing about horses."

"Well, I promise you that horses are on the list of things that you shouldn't drive."

John gestured to Kayce and replied, "You got shot and you're on a horse."

"I only got shot twice," Kayce grinned.

"Well then you win the getting shot least award Kayce, I don't know what to tell ya. No one ever got well sitting in a fucking bed. The only thing I know about life is when you stop moving it's over. So if riding back from here kills me, so be it. So you can go on home, Sonny, I'll come back when I'm goddamn good and ready and if I don't, you just bury me where you find me."

Kayce climbed off of his horse before walking over to join his father in the water.

"I ain't going nowhere and if you die on the ride home, I'll bury you next to Lee and I'll sit on your grave and tell you 'I told you so'."

"Now that's a deal," John replied as he relaxed further into the water and closed his eyes.

"Woo, damn that feels good," Kayce sighed as he sat down.

"Yeah. People have been coming to heal here for fifteen thousand years. Damn right, it feels good. Hell even your sister, who's got a degree in medicine, believes in this place," there was a slight awkward pause between the men at the mention of Mae. They still haven't recovered after seeing her yesterday, it broke them, it was the last straw. They needed to heal, they all do.

"You want to know what I think? I think God or nature, whatever you want to call it gave us all these places, these herbs, these minerals, this mud. All these things to fix what happens to us cause God knew what a fucking wreck we'd make of ourselves," John sighed.

Kayce remained quiet, he knew that his dad just needed to talk. He needed to talk out everything that he was feeling and thinking to sort out this mess.

"Beth thinks that it was Jamie. Hell even after finding Mae at that bastard's place, she'll still think of a way to blame him," John sighed.

"Yeah I know she does," Kayce replies.

"What do you think?"

"I think even if Jamie wanted to hire the militia, they would never do it for him. They would do it for themselves because of what we did to them. Now he didn't sell that land for the airport, he leased it to them. He did that to keep the ranch together and he did that for you. Killers don't seek their victims' approval and he never would have let anything happen to Mae," Kayce replied.

"So you think that they did it on their own?"

"I do," Kayce nodded.

"How many are in that militia?"

"About half as many as there used to be," Kayce sighed.

"That's a half too many, if you know what I mean," John replied.