Red:Sunday. I’ll bring dinner.
Sunday. Today is Friday, and somehow I need to make it to Sunday. Then I can try to fix this. Not a fucking clue how to fix it, but I need to. There’s no other option.
I toss the phone onto my bed and pace, my mind reeling with ideas of what I could possibly say to make things better. I pace across the room. Pace the hall to the shared bathroom. Pace downstairs in the kitchen. Back upstairs. In circles around my bedroom.
“You good?” Denny asks from the couch when I’m on my third tour around the bunkhouse.
“Maybe. No. I don’t fucking know. I need air.” I strain to get the words out around the lump in my throat and an agonizing inability to get a lung-filling breath. It feels as if a boulder is crushing my sternum; the fear of blowing my one shot at getting Cassidy back suffocates me.
Suddenly, I’m throwing on a coat and trudging down the moonlit road to the stables. Compact snow crunches under my boots—the only noise on an otherwise silent ranch. Pulling open the barn door, there’s a soft red glow of heat lamps. With the flip of a switch, the ceiling lights begin to hum, gradually warming up until the entire place is lit with a midday glare. A few horses blink wearily at me from their stalls, and I head straight for Heathen, my favourite mare.
She’s misunderstood, with her hot temper and rash decisions. Quick to throw me if I push her buttons. Even quicker to apologize after the moment has passed. We butt heads, and I threaten to send her to slaughter on a daily basis. But when I need to get my head on straight, she’s the horse I come to, not any of the nine other mounts I rotate through for work.
“Hey girl.” I pull a mint from my jacket pocket—a peace offering for being the asshole who woke her up. She happily accepts, then thoroughly sniffs my pockets for more. “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this shit. Being a dad. A boyfriend. The two things I want to be more than anything else in this fucking world, but I know I’m going to screw it up. I already have. And now I might have an opportunity to fix it, and no idea where to start. They deserve so much better than me.”
Heathen stares, unblinking and still working on the hard mint, like she understands when nobody else cares to.
26
Cassidy
Shoving my phone in my back pocket, I lean on the counter and wait for my dad to finish closing out a bar tab. With Freddy heading out, it’s only Toothless George holding down his permanent spot at the end of the bar.
“Cool if I leave a bit early since it’s so dead in here?”
He glances around the empty establishment and nods. “Sure, kiddo. Go get some rest.”
The bitter wind hits hard, ripping down my neck and back despite my winter coat. Tugging the downy, puffy jacket up around my ears and nose, I shuffle across the ice to my car. The engine and I shiver in unison as it rumbles to life, and I grab my phone from my pocket to re-read the string of texts that prompted me to leave work early.
Denver:Whatever is going on with you and Red, can you please figure it out?
Denver:Starting to get a bit worried, honestly.
Denver:First he found out his dad’s dying. Now you two are having issues. He’s barely been sleeping. And he’s been down at the barn by himself for hours.
Denver:I’m not the type to get involved in this shit, but I think you’re the only person he might talk to about what he’s got going on
Denver:Maybe give him a chance
He found out his dad’s dying and he didn’t tell me. The dull thud in my chest becomes complete, despairing loss as my heart falls into the pit in my stomach.
Before I put up walls and shut him out, we talked about everything. In the late night, the hazy euphoria of my bed—just after sex and just before falling asleep—we’d share our secrets. He knows all my fears of becoming my mother and of never amounting to anything. I know the origin of every scar on his body.Twenty.Twenty visible scars are a direct result of his father. There’s no telling how many he carries around in his soul.
I know all that, and now I don’t even get to know about something as big as his dad dying. But why would he tell me? I forcefully pushed him away the second things started feeling too real.
I stare at the phone for less than a heartbeat before tapping my frozen fingers against the screen.
Cass:Let me know if he leaves the barn. I’m on my way.
Without a second thought, I roll straight through the single stop sign in town and onto Wells Ranch Road. Thirty kilometres of rough, snowy road that I’m praying my car can manage. No music—I need to focus. My studded winter tires crunch and creak over the thick snow, climbing the hill out of town, and chasing the distant moon. The headlights bounce off snowy blankets cloaking the roadside trees as the road winds across the mountainside.
Chase made this drive nearly every single day. For me. For the baby. He busted his ass, doing manual labour and riding a horse from sunup to sundown. Drove on this bumpy, windy road to get to my house. Made dinner. Helped clean up. Gave me the best orgasms of my life. Thenwoke up before dawn to drive back to the ranch. Repeat.For weeks.Never complaining or asking me to come to him instead.
“I’m a fucking asshole.” I smack my hand against the steering wheel. My fingers curl around the leather and grip until my knuckles turn white.
I was grateful. I knew what he was doing for me was a big deal and I wasn’t trying to take any part of him for granted. But following in his footsteps—driving this distance to see him after a long day at work, and fully intending to cater to him when I get there—has me realizing how terrible I am for pushing him away.
I’ve never been to Wells Ranch, despite growing up in Wells Canyon. Which,obviously, shares a name with the family that built both the ranch and the town. The Wells’s reach extends far beyond the sprawling cattle ranch Austin, Jackson, and Denny operate. They have extended family involved in nearly every facet of Wells Canyon, and there’s always at least one Wells kid in both the elementary and high school at any given time.
