My heart aches for a younger Wyatt, doing what he could to shield his brothers.
“Things got a bit better when he remarried only a year later, but then my stepbrothers came along and nothing was the same again. It was as if my father couldn’t stand the sight of us. Like maybe we reminded him of her. As soon as we could, all five of us got the hell out of here. This is the first time I’ve been back in over twenty years.”
He looks at me for the first time and offers me a shrug of his shoulders. “I almost wish I hadn’t. Seeing this place like this. It’s hard. Mama would have been…well, it doesn’t matter, I guess.”
“So, he left it to you? You’re going to fix it?”
Wyatt takes another slow sip of his whiskey before continuing. “He did. To all five of us oldest boys.”
“Not your stepbrothers?”
He shakes his head. “I couldn’t tell you why. Then again, I never did understand the bastard. No point in trying now.”
I squeeze his leg a little, the hard muscle of his leg, relaxing a little under my touch.
“Don’t know if there’s much here worth saving,” he says.
“I think there is,” I say. “And you’re the man who can do it.”
He studies me, like he’s not used to people believing in him.
I take another sip of whiskey, courage blooming warm in my chest with every sip. “Where are your brothers?”
“They’ll be here,” he says. “I was between ranch jobs, so it was easy for me to come right away. Everyone else, well…they’ll be here soon. Not sure what they’ll think of me selling, though.”
“Selling?” I almost choke. “So that’s the plan? You’re going to sell this place?”
He hesitates, then sighs. “That’s the plan. Not that my brothers will agree. It feels wrong letting it go. But it feels wrong holding on to it after all this time, too.”
The fire pops, and for a long moment, neither of us speaks.
It’s the most he’s ever said to me, and I get the impression it’s the most he’s said to anyone in a very long time.
Maybe it’s the fire lit room. Maybe it’s the whiskey. Or a combination of everything, but something between us has shifted. The edge of his gruffness has softened, and for the first time, beneath the facade, I can see the man who’s been carrying far too much for far too long.
The silence stretches warm and heavy between us. But I realize that I don’t need to fill it. I just want to stay here in this moment with him.
When he finally looks at me again, there’s a question in his eyes that I can’t quite read.
And just like that, I know the night isn’t over yet.
Chapter Five
WYATT
The heat from her hand on my thigh is burning a hole in the denim, but I don’t want her to move it. Ever.
The firelight flickers over her hair in flashes of gold. Even in the dim firelight, I can see the pink of her cheeks. Not from cold any longer, but the heat of the whiskey. I’ve told her more about my life than anyone. Ever. Combined.
I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life. But wanting her might be the one that has the power to finally undo me completely.
I should look away. Move away.
But I don’t.
I can’t.
Instead, I find myself filling the silence, unwilling to let the night end. “You could have gone anywhere. Why here? Why Rock Creek of all places? It’s kind of…”
