I take a deep breath. “Reading isn’t the only thing I’ve picked up in the past few years. I got my master’s in English from an online program out of ASU.”
Wes is quiet. I wish he’d look at me, but he’s meticulously rolling up his sleeves, taking his sweet time. He steps back from my closet. “What are you planning to do with it?”
Here it is. The moment of truth. In true Wes fashion, he’s looking the problem dead in the eye.
“Verde Valley CC has an opening for an English professor.” If Wes looked at my resumé, he’d see how I tailored it to fit the role.
“You’d no longer work for the HCC?”
He knows the answer already. I cannot be a single father, second-in-command of the largest cattle ranch in Arizona, and a college professor at the same time. Anger boils. Why do people expect me to handle it all? Good old Warner, the wide net at the bottom. The catchall.
“You know the fucking answer, Wes.”
“No, Warner, I don’t.” Wes’s voice holds none of the anger of my own. “That’s why I’m asking. I want you to say in plain words exactly what you want for yourself.”
My teeth grind together. “I love this ranch, but I don’t want to bleed for it the way you do. There’s something else out there for me. Whether or not it’s being an English professor, I don’t know, but I want the chance to try.”
Wes lifts his chin to the ceiling. “Thank Christ,” he mutters, lowering his gaze. “How long have you been waiting to say what’s on your mind?”
My anger, my indignation, deflates. “A long time.”
“Too long.”
“Don’t lecture me.”
“I’m your big brother. It’s my right, even if we are adults. Which leads me to my next question. What the hell happened with Tenley?”
My hands go to my pockets and I raise my shoulders, slowly letting them go. “She and I want different things. Simple as that.”
Wes’s chuckle is hollow. “It’s never simple. In fact, there was a time when you told me to stop making everything so damn hard. So,” he widens his stance and crosses his arms, like he’s settling in for an argument. “I’m going to say the same to you. Quit making it difficult. If you love her, you love her. End of story. Everything else is just details.”
“Now you’re an expert?”
“I’m someone who has walked on the road you're currently on. I know what it’s like to deny myself because I think what I want is wrong.”
I’ve been married. I’ve had kids. Can those boxes only be checked once? Maybe for some people, but for me? What’s my right answer?
I honestly don’t know.
Wes can tell I’m done talking. We’ve given one another enough to think about. “You ready to go?” he asks.
We walk out, and just as I’m closing Wes’s truck door he looks at me and says, “Do you know what this makes you?”
I sigh. “An asshole?”
“No.” Wes clicks his seatbelt into place. “You’re changing course. Taking a chance. You’re a maverick.”
The word turns over in my head. I like it.
We leave the house and stop at the homestead to pick up Wyatt and Jessie. Wes pulls off for a six-pack, and we arrive at the lookout just as the heavy, bright orange sun sinks halfway down the horizon. Wyatt hands out the beer and presses a lemonade into Jessie’s outstretched hand. She scowls.
We sit under the sparse canopy of a large pine, away from the openness of the overlook, four Hayden siblings shooting the shit. We quiet down when we hear footsteps. Twenty yards out, two young boys walk past us. They can’t be more than thirteen and probably know Peyton. Each has a pellet gun over their shoulder, and neither has seen us.
“Quail hunting,” I whisper.
They walk on, and Jessie stands up. She creeps after them, parallel to the line they walk. Wyatt whisper-hisses her name, and she brushes him off with a wave. Jessie makes it to the next tree and palms the trunk, leaning around to keep the young boys in her eyeline.
I watch one of the two boys take a rock from his pocket. He throws it at a bush, and the quail inside scatter. Both boys take aim. They shoot.
