Wyatt
Two Years Ago
"I don't wantto rest, Juliette."
Stubborn as a goddamn mule. That's what my dad is. He's been giving my mom a hard time since he got home from the hospital.
The heart attack he had at the annual cowboy barbecue scared us all, but I think it scared him a lot more than he's letting on. To make up for that, he's doubling down on how much recovery time he thinks he needs. Which is to say,very little.
"I don't give two shits what you do or don't want to do, Beau Hayden."
I smile. My mom is the only person I've ever heard go toe to toe with my dad and win.
"This ranch needs me out there," he growls, but now it sounds more like he's arguing for the sake of arguing instead of arguing to win.
"Too bad. Your family needs you to be healthy, so you have to follow the doctor's orders. Which means you need to rest."
"Bullshit," he mutters.
"Honestly," my mom says, her tone holding more affection than it did a moment ago, "if you weren't putting up this much of a fuss, I'd think maybe they'd transplanted your personality at the same time they performed your bypass."
"Very funny, Juliette."
"Try to calm down. It's not good for you to get worked up."
"Calm down? My life's work is currently without a leader. A ship needs a captain."
"You know Wes is taking care of things. He's perfectly capable of it."
"In the short term. But what about the long term?"
Mom sighs deeply. "I don't know. I have no idea if this thing between Wes and Dakota is going to work out."
"And if it doesn't?"
Neither of them speak, but I can picture my mom lifting her palms in the air.
Dad continues. "Warner's personal life is in shambles, and I doubt he'll be married much longer anyway. She's already taken off, all he needs now is a real divorce."
My muscles constrict. This is it. He's going to start in on me.
"I don't understand how I managed to have three sons, and nobody to take over the HCC."
Wow. He actually left my name out of his tirade. Unbelievable, considering—
"Wyatt's become someone I don't even know. Hand to God, I'm not certain I even raised that boy. He's someone my brother would've raised, if he'd lived long enough to have kids. Sometimes I think he's just like him."
"Hush," my mother says, her tone sharp. "You might be his father, but that's my kid you're talking about."
I should be grateful she's defending me, but I can't summon the feeling. The bone-crushing sadness weighs more.
My dad has never been shy about how he felt about his brother. He thought he wasn't strong enough, or tough enough. He wasn't mentally hardy enough to live on a cattle ranch, a place where weakness is despised and hard decisions must be made. He was too emotional, I remember my dad saying once, and his tone of voice conveyed everything we needed to know. Emotions were to be dealt with swiftly, with the confidence of a surgeon and the detachment of a firing squad.
And here he thinks I'm like him. That we are so similar, I could've been raised by him.
I am a man. A grown adult. So how is it I feel like a child again? I'm too old for this. Too old to give space to the hurt that never really leaves, the hurt I work tirelessly to keep buried deep inside.
I get in my truck and call Kyle. "You still going down to Phoenix this weekend?" When he says yes, I tell him I'm coming too. Then I call the resort, book a room, and go to my house to pack a bag.
