I stop, standing in front of her, and when she scoots over, I take the silent invitation and sit down beside her. "You worked the ranch today?"
She shakes her head.
Ah, that explains it. She's emotional because it didn't work out with Wes.
“I went to the homestead but he wasn't there, and I didn't want to wait around for him. So I left him a note at his cabin, telling him I’m prepared to beg, borrow, and steal my way back onto the ranch.”
Jessie’s words are delivered with less enthusiasm than usual. Something has really upset her. “I admire your persistence,” I tell her.
She picks at the loose strings on the bottom of her shorts. “I didn't realize you are a widower."
I stare at her profile, trying to slow my racing heart. "How did you know?"
"Wyatt mentioned it."
I look away, biting on the inside of my cheek.
"Why didn't you tell me?" She sounds curious, but not hurt. I look down and watch her fingers move on to the hem of her cardigan.
"I don't like to say the words out loud. They sound wrong. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday." Now I see Brea's face, clear as day in my mind. I swallow the lump in my throat at the image. I lean forward, balancing my elbows on my knees. My gaze focuses on the wooden plank floor, but I see the crashing ocean, the salty spray. "We had a little place right on the beach. Brea went out for a swim one day. And she never came back." Tears roll down my cheeks. It rips me apart to think of what she must've experienced. Even if she was able to scream for help, I don't know that she would have. She spoke very rarely, choosing ASL instead. But maybe, in a moment of panic, she tried to use her voice.
"She was recovered seventeen hours later. I was a maniac for those seventeen hours, searching the beach for miles, swimming out farther than I'd ever swam." My eyes squeeze shut as I push away the image of her being pulled from the water. The recovery team told me to walk away, but I'd refused. I regret that deeply now. The image is burned into my brain, and if I could snap my fingers and make it disappear, I would.
Jessie's palm finds my back. She brushes her hand against me in reassuring strokes. "How long were you married?"
"Five years." I rub at my eyes.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Sawyer."
I crane my neck to look back at her. Her eyes are shiny. She looks so sad.
My gaze remains locked on her as I try to reconcile this feeling in my chest. I'm splitting in two, a crack made by an earthquake. By a calamity.
Calamity Jessie.
I came to this town, positive I'd never need to move past what happened to Brea. To my marriage. How is it that I'm not onlyneedingto deal with it, I'mwantingto?
“In the spirit of honesty,” Jessie begins, turning her full gaze on me. “Do you know about your dad and my dad?”
My eyebrows tug. What is she talking about?
“I’ll take that as a no.” Her lips twist. “I don’t know details. I haven't asked for them, but we can if you want. All I know is that there was bad blood between our dads back in the day when you lived at the Circle B.”
So that’s why my dad freaked out when he heard Jessie’s last name. It would've been nice if he’d just told me about it. He probably didn't want to say anything that would hinder my forward progression, and he feared that would do it.
Juliette’s response to me makes a hell of a lot more sense. But Beau’s response is nothing shy of confusing. He seems like a man who would hold a grudge, so why is he welcoming to me?
He’s caught me with his daughter, so to speak, and not killed me with his bare hands or shot at the ground while I ran off his land like a come-to-life cartoon. It doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense.
“We make quite a pair, huh? You’re scared to move on, and our dads used to hate each other.” Jessie laughs, but it’s empty.
Both of these things are true, and neither is going to keep me from her. That’s what I decide in this exact moment.
I sit up straight, and wrap an arm around her shoulders, and she leans over, a half hug. It’s not the right time for our first kiss. Not yet. I don’t want it to come on the heels of this kind of a talk, in a somber mood. Jessie deserves better.
I look down at the top of her head, lowering my nose until it hovers just above her hair.
She smells nothing like Brea.
