Make arrangements. For the removal of Hester Prynne's body. A fresh round of tears spills from me. I hug my brother and see him trying to hold back his own tears. Sawyer holds my hand and opens the passenger door for me. I climb inside and keep my eyes on my beloved horse in the side mirror.
And I cry. I cry and I cry until my head throbs. We arrive at our cabin, and Sawyer carries me inside. He lays me in the bed I’ve come to think of as ours, and brings me headache medicine and a glass of water.
"It was just supposed to be a fun ride," I whisper, lying on my side and looking out the bedroom window, my gaze on the land I work hard for every day.
I've never felt so betrayed by it.
29
Sawyer
I've seen this heartbreak.Iknowthis heartbreak.
There's nothing I can do for Jessie now, except be there for her. I make her dinner that night. She picks at it.
I make her breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next day. She moves it around with her utensil.
Jessie told me she blames the land. I understand the need for blame. How else does a person make sense of the senseless? Grief is an antagonist all its own. A thief of reality, a shape-shifter.
She emerges from our room on Monday morning. She’s dressed, her hair pulled into a ponytail, and she manages a small smile. "Do I look like the boss?"
Wes leaves today for Colt's surgery in Phoenix. Jessie will assume his role while he's gone. "You looked like the boss to me long before you were actually the boss."
She steps into my open arms and hugs me. "Thank you for everything this weekend. You took care of me."
I curl a finger under her chin and urge her eyes to meet mine. "I like taking care of you." The words feel as natural as our first kiss, as familiar as the first time I touched her. Like it was all an eventuality and we needn't have worried ourselves about any of it.
Jessie rises on tiptoe and kisses me before she leaves for the meeting she's called with the cowboys.
I watch her go, feeling grateful she's managed to get herself up and out the door this morning. It's not the first time I've been astounded by her strength. I doubt it'll be the last.
Jessie runs the ranch for the next three days, until Wes arrives home from Colt's surgery, and then two more after that, because Wes wants to stay at home with his little boy. It’s a blessing, because it allows her to keep her mind off the loss of Hester Prynne.
We spend the weekend in domestic bliss. We nap in the hammock, I help Jessie plan a backyard garden, and in the evening we drink too much wine and I make love to her on the kitchen table. Jessie calls it fucking, which gives me the greatest opportunity of all time.
"That wasn't my definition of fucking," I tell her, lifting my head in challenge. She dares me to show her what I consider the word to mean, just like I knew she would.
“You’ve walked right into my trap,” I tell her, wiggling my eyebrows.
She grins and taps the tip of my nose. “I know.”
Two hours later, after a shared bowl of mint chip ice cream, I instruct her to get on all fours. Then I grab a fistful of that honey-blonde hair and show her exactly what I mean.
We fall asleep wrapped around each other.
It is absolutely, utterly perfect.
Jo calledme earlier and asked me to come by. She said she thinks she's found something that belonged to my family.
The prospect makes me nervous. And a little sick.
I've learned there was a lot of stuff left behind in this house when we left town, items my ten-year-old brain didn't notice. Jo once told me there was a fully stocked kitchen when she took over the ranch. Like someone could walk in and begin cooking dinner. She'd offered me the kitchenware since it was technically property of the Bennett family. I'd declined. If anything, I would have donated it. I certainly couldn't send it to my dad.
I walk into the front door of Wildflower. There used to be a wall separating the living room and the dining room, but Jo had it knocked down. Very little about the interior of the house is similar to when I lived there, but it's still familiar to me. My mom walked these floors. She comforted me in my bed after a nightmare. She served peanut butter and banana sandwiches to me at the breakfast nook and read books on fishing with me.
Jo pops up from behind a cabinet in the kitchen. "Sawyer, in here," she calls, waving me over.
I walk in. The kitchen is a disaster. Jo grins happily, brushing hair from her eyes. "Have you ever made lunch for a bunch of boys? Quite the task."
