“Jake, if you want Kellie to forgive you, you have to forgive yourself too.”
“I’m going to take a walk.”
“Okay,” Mom conceded with a nod. “I’ll keep your dinner in the oven for you.”
I was out the door, stuffing my feet in my boots before I said something I couldn't take back. Of course, things had changed. Hell, my whole life had done a complete three-sixty this week. I’d come home because Dad had passed away, and Mom didn’t know which way was up. It was supposed to be a simple, quick trip. Come home. Farewell my father. Get the details sorted and head back to the life I was building in California. But life never seems to go the way you plan. Instead, here I was in charge of the ranch and trying to remember everything I prayed I’d forget. Ranching might’ve been in my blood, but it’d never been in my heart. Something Dad and I fought constantly over. He wanted to groom me to take over, and I wanted to run a million miles in the opposite direction. In the end, he pushed, and I left. We hadn’t spoken since that day, and that was something I’d always regret—never making amends, never getting the opportunity to say goodbye, never telling him I loved him, and that I was sorry. So many words were left unsaid between us, words that would haunt me forever.
But there was a silver lining.
I’d learned from my mistakes. That’s why I wasn’t messing around when it came to Kellie. If I wanted to say something, I would say it. She might not be ready to hear it, but I would tell her anyway. We’d already lost so much time, wasting another day wasn’t an option.
As I held the wire together, I climbed over the fence and headed up the hill before coming to a stop at the crest. It was truly beautiful up here. In the middle of nowhere, you could see for miles as well as the creek that ran along the bottom of our property, the same creek Kellie and I had spent our last summer together making out on the banks and skinny dipping in the shallows.
I yanked a stalk of grass from the ground and twisted it around my fingers, sitting there in the silence looking across the property. Down to the left and just through the tree line was the main homestead, but from here, you’d never know it existed. Right here was where I’d planned to build my house. Our house. With three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views, it was perfect.
Right here on the top of the hill was where Kellie and I made love for the first time. She’d been a virgin, and unfortunately, I hadn’t. I’d fucked around while she’d waited for me. She’d been my best friend and the one who’d always been there for me, and while she was waiting, I was breaking her heart. My only defense was my own naivety, and I never even knew. She’d never told me. Never dropped a hint. We were friends. Best friends. Until the moment we weren’t.
I’d never forget the day I saw Kellie for the first time. The real Kellie, not the girl who traded me sandwiches back in middle school. Kellie, the woman who’d steal my heart and have me handing over my balls on a silver platter.
Nick had cornered her against the wall of the gym. Kellie had her arms full of books, hugging them tight against her chest. When Nick leaned in, caging her in with his arms, I saw red. He was intimidating my girl. Walking off the basketball court, barely hearing the calls of my teammates, I was headed in his direction, fists already clenched. It was one thing to ask a girl out, but it was another to make her feel uncomfortable. As I closed in, I could hear him calling her a prick-tease and telling her how any girl would be happy to trade places with her.
“Well, they can have you. I don’t want you or your shriveled-up, diseased dick anywhere near me,” Kellie told him straight before kneeing him in the balls.
I froze where I stood and watched as he keeled over, clutched his nuts, whimpered in pain.
While I stood there protecting my own balls, I looked over at Kellie who looked flustered. “You good?” I asked.
“Y-y-yeah,” she spluttered before taking off out the door and into the parking lot.
By the time I caught up to her, she’d already dumped her bag in the back of my truck and was perched on the tailgate, hyperventilating.
“No, you’re not,” I told her, jumping up beside her and wrapping my arm around her shoulders.
“Why… why would he do that?” Kellie asked, looking up at me with huge doe eyes that had me wanting to storm back in there and teach Nick a lesson or two.
“He’s an asshole, Marshmallow. Don’t even worry about him,” I told her, hugging her to me and pressing a kiss against her temple.
When Kellie looked up at me again, gone was the fear and sadness replaced by something I’d never seen on her before. I wasn’t a complete moron. I'd seen that look on other girls' faces but never on Kellie’s.
“You know what he told me?”
I was kind of afraid to know. “No. What did he say?” I asked, my voice squeaking like a prepubescent teen.
“He said you’d never look at me the way you look at Michelle. That I’d never be good enough. That I was too fat and ugly for you to see me as anything more than the needy little best friend following you around like a lost puppy.”
“Like I said, he’s an idiot.” I shrugged, my palms sweating.
Kellie shrugged my arm off her shoulder and slid down. “He’s not, though. I’m not Michelle. And I’m not Lisa or Amber or Claire, either.”
“Why would you want to be like them?” I asked, completely confused by what Kellie was talking about.
“Nick might be an asshole, but he’s right.”
“Right about what?”
My frustration was bubbling. Nick was an asshole. No doubt about it, and the fact he’d upset Kellie had me wanting to beat his ass. No one upset her, or they had to deal with me. No one touched her. No one went near her. And you better believe no one made her cry. I’d issued the threat back in middle school, and until today, everyone had toed the line.
“About you. About me. About us!” Kellie huffed, exasperated.
