Tossing the towel over the bar to dry, I roll my head from one shoulder to the other, stretching the muscles that are bunching tighter with each passing second. Just as I’m about to turn and lay into Mason, I hear Dad’s booming, gravelly voice in the walkway.
“I’ll call Breanna and see if she can come out this week.”
Gray’s growl travels down the walkway after Dad’s voice. “I hate to lose her, she’s been a good damn horse.”
“I know, son, but if she’s in pain, there ain’t no sense in dragging it out.”
“Yeah, I know.”
They appear around the corner and look between Mason and me. Dad’s eyes narrow as they roam over my face and look atmy squared shoulders. He hooks his hand over Gray’s shoulder without looking away from me. “You boys go on up to dinner, we’ll be there in a minute.”
My dad might be in his sixties, but he’s still in good shape. My brothers and I got our tall, broad frames from him. He may have been a single dad to all us kids, but he’s been a damn good one.
As Gray and Mason leave the stables, I lean against the tub and hook the heels of my palms on the edge at my sides. Dad leans his shoulder against the door frame.
“You okay, son?”
“I’m fine. Mason’s just being his pushy self.”
“Pushy about what?” He crosses his arms over his chest and settles in. I know that look, he wants to talk, and he’s not going to take no for an answer. It’s rare for him to push us into a conversation; he always waits for us to figure it out or come to him on our own. It’s also rare that we tell our dad no.
Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out, I turn my head to look out the window. “He wanted to talk about last night, and I didn’t.”
His head tilts. “The girl?”
Clenching my jaw, I look at the wall across the way. “I swear to fucking God. Which one filled you in?” My question is in regard to my sisters and their talking about me behind my back, but Dad shocks the shit out of me with his answer.
“Opal heard from Marcy at the diner, and she called me this morning.”
Opal is our retired housekeeper who came to live with us after our mom died, she was with us for almost twenty years. She was a sort of stand-in grandmotherly type while we were growing up. She moved in with her daughter almost five years ago. Apparently, she and Dad are still close enough for her to call and confirm rumors.
That means the whole goddamn town is talking.
My head swivels in his direction, and he’s trying to suppress the smile that’s making his lips twitch.
He chuckles as he looks at my angry stare. “What’d you expect, son? Not much happens at Stony’s that don’t make the rounds the next day, and when the war veteran who usually ignores the world takes up for a pretty girl, it’s gonna spread like wildfire.”
There’s not much I can say, but if my jaw clenches any tighter, my molars are going to grind to dust. I’m not sure what I’m more pissed about, the feeling of being under a microscope or the concern about what rumor is going to get back to Nora.
And when they do, will she be angry that I’ve made her a topic of conversation for the whole fucking town?
He watches me for a moment before he hooks his thumbs in his pockets. “You can’t hide out forever, son.”
Cutting my eyes back to the window, I let the silence hang heavy between us for long moments before I respond. “I’m not fit for another person.”
His face twists in anger, and I can feel his eyes boring into me. “Who fucking says?”
The deep-set harshness in his voice surprises me, and my eyes cut back to him. “I’m only half the person I used to be, Dad, you know that.”
He takes a step toward me and lifts his finger to point at my face. “I don’t want to hear that self-depreciating bullshit again. You hear me? You’re the same person you’ve always been, and this wound,” he lowers his hand and points at my leg, “is still fresh; you haven’t completely healed yet.” He pauses and lowers his hand to hook his thumb in his pocket again. “And anyway, shouldn’t the girl be the one to decide if you’re fit for her? Does she get a say?”
Has he been talking to the damn therapist?
Technically, he’s right, so I look back to the window before my next admission. “I don’t want to feel the rejection, Dad. She’s beautiful, and a year ago, I would have went for it, but I don’t want to see just how far I’ve fallen in her eyes when she makes up a reason to get out of it.”
His deep, gravelly chuckle catches me off guard, and I slide my eyes back to him, taking offense at him laughing at my insecurity. He’s shaking his head when he says, “Son, that sounds like the fear of every goddamn man out there. You’re just not used to rejection because it’s always been easy for you to get every woman you want. Congratulations, welcome to the world of the average man.”
Regretting my decision to say anything, I start to walk around him to leave. “Fuck it, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
