They were some of the cutest and sweetest little girls I’d ever met. Garrett must be crosseyed and stupid as hell. My ten-year-old had more sense.
The thought almost brought me to my knees.
Cade.
I wasn’t the only one who would hurt when they left.
Had I been careless to let him get close to Hollie and the girls? For the first time in six years, my boy was trusting other people and stepping outside his comfort zone. And now, he’d grieve this loss, too.
I scrubbed a hand over my face again.
I messed up big time.
“Jesse.” Hollie’s hand came to rest on my bicep. “Are you okay?”
I startled out of my deep thoughts, schooling my face. “Sorry. I’mgood. Thank you for helping out with Cade. As soon as I can break away today, I will.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her brows furrowing with worry. “Okay.”
I reached out to touch her arm, but thought better of it, reaching for my hat instead.
My poor mood worsened when fetching horses meant walking in the pelting rain all day. My boots squished through muddy puddles, my jeans and belt chafed my skin, and I’d long discarded my dripping t-shirt over a fence post.
I trekked through a field, to the far corner where Ginger was hiding. My progress was painstaking as I kept tripping over my own heavy feet. Even though it was mid-summer, the rain caused me to shiver. I swallowed against my dry throat, cussing the clouds and feeling sorry for myself.
It was almost a month until Laurel’s birthday. She’d be thirty-four.
If she were out here in the rain with me, she’d make it fun somehow. She’d be the rainbow of color she loved. For all the pain in her life, she brought light everywhere she went. Every time I saw a rainbow, I thought of her. How she’d love it. How she’d break out into one of her favorite songs or pick up that dumb harmonica she had no idea how to play. What I wouldn’t give to hear her laugh or try to sing. Tears stung my eyes or maybe it was just the rain.
I could use a rainbow right now. Some kind of sign, maybe, that she was still with me.
Lifting a hand, I rubbed my bare chest where it hurt—right under my left pec.
“Laurel?” I whispered, my voice box resisting the action. “I met someone.”
The cacophony of raindrops hitting the ground intensified, the low drumming sound turning into a loud roar. I blinked against the drops leaking through the seam of my hat and coughed twice.
“But I think she’s going to leave, too.” My vision blurred. “Maybe I did the wrong thing by getting involved…I’d feel better if I knew what you thought…I keep worrying that if I let myself fall in love again…it might undermine what we had. I don’t want that…If a rainbow appeared in the sky right now you would call it a sign.” A tearing feeling deep in my chest made me shudder. “I need a sign. That I’m not gonna…dishonor your memory or something if Hollie and I…if we…”
I couldn’t even finish. Was I insane?
Asking my dead wife for a sign seemed borderline.
I was grasping at straws. Hollie would leave me. And Laurel already had.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I trudged forward, forcing my brain to shut down, to fall numb. Maybe it was better not to love anyone. All my talk about making something beautiful even when life is painful and all the stuff I’d been spewing about shadows and bike rides…but at the end of the day…
Goodbyes were hard.
And maybe not worth it.
I burst into the cabin, shivering uncontrollably. I had no idea what time it was. Probably past two o’clock in the afternoon. Thunder crashed as I shut the door, and I honestly couldn’t remember having a worse day. My heart sat in my soggy boots and every movement felt like dragging lead.
I glanced around, finding no sign of the girls, Cade, or Hollie. I blinked hard a few times, squinting in the dim light. Were they here? The morning hours seemed so far away that, for a second, I wondered if I hallucinated this morning—Hollie’s neck and Cade’s fever.
I considered calling out, but my throat was so dry.
Instead, I flicked open my belt buckle and yanked it out of the loops, hanging it on the coat rack behind the front door. Easing onto a stool, I leaned against my stiff muscles and tugged my boots off. Thenpeeled off my socks and jeans, leaving them in a soaking, mud-brown pile. I had no idea what I did with my shirt. It was long gone.
