I’d been at Twin Star for two years by that point, and I’d collapsed in Ruth’s arms after the call. I’d been twenty-four, and it was the first time anyone in my family was going to die.
All my grandparents were still alive. My dad hadn’t even been fifty.
I’d raged at the universe while Ruth held me together by a thread. Then she’d told me to jump in the car and drive to Texas to make sure there was nothing left unsaid between me and my dad.
I wasn’t sure how successful that trip had been, but I’d spent a week there, and then Ruth had called to say we had five new horses coming in from a severe neglect case and she really needed a hand if I could come back to Illinois.
My dad sat me down then. He stared at my face, as if searching for something.
“I know I don’t have much time,” he said slowly, wincing in pain that twisted his features momentarily. He was too stubborn to agree to the heavier pain medication yet. “Does your boss need you?”
I’d hated that moment. I’d felt so conflicted. I knew he could read me, and so he’d smiled.
“Go. I know you wouldn’t leave if there was a way you could stay and feel like you weren’t letting her down, but you’ve grown up, Theo. You know a man is only worth his word, and you obviously care about that place and want to keep your word to your boss.”
He didn’t say he was proud of me, but it was obvious in his gaze and the way he hugged me for the first time since I was a little boy.
When I drove back, this numbness I was feeling now after the conflicting emotions inside me had stopped roiling so badly, had returned for the second time. It lasted until the next time I went back, which was for his funeral two months later and only subsided once I’d grieved enough.
I didn’t know why I was feeling like this now, but I guessed it was a reaction to Ruth’s death more than anything Lake had done. I’d grieved for Ruth ever since I found her that morning, but everything had felt…unreal.
Before Lake and the others arrived, it felt like Ruth could’ve been somewhere on vacation and I was holding up the fort for her.
Now, within days, everything had been turned on its head, and while I’d done my best to hold onto what I needed to do, hold onto hope that nothing would change any more than it already had…well, I guess my brain decided we needed a break.
So I decided to give it one.
Chapter 11
Lake
Three days later, and I still felt the words Theo had spat at me like a slap.
Maybe it had been too easy, but for a moment there, I’d thought we’d be fine despite everything that was going on around us. That at least we could have a working relationship and be friendly, if not friends.
I’d seen him a couple of times, riding this horse or that, training another in the round pen, or just marching from one building to another.
When we’d arrived, he’d been apprehensive and a bit closed off at first, but he’d always met our gaze and soon after began to smile and appear friendly. Hell, I’d felt a camaraderie with him that I rarely did with people.
The Theo I saw now was…different. Completely different. He walked with his gaze to the ground, communicating only with the horses, dogs, and other critters, and barely talking to anyone. Even Sierra looked worried, which was why I headed to her in the office building after I saw Theo riding out of the gate and across the road where the nature reserve’s hiking and riding paths were.
I’d made two travel mugs of coffee with the good machine and as I stepped inside the office, Sierra’s gaze locked onto them and she let out a moan that was almost pornographic.
“My savior,” she said with the feeling of the caffeine deprived.
“Here you go.” I put her mug in front of her and sat down in the visitor’s chair.
“You’re here about Theo.” She took a sip of the coffee and sighed happily.
“Yeah. I…” I glanced out of the window which showed part of the cabins across the yard. Then I explained the book thing to Sierra, who listened patiently, nodding here and there and asking all the right questions.
“I take it Theo didn’t like the idea?”
I scrunched my nose as if I’d smelled something bad. “No.” Then I thought for a moment. “But I think…I think maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s the grief hitting him differently because of this thing.”
She mused on my words, picked up the phone, and pressed speed dial.
“Hey, Hudson. Are you anywhere near our neck of the woods?” She listened. “No, it’s fine. Can I put you on speaker?”
