In the years since I left for school, I’d gone home every so often, but not nearly enough. Life got in the way. I let my life go from being about working on the ranch and going to school to being about work and nothing else. I’d become a workaholic. I didn’t even allow myself to follow my dream of running a business of my own.
All because of my senior year in college.
I inwardly shove the thought to the back of my mind. I don’t need or want to think about that time of my life.
Now was the time to mourn the loss of the most wonderful man who ever walked this earth. At least in my eyes, he had been. I looked up to Cornbread Granddaddy. Especially when my mom died and my dad all but deserted my brother and me. He raised me to be a strong, independent woman. None of which I feel right now.
Maddox’s call the other day changed everything for me. I’d been at work dealing with a proposal for a company my boss wanted to snag.
I ended up getting my degrees in business and accounting as well as a minor in administration. Two separate ones because I majored in both. I’m an overachiever like that. I worked tirelessly to achieve what I did, thinking that I’d come home and start a new business, or at least move closer to home than I did. Instead, I’d taken the job with the company I interned for and worked my way quickly up the ladder to a corner office with a view of the city. The office where I interned was their Knoxville location, and I’d been able to transfer and move to Copper Run, Oklahoma.
It wasn’t worth it. Not really.
Not when I’d lost everything that meant so much to me. It’d broken something inside me and opened my eyes to the realization of where I was going in my life, and that it wasn’t at all what I wanted.
Cornbread Granddaddy told me he wanted me to get out and spread my wings. I did that, but I still feel empty. The only good thing I have going for me is the fact that I’m damn good at my job.
I don’t have a man in my life. Not really. It was more like an office booty call for when either one of us needs to get off. Didn’t matter if it was my boss.
But I don’t even think of that, or how Maddox called to tell me. It hurt that he didn’t call me right away, but waited hours before calling. It’d been early before the sun was fully up, and instead of being home in bed, I was at the office. I’d been there all night.
Clarity hit me, though, as I’d gotten off the phone with Maddox. I sat in my chair for all of five minutes before sending the files and the countless hours of work I’d done to my boss and telling him I was done. I wasn’t coming back. I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to get out of there. I let work get in the way of everything that had been important.
So, here I am standing before Cornbread Granddaddy’s grave after having watched my brother and his men cover his casket with dirt. People had already dispersed, making their way up to the house. Judy is among them. I knew she’d handle them for Maddox and me. I needed a moment to myself. I had to be able to say goodbye without anyone around me.
I hadn’t spoken much to Maddox since getting to the ranch two days ago. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to help, but it wasn’t my place. I hadn’t even told him about walking out on my job.
Maybe it was stupid and reckless of me to do it, but I couldn’t help it. All I could think about was how I wasn’t happy. I thought about how Cornbread Granddaddy would be disappointed in me if he knew how I was living my life.
With a look around me, I sigh as I gracefully squat down next to the freshly covered grave. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, breathing heavily, my heart filled with so much sorrow for the loss of the best man I knew. “I wish I’d been a better granddaughter to you these past months. Hell, this entire past year. If I had, maybe you’d still be here.” I take a breath, glance around, and release a shuddered breath. “I should’ve come home after college, Cornbread Granddaddy. Or better yet, gone to a school closer to home. Then I’d have been here for you when you needed me.”
“Everything fell to pieces for me, and I ended up not doing as you told me to do. I ruined everything for myself. Became someone I don’t even know anymore . . .”
My breath hitches, and I swipe my cheek as a single tear spills down and blink away the rest. I wasn’t a crier. I haven’t allowed myself to cry since . . . no, I won’t think about that. If I do, I know I’ll end up releasing the floodgates, and I’m not sure I’d be able to stop.
Turning away from the grave, I start to make my way slowly toward the house. This day was hard enough as it was, but now I was going to have to go in and hear stories from those who were sticking around. I want to listen to those stories, though I know they’re nothing more than a slap in the face when it comes to the knowledge that they were all here for him when I wasn’t.
“Della.”
I turn at the sound of my name being called to find Amelia, my best friend growing up, closing in on me.
“Hey,” I murmur and let her hug me.
“How are you doing?” she asks, pulling back to stand mere inches from me. She bites her lip and starts up again before I can answer her. “Sorry. That was a stupid question. I know how close you were to William.”
“Could be better,” I tell her and suck in a breath, feeling the heavy weight of it on my chest. “What about you? How are things going with you? How’s Dylan?”
During the service, I spotted Amelia and her son standing off to the side with another man who definitely wasn’t her ex-husband. I knew who the man was, but I didn’t dare think of his name. I hadn’t seen him in years, and the sight of him causes my heart to flutter in a way it hasn’t since I was a teenager.
I focus my attention back on her son and not the man I’d seen them with.
“He’s gotten so big since the last time I was in town.”
Amelia ended up getting pregnant while we were still in high school, and she wound up marrying Russell Cain, whom she later divorced. Since I left town, we have mostly kept in touch via email.
“Tell me about it. We officially hit the preteen years, and he’s been testing my patience.” She glances over at her son, her lips instantly curving when her eyes land on him. “He’s the best thing to ever happen to me, though.”
“I bet. The last time I was in town, you were making soaps for the farmers’ market. Are you still doing that?” I ask, though my eyes were on the boy with his cousin standing with him up near the house. The man, I refuse to think his name right now, seems to be talking to him, but Amelia’s son was looking around in wonderment at the ranch.
