“We’re complicated.” It’s the best answer I can give her.
“And what does complicated look like?” She asks.
The guys are distracted by arguing with each other over the phone, so I turn my attention to Niamh. How much information is too much information? Despite how at home they’ve made me feel here, we still don’t know each other that well. I decide to go with the truth. “We slept together, but we both know it’s only temporary.”
A knowing grin stretches up her mouth, and dimples appear on each cheek. “Temporary. Boy, have I heard that before.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you another day, but just so you know, temporary doesn’t stay temporary for long around here.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
She fidgets in the passenger seat; the car bumping along the road as we make the journey toward Scott Ranch. Her nerves fizzle in the air between us, the skin on the edge of her thumb picked raw. Reaching over the console, I take her hand in mine, stopping her from doing any more damage.
“We can turn around,” I tell her softly. “I can do this alone.”
She turns her wide, brown eyes to me, a few strands of hair brushing over her face as the breeze sweeps in through the crack in the window. It’s a perfect, sunny day, not a single cloud in the sky, but a storm is brewing in her eyes.
“No,” she flicks her eyes to our joined hands and slowly curls her fingers around my hand, until she’s clasping it tightly. “I want to do this.”
I had given her the choice. She could come with me to confront Calvin and get her horse, or she could stay behind. Part of me was just going to go without giving her the option, but so many choices have been taken from her, I will not add to the list of people to do that. And she chose quickly; she wanted to be here. To stand against her ex and to show the strength she possesses, the strength she’s been forced to hide for too many years.
“I want to say it to his face,” she continues. “To tell him it’s over and has been for a long time. I was just too afraid to leave. I want him to know I stopped loving him a long time ago, that he has no control over me anymore.”
“Good girl,” I praise her, reveling in the little shiver my words give her.
She keeps her hand in mine but returns her attention to beyond the window, to the rolling hills and fields that stretch out on either side of us. I lost sight of the mountains some miles back, and I always feel a tremendous loss whenever they’re not dominating my field of vision. They offer a sense of protection, great pillars of strength that remind you that you can weather any storm, battle any disaster. They stand the test of time and will continue on even when everything around them wants to see them fall.
We’d spent the night together again last night after we made the plan to come here today. She had led with her head resting on my chest, her leg thrown over mine as if she were ivy clinging to me, and she didn’t let go once. She stayed glued to me and slept the whole night, and when I woke this morning, I’d forgotten that what we were doing had a time limit.
I’d allowed myself to imagine doing this every morning, and every night, dreamed of having her like this forever. She makes my soul feel at peace, pushes away the shadows and the cobwebs that had grown around my heart, a small bundle of light that had worked its way into my core, into the fabric of who I am.
She’s making me believe in something that I thought I had lost.
Stroking my thumb over her knuckles, I settle into the chair, glancing at the clock. There’s still about twenty minutes to go before we reach the ranch.
“Can I ask you something?” She speaks, still facing the window. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I look at her and smile, “Ask.”
“What happened to Rosie and Caleb’s mom?”
My spine stiffens. I knew the question would come up eventually, but I wonder what has brought it up now.
“You don’t have to answer,” she repeats. “I was just watching them this morning, and they seem so happy. They’re good kids, Silas. You’ve done a wonderful job of raising them, and I wondered why their mom wasn’t there to see it.”
“She left,” the two words rasp from my throat, sour and raw, “Rosie was still a baby, not even a year old. She was having an affair, well multiple affairs, and after I found out, she decided it wasn’t worth sticking around anymore.”
“Oh,” her fingers tighten.
“She signed over custody of both of them and hasn’t returned since.”
“Not once?”
I shake my head, “I don’t know where she even is. Caleb hopes she’ll come back one day, but I don’t think she will. Maybe when he’s older, and she’s full of regrets, but…” My shoulders lift on a shrug, “If that happens, it will be down to him whether he wants to see her. I won’t keep him from his mother.”
“And Rosie?”
