“Get out!”
This time, I do as he asks without saying anything.
I make my way back through the house, hoping to find one of the sisters. So far, everyone has been curiously absent this morning.
Luckily, this time, I spot Hannah in the kitchen, pulling fresh eggs from a basket.
“You seen Haley this morning?”
She doesn’t even turn around to look at me.
“I just want to talk to her, Hannah. Tell me where she is. Please.”
“She said she was going home.”
“To Colorado?”
“I suppose.”
“Did she leave last night?”
“Yes.”
“How? She didn’t even have a car here.”
“Harper drove her into the city.”
“Is she back yet?”
“Nope.”
I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to shake this woman. Whatever she may know, she isn’t telling. “Will you at least give her a message for me?”
“I’m not sure when I’ll hear from her.”
“Sooner than I will, I’m sure.”
“What do you want me to tell her?”
“Tell her that...” I trail off. I don’t know what to have her tell Haley. Hell, I don’t even know what I’d say if she were here. I haven’t thought that far. I just know I need to talk to her. “Just tell her that I really need to talk to her. It’s important.”
At that, Hannah swings around. She looks at me, narrowing eyes that are a darker, mossier green than her sister’s. “You hurt her.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You know that doesn’t always matter, right?”
“It should.”
“In a perfect world, intent would make all the difference, but…”
“She won’t even listen.”
“I thought she heard you out.”
“She did, but…”
“But?”
“She’s gone. Apparently, she didn’t listen.”
“Or maybe you just weren’t convincing.”
“I was honest with her. What else can I do?”
“Then why do you want to talk to her again? If you don’t have anything new to say...”
“Maybe she just needs to hear it again when she’s calmer.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t need to hear what you have to say at all.”
“Look,” I snap, getting more irritated by the minute. “I have to at least try again.”
“Why?”
“Because I want her to come back. That’s why.”
“But why? It’s obvious you two had a fling. Why not just let it go at that? Be done with her and move on.”
“Because I’m not ready to be done with her yet.”
“How long before you are?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that I want her to come back. Isn’t that enough?”
“For most women, maybe. For Haley? Never.”
With that, Hannah gives me what seems to be a sad smile and turns back to her eggs.
“I—” I stop to gather my thoughts, but they don’t form any better, so I just start again. “I don’t do the love thing.”
“Then let her go, because that’s the only thing that will bring her back.”
I let Hannah’s words sink in. I weigh them against what I feel, and then I turn on my heel and walk out of the kitchen. She’s right. I need to let her go.
28
Haley
I stare at the blinking number four on my phone. Four new voicemails. I know who they’re from. Nixon. His number is listed with each message and again about a dozen times in my missed calls list. I want to listen to them so badly. I want to hold my phone up to my ear, hear a confession of love, hear him begging me to come back, and then I want to put my heart at ease and run back into his arms. But I don’t listen because I know that’s not what they’ll say.
Nixon doesn’t do love. He was clear about that. Owned up to it early on. No, this ache in my chest is my fault. It falls squarely on my shoulders. I let myself get too close, let myself expect him to be more and give more than he’s capable of. I let myself hope he would be different. But he’s not. The mistakes, all of them, are mine.
Hope is as powerful as love and, for me, more dangerous. And I may have fallen prey to both.
I turn my phone facedown on the table beside the sofa. It’s been two days since I left the ranch. I’ve talked to Dad, Hannah, and Hope. I’ve explained to them that I can’t be there right now. I left out the part about how I’ll never set foot on that ranch again. I can’t bear to utter those words quite yet, and I know they don’t need to hear them. So, for their sakes, I keep that hope alive.
My phone rings. It’s Lia.
“What time is your flight again?”
“Five fifty.”
“You sure you don’t want me to give you a ride to the airport?”
“I’m sure. You’ve had a long day, and I’m sure you’ll just want to curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and relax.”
“Actually,” she begins hesitantly. “I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I wasn’t going to mention it, but since he’ll be there before you leave, I sort of have to.”
“He?”
“You remember Dwight, the bartender?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we’ve been sort of seeing each other.”
“Sort of or you are seeing each other?”
A short pause. “We’re definitely seeing each other.”
“Lia, that’s great! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’re in the middle of a breakup. Like I’d ever parade a guy around in front of your broken heart.”
“I told you I don’t have a—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what you say.”
“It’s true. I—”
“Who are you lying to, Haley? Me or yourself?” When I don’t respond, she prompts me with two syllables. “Ha-ley?”
I don’t have to see Lia to know what her face looks like. She’s wearing the look. I can tell by her tone of voice. They go hand in hand.
The look is this expression that Lia mastered long ago. It’s like a truth gun that pierces all the way to your soul and forces you to examine the reality of any given situation. It’s a gift for Lia, who can worm information out of anyone, even a perfect stranger. For everyone else on the planet, it’s a curse.
Even over the phone, it has the desired effect, ripping open all that I would keep hidden and forcing me to face the facts. My chin starts to tremble and the backs of my eyes burn.
“I…I didn’t mean to fall in love with him, Lia. I knew better.” I sniffle. “I knew better.”
Lia sighs. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
I can all but feel her arms come around me. Lia can convey a lot with her voice.
“That’s why I have to leave. I can’t afford to make another mistake. The last two have cost me too much.”
“Are you sure he’d be a mistake?”
“Well, he’s already lied to me, and he told me upfront that he doesn’t ‘do love,’ so yeah. I think so.”
“Are you sure you should be going back to Colorado at a time like this? Maybe you shouldn’t be alone so much right now.”
“No, I think solitude might be what I need most. At least for a while.” I give her a bitter laugh. “This will probably be the one time I’m thankful that all our friends sided with Trevor.”
“Assholes,” she mutters. “If you’re sure…”
“I’m sure. But thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Live a miserable existence free of all the chaos that I like to think I can bring to a relationship.”
“You can certainly do that.”
We both laugh.
“Call me when you land, okay?”
“I will.”
“I love you, Hay.”
“Love you, too.”
Here we go again.
What is it with me and all the Mr. Wrongs?
29
Nixon
The door to my hotel room closes with a loud thump. I don’t even care that it’s closer to dawn than to dusk. I just want to outrun the demon that’s riding my ass.
I don’t bother getting undressed or even taking off my shoes. All I want is sleep, something that’s been irritatingly elusive since Haley left. I couldn’t sleep in the cottage at all. I spent last night in the bunkhouse, in an empty bunk, surrounded by snoring ranch hands. I knew when I woke up that I needed to get away. At least for a few days. Get my head screwed on right. Even now, I’m not entirely sure how it got unscrewed. But it did. And I know who did it. I just don’t know how she did it.
I wasn’t lying when I told Haley that I don’t do love. I don’t. I don’t want to. Not ever again. Evidently I do, do something else, though—whatever this gnawing, inescapable need is. I feel something for her; I just don’t know what to call it. But it’s not love.
It can’t be love.
I won’t let it be love.
I fall, face-first, onto the bed and into an exhausted sleep. As far as I know, I don’t move until morning, but the first thing on my mind when I do is the very thing I went to sleep thinking of—two hazel-green eyes, soft and inviting, staring up at me from a halo of red hair.
30
Haley
I’ve spent an entire week locked away in my apartment. I’ve only showered once during that time and the only fresh air I’ve breathed was on day two when I stepped outside to get the mail. My eyes are puffy from crying, my hair looks like I’m starting dreadlocks, and I’m afraid to look at what’s growing in my armpits. Each delivery person who has brought some needful thing to my house has given me increasingly strange looks. I finally realized that I’m fourteen cats away from being crazy cat lady.
Today, I’m drawing the line.
I get up, shower, and dress in something that isn’t made of spandex. I step outside and turn right, heading down the street to the store. I turn in under the sign that proclaims TUMBLEWEEDS. Never having graduated from college, all Trevor wanted me to do in life was drape myself over his arm, to look good and smile and say all the right things to his friends and associates. At first, that was fine with me, but after a few years, I wanted something more out of life than trophy wife status.
For years, I listened to Trevor’s friends’ wives talk about difficulty finding a local spot to shop for high-end “outdoorsy” stuff. Having been born and raised in Texas, I couldn’t imagine having that problem, but most of those women were more accustomed to glitzy parties back east rather than five-star lodges decorated with antlers and cowhides. So, I started thinking about opening a boutique that offered casual, luxury clothing appropriate for the west. Trevor wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t want his wife to be a business owner. “Business owner,” he’d say with a sneer, like that was such an awful thing. So of course, that’s the first thing I did when the divorce was final, and I had a sizeable chunk of money to spend. I opened Tumbleweeds.
The bell overhead rings delicately when I swing through, and Janice’s head pops up from behind a rack of sweaters. She’s the store manager and someone I’d now consider a friend.
Her face lights up in a smile. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you for another couple of weeks. During your call, didn’t you say you were planning on being gone for a month or so?”
“My trip didn’t last as long as I expected.”
“Everything okay?”
I muster a smile. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Just needed to get back. I thought I’d reach out to that new leather crafter I told you about. I think hand-stitched suede would go nicely with our collection, don’t you?”
“I think it would be to die for.”
I nod in agreement. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
I walk through the store, glancing at the racks and custom shelving as I pass, like I have since the day they were installed. Today, however, things feel different. The satisfaction I usually feel isn’t as vibrant and alive in me; in fact, this place almost feels hollow, like whatever life inhabited it is gone.
I know nothing has changed with the store, though. Numbers are going in the right direction, and it’s already a success by anyone’s standards, especially for being a new venture. No, this isn’t because of anything related to Tumbleweeds. This is related to Nixon Holt. This is just another symptom, another unwanted consequence of getting involved with the wrong man. I might’ve stood a chance if I hadn’t slept with him, but that night…
Every time I think of the way he looked at me, the way he stared down into my eyes like he never wanted to let me go, I know without a doubt that was a turning point. It could’ve been a turning point for the better, but unfortunately, it was a turning point for the worse.
I step into my office and close the door. I set my purse on the chair in front of my desk, and, before I can chastise myself out of doing it, I take out my phone and hit the home button. The screen lights up and shows only a text from Hope and one from Dad. Hope has apologized at least a million times since I left, apologized for not being more understanding about my reasons for leaving the first time. My guess is that, since the cat’s out of the bag with Nixon, Hannah told her everything that happened with Jason. It doesn’t make it any less painful, but it helps to know that something good came from that awful time in my life. It eventually repaired the hard feelings my baby sister harbored toward me. Of course, there would’ve been no hard feelings if it hadn’t happened, but there’s no point going down that road. I can’t rewrite history. I can only work with the present.
Other than those texts, my phone is undisturbed. No missed calls. No new voicemails. It’s been four days since Nixon’s last call. He called often at first, before I left Texas. Dozens of calls, several messages. Over the following two days, once I returned to Colorado, he called a dozen more times and left me three more messages. The next day, one call. The day after that, nothing. And there’s been nothing since then.
Nixon has given up. Walked away.
He’s done fighting.
It couldn’t have been love if he could give up that easily.
I sit down at my desk and squeeze my eyes closed as I wait for the burning to go away.
31
Nixon
I check my phone. I don’t know why. It never holds what I want most to see—contact from Haley. It’s been three weeks since she left and no word. Nothing. Nada.
Life has gone on, business as usual. Everything is the same except me. I haven’t gone on.
I just can’t seem to shake this bone-deep feeling that I screwed up something different, something special. Like once-in-a-lifetime special. But there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I’ve called Haley an embarrassing number of times. Left messages, too. She hasn’t responded. I guess nothing I say matters to her at this point. Her mind is made up. The best thing I could do is stop thinking about her. Stop caring if I hear from her. She’s obviously okay. Her family wouldn’t be able to keep it from me if she weren’t. I don’t think they’d even try. They know I care about her, so… I’m pretty sure it’s not that.
I thought she’d come around. I thought she just needed time to cool off. I knew she had trust issues, but I thought our situation was different. I thought surely she’d be able to understand that it wasn’t of my making.
I was wrong.
It was a deal-breaker for her. She’s just done. She walked away. And that’s what I need to do.
With a growl, I open my laptop. I go through numbers and projects and emails and proposals until my eyes are so bleary I can hardly hold them open. But the instant I’m
finished, I’m right back at square one. Haunted by those damned eyes that I can’t get out of my head.
How can I forget? How can I get her out of my system long enough to move on?
The answer to my problem slams into me like a welcomed eighteen-wheeler. I actually let my head fall back, and I laugh. Why this hasn’t occurred to me yet is beyond me. I guess I’ve been too focused on Haley. That’s the worst thing I could do, though. I’ve got a hangover, one helluva hangover, and I’ve been treating it with all the wrong medicines. What I need is some hair of the dog that bit me, and since I don’t have access to Haley, I’ll simply go and find someone who will fill that need. Easy.
I stand up, stretch, and then head for the shower. I smile for the first time in weeks.
32
Haley
“I think you’d be surprised by how well things are going, Haley. Maybe you should come back.” It’s Hannah again, trying to use her subtle manipulations to get me to come home.
“I can’t get away right now, but maybe for Christmas.”
Thanksgiving is still a couple weeks away. Surely I can milk that “maybe Christmas” thing for another month. I just need to buy some more time, time to heal before I tackle the future.
Since I broke my ten-year absence from the ranch, it’ll be harder for me to stay away without going into great detail about why I don’t want to return this time. I can’t use the same excuse I have for the last decade, and I really don’t want to get into the subject of Nixon with my siblings right now. Certainly not with my father. So I’ll keep putting them off until I can’t put them off any longer. Then I’ll have to decide what to do.
But today’s not that day.
“He’s not even here you know.”
My heart drops into my stomach. Hannah is aware of some of the things that transpired, but even she doesn’t know how bad it is on my end. She doesn’t know I fell in love with him, nor do I plan to tell her any time soon. I don’t think I could stand to hear the pity in her voice or to hear the “you’re gonna be all right” speech.
Tequila High Page 15