His Reckless Heart (The Montgomery Boys Book 1)

by Jessica Mills

  The screen door banged behind me as I walked in and I winced. The screen door banging was one of those irrational things that set Dad off, and at this time of the early evening, I knew he was in the next room over. He had to have heard it. Whatever was going on with his mental faculties didn’t affect his hearing one damn bit.

  Just as I figured, Dad’s voice bellowed from the room over. That was something else he never used to do. We would get our ears whacked for shouting from across the house, and Dad was the first to say he’d rather take a minute to answer you and be in the same room than to shout from another room over like a heathen.

  But his booming, thick voice rattled me, just like it did every single time, and struck me still where I stood. The doorknob of the wooden main door still in my hand, I froze, and fear creeped up the back of my neck as he came stomping into the hall.

  It was ridiculous, and I knew it. I was a man now, old enough not to feel like this anymore. But there was a part of me that was still a seven-year-old boy, terrified of his father’s anger. But when I was seven, he rarely ever showed anger. He was known for his even temper.

  Not now. Not those red, wide eyes and puffy face, tanned with years of work outside. Work with horses and wood and dirt and an open sky. Man’s work. He was an old man now, but no less a man, and the weathered lines across his brow displayed an anger I had rarely seen in him in all my teenage fuck-ups and fights with the Hayes boys and whatever else hell I raised. It didn’t even seem real.

  “Boy, you get the hell in this living room right now,” he shouted, pointing at the room where his easy chair sat by the fire. It was his favorite room. No television, only a radio, and it was always tuned to a country-western station. Or at least it was until recently. Now it just droned on with newscasts or evangelists, always screaming to the heavens about some other thing that was a sign of the end times.

  I shut the door quietly and headed into the room. As much as I wanted to ignore him and just head up for a shower, I knew I had to obey my father. At least enough to do as he asked and come into the room. I had no intention of groveling.

  Instead of sitting, Dad paced to the fireplace and grabbed a beer off the mantle. A picture of him and Mom sat beside it, and it fell over when he swiped the beer up. Normally, Dad would have righted it immediately, apologetically, as if he had insulted Mom’s memory. This time, he just looked down at it and grunted before turning the wild eyes back on me. I realized I was holding my breath. My chest hurt, and it had a bunch of reasons why.

  “You’re a damn stupid idiot, boy, you know that?”

  “Excuse me, sir?” I asked with a bit more force than I intended.

  He straightened up like I just challenged him, and when he spoke again, his voice was crystal clear but lower, deeper, and quieter. “I said you’re a damn stupid idiot, boy. You know that?”

  “I didn’t mean to let the door slam,” I began.

  “I didn’t mean to let the door slam,” he mocked with his voice cartoonishly high and whiny. “Of course you didn’t! You don’t think about your actions! You never do. You’re the damn stupidest boy in the whole damn state, and I hate that you have my last name.”

  It should have hurt. It should have made my blood boil and my heart sink. But it wasn’t the first time he’d said something like this—and always when the other boys weren’t around. Always when we were alone and always for some transgression, either real or imagined, I had made.

  “Why don’t you ever go after my brothers like this?” I asked without thinking.

  Dad stopped mid-swig of his beer and looked at me over the top of the bottle. It was as if, for a moment, he faded away, his brain just checking out. Then suddenly, it was back. So was his fury.

  “Your brothers might be dumber than damn dirt, and they might piss me off sometimes, but at least they work. At least they earn it.”

  “I do just as much work as my brothers,” I said.

  “The hell you do,” he muttered and turned like he was going to sit. He placed one hand on the arm of his chair and then paused, like he forgot what he was doing. Suddenly, he stood up straight and turned to the fireplace. I followed his gaze to the floor where the picture still lay.

  “Clean that up,” he yelled. “What did you do to that picture?”

  “What? I didn’t do anything, Dad. You did. You knocked it over when you picked up the bottle.”

  Before I could get anything else out, Dad came at me. His mind might not have been there, but his body could still move when it wanted to, and he was on me like lightning. He shoved me hard and I slammed into the wall. A lamp that was plugged into the wall where I hit fell over when my leg tangled in its wire, and a couple of pictures fell off. I went to one knee but jumped back up instinctively.

  Dad’s fists were clenched but he had stopped where he shoved me. He was in a fighting stance, and I realized I needed to move very carefully if I didn’t want a fistfight with him. I was fighting already with everything inside myself not to shove him back. The last thing I needed was to start swinging at him.

  “You entitled little shit,” he seethed, spittle forming in the corner of his mouth. “You don’t deserve a damn thing from this ranch. Not a blade of this grass. Not a single damn blade of my grass is yours, you hear me? This is your brothers’ legacies, but not yours, Jesse. You understand what I am telling you? They earned it. They want it! Not you.”

  I stood up, and my vision was blood red. I wanted to shove him back, lay into him a few times, and show him I wasn’t some brat kid he could push around. I wasn’t little anymore. And I was just as big and worthy as my brothers.

  But I couldn’t. I had to stop myself before I did something stupid, something I would regret for the rest of my life. My fists clenched and unclenched, and my mouth opened and shut without a sound coming out. I wanted to find the words to tell him how to fuck off and never bother me again, but the scared little kid in me just wanted to be quiet. To behave. Then maybe he would stop.

  “Got something to say, Jesse?” he grumbled at me, his fists still ready for a fight. His last remaining wisps of hair on the top of his head, balding after years of hiding in a cowboy hat or a trucker cap, hung low in front of his wide wild eyes.

  I shook my head. He wasn’t worth the words. Instead, I stomped out of the room, brushing by him and almost hoping he took a hack at me. Then it would be self-defense, more so than retaliation from being pushed anyway. Then when my brothers came home and the old man was laid out with a bloody nose and I was standing over him, I could tell them he came at me. Even if they wouldn’t believe it—they already had doubts about how I told them he treated me—at least I would know I told the truth.

  He didn’t take a swing, though. He didn’t even seem to move as I walked by. It was like I hadn’t moved, and he was stuck there, his feet and his mind both made of cement. I hauled my ass up the stairs like it was on fire and slammed my door shut. Before I realized what I was doing, I had a suitcase open and was tossing things inside indiscriminately. Clothes, pictures, hats, whatever I came across that I thought I might need in the next few weeks, I tossed in.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d packed my things, but something told me it was the last. Usually, I just went through the motions of packing everything up, then took a shower, calmed down and dipped out for the night. Usually to go get Shannon. But this time, it felt different. This time, I was done. I couldn’t waste another second.

  Still, I dragged myself to the shower and turned the water on. I let it stay somewhat cold, partially because I was still so hot from being outside all day but also in the hope it would help me think. I jumped in and washed down quickly, getting the dirt of the ranch off me. It was important that I washed it all away. Every bit of the ranch, the dirt, the work of being a Montgomery boy needed to go down that drain before I did what I was thinking of doing next.

  Then I turned the heat up and tried in vain to calm myself. Yet the more I thought about it, the surer I was. I had to leave. To
night. Right now. I couldn’t say goodbye to anybody, or else I’d talk myself into staying. That was how it was there in Green Valley.

  I turned the shower off, and a wave of sadness welled up in my throat, and I forced it down. This was it. I went back into my room stark naked and not caring. A houseful of boys rarely had time for much modesty, but I was way past caring anymore. I stalked into the room and yanked a shirt and jeans out of the suitcase, sliding them on and putting my good boots on. The ones that never saw work. The ones I wore to Shannon’s.

  I tried to block that thought out. I couldn’t think about her right now. I couldn’t think about anything but leaving. If I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t ever, and just as much as I knew that, I knew I couldn’t stay here anymore either. Not with him. Not with whoever he was now.

  Grabbing the suitcase, I took the stairs one at a time. I wanted him to know I was leaving. I wanted whatever was left of my father to have a chance to say something, anything, to keep me here, to make me stay. Some glimmer of the man he was before. Some glimmer of hope that I was still his son.

  I paused for just a moment as I crossed by the living room in the hall, picking up my keys from the bowl, and looked back over my shoulder into the living room. I could see his hand, resting on the arm of his easy chair, which was turned away from me. The radio was on, but it was just voices. Whether it was some preacher, a newscast, or a commercial, I didn’t know. But in his hand was the picture of Mom and him from when they were young. Before the boys. Before me. He held it there and sat. Then he grunted and set the picture down on the end table beside him and reached over to turn the radio up.

  The last thing I heard when I opened the door and walked through was the theme song to some show about to play. I didn’t stick around to hear what it was. I shut the door behind me and let the screen door slam. I walked slowly and with purpose to the old pickup and tossed my suitcase in the passenger’s side. Revving the engine, I looked back at the house through the driver’s window that was perennially stuck half-open. I expected to see the old man standing there. He’d either be yelling about the screen door, or confused as to who was outside, or want to talk to me. But he wasn’t there. The light from the living room was still on, though dimmer now that the lamp was out, and if I strained hard enough, I was sure I could hear his show.

  I flicked the radio of the truck on and turned the volume up loud. Hank Sr. wailed out of the speakers, his lonesome voice crackling with the age of the recording and the radio that played it. Slamming my foot on the gas, I knew in that moment I was never going to come back. I was done. I was free.

  I was my own man.

  And I was mad as hell.

  Chapter 24

  Shannon

  Now…

  I felt like I couldn’t move after Jesse finished telling me about the events the night he’d left Green Valley. The words hit me, some of them sinking in and others bouncing off like they were too difficult for me to process.

  I knew something happened. As much as people tried to tell me he just left because he was just a no-good Montgomery boy and I needed to forget him, I never really believed that. There was a part of me that forced myself to think of him that way. If I didn’t, the pain would have gotten too much, and I wouldn’t have been able to get through the last few years.

  But then there was the other part. The part deepest down in my heart that kept me in Green Valley, kept me in the same place even though I always said I would go out and find something else. That was a part of me that knew Jesse didn’t just lie. That was a story, something that led to him making such a rash decision. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but at least it was something more.

  But that part of me still wasn’t prepared to hear the harrowing story of what really led to him disappearing in the middle of the night. I wanted it to be something else. It would have been easier if it had been something else.

  If there could be something that I was allowed to be mad about, I could convince myself he needed to be forgiven and the desperate, sad look in his eyes was warranted. But that wasn’t true.

  The fight he had with his father sounded horrifying. Not just because of how painful it would be to face something like that with a parent, but because that wasn’t who the elder Montgomery used to be.

  I could vividly remember the stories he told me when he was still here, when we were younger. He talked about how his father was slipping away. He could see his mind failing right along with his body and it was excruciating. Allen Montgomery had always been strong, resilient, and ready to face and handle anything that might come into his path, especially when it came to the ranch and his boys.

  That had made the fight with him even harder for Jesse. He always did everything he could to do well for his father and make him proud, and in return, Allen had always made his boys feel protected and taken care of. That mattered the most after their mother died and the family was left grappling with the emptiness she left behind. But as old age and the debilitating illness took over Allen Montgomery’s life, all that was dissolved away.

  It seemed Jesse no longer mattered. Even worse than that, he seemed to be both the source and recipient of all of his father’s anger and frustration. It tore Jesse apart, and even though he tried hard to persevere, to push through and just deal with it, eventually he couldn’t anymore. He had to go. I only wished I’d had the chance to know when it happened.

  Maybe I could have gone with him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.

  Jesse shook his head, adjusting the ice pack over his sore ribs. “I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Not even to your brothers?” I asked.

  He looked at me with intensity in his eyes, his jaw set like he was fighting against the motion pouring out of him. “Especially my brothers. They never saw Dad like that. He never lashed out at them or used them as a punching bag. I don’t want them to ever know how cruel he could be in the end. It was just me. And to this day, I don’t know why. But the point is, they idolized him right up until the end just like they did when he was all there, and I don’t want to take that away from them. The only way any of us were able to get through watching him be so sick was remembering the man he used to be. To them, he was still that man. He was just getting older and weaker and more forgetful. They didn’t know what he could actually do and what he did do to me all the time. I can’t change what happened. And telling them isn’t going to do any good.”

  “Don’t you think they deserve to know why you left?” I asked.

  “No,” Jesse said simply, without hesitation. “As far as they know, I left because I wanted to. They think I left because I didn’t want the life I’d been groomed to have my entire childhood. I don’t think it would have any benefit for them to know anything else. All seven of them believe I made a choice based on the type of life I wanted. I didn’t want to work the ranch or stay here in Green Valley, so I left, and I joined the military. At least that was something productive. I was making something of myself and contributing to the world. Just because it wasn’t on the ranch didn’t mean I didn’t do something to better me as a person and help other people.”

  “And you think that’s all that matters?” I asked.

  “It’s all that will matter,” he told me. “They were pissed for a long time and I know it hurt them when I left. But I would much rather them be angry at me and think I was selfish and left them than for them to know the truth. I’m still here. They’ve forgiven me and accepted me back. We have the rest of our lives to settle any bad feelings between us and for them to be able to move on. They don’t have that with Dad. If I was to tell them what really went on between our father and me, it would sound like I was making excuses. They would think I was lying about him and disrespecting the dead. And if they did believe me, then I would have just destroyed their image of their hero. Our whole lives, he was the strongest, most impressive man who ever walked the planet. He taught us to be responsible
and resilient. They still push themselves and fight through every bit of adversity they face in honor of him. If I took that away from them or somehow tarnished their image of him, there would be nothing that would ever bring it back. He can’t redeem himself now. So why do that?”

  My heart broke for him. I could see how much the past still hurt Jesse and how desperately he clung to his belief that he needed to suffer all of this in silence. He had gone through all that and didn’t want to tell anyone because he wanted to protect his brothers. He wanted to protect his father.

  Even after everything Allen put him through, Jesse held on to his love for him and the way he looked at him when he was young. He believed with everything in him that his father was still a good man. Even though he didn’t understand what drove him to treat him that way or how he could have done that if he really loved him the way he said he did. That didn’t matter to him as much as not letting anyone speak badly about his father or hurting his brothers by letting them know the truth.

  He had been bearing this pain for so long. He carried it completely on his own, never telling anyone what he went through or how it affected him. The whole time he was gone, he dealt with the torment and horrible memories on his own. Then in the times he was back in Green Valley, he still didn’t say anything.

  They were few and far between. And maybe I understood that better now. Allen’s death hadn’t changed his willingness to stuff the pain down and take the brunt of his brothers’ disappointment and anger. That wasn’t something Jesse deserved. He never deserved for his father to treat him that way, and he didn’t deserve to have to hold it in and bear it alone.

  “Your father loved you, Jesse. With all his heart. He wasn’t the man he became in the end. You know that, don’t you?”

  Jesse shrugged and looked away, pretending to concentrate more on the ice against his ribs. I curled up close to him and kissed the side of his neck. His skin smelled fresh and clean, but there was still a hint of something beneath the scent of the soap, something distinctly Jesse. He let out a sigh and rested his chin on my head.