His Reckless Heart (The Montgomery Boys Book 1)

by Jessica Mills

  Garrett was the unpredictable bad boy who would act out, but there was something about Wade that was even more intimidating. He brooded and simmered but never lashed out and had always been there at the ranch. It made him the brother I was least comfortable hanging around with by myself. I could never get a read on him and that threw me off.

  “No,” I told him. “He didn’t. I didn’t even know he was planning on coming over. He didn’t call me or anything. And after yesterday...” My voice trailed off.

  “You know how Jesse is,” Wade said, drifting away from any concern he might have felt. “He’s probably somewhere quiet sitting with his thoughts. Don’t worry about him. He’ll be all right.”

  It seemed like nothing for him to say that. He was so convinced, completely unaffected by not knowing where Jesse was or why he would say he was coming to see me but didn’t. I wished it was that easy. I wished I could be that casual and unaffected. But I always worried about him. That wasn’t something that had changed since we were young. Before I could say anything to Wade, the door opened, and Clayton’s head popped out.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, staring at Wade. Then he seemed to notice me, and his expression turned into a smile. “Hey, there, Shannon. How are you doing this evening?”

  “Clayton, we’re in the middle of a conversation,” Wade said.

  “Did I interrupt something?” Clayton asked. He looked at Wade questioningly. “I’m not, right?”

  “Not like you think you are,” Wade said. “But you are interrupting a conversation.”

  “Good, because I wouldn’t want to be interrupting something I wasn’t supposed to interrupt because somebody wouldn’t want me to interrupt that,” Clayton said.

  He lifted his eyebrows in that way that people did when they thought they were communicating something subtly to someone else and none of the other people in the conversation would notice it. That only made me lift my eyebrows at him in return.

  “Well, that was clear,” I said.

  “Clayton, go inside,” Wade said.

  “I don’t want to,” Clayton said. “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it? I think I will just step on out here and enjoy some fresh air as well.” His voice was stilted, like he still wasn’t completely convinced Wade wasn’t trying to hit on me or somehow interfere.

  “You need to stop being so nosey,” Wade said.

  Clayton looked at him like he was deeply offended by the implications. “I am not being nosey,” he said, then turned to look toward me. “What are you doing around these parts tonight, Shannon?”

  The contradiction almost made me laugh, but my worry for Jesse kept the humor away.

  “I came to see Jesse,” I told him. “We haven’t spoken since yesterday, and I thought I would come out here to make sure he was still getting along fine. But Wade here tells me he isn’t even home.”

  “That’s right,” Clayton said. “He said he would be going out this evening to see you. He was going to go over to your place and visit.”

  “That’s news to me,” I said. “Like I told you, I haven’t heard from him since yesterday. Not a phone call, not a text, nothing. And I’ve been up at the shop all day. I haven’t even been at my place since this morning.”

  “Are you saying nobody knows where Jesse is?” Clayton asked.

  “That’s what we were just getting to talking about,” Wade said.

  “Why didn’t you just say so?” Clayton asked.

  “Because you aren’t a part of the conversation,” Wade pointed out.

  All the Montgomery boys had different relationships with each other and different dynamics when they engaged in smaller groups amongst themselves. The interaction between Clayton and Wade was particularly interesting. It was like they couldn’t quite get on the same page with their communication. They were trying to talk to each other but just kept missing. Soon, Wade rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. He started for the door.

  “You going inside?” Clayton asked.

  “Why not?” Wade asked. “I’m conceding. You two figure this shit out.”

  He abandoned the two of us standing there out on the porch, but Clayton looked back at me and shrugged.

  “I don’t know what his problem is,” he said.

  “He is probably worried about Jesse,” I pointed out. “According to him, Jesse specifically said he was going out to visit me. Just like he told you. But I definitely haven’t seen him and I haven’t heard from him. And none of you have heard from him, either. That seems like a bit of a reason to be alarmed.”

  “It’s going to be all right,” Clayton assured me. “I will help you look for him. He’s got to be around here somewhere. Most likely he had all the intentions in the world of going to see you but chickened out and ended up going to one of his old hiding places to think about everything.”

  “Chickened out?” I asked. “Why would he chicken out coming to see me? It’s not like I’m a new person in his life.”

  “That’s the point,” Clayton said. “You are not a new person in his life. You are the oldest person in his life other than us brothers.”

  “I don’t know if I love being described as the oldest person in his life,” I joked.

  “Fine. You are the one with the greatest staying power. How does that sound?”

  “Like the smell in a laundry detergent,” I told him.

  “There are far worse things you could be compared to. But I don’t think Jess is comparing you to anything. That’s the point. It’s been a long time since the two of you were together, but he hasn’t been able to keep his mind off you since he came back here. Even if he doesn’t say anything about it, I can see it in his eyes. You lit him up when you showed up here the day after he came home. Like you said, there’s something in him. Something that’s missing but that he’s also carrying with him now. He seemed just about empty when he finally got back here. But when he saw you again for the first time, it’s like something filled him back up.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “It has been a long time. And he lit me up, too. I knew I missed him. Hell, everybody knew I missed that boy. But I had forgotten just how much until I saw him again. It was like a reminder of that big gap in my life he left when he wasn’t around anymore.”

  “I know that hurt you,” Clayton told me. “It would hurt anybody and I’m sorry you went through it. But I have to tell you, I’m glad you’re still sticking by Jesse.”

  “I always will. You don’t have to worry about that. Neither does Jesse. I will always stick by his side. As long as he wants me to be there.”

  “Hopefully, that’s true,” Clayton said. “He needs a good woman like you. We all do.”

  “I think I have an idea of where to look,” I said. “But we need to cover more ground and we can do that more easily if we aren’t together.”

  “You’re right,” Clayton said. “We need to find him before it gets too much later. We’ll split up. But make sure you have your phone available.”

  “I do,” I told him. We split ways and I headed out as fast as I could.

  Chapter 31

  Jesse

  The creek that wound its way through the ranch was always a welcome sight during the hot summer days when I was younger. Working under the intense Montana sun made me feel like I was baking, and the jeans, boots, and long-sleeved shirts I usually wore to protect myself while I fed the animals, did repairs, and handled any number of other tasks didn’t help.

  Long days of hard work started before the sun even came up. Those hours weren’t so bad. We got up when the sky was still dark and headed out across the ranch. But as the day continued and the sun rose up into the sky, the temperature increased until it sizzled on the backs of our necks and made every movement seem harder.

  But that creek was my relief. I looked forward to making my way to it all morning long. By afternoon, I was counting down the minutes until I got to take a break by the water. Even if it was just a few minutes, taking off my boots and dunking m
y feet down in the cold water and stretching out on my back in the shady grass revived me. It drew the heat out of me and gave me new energy to keep going through the rest of my day.

  It was also a chance to let my brain wander. That was what I was doing as I sprawled out close to the water and closed my eyes. Sundays were always slower at the ranch. There was no such thing as a true lazy day when you worked a ranch. Even on holidays, there was something that needed to be done. Christmas and Thanksgiving were the two days of the year we set aside to do as little as possible. We fed the animals more than usual on the day before and worked harder than ever in the days leading up to those holidays so we could justify staying home for those days.

  Sundays were a little glimpse of that throughout the year. We did our best to not have as much work at the end of the week. It was our God-given day of rest. Slowing down for the day kept us from running ourselves into the ground, which was a real possibility for some of us. Especially Cassidy and Clayton. Just like our father in our younger years. Those two worked themselves to the bone, never feeling like they did enough or that what they accomplished was satisfactory. There was always something they could do better and always something more they could fit into their day.

  That Sunday, I didn’t feel like I was taking a break from the hard work of the ranch. I was trying to find rest from life. Too much had built up within me, and the clash with my brothers pushed me over the edge.

  This wasn’t what I was expecting when I came back home. Not that I really knew what to expect. Everything changed the night I made the snap decision to take what I could and leave the ranch and everything else behind me. I didn’t think that life was ever going to be mine again.

  Cutting myself off from it then meant cutting myself off from it forever. I would have to find a different course, a different path to follow. Wherever it was that I journeyed, it wasn’t going to bring me back here.

  And yet, it did. Somehow, I ended up right back here at the ranch, trying to find my place again. At least this place, nestled by the creek, was still here, and it still felt like mine. I lay back in the cool grass and breathed in the scent of the rich earth around me. It held on to the heat of many days of sunlight and the scent of a summer of rainstorms. Breathing in that scent was breathing in the life of the ranch.

  Across the creek, the land turned to gently rolling hills where the cattle liked to graze and my brothers and I sledded in the winter. When the temperature dropped down to the type of cold that went into our bones and the sky turned white, we knew the snow was coming. Right up until the winter before I left, when we were probably too old to be running out across the grounds and laughing as we threw snowballs at each other, we would head to the hills and slide down.

  When Shannon joined us, she sat between my thighs and leaned back against my chest. We flew down the hill with her screaming, then tumbled into the snow at the bottom. I gathered her into my arms and kissed her, rolling with her if there was any more hill left.

  Those memories were still there.

  Behind those hills, the mountains rose up from the earth like monuments. When I was overseas and people asked where I came from, those mountains always came to mind, even when I wouldn’t let myself think about the ranch or my brothers. When I kept my father’s face far from my thoughts and closed my heart to longing for Shannon, I thought of those mountains. They stood powerful and strong against the horizon, loyal and determined. Never changing, never leaving, never falling. Completely reliable.

  Unlike so many things in life.

  When I was young and used to lie in this very spot, the idea that life wouldn’t keep flowing along just like the creek in front of me, steady and dependable as the mountains in the distance, never crossed my mind. It never occurred to me I didn’t know what was ahead of me or that I would ever question everything. Even with Shannon talking about the big adventures she wanted us to take and all the things she wanted to see and do, life wasn’t up in the air. Doing all those things with her didn’t have to alter what I saw for my future. We could go out into the world and chase whatever dreams she might have, but we’d roam right back onto these rolling hills and spend our evenings on the porch looking at the mountains in the distance.

  Those thoughts seemed like a lifetime away.

  My mind wandered to my father. There was a time when he stood up in my mind like those mountains. He was strong, sturdy, and unchanging. Until that all disappeared. His anger came on gradually. I didn’t think much about it when I first started noticing his mood shifting and his temper shortening. Gruff men weren’t unusual on ranches, and while time might mellow some, it acted like sandpaper to others, making them rough and gritty around the edges. It didn’t seem all that strange to me. Not until it got worse and more frequent. Until every day there was something that set him off, and then there was nothing to set him off and it was just there. Always there.

  At least for me. It didn’t seem the same for my brothers. They didn’t see what I did or know this changed version of our father. There was so much I didn’t know about him. Hearing my brother tell me our father suffered from PTSD was a shock. It hit me like an explosion, burrowing down into me, stirring up a whole new storm of questions.

  How could I not know he dealt with those things? If Cassidy knew, how did I not? I wondered when my brother found out about how intensely our father’s years in the military affected him. Was this something he knew when we were younger and that was why he never acknowledged any of the changes that came over him? I’d gone all this time just assuming the other brothers never noticed the anger and were never on the receiving end of his fury and violence.

  But maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe all of them saw it, but I was the only one who didn’t have the insight to understand it. But that didn’t seem possible. He wouldn’t have left just one of his sons out of knowing that part of his life. If my older brother knew about my father’s PTSD before I left, it was a confidence between just the two of them. What was more likely was he didn’t find out about it until after I was gone, when moments of lucidity and understanding of what was going on around him told our father he pushed me away.

  I still struggled with not knowing that vital bit about him, especially now. How could I not see the same things in myself?

  But even more than that, what else didn’t I know? Were there other elements of my father I never got a chance to understand? Could there have been more at play behind the scenes that last day I was on the ranch? Maybe there was something else happening, something I didn’t see and didn’t understand, that led to the final fight that pushed me over the edge and made me leave.

  That night had stayed with me for years. When I drove away from the ranch that last time, I told myself I wasn’t ever going to think about it again. I wasn’t going to let myself keep dwelling on what happened or give up another single moment of my life worrying about my father and what he put me through. But that was not how it worked out. My memories wouldn’t let me just push that night away. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fight that shattered everything for me.

  I always believed it was just something about me that made him act like that. There was something that made him not like me, or at least to take all his anger and frustration out on me. He was angry because I didn’t work as hard as my brothers or because I was too much like my mother. Now I wonder if it was because I was too much like him. And maybe it wasn’t me at all. Dad could have really been upset about something else, but I was the one who was there to trigger him and send him off the deep end.

  I didn’t take the time to find out what was wrong or what was causing him to be the way he was. Every time it happened, I just felt the pain and that was all I thought about. It never occurred to me to think about what he might be going through and how all that might actually be what was creating the friction and conflict between us.

  Perhaps even more than wondering what was going on with my father that led to the fight that finally sent me away from home were the tho
ughts about how he coped when I was gone. All this time, I thought he probably just didn’t think about me anymore. It was likely a relief for him that I wasn’t around and wasn’t causing him so much turmoil. I made him angry all the time and just having me in the same room with him seemed to rile him up to the point that he couldn’t control himself. Having me gone was probably a welcome respite from all that. But now that I knew about his PTSD and started wondering what was going on just beneath the surface, I couldn’t help but wonder how that last fight and everything that went on between us in the weeks and months leading up to it impacted my father.

  I dealt with a lot of guilt and shame about the way I left Green Valley. Could my father have felt that way, too? Was that why we never reconnected before he died?

  I gazed up at the sky.

  “We were more alike than I imagined, Dad,” I murmured.

  That thought let my mind drift back to the man my father was before everything changed and the anger and Alzheimer’s took over. It was impossible not to admire him for everything he fought to become. The conflict between my brothers and the Hayes boys was nothing new. We didn’t create those arguments or the feud between the families. My father had more than his fair share of trials with Howard Hayes. Those were just one small fragment of the difficulties my father faced, though. He built up the ranch and went to war. He lost the love of his life and raised eight boys. He spent his life respecting the land and the small town that embraced him.

  I wanted to be a man like that. Not to cope with the same things or be dragged by life that way but to be the type of man who stayed strong and resilient, who lived his life with dignity as long as he could. I wanted to be that kind of man. I could be that kind of man. I just needed to step up and accept the help being offered. It was the least I could do to honor my father’s memory.

  I would never be able to change what happened between us. Nothing would ever change that last fight or any of the others we had and would never give me back the time I spent away from home and away from him. But I could show him respect and honor him.