Lone Wolf Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “That’s not true,” Gabe said. “We all have...stuff. And we can let it go.”

  “Do you hear yourself? You’re a smug married man and you haven’t even said your vows yet. You think that you know what everyone else should do? Gabe, that’s bull. You don’t know what I need to do, or what Caleb needs to do. When anyone needs to do it. I know that you cared about Clint. But it’s not the same.”

  “It’s the same enough,” Gabe said. “And it’s not the only thing. We have to deal with the half siblings.”

  “Why? Why do we have to deal with them? Because you had an attack of conscience. I didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you? Why doesn’t it matter to you?”

  “Because I don’t want to deal with the brothers I have right now,” Jacob said, knowing that he might regret that little outburst later. But he sure as hell didn’t regret it right now. Because right now it was true.

  “Listen to yourself. You sound like an arrogant dick. Deciding that everybody just needs to get with the program and get on the same page as you.”

  Gabe had the decency to look ashamed about that. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

  “But it is what you’re doing.”

  Gabe said nothing. He let everything settle between them into silence. “I didn’t come and see you on the mountaintop all those months ago to tell you about my plan so I could shame you into action. I promise. I came to talk to you because I thought you might be the one person who would understand. We all live with guilt. To differing degrees. And as much as Caleb seems more...available, I feel like he actually isn’t. I thought I could actually talk to you about it. I thought you might understand.”

  “I understand about guilt. But you’re talking about the kind of guilt you can do something about, Gabe. There’re people you can find and bring here and you can put salve on all those wounds that you have. Clint is dead.”

  “It’s not because of you.”

  “It is.”

  “That bull about how you could’ve traded flights, and he wouldn’t be dead.”

  “I declined going on that fire. I wasn’t late and missed it. I was in bed with a woman. And I didn’t want to get up. I got the call. I said no. Call Clint.”

  Gabe’s face went pale. “You never told me that.”

  “Yeah,” Jacob said. “I never told you that because it exposes what a dick I am. You think that I’m...the way that I am because I made up some story to tell myself about how if I had done things differently Clint would be alive? I didn’t have to make up any story, Gabe. It’s just true. And maybe in the end we can’t figure out the cosmic exchange that might’ve happened. Maybe with our slight weight difference the helicopter wouldn’t have crashed. Hell if I know. All I know is I sent my friend on that job.”

  “With good intentions. He had Ellie and she was having a baby. He needed the money...”

  “You act like I thought any of that through. I never thought a damn thing through in all my life. All I’ve ever done is live for myself. All I’ve ever done is live to make myself happy. At least Hank never killed anyone.”

  He turned and started to walk away from his brother.

  “You’re not like Dad,” Gabe said.

  “No,” Jacob said, stopping in his tracks. “You’re right. I’m not like Dad. Because Dad is likable. And at the end of the day, he’s turned out to be kind of a decent guy. I don’t know what I am.”

  “You’re trying.”

  “Trying doesn’t matter when Ellie doesn’t have a husband. Amelia doesn’t have a father. Dammit, Gabe, I can barely look at that little girl. If it weren’t for me her dad would be here.”

  “Jacob...”

  “I’m a piss-poor trade-off, Gabe. At least for them.”

  He walked away from his brother, feeling like he’d just had an epic tantrum, and he hated that more than the guilt.

  Showing it. Bleeding it.

  When everything settled down, and he was in the cab of his truck, halfway on the road back to his cabin, he realized that this was the first time he had ever told the story of that morning Clint had gotten sent out in the helicopter that had ultimately crashed.

  He was surprised he didn’t feel more about that either.

  If anything, he felt slightly relieved. Because maybe now Gabe would quit trying to fix him.

  Maybe now he would see that there were some things beyond fixing.

  And Jacob might be doing his damnedest to be a physical help to Gabe, to Ellie. But it didn’t mean he had to like it.

  Maybe Gabe would just quit asking him to like it.

  If he would just let him show up and do the work and leave, let him go off and be alone, they would both be better for it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS VANESSA PULLED her car up to Olivia’s quaint little front porch, she began to wish she would have made an excuse and stayed behind for the staff meeting.

  She had been back in town for long enough that it was strange she hadn’t seen her sister, so when Olivia had texted her, Vanessa had asked if she wanted to get together.

  She had an endless inner monologue running. An if-then flowchart of conversations she might have with Olivia. If Olivia said...then Vanessa would say. If, then. And on and on.

  The two of them hadn’t actually talked alone in...years.

  Granted, Luke and Emma would be there. But Emma was a baby, and Luke was a man, so she didn’t feel like they would do much of anything to diffuse the weight of the conversation. Emma probably more than Luke at the end of the day. Well, she’d made dinner plans, and she wasn’t a coward.

  Well, maybe she was a coward, but she wasn’t going to let those feelings win.

  She took great pride in that. When she could come up against a hard moment and make it her bitch.

  Because she used to fold like a house of cards beneath hard feelings. Fold into a pile of blissful nothing. Chasing a haze to help wear the sharp edges of life away.

  And now, she just let them cut her. Just let herself bleed.

  In many ways, she was at peace with discomfort.

  But that was in a generalized sense.

  In this very personal sense that reopened old wounds rather than creating new ones, it felt different.

  It was times like this she was reminded of why she had stayed away during the first few years of her sobriety.

  Her new life, all the new growth, made her feel like a new creation. Like something with a past wiped clean and nothing but bright clear skies stretching out before her.

  Here, she could feel the sins of the past wrapping themselves around her like old, dead roots, curling around her arms, making it feel difficult to breathe.

  She did not want to use, though, and she supposed that was a very good realization.

  In fact, the idea made her feel even sicker here than it had back in LA.

  Like a memory of someone else. But one that was strong and more haunting than she would’ve liked. She steeled herself and walked up the front porch, and before she could knock, the door opened, the dainty little wreath hanging there shaking slightly as it did.

  And there was a mirror image of herself. A slightly rounder face, longer hair, but very clearly a person with the same collection of features.

  They were a very definite example of a person’s looks not extending beyond the surface of skin.

  Because they had never been the same, and the years had only widened the gulf between them.

  Even in her recovery, Vanessa just wasn’t the same. She couldn’t explain how, not right then, or why she was so certain of it. But she was. And as she stood there facing her sister, she really wished that she hadn’t come. But she had. So she had to buck up and deal with it.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” Olivia said, reaching out and folding Vanessa into her arms.

  Maybe the warm show of feelings should have made Vanessa feel welcome. Should have made her reevaluate her emotions about being at Olivia’s house.

  It didn’t. If
anything it only further entrenched the feeling of wrongness that had settled over her from the moment she had pulled into the driveway.

  “Me too,” she said, forcing a smile and following her sister into the sitting room. It was an old-fashioned home. A Victorian-era farmhouse with spindly wood beams on the porch and matching detail inside. Lace curtains that fluttered over windows that offered a view out to the field, currently dotted with yellow flowers, a woven rug on the floor.

  “This is different,” Vanessa said, looking around.

  She thought her sister would have preferred something a bit more like the house they’d grown up in. More classic, with additional modern conveniences.

  She also realized that every time she and her family had seen each other since reconnecting, it had been on neutral ground. A café or restaurant.

  But not her sister’s house.

  “Is it?” Olivia asked, looking around. “I thought it was rather classic.”

  “I didn’t mean different in the grand scheme of things. I meant different for you.”

  “Oh. I guess so. It’s like that dollhouse we used to have. Don’t you think?”

  Vanessa couldn’t remember the dollhouse. And she didn’t know what it said about her that said dollhouse, which had clearly been so formative for Olivia, didn’t seem to exist in Vanessa’s memory at all.

  “Right,” she said.

  “Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? I mean, a soft drink.”

  The words hit like bullets, even though Olivia probably wasn’t meaning to make her feel bad. She was probably making sure Vanessa knew she had something for her to drink. Which often, as a nondrinker, Vanessa found to be an issue. Some people didn’t seem to understand the concept of drinking for hydration, and not for altered consciousness.

  But even still, it made her feel...different. Separate.

  “Sure,” she said. “Iced tea?”

  “I have some,” Olivia said, smiling cheerfully and wafting from the room.

  Her sister was wearing a feminine floral dress and white sandals, and it was lovely, not as prim as she remembered Olivia being. In fact, Olivia did seem much more relaxed than she had when they were younger.

  Being with Luke had done good things for her. Vanessa knew that. She could see it.

  Olivia returned a few moments later. “You can take a seat,” she said, gesturing to a blue floral sofa, which was new but had an antique quality to it.

  “Thank you,” Vanessa said. “Are Luke and Emma here?”

  “Yes. Luke was just getting Emma up from her nap, and I suspect she’s wet.”

  Olivia said that with such casual flippancy. Vanessa couldn’t imagine being that casual about something of that nature.

  Wet babies.

  Vanessa was not in a space to think about babies. She supposed if she hadn’t had a miscarriage all those years ago she would have already been through this stage and offering sage wisdom.

  But instead she’d lost a baby. Gained an addiction.

  Lost herself.

  Found herself again.

  She was going to focus on the last part. That she was found. That she knew who she was.

  “Right.”

  Olivia stood in the doorway of the seating area, her hands grasping her elbows, her smile looking a little bit strange. Vanessa busied herself sipping her tea.

  “I hope you still like barbecued chicken,” Olivia said. “The kind you just do in the oven. With barbecue sauce. I remember you liked that when Mom made it. So I made it. You don’t have to take any green beans, though.”

  Olivia’s overearnest offer surprised Vanessa. It had been her favorite. Except for the green beans. Her mom had always made barbecued chicken with green beans, and Olivia loved green beans. So she and Vanessa had always engaged in a stealthy vegetable transfer at some point when their parents were distracted.

  Just a small amount of subterfuge. But it had always meant something to her because Olivia hated subterfuge.

  “Good. Well, hopefully it will be good.” Olivia twisted her hands. “I’m not as good at cooking as Mom is. I don’t have as much experience. But I cook for Luke now. I mean, sometimes he cooks for me too. But he only knows how to cook on the grill, and he refuses to cook anything but beef or venison. So if I want something less...you know, I have to do it.”

  The simple words gave Vanessa a glimpse of her sister’s world that made her ache to be part of it. “I’m sure it’s good. You seem to have settled into...all of this pretty happily.”

  “This being the farmhouse?”

  “Being a housewife,” she clarified.

  Olivia’s lips turned down slightly at the corners.

  She couldn’t tell if she’d offended Olivia by that description. She hadn’t meant to.

  Everything seemed to be going well for a few minutes at a time and then... Thump. Rolling along, making conversation. Thump.

  “You seem happy,” Vanessa said, hoping to cover up any unpleasantness that was beginning to fester between them.

  “I am,” she said. “Very happy.”

  They were saved a moment later by Olivia’s handsome husband, who came down the stairs clutching their daughter in his muscular arms.

  Luke Hollister was stunningly attractive, there was no question about that. Tall and broad shouldered, with sandy-blond hair and a wicked glint in his eye. He was not the kind of man she would have thought her prim and proper twin would have ever ended up with.

  But she glowed when Luke was in the room.

  The two of them looked like they shared naughty secrets that went way beyond smuggling green beans to the wrong plate.

  He’d gotten her sister pregnant before marriage. Which in Olivialand was insane. The kind of...fire that had to exist between them to make her sister forget that her first true love was propriety was something Vanessa couldn’t even imagine.

  She had never been one to make the best choices, and she couldn’t even imagine that.

  Of course, she’d never made love to a man because she’d been so into it she’d lost control.

  She was mildly envious that Olivia had.

  And that she had that man for life.

  Right, you’re in a great space to have a man in your life.

  No. Absolutely not.

  Between her niece’s antics—which mainly included blowing saliva bubbles and sitting in the middle of the rug slapping her chubby thighs—and Luke’s easy conversational skills, they managed to avoid any thumps all through dinner.

  There was coffee and cobbler after, and Vanessa forgot to be uncomfortable by the time she took a bite of that mix of warm berries, cinnamon and ice cream.

  “I’ll go take Emma out to check on the horses,” Luke said. “I’ll be back in a bit. Save some cobbler for me.”

  Vanessa wanted to beg him to stay, but she had a feeling that wasn’t the best thing to do. So instead, she said nothing.

  She smiled across the table at her sister, who looked up over her coffee cup and returned the smile.

  It wasn’t a very genuine smile. She could feel it on her own face, and she could see it reflected right back at her when Olivia tried it.

  “So, how long are you planning on being back for?” Olivia asked.

  Vanessa frowned. “I was planning on staying,” she said, looking down at her cobbler and taking a bite. “I mean, as far ahead as anyone plans for that kind of thing, I guess. I suppose it depends on whether or not I can continue to have a job. But right now I don’t have any plans to move on anytime soon.”

  “Oh,” Olivia said.

  Thump.

  “What? Did you not think I was going to stay?”

  “I just wondered. I know you haven’t really been in touch with Mom and Dad...”

  “No one has been in touch with me,” Vanessa said, feeling defensive.

  “Everyone wants to give you your space,” Olivia replied. “You just...” Olivia swallowed, and she could see her sister grappling with emotion. That irritated
her.

  “I just what?” Vanessa asked.

  “You just came back with very little explanation.”

  “I took a job,” Vanessa said, keeping her voice steady.

  “Yes, you took a job here. You’re here, but you’re still not here. And I guess I don’t really understand that.”

  “I can understand that you have feelings about that, Olivia,” Vanessa said, calling on the placating voice that had been used on her many times during therapy, and wielding it against her sister like a sword. “And I’m glad that you feel comfortable expressing them to me. However, what I’m doing isn’t directed at anyone in the family.”

  “No,” Olivia said. “I didn’t think it was. It never is.”

  Her words hit Vanessa square in the chest, twisted like a knife. She didn’t want to hurt her family, but it was very important to her that she didn’t hurt herself. And she didn’t know how to do both just yet.

  She retreated. Behind her veneer. Behind all her careful therapy language because she was hurt and she needed something to help protect her. “I understand that you have some anger. You’re certainly allowed to have feelings. But I am here. And I did call you back and set up dinner. So as you can see, I’m not avoiding you completely. I think some of that anger is a bit unfair, don’t you?”

  “No,” Olivia said. “I don’t think so.” Another way Olivia had changed, because one thing Olivia hadn’t done when they were children was fight back. Ever. She’d always sat there, pale and sad, or she’d run away. But she never fought back. Apparently, she did now. “You’re back here with no warning. And now that you’re here, you expect everything to be on your terms. You reached out for dinner, and I made myself available.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was a confrontational move on my part,” Vanessa said. “I thought asking my sister to have dinner with me was polite enough.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what it is you’re doing.”

  “It may come as a surprise to you, but my decisions aren’t actually shaped around you, Olivia.”

  Vanessa worked very hard not to lose her temper, because anger was rarely productive. But then, she had also learned that stuffing her emotions down deep and then trying to smother them with mood-altering substances didn’t really work either. Olivia sat in judgment of her. Still. And she had no earthly idea what it cost Vanessa to bring herself back home. To face everyone in spite of her shame. To carry all of the secrets and traumas that she had carried for years.