Lone Wolf Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “Maybe that’s why she loves you,” Caleb said. “Because when you look at her, that’s what you see. And maybe...maybe it’s worth asking her what she sees when she looks at you.”

  Fear and hope burst inside Jacob’s chest in equal measure. And his heartbeat, loud and strong and insistent.

  His heartbeat, because he was alive.

  And where there was life, there was hope.

  Where there was love... Well, where there was love was a life worth living. Really living.

  “I think I’ve got some work to do.”

  “I still want to be your best man.”

  “Oh, you can count on it.”

  If Vanessa would still have him.

  He just had to pray that Vanessa would still have him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  VANESSA STOOD OUTSIDE her childhood home and took a deep breath. She had spent the past couple of days thinking a lot about what Olivia had said. About how she needed to take the strength that she had gotten from being with Jacob and use it. How she needed to make those changes count, rather than sinking into despair and losing everything that had been remade inside her.

  She took a breath and looked over at her sister.

  At least they were here together. Olivia squeezed her arm. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I will be.”

  “Do you want to go it alone?”

  “I probably should.”

  “Okay. But I’m right here. If you need anything.”

  Vanessa nodded and looked back toward the house. And there was one thing that she had to get off her chest. One thing that maybe mattered, and maybe didn’t. “I don’t remember the dollhouse,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The dollhouse. When I went to your home, you told me it reminded you of the dollhouse. And I don’t remember the dollhouse.”

  “Oh,” Olivia said. “I played with it all the time. By myself. It was downstairs in the rec room. I played with the dollhouse, and then I graduated to playing darts. I’m very good at darts.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Vanessa said.

  Olivia shrugged. “I didn’t really have a lot of friends. And...I just spent a lot of time being quiet by myself.”

  The wealth of loneliness that she heard in Olivia’s voice stunned her. It hadn’t really occurred to her before that Olivia might have been lonely. But then, she supposed that made sense. She felt that loneliness reflected inside her. Olivia had been surrounded by no one and had felt isolated, while Vanessa had often been surrounded by whole roomfuls of people and had still felt completely alone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry that you were lonely.”

  “I’m sorry that you were,” Olivia said. “I just didn’t know how to talk to you anymore. You know, after I told on you, and I got you in so much trouble.”

  “The skinny-dipping?” Vanessa asked.

  It was such a silly thing. In her long list of transgressions, such a small one. But it had been the beginning of the change in her relationship, not just with Olivia, but with her parents.

  “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad at you,” Vanessa said. “But it wasn’t about you, not really. It was about Mom and Dad. They were... They were so disappointed in me. And Dad... He made it very clear that there was something...flawed in me that I needed to watch out for. That I was wild, and I needed to get it under control or something bad would happen. And all I knew was that disappointment in his voice. And the shame that came with it. I wasn’t angry at you so much as I was embarrassed. Because I thought maybe you could see the same thing in me.”

  “He said that to you?”

  “Yes,” Vanessa said. “And so after that I just... I just wanted to test him. To test and see if I could go too far. And I could. Eventually they just quit talking to me. They acted like I wasn’t there. And...it seems ridiculous to be angry about it because I pushed for that. I pushed for that breaking point.”

  “There shouldn’t have been one,” she said.

  “Maybe not,” Vanessa said. “But there was. And something in me always knew that. And I still...”

  “I’m so sorry,” Olivia said. “For all the misunderstandings. For all of the hurt. And mostly for the fact that we were both so lonely, and we didn’t need to be. Because we were right there.”

  “Well,” Vanessa said, “we’re here now, and we are here together.”

  “Yes,” Olivia agreed. “And I promise that I’m here. From now on.”

  “Okay. Well, stay here, just in case this goes very badly.”

  “I will,” Olivia said.

  Vanessa took a deep breath and walked up the front steps to the door of the house and knocked.

  The door opened, and her dad was standing there, looking at her. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

  She followed him into the house, into the living room, where he took a seat in his favorite easy chair. She was pretty sure it was the same chair that had been there when she’d left nine years ago.

  And suddenly, she felt very small, the way that she always had when she’d been called in to speak to her father.

  But then she looked at him, really looked at him. At the shock of white hair that used to be dark, at the deep lines around his eyes.

  He wasn’t the same, and neither was she.

  She took a breath and sat in the chair across from him. “Jacob and I broke up,” she said. “So I am now single and pregnant, and basically everything you were afraid I would be.”

  “Vanessa...”

  “I needed to come and tell you that, because in the past I was afraid to tell you when something bad happened to me. But I’m not afraid now. And whatever that means for us, whatever it means for our relationship... Whether you can deal with the fact that I am someone who doesn’t do things the way that you would, that I’m someone who makes mistakes, then I need to know. Because I can’t exist in this middle ground anymore. I would like to have a relationship with you. I would love for you and Mom to have a relationship with your grandchild. But I am who I am, and I’ve done the things I’ve done. I’m not proud of some of it, but I’m proud of where I am now. So if me being a single mother is going to make it so you can’t treat me the way you treat Olivia, if it’s going to make it so you can’t treat my child the way you treat hers, then I need to know now.”

  He just sat there for a long moment, a strange expression on his face. And finally, he spoke. “Of course it won’t,” he said. “Vanessa, I—I’m a man who’s made a lot of mistakes. I got sick a couple of years ago. I don’t know if you know that.”

  Vanessa’s heart twisted. “I didn’t.”

  “I don’t tell you that to make you feel bad. But just to say that when I was there staring down my mortality, I started thinking a lot about the things I’ve done. And then I doubled down on them. Because I’m a fool. I tried to control your sister’s life. I asked Bennett Dodge to marry her, to take care of her. And that would’ve been a disaster. It wasn’t until she ended up with Luke Hollister that I realized what I was doing. That I was controlling my children with such a tight hold that I was breaking things. That’s what I did with you. I thought that if I made you afraid of my disapproval that it would set you straight.”

  A tear rolled down Vanessa’s cheek and she didn’t do anything to stop it. “It just made me think that I... That I could never be good enough for you and there was no point in trying. Because I wasn’t Olivia, and I never could be.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “That’s where I’m at now,” she said. “I need you to know... I need you to understand what happened. Before I left. I just need you to know.”

  She poured out her heart. She told him everything. Everything she had held from him for so many years. About that party, about the fact that she couldn’t remember what had happened. About the miscarriage. The terror she had felt, both when she had lost the pregnancy, and when she had begun to suspec
t it. And all the while, her father sat there in stony silence. She couldn’t read his expression, and mostly, she didn’t want to. Because she couldn’t take scorn on top of everything else. She simply couldn’t. When he finally spoke, he sighed heavily. Leaned back in his chair and dragged his hands down his face.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” It wasn’t the question she had expected. In fact, she hadn’t really expected a question at all.

  “Because,” she said, her voice scratchy, “you had already warned me about my behavior. You had already made it clear that you were angry with the way I was acting. And you had told me that it was leading to a bad place. And I—I figured that you would tell me I deserved it. Because I felt like I did. Because I made a mistake. And I was foolish. I was stupid. So I was sure that I brought it on myself. And that I had deserved it. And after everything... I couldn’t face that I might have to stand there and have you look at me and confirm what I already thought. I was just too weak. I couldn’t do it then. But I can do it now, if we have to.”

  Her father leaned forward in his chair and covered his face with both of his hands. His large shoulders lifted and shook. She had never, not once in her life, seen her father overcome by any kind of emotion unless it was anger. She had never seen him cry, but she was sure that was what was happening. Right in front of her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. So she just sat there, feeling numb, because she had spent so many years figuring out how to not cry when she thought of this moment that right now, all she could do was watch like she was an observer. Like she was an alien and this was happening to someone else.

  He gathered his composure slowly and looked up at her. His eyes, the same color as her own, filled with regret. Plain and simple.

  “What hurts the most,” he said, “is that I don’t know what I would have said to you.”

  He paused, the only sound in the room the ticking clock on the wall. “And I’m worried,” he said finally. “I’m very worried that I would have told you it was your fault. That I would have yelled at you. That I would have blamed you. I’ve had years. So many years to imagine this moment. And all this time I dreaded it. Because I knew that you were going to look me in the face and tell me how I had failed you.”

  He cleared his throat. “Because over the years I have come to that conclusion. That I must have. And now I know I did. Because you were afraid that you wouldn’t get unconditional love from me, and I can’t even assure you that you would have because I didn’t know how to be wrong then. I didn’t know how to express fear in any other way than anger. I didn’t know how to support you without just trying to make you afraid of consequences. So I was hard. Because I didn’t want you to be hurt, but also because I didn’t want me to be hurt. Because I didn’t want to look like a failure as a parent. I didn’t realize... I didn’t know how profoundly I could lose you. I didn’t know how badly the lack of support would hurt. I thought that if I... If I froze you out it would be incentive enough for you to want to do right. What I thought was right.”

  His throat worked, emotion overcoming him. “But how could I... I took support away from you when you needed it most. I see it now. I’ve been coming to that realization slowly over the past few years and now I know. I know for sure. What I did is the reason you couldn’t come to us. The way I handled you. And I have nothing but regret for that.”

  Vanessa was shell-shocked. By the pure emotion in her father’s voice. By the conviction there. By this reaction, which she hadn’t expected. Not even remotely. “I made the choices that I made,” she said. “There’s no pretending that I didn’t. I chose to handle my pain the way that I did. And that isn’t your fault.”

  “Don’t absolve me,” he said. “That’s not what we’re here for. I think absolution to make things smoother doesn’t do either of us any favors, does it? You made the choices you did. I made the choices I did. But whatever you did, my job was to be here when you came back, and I didn’t give you any sense that I might be. That was wrong. It was my fault. I regret it with everything I have. You deserve better from me, Vanessa. This town, appearances, none of it has ever done anything for me. Not really. You’re my daughter. And if none of that benefited you, then it didn’t matter.”

  “You had Olivia—”

  Her father moved from behind the desk, leaned over and grabbed her arm. “You’re not Olivia. And you never were. You’re not interchangeable. It wasn’t just as good having her here. It was in a trade. There is no trade. You might look like her, but you’re not her. And there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t feel the lack of you, but I wasn’t strong enough. After a certain amount of time, I just wasn’t strong enough. To sit here, to have you tell me why it had all gone the way it had. I’m strong enough now. Now that it’s too late. My biggest regret is that you had to get stronger first.”

  Fear. Fear was the theme. Fear was what was keeping Jacob from her. Fear was what had made her father push her away, fear was what had kept her from confiding in her parents when she had needed them most.

  If there was a bigger barrier to love, to life, than fear, Vanessa didn’t know it.

  Change required unaccountable bravery, and she knew that, because she’d done it.

  The strength to decide to change patterns of behavior that were ingrained in you.

  It was hard. It was hard as hell.

  And it wasn’t over. Even now.

  Because she had to change her feelings about her father if she wanted to have a relationship with him.

  And that meant exposing herself potentially to pain.

  Pain she didn’t want. But there was no other way. There was never any other way. Except walking around with your armor stripped off, with a willingness to take the blows as they came.

  Because if you didn’t, you ended up like Jacob. Unable to accept love. Like her father, full of regret because he had been paralyzed by fear when he had needed most to be open. When he had needed most to be brave.

  “I was afraid. I was afraid to come home and deal with the mess I made, with the pain I caused you, the fear I created in you. I was afraid of my feelings when I was a teenager, and so I hid them with drugs. I am so sorry that I had a hand in making your fear worse. Because fear is the cause of all of this. Fear has a lot to answer for.”

  “I have a lot to answer for,” he said. “I have been considered powerful and important in this community, and that has been insulation for me. It gave me a place that I was certain of, secure in. And it also provided me with a sacred cow that I didn’t want to tip over. I protected that too fiercely because it was my security in the world. When my security should’ve been in you. In your sister. Your mother. The love that we had for each other. Because that’s the only thing that’s real. But instead I failed you. I failed you when you needed me most.”

  Vanessa didn’t give platitudes to absolve him, because she needed these words. Needed to hear that, so very desperately.

  “I’m sorry,” her father said. “I can’t go back and change what was. I can’t be a better dad, then. But I can be a better one now. Whatever you need, Vanessa, I’m here for you.”

  Her heart felt swollen, like it might burst.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I’m awfully proud of you,” he said.

  And those words meant more than any apology ever could.

  Her throat tightened. “Thank you.”

  “I can’t imagine the kind of strength it takes to change the way you did. Because I’m sixty-five years old, and it just about killed me to come to these realizations, and it was only just a couple of years ago. To fix what you did when you did... You’re a stronger person than I’ll ever be.”

  Vanessa stood up, and so did her dad. And then very cautiously, Vanessa wrapped her arms around her father and rested her head on his chest. And he hugged her and said the words that she had needed to hear her entire life.

  “It doesn’t matter what you do, I’ll always love you. No matter what.”

  She nod
ded, unable to speak. But in her heart she thought, Me too. No matter what.

  She was still hurting. She was still broken from Jacob, but there was a place inside her now that was healed. And it was less to do with all the things her father had said and done, and even more to do with the fact that it was because she had chosen it.

  Because it would be easy to not allow her father to be absolved with words, to stand firmly in all the pain that she’d experienced as a result of the way things had been done when she was in high school.

  But she didn’t want it. What she wanted was love.

  What she wanted was this. It was a choice, and it was hers to make.

  And she would do it.

  It was her gift from Jacob. Because watching him fail to make the choice had driven that point home.

  She smiled a little bit sadly.

  It was a gift she was sure he hadn’t meant to give her, but he had all the same.

  And that was power in and of itself. To decide what to do with her heartbreak.

  Though it still didn’t give her Jacob. After what she’d been through, only a fool would go after him again.

  A fool, or someone who was brave.

  And she had decided that she was brave now.

  Because what was fear? Self-protection.

  Something to cover up the truth of what you were feeling.

  A safety net, like drugs.

  And Vanessa didn’t do safety nets, not anymore.

  It was so funny to think that most people would imagine she’d lived recklessly back when she had been using.

  She hadn’t. She had looked cautiously. She had lived small. Had lived for one thing, which existed to dull the pain of what she was and had made her life feel simple in so many ways.

  And now life was big and bright, loud and dangerous, and she was making the choice to step into it all.

  And so she would.

  “Thank you,” she said, finally stepping away from her dad. “Thank you for this.”