by K. C. Enders
“Ancient history. You have a merry Christmas.” I nod and walk purposefully away, gathering the list of shit Dana requested.
I didn’t even make it out to the ranch before my past started rearing its ugly head. File this under reasons I don’t come home.
Thank God I stopped for a bottle of tequila before leaving Missoula. I’m gonna fucking need all the help I can get to make it through this visit if this is how it’s getting started.
I make it through the aisles, manage to pay, and escape to the parking lot, plastic grocery bags hanging from my left hand. Relief is sweet but fleeting as I pop the trunk of my rental car, and Jess sidles up, leaning against the truck in the next spot over. She stares as I place the bags next to my duffel.
“What is it, Jess?” I ask, patience gone.
“I want to see you while you’re home. Spend some time with you, reconnect.”
I glance around the lot, her daughter nowhere in sight.
“Yeah? Not gonna happen,” I tell her, slamming the trunk closed. “I told you last week, I’m not interested. And I’m pretty sure your husband wouldn’t be all that thrilled at the idea.”
She’s blocking my access to the driver’s side of the car, arms crossed, looking a little more brazen with Charlie out of the direct line of fire. “I’ve never loved him, Wyatt. You were the one I wanted.”
A huff pushes out of my nose. “Got a fucked-up way of showing it. You get Charlie’s father to marry you? Or did you trick some other poor bastard into thinking he knocked you up?”
“I married her father right after graduation but only because—”
“Because your father found out who was really responsible,” I finish, cutting off whatever bullshit excuse she was about to spew at me.
“I didn’t have any other choice,” she yells, her arms swinging out before they slap down at her sides.
“In what? Getting pregnant or trying to pin it on me?” Disgust drips off of my words. “Doesn’t fucking matter, honestly. You knew I didn’t want this life, that all I wanted was to get out of here, and you tried to sabotage the only way it could happen. I didn’t want anything to do with having a family, Jess. And you tried to rip all of that out from under me.”
I don’t know how many times we’ve had this argument in the past decade, but I’m over it. So fucking over it.
“And now?” she asks, sniffling. It could be the cold, but everything about this whole interaction screams devious posturing.
“Nothing’s changed, Jess. I’m happy with my life and not moving back here, so it doesn’t matter.” Manipulation or not, I soften my features, relaxing my stance. Mixing things up, putting Jess at ease, might be just enough to throw her off her game. Switch up the balance of power.
Jess visibly relaxes, moving with me as I saunter around the side of the car. With each of my steps forward, she takes one back until she’s far enough past the door that, when I click the lock button and pull at the handle, the door is a physical barrier between us.
“Go home to your husband, Jess. Raise your daughter with a good sense of right and wrong. Google that shit if you need to. But you and me? We’re done. Don’t contact me again. I’m not fucking interested.” I close the car door, her face a mask of shock at my dismissal. I think I was really damn clear, leaving no room for doubt.
And, as I drive out of the parking lot, a middle finger in the air and Jessica’s back are all the confirmation I need that this mess is finally done.
I feel for the kid. Hope she gets a fighting chance because her mother is batshit fucking crazy.
***
SNOW-COVERED FIELDS WITH PRAIRIE grass peeking through the crust line my drive out to the ranch, giving me a chance to refocus and prep for the next round of guilt and pressure to move back home. But not even that serenity is enough to temper the passive-aggressive bullshit that’s thrown at me the minute I walk through the door.
“You ready to do some real work for a change, boy? Got fences need fixed and …” my father bellows as soon as I breach the doorway.
The only reason he’s here at the house at this time of day is to give me shit and lay me low for walking away. For the love of fucks, you’d think I left to go pursue fashion design in the big city. And that thought does nothing but land Kate front and center in my mind.
I set the grocery bags down on the kitchen table, gritting my teeth to hold back a smart-ass comment that will get me nowhere. I’ve fought with enough crazy today; it’s safer in the desert.
“Thanks,” my sister Sophie says, looking way too tired to be bustling around the kitchen. “Heard you ran into Jess at the store. How’d that go?” She unloads the bags, sorting items Dana asked for as she does.
“You coming, Wyatt? Time you pitch in around here for a change,” Wyatt Senior throws at me.
Yeah, there’s not a damn thing wrong with the name Wyatt. I just hate the bastard I share it with.
Sophie looks up at me and shrugs before going back to her task. I don’t know why I expected any help from her. My entire family is on board with wanting me to come home. More hands make for lighter work.
“Give me a minute to change,” I huff out.
The fight is not worth it.
I grab my duffel and take it up to my old room. Not a damn thing has changed there in all the time I’ve been away. Well, almost nothing. Every single thing that came home from West Point with me is gone. My annuals, pictures, my cadet uniforms, and even my saber—all gone. The life I wanted, the things I accomplished with blood, sweat, tears, and determination have so little meaning to those who can’t see beyond their own front door. I pray that I can find my things later—when I have time to sift through the closet, through boxes in the attic. For now, I bite my tongue, change into jeans, and shove my feet into my old work boots, noting that they’re still here. The worn leather cleaned and conditioned. Because ranch work has value. Being a soldier, not so much.
My old man is outside in the warm cab of his truck, smoking and glaring. Not at anything in particular. It’s just his version of resting bitch face. Reluctantly, I climb in next to him. We ride in silence out to a remote line of fence that’s needed to be fixed for years, my brothers-in-law nowhere in sight.
Throwing the truck into park and cutting the engine, my father barely glances my way. “Gloves and work coat’re in the back,” he grunts before he swings himself out and starts pulling supplies from the bed.
I lock down my anger and grab my work gloves and beanie, swapping out my jacket only because the one I brought really isn’t for ranch work. But who the hell thought I’d be running fence wire before even saying hello and merry Christmas to my mother? If this is the game my old man wants to play, I’ll fucking win.
Trudging through the snow, I get as far away from him as I can manage. Jaw clenched, not a single motherfucking curse passes my lips as I set to work, my mind churning over the shit day this has already been.
I work for hours, silently pulling and securing wire, ignoring the big fucking elephant that has parked his ass on the prairie between us. I’ve got nothing to say to the bastard. Not a goddamn word.
As the light fades, my phone pings, pulling me from my almost-meditative state. I drop my gloves and swipe the screen to see a message from Kate.
Kate: Have a fantastic visit home. Also … got the all-clear from Aunt Flo. No mishap from the ill-fitting oops!
Thank Christ she’s not pregnant. I’m not sure what I would have done with that. I tap out a quick reply and shove my phone back into my pocket because I swear on all that is good and holy, I will finish this job. Get well beyond the meet-in-the-middle point and show the old bastard that I can not only just hold my own, but I can also kick his ass while doing it. Fuck him and his claims of old-man strength.
The sky darkens as I fix the last of the wire and load the remaining supplies and tools in the back of the farm truck. I climb into the warm cab, debating on the benefits of riding back to the house, cradled in warmth but subjected to more stony si
lence, or freezing my ass off in the bed with the tools, blanketed under the stars twinkling in the clear sky. I don’t hate Montana. I just never wanted to be forced into staying here.
When I’m back at the house, the night passes in a flurry of passive-aggressive bullshit, though the meal is good, evoking some of the few good memories of living here. Farm work makes a man a different kind of tired, and though I’ve humped my ass in and out of some hairy shit overseas, I fall into bed, exhausted.
It’s not until well into the next morning that I realize that I forgot to hit Send. And, the minute I do, all hell breaks loose, and any thoughts of texting Kate fly out the window.
Chapter 17
Kate
A CASE OF THE blues, my ass.
Gracyn might have the blues, pining after the one who got away. But I’m thinking I could be coming down with something. You know that feeling when you’re on the edge of having a stomach bug, and you just want it to kick in, so you eat like shit in hopes of getting it started, so you can just get over it? Yeah, I’m there.
Absences from school are always up this time of year, but we seem to be on the front edge of a stomach virus, and I am exhausted from sanitizing all the surfaces in my classroom. Add to that my genius idea of having a student of the week. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but this week’s student was so excited that he didn’t want to miss anything, so he didn’t run to the restroom before reading time, and he peed all over the upholstered bench I’d brought into school this semester.
Needless to say, story time was cut short, and I need a damn beverage. I pull my phone from my desk drawer and about have my SOS text fully typed when one comes through from Gracyn, thinking she’s had a week already. Bless her heart—and that one is totally of the bullshit variety. It’s only Monday. I feel like I haven’t seen my girls in forever, and let’s face it; I really need that drink, so I hit her back, telling her I’m in, and thankfully, Lis can make it, too.
Lis is already set up at the bar when I walk into McBride’s at four thirty. Her auburn hair twisted up in a messy bun, a pint of beer in her hand.
“Hey, sugar,” I say, leaning in to give her a hug.
Finn reaches for my bottle of Patrón, but I wave him off.
“I think I’ll just stick with beer today. Thank you though.”
“Where’ve you been? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Lis says.
And it has been a while. I take a big pull of my pint and press my palm to my chest.
“You okay?”
I squinch up my mouth like I just sucked on a lemon and respond, “Yeah, mostly. Just a little icky in my tummy.”
It’d be just my luck to get the stomach bug that runs through the elementary school about this time every damn year.
The door to the pub opens, letting in a blast of cold air. Finn tosses a coaster on the bar beside me and has a full pint ready to go by the time Gracyn dumps her jacket on the back of the barstool. And, even though she drains half of the glass in one shot, she declares that it’s a whiskey night for her. We chat for a hot minute, laying out all the badness of the Monday-est of all Mondays. Lis, a nurse, got puked on by a patient; I share the love of my story-time adventures; and Gracyn mumbles about her bad week.
Then, Gracyn turns to me, saying, “How’s it going with your mystery man? I feel like I haven’t seen you since that night you were on your way out to meet him.”
It’s true; we have been kind of missing each other. A wave of longing washes over me, and I know that, if I don’t lighten the mood, I might just let a tear escape. And that would be a whole lot more talking than I feel like doing just now. So, I go for funny and lewd because that’s certain to keep the deeper questions at bay. I’m just not ready to go there yet. “Mmm … he’s good. Really fucking good.” I let my accent out to play, and the words come out, all kinds of Southern-fried.
“Yeah?” Gracyn asks. Her side-eye game is strong tonight. She has a tendency to do that when she’s avoiding her own mess. “Is he the one to break your bad luck?”
Has he ever. My stomach lurches when she asks if they’ll get to meet him soon. Every cell in my body is yearning for him again, to feel his touch, to have him near. To know that he’s safe.
I call to Finn and order a platter of whatever they have that’s deep fried.
“Not gonna happen, darlin’,” I tell her. “He’s gone already. He, um … he was here, visitin’ between deployments. Took off back to one of the ’Stans—Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan—something like that. But it was lovely while it lasted.”
Both Lis and Gracyn stare at me, dumbfounded, glasses paused midair.
Gracyn sets hers back on the bar and asks, “How did this happen? Where did you even meet him?”
“Y’all know how you were asking me about parent conferences? And if I met any hot, divorced dads?” I launch into talking about Jake and his enthusiasm for his uncle, and though I try to hide it, it’s obvious they both know that Jake’s my favorite student. I would make him student of the week every week if I thought I could get away with it.
Lis smiles at me, and Gracyn shakes her head as I talk.
“Uncle Jack came and had lunch with Jake, and, Gawd, the way he squished that big ole body of his into the kindergarten lunch table … y’all just don’t even know.”
Thankfully, Finn interrupts, setting the food in front of us. “Gracyn, give us the deets on the shite at your office. I couldn’t believe I missed the lead-up,” he says, surveying the bar area for glasses in need of refilling.
I dig into the deep-fried carbs, dragging a chicken finger through the various dips before popping it into my mouth. According to Finn and Gracyn, there was a knock-down, drag-out fight at the accounting firm that Gracyn’s dad owns.
Lis and Gracyn nibble on the platter of snacks, but it seems as though I’m the only one really putting the food down. And, thankfully, that’s not too unusual for me.
Finn nods to a customer and pulls a fresh pint for him. When he settles back in front of us, he crosses his arms over his chest and jumps back into his story about the fight. “The bougie little prat started the whole thing,” he says, absolutely incensed.
While I’m only half-listening, my stomach rolls again, and I have to concentrate on making sure it stays put. For a girl who can put away some serious alcohol, I am not a good puker. If I’m going to get sick, the last place I want it to happen is here at the pub. No, I’d much rather be home, in my clean bathroom where no one can hear me.
I’m considering leaving, just in case, when Gracyn swallows hard and grips the edge of the bar.
“You’re sure?” she asks. “It was Gavin Keller? The Gavin Keller?”
Color drains from Gracyn’s face, and I meet Lis’s eye. I might be the queen of dating disasters, but Gracyn’s been messing around for almost two years, trying to fight what’s turned out to be true love with this guy. She’s been busting her ass at work to get a couple of days off, so she can go see him in LA before his band, The UnBroken, leaves on their European tour. They’ve spent so little time actually with each other, and now, with his tour starting, it’s going to be even more of a struggle.
I pull my phone out at the same time as Lis and type Gavin’s name into the search bar, perusing the headlines.
“Holy shit, he missed the first show. Tour musician stands in for Keller. Will this be a permanent change?” I scan down the seemingly endless hits on Google, stopping on a blurb from gossip site, theBuzz. “Oh my Lawd, listen. Gavin Keller was arrested and detained stateside on assault charges. Speculation is that Keller is taking after bandmate Kane Newton and tapping that which can be tapped.” I look up at Gracyn’s stricken face. “Sorry, probably should have stopped before I hit that last part.” I shrug, but I have a feeling this is bad.
Gracyn stutters, starting and stopping a million questions to no one in particular. She pauses and almost looks like she might pass out for a minute. Out of nowhere, she screeches, “That fucking bastard! He knew.
He sat at that dinner, knowing full well how pissed I would be.”
The grease-laden food suddenly too much for me, I lean back from the bar while Gracyn calls her slimy client every name in the book.
“I’m gonna have to tell my dad, and—”
Finn cuts her off, looking uncomfortable, “Gracyn, love, your da was there. He called the cops.”
Lis flashes us a picture on Instagram from the client dinner Gracyn attended on Friday. It’s bad. To anyone who hasn’t been around Gracyn and heard the stories of this client, the fucking bastard, it looks like nothing short of an engagement photo. Her hand on his chest, face tilted to his smiling one, the two of them surrounded by their parents.
“Well, shit. That sure looks bad,” I say.
I should have bitten my tongue instead because Gracyn drops her tumbler, glass shattering across the floor. Shards jump up and bite at my ankles, skittering off the leather of my boots.
Lis jumps from her seat as Gracyn sways on wobbly legs. I reach for her arm, wanting to steady her, offer support of some kind, but Gracyn braces her hands on the edge of the bar and shakes her head.
“Gracyn? Are you okay?” Lis asks.
I mean, we all know she’s not okay. Who would be if your father had the man you loved thrown in jail for not being the one he’d chosen for you?
But my roommate doesn’t say a word. She just stands there, knuckles turning white as she grips the scarred, lacquered oak. It takes Finn and a broom to finally drive her away from the spot she’s anchored to.
I slide out of my seat and shrug on my coat, leaving the belt untied. The greasy food might have seriously done its thing because my stomach is rocking and rolling. But Gracyn needs me, so I shove those nasty feelings down, swallow hard, and vow not to let it get in the way of helping my friend.
“Let’s go home,” I say, handing Gracyn her jacket. “We have ice cream, vodka …” A clean bathroom in case I need to puke.
Lis tucks some bills under her pint glass, and we somehow manage to get Gracyn out to my car.