by Raeann Blake
“He didn’t sleep with her, Hailey.” He held his breath as he saw the brush stop for just a heartbeat then start again.
“I guess that’s what he told you and you believe him,” Hailey said evenly.
“No. That’s what she told me. He couldn’t tell me if he’d used a condom. He couldn’t even remember what she looked like or where he’d been. I was worried so I got her number off the caller ID and called her back. I asked her if I could come get his hat, and when I got there I asked her. She said he was already drunk when she met him, and he got drunker. He passed out on her couch, Hailey. He didn’t sleep with her.”
He stopped talking and waited. He could see her hands shaking but she was quiet.
“He would have. He meant to,” she finally said lowly.
“He was hurt, sugar. Come in the house and let me explain. Let me show you,” Laine said gently.
“I already know. He told me. I told him I would explain it, but he’s not interested. He went to somebody else, Laine. After the way things have been between us, he went to somebody else instead of just asking me,” Hailey whispered hoarsely.
“Yes. Come in the house, Hailey. Just look at them,” Laine pleaded.
Hailey felt that wall that she’d been working on for two days coming down one brick at a time. She couldn’t let that happen. Without the wall, she wouldn’t be able to stay there and see him every day. Still her head nodded slightly and she finished brushing Soldier down before she spoke to him quietly then turned and walked to the gate. Laine opened it for her and closed it again after she walked through it. He took her pack from her then pulled her close to his side.
They walked silently back to the house. He handed her the pack and waited as she carried it to her room. Shack came out of the bedroom on the other side of the office just as she came out and she looked up at him in surprise and the first hint of a smile in three days finally appeared.
“You moved in? Really? That’s wonderful,” she said as she went to him and hugged him tightly.
“Yeah, sugar. We moved in yesterday morning. Are you okay? Have you eaten?” he asked as he held her tightly.
“No. I’ll fix a sandwich or something in a bit,” she said then kissed him on the cheek before she turned back to Laine.
“You did, too? You did, didn’t you? Does he know yet?” she asked as she walked back to him then slid her arms around his waist and leaned against his chest.
“No, he doesn’t know yet. I’m glad you’re back. Come with me and then we’ll get you something to eat,” he said as he held her back then took her hand and pulled her to the office.
He opened the email then motioned for her to sit down. “I want you to open the pictures one by one, sugar. I want you to see them the same way he saw them. I know that nothing happened. I know they’re not what they look like. But look at them the way he saw them. Try to see them through his eyes,” he said softly.
Hailey hesitated after she read the text then looked up at him then over to Shack. When she saw him nod his head towards the computer she finally turned back to it and opened the first one. She held her breath as she opened each one. By the time she got to the one where Isaac had brushed the tears from her face there were tears there again.
“Oh, God. It’s…It’s not what it looks like. I swear it’s not,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Honey, we know that. But he doesn’t,” Shack said softly.
“But he should have asked me. He should have trusted me,” Hailey protested.
“Hailey, he doesn’t know how. He was trying. He was just beginning to learn and then…this,” Laine explained.
“Who sent this?”
“We don’t know.”
Hailey looked back at them again then shook her head and closed each one. She couldn’t let them do this. She couldn’t let them make her forget that at the first sign of something going wrong he had immediately gone to another woman. It didn’t matter that he’d gotten drunk enough that he couldn’t do anything once he was there. He’d gone.
“I should eat then turn in.”
Shack stopped her on the way by and sharpened his voice slightly. “Girl, you listen to me. You have to explain this to him. You have to tell him what was going on in each and every one of those pictures.”
That was all it took to break the dam. “He won’t let me. I told him I would, but he won’t let me. And he went to her. He wanted her instead of me. How could he go to her?” she sobbed against Shack’s chest.
Shack let his eyes drift shut and he closed his arms around her to hold her silently as she cried. When the sobs had finally quieted he held her back and dried her face.
“Hailey, make him listen. It’s too important to just let it slip away. Make him listen and don’t stop until he does. Please don’t give up on him now. I know what I’m talking about, sugar. If you don’t make him listen to you, every day of the rest of your life will be one filled with regret.
“I don’t want him to spend his life alone. I don’t want you to be alone. He loves you. That’s why it hurt him so much. It hurt because he loves you and he was just beginning to see you staying in his life. Don’t let a wounded pride cost you a love that could fill your life with happiness. You’ll never get over it. You’ll never get past it. And you’ll never find it again,” he said with his voice trailing off into a hoarse whisper.
When he glanced at Laine and found the slightly puzzled look on his face as he watched him intently he immediately looked away.
“Come on, baby girl. Let’s find something for you eat now. Did you make it to the line cabin before the storm hit?” he asked quickly and motioned for Hailey to go out the door ahead of them then he and Laine followed her.
“No. I was close. At the campsite,” she said quietly.
“I was afraid of that. Did we lose any cattle that you could tell?” They didn’t often lose cattle in a storm, but they had lost some when they were hit by lightning during storms like that one.
Hailey shook her head as she started for the refrigerator. “I didn’t see any. I circled the herd because I was really expecting it. It was hitting really close as I went through the threes. They’re scattered pretty good, but I didn’t see any down.”
Shack caught her arm and pushed her back towards the counter. “Sit. Laine, get her some coffee. We’ve lost some on occasion but it doesn’t happen often. They scatter out pretty good up there anyway. They’ll be fine. How about some roast that was left over from supper?”
“That sounds great. What are those?” Hailey asked as she motioned to several small envelopes stacked at the end of the bar.
Laine set the coffee in front of her then walked down to get them. He brought them back and slid them to her.
“Kathy came out. These are copies of all of the pictures she made when they were here.”
The cup stopped for just a second then she went ahead and took a swallow. “Does…does she know? Does she know what happened?”
“No. We just told you were both at the herd. That’s all. Go ahead and look at them,” Laine said as he cut his eyes to Shack then back to Hailey again. He watched her reach for them with her hands shaking but she opened the first one and started going through them.
Hailey couldn’t help smiling at the ones right on top. They were the ones she had taken when Clay gave them the hats. When she got to one of the three men together she caught her breath and just stared at it for several seconds.
“What is he looking at?” she finally managed.
“You, sugar. He’s looking at you. That’s when you were talking to the boys. Look at his face, Hailey. You can see it on his face. He’s loved you all along. He just didn’t think he could,” Laine said quietly.
She looked up at Laine and held his gaze silently for several minutes then looked back down and started through them again. She couldn’t help but chuckle at some of them. Just like she couldn’t keep the tears out of her eyes on others.
“Those are great. He’ll love them
. Did she have the boys with her?”
“No. Gage was getting them haircuts…” he said then stopped abruptly when she burst into tears. He blew out a slow breath and rose to walk around the bar to her and pulled her tight against his chest. He met Shack’s eyes silently and saw his eyes a little watery as well before he quickly turned away. They both knew that what he’d said reminded her of what Isaac and Isobell together had told her.
“Hush, now. It’ll be okay.”
She didn’t seem to be able to move. She just didn’t have anything left in her and the will to make herself move just wasn’t there…until she heard the soft whisper.
“Hailey.”
Hailey jerked back and wiped her face as she looked around her then back to Shack when he motioned to the plate in front of her.
“Oh, God. I…I thought…I’m sorry. I just…you, uh…you sounded exactly like Clay,” she finally managed. She blinked a couple of times in surprise when Shack immediately dropped his head and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was deeper and sounded more like it normally did.
“Eat girl,” he said lowly then turned and went back to the counter. She watched him for a few seconds then glanced up at Laine. The puzzled frown that was on his face only added to her confusion.
She waited just a little more then took one bite then looked down when Shack turned and saw her watching him.
“Ummm…did Isobell tell you what Isaac told us?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah. I damn sure didn’t know about Pepper. Or Fiona either. I always wondered how she managed to stay here as long as she did. I guess Yates either made it worth it or maybe he had something on her that he used to keep her here,” Laine said evenly.
Shack finally came back to the bar and sat down. “Hailey, we think that it might have been Isaac Yates out behind the house the other night.”
Hailey looked up in surprise then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why would you think that?”
Shack shrugged his shoulders a little and said, “Isobell said he asked you out and Clay said he’d asked you out before and you turned him down. We thought that he might be out here watching you…or maybe he’s watching what’s going on for his daddy.”
“No. You guys didn’t hear him. I insulted him when I suggested that he might be okay with the things Yates had done.”
“Yeah. Isobell told us about that. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, girl. His daddy can sound like he’s as innocent as a lamb, too.”
Hailey frowned at him and said, “If the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, what does that say about me and my father. What about Clay? Are you saying he’s really like his daddy?”
Shack set his jaw and didn’t let his eyes waver from hers and she could easily see them turn colder. “Clay is nothing like Clayton Cardell. I didn’t know your daddy so I can’t answer that. But I know Yates. You’d do well not to trust anybody with that name.”
“Shack, I told him I was involved with Clay. And his very words were ‘good for him’. He said he has the utmost respect for Clay. He wanted to bring Clay home that day and his daddy wouldn’t,” she said softly.
“So you’re defending him?” Laine asked quickly.
“Wait a damn minute. I don’t know that he needs defending. But assuming that he’s just like his daddy is just like anybody else assuming that Clay would be like his,” Hailey said heatedly.
Shack shoved off the stool and leaned forward slightly to meet her eyes steadily. The ice-blue eyes suddenly had the breath trapped in her lungs. “Stop calling him that. Stop calling him his daddy. Call him what he was. A bastard. A mean, hurtful, hateful, spiteful bastard that never did anything but kill everything good around him,” he hissed and the stalked out of the room.
Hailey looked at Laine and saw him open his mouth then close it again for several seconds. Finally, he managed, “Go ahead and eat, sugar. I need to go talk to him.”
“Laine, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“It’s okay. I’m not sure what’s going on with him, but it’ll be okay. Finish your supper,” Laine said thoughtfully then patted her arm as he rose and followed Shack’s path.
Hailey frowned and ate slowly. Once she was finished, she quickly washed the dishes then poured another cup of coffee. When she turned and saw the stacks of envelopes still lying on the bar, she walked back to them and opened the top one then pulled out the one of the three of them together. She swallowed as much as she could as she let her finger just touch the image of Clay’s face. She’d heard about broken hearts. Nobody ever told her that it physically hurt. Would he ever look at her that way again?
No sooner had that thought gone through her mind when she shook her head and started working on repairing that wall. None of that mattered now. She couldn’t let herself believe that he wouldn’t run to somebody else every time some problem came up. And she couldn’t take it again. Still, she let her finger trace across the image of his lips before she slipped it back inside the envelope.
Laine found him sitting on the top step of the back porch and sank down beside him.
“Shack? What’s goin’ on, man?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing’s going on. I’m just…goddammit, I’m just so tired of everybody calling that bastard his daddy. He was never a daddy to him. He never treated him like a son. He did everything he could to destroy him. He never earned the right to be called his daddy,” Shack said quietly.
“Okay. You’re right. Just what little time I was here before he died, I saw that. You know when you get right down to it, you were his real daddy. Everything good inside of him came from you and what little time he had with his mom. You taught him how to be a good man. You’re the one who showed him how to have a good heart in spite of how he grew up. You taught him what it meant to stand by your word and make sure it counted for something. You’re the one who listened when he needed somebody to talk to. You’re the one who advised him when he had questions or had to make a hard choice. And you’re the one who stood beside him no matter what. That’s what daddy’s do. You did those things, not Clayton Cardell. That’s what makes a daddy. You were the only daddy he ever had. And he knows that. We all know that,” Laine said then laid a hand on Shack’s shoulder.
“I…I just tried to take care of him. It shouldn’t have been like that for him. It wasn’t right. I should have taken him and Kathy away from here. When Leah was here, she could make it better for him. She couldn’t stop what Clayton did or the things he said, but she could help Clay get through it. But after she was gone, I shouldn’t have just let them stay here. I should have taken them away.”
Laine’s hand squeezed tightly over Shack’s shoulder when he heard the voice so filled with regret.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Laine opened his eyes and listened for a few seconds then started dressing. He was just pulling his boots on when he heard the hoof beats cross the yard then stop close to the stables. He glanced out the window then started for the door.
Clay’s head jerked up when the stable doors opened but he looked right back at what he was doing as he finished unfastening the packs tied to the back of the saddle.
“What are you doing up?” he asked quietly.
“Couldn’t sleep and heard you comin’ in. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow,” Laine said as he reached him and started helping him.
Clay shrugged his shoulders a little without looking up and said, “I just didn’t feel like staying.”
“I’m glad you’re home. Did you eat something? I think there’s some roast left.”
“I’m not hungry. I guess she got here okay. Soldier’s in his stall,” he said lowly.
“Yeah. Few hours ago. Buddy, there are a couple of things I want to talk to you about. I know you’re tired, but can we do that tonight? We’ll go up to the house and get a drink. Would you listen?” Laine asked.
“If it’s about Hailey, I don’t want to hear it,” Clay said lowly as he started
loosening the cinch on the saddle.
“No, not specifically. Just listen to me, Clay.”
He waited until he had the saddle off and Ringo brushed down and in his stall before he answered him. “You know I’ll listen to you. Come on up to the house,” he said then sighed and tried to make sure he was ready. He was worried about a lot of things. One was that she would be awake and he wasn’t sure he was ready to see her yet…wasn’t sure he was strong enough yet. The other was that Shack and Laine still believed in her and he knew they wouldn’t just give up. They would keep trying to convince him and he wasn’t sure he was strong enough for that either.