Hot Shot

by Karina Halle

  Then I’m wondering if he told my father what I did.

  Then I’m wondering if both of them know what happened at The Bear Trap.

  If my father knows Del is pregnant with my baby.

  “What are you doing here?” Shane asks with a hardened voice, pulling on his boots. Normally my father would reprimand him for being rude, especially since Shane is never rude, but he doesn’t say anything, just stares at me like he wants to know too.

  “I want to talk to Grandpa about something,” I tell him. “Is he up?”

  My father grunts. “Barely.”

  “Why?” Shane asks.

  None of your damn business. The words are on my tongue but one look at my father’s face and I know better than to press my luck with him.

  “I need some advice,” I admit.

  “Advice? The damage is done, ain’t it?” my father grumbles, stepping off the porch and walking away. “Not that you ever listen anyway.”

  Shane raises his brow at me like he thinks I’m complete garbage and then follows my father, walking toward the barn.

  Shit. My father does know.

  Suddenly I feel like I’m sixteen years old again and getting in trouble for who knows what. I’m starting to think that trouble might follow me everywhere, or maybe the trouble lives deep inside me.

  I take in a deep breath and step inside the house.

  My grandpa is walking out of the kitchen in red long-johns, his silver hair starting to get long and hang by his shoulders, a bandana over his head, sheepskin slippers on his feet. He looks like he could be Willie Nelson’s grandfather and I mean Willie is pretty damn old.

  He stops when he sees me, lifts his head up from the mug and says, “Well looky here, if it ain’t Fox Nelson, hot shot, hot head, and an obstinate buffoon who can’t keep it in his pants.”

  “So you know.”

  He snorts and shuffles over to his easy chair, settling down in it with a groan and placing his coffee on the side-table. “I’m sure everyone knows, thanks to you. What happened to announcing things privately anymore? I know you forget that you have family sometimes, but Lordy.”

  I frown. “I don’t forget I have family.”

  He squints at me and then gestures to the couch. “Sit down.”

  I obey and lean forward with my elbows on my knees. “What do you mean I forget I have family?”

  He takes a long slurp of his coffee, closing his eyes for a moment, until he opens them again and looks right at me, into me. They’re sharp as tacks. “I don’t pretend to know your job Fox, but I do know it’s tough. I also know you’ve gone your whole life making things tougher. I get it. I do. I know. I’ve been in this house same as you have. You have a knack for making everything in your life more difficult than it should be.”

  I can’t even argue with that. I’m hanging on to every word.

  “You picked one of the toughest jobs. It’s harder than Maverick’s job. Harder than anyone’s. You take the hard route because you want to punish yourself, maybe. Or maybe you think you deserve it. Or maybe because you feel you owe the world a lot, to make up for something. Who the hell really knows. And that’s my point. Because we don’t know, Fox. We’re your family and we’re your lifeline and you act like we don’t exist half the time, most of the time. So wrapped up in whatever is going on behind that thick skull of yours, whatever is eating you alive from the inside. It ain’t healthy, boy. It ain’t good.”

  This is a lot to process. I stare down at my hands. Calloused, scarred by fire, hands that one day will hold a baby in them, my baby. How can these take care of something pure?

  “You’re doing it again,” he says. “Try opening your mouth and telling me something. That’s why you’re here, aren’t ya?”

  He’s right.

  I need to just say it.

  “Grandpa, I know I don’t usually ask for advice but this is the first time that my choices don’t only affect me.”

  He cocks a grey brow. “So you say. You don’t know that your choices affect all of us?”

  “Okay, then this is the first time I’ve been conscious of it and I don’t want to screw up. I want to do the right thing here. I want to be a good man for Del, for the baby.”

  His expression softens as he studies me. “You are a good man, Fox,” he says in a low voice. “One of the best men I know. All you boys are. You were raised right. By your mother, by your father. By me, by Jeanine. You even helped raise each other. You were a big help with John and Shane after your mother died, don’t you forget that.”

  I nod, but I’m brushing it off. “Tell me what I should do.”

  He chuckles. “I can’t tell you what to do. What does your heart tell you to do?”

  My heart. My heart is a constant whirlpool. I can’t make sense of it, it’s constantly changing, it’s twisted with fear.

  “My heart,” I begin, clearing my throat. It feels almost silly to be talking about this, my heart, but Grandpa is serious. It’s all so serious. “My heart wants to do the right thing. I think I should ask Delilah to marry me.”

  He looks at me with wide eyes. “Oh.”

  “You weren’t expecting that?”

  “I’m never sure what to expect with you.”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, running my hand through my hair, trying to get a handle on it all. “I just know that I want to be with her and the baby. I want us to be a family. I don’t want to be cut out from their lives and I don’t want her to go on and have her family, my family, with someone else. It should be me.”

  “Uh huh,” he says, taking a long, thoughtful sip of his coffee. “If that’s what your heart says to do Fox, then you should listen to your heart. But let me ask you this—is that what Delilah wants? And if it is, then you must ask yourself, would you be doing this if she wasn’t having your baby?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t be,” I say quickly. “I knocked her up, I’m going to do the right thing and commit.”

  “I see. And you wouldn’t marry her otherwise?”

  I shake my head, confused. “Why would I?”

  “Well,” he drawls out, “maybe because you have feelings for her.”

  “I love her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “But are you in love with her?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  My grandfather gives his head a shake as he sets the coffee back down. I have a feeling I’ve said something immensely stupid. “You know when you know, Fox. And you don’t know.” He exhales and starts coughing for a moment. “Fox, Fox, Fox. You and Del have had a very special relationship for a very long time. I can’t tell you how she feels about you because I don’t know, she’s never told me. But I look at her and I see a girl who adores you, Fox. And if you do this…just know it has the ability to break her heart. You might do more harm than good.”

  “I don’t see how this could do any harm at all,” I tell him. “This is the right thing to do. I’m not going to be like those other guys who run for the hills. I love her, she’s so important to me. And I’m going to be there for her, like a proper family. That baby will have a father and mother, together.”

  He looks like he’s going to say something else but he doesn’t. He just gives me a faint smile. “Then I think you know what to do.”

  “You don’t have a ring or something I can borrow, just for now?” I ask him.

  “So this is the real reason you came over?” he asks wryly, easing up to his feet.

  “One of them.”

  “Hold on,” he says. He shuffles away and up the stairs and as he does so, I catch a whiff of his coffee by his chair. I lean in closer to smell it. Whisky. Seems the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree for us.

  When he comes back he’s holding a little muslin pouch that he plops in my hand. “Here. I gave it to your grandmother.”

  “Grandpa, you shouldn’t have. I just meant like any kind of ring. J
ust to propose with before I get Del a better one.”

  He elbows me with a smile and then sits back in his chair. “Open it.”

  I do.

  It’s a gold plastic ring with parts of the gold paint peeling off.

  It says Cracker Jack on it.

  “You have got to be shitting me,” I say, turning it over in my hands. “I always thought finding rings in Cracker Jack boxes was a joke.”

  “It was a joke,” he says. “I was just a poor rancher when I asked your grandmother to marry me and it was all I could afford. I’m just lucky I picked that box. To her, though, it didn’t matter. When I got her a better ring, I think she liked this one more. The sentiment. Anyway, want you to have it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure, maybe it will bring you good luck,” he says. “If not, it’s a funny story.”

  I’m fucking touched.

  I just hope Del finds it as charming as my grandmother did.

  17

  Delilah

  If there’s something called being emotionally hungover, then I spent the morning being hungover as hell. My alarm went off several times and I hit snooze several times more. I was tired and more than that, my heart was tired. Everything ached with emotions drawn-out and ragged and filled to the brim.

  When I finally did drag myself out of bed and to the washroom it was nearly eleven o’clock. When I asked my mother why she hadn’t woken me up, she said that at this stage I should take as much sleep as I can because I won’t be able to sleep well later.

  She’s probably right about that. The more I hear from my doctor and the books about what to expect during pregnancy, the more horrible it all sounds.

  Last night…should have gone better.

  I’m glad that Fox and I talked in the end and got everything sorted as well as we could.

  I’m a bit regretful that he went home after. I feel like things are still left hanging, feels like we needed to be closer, to find our way with each other again.

  Though it was probably for the best. I know the more I sleep with him, the more wrapped up and confused I become in my feelings for him. If I had just kept my head, kept my body in line, if my hormones could just be controlled for once, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  But, dwelling on the past only holds you back from the future you deserve. I know that much. So I try and pull myself out of my funk and stay positive. I have to.

  I’ve just had a long, luxurious shower, as if trying to wash my sins away, when I step out into my bedroom and hear voices from upstairs. My mother and a male’s.

  Fox.

  What the hell is he doing here?

  I quickly wrap my hair in a towel, throw on leggings and a sweater and cautiously head down the hall, trying to catch snippets of their conversation.

  “I know this is scary,” my mother says to him in a hushed voice. “But you’ll get through it. You both will.”

  “I’m going to try,” he says.

  They both look up at me while I pause in the entrance to the kitchen. “Hey,” I say, my eyes going right to his.

  “Hey,” he says back. He looks different somehow. Last night he was fueled by anger and confusion and all the things I can’t get mad at him about because I’ve been feeling them too. Today, there’s a glint in his eyes, a spark. He’s gnawing on his lip like he’s nervous. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  There are a million somethings we still need to talk about.

  “Okay,” I say, giving my mother a look. She shrugs slightly.

  “I’ll get out of your hair,” she says.

  “No, it’s fine, stay,” Fox says. “I was hoping we could go for a drive.”

  I nod. “Sure, let me just get ready.”

  I turn and hurry back to my bedroom, taking the towel off my head and pulling my wet hair back into a bun. I know I probably shouldn’t go out into cold weather with wet hair, especially when pregnant, so I pull a furry toque down over it and go back to meet Fox who is waiting by the front door, my usual winter jacket in his hands.

  He holds it out for me and I slip my arms in it while he pulls it on.

  “Such service,” I remark as we head down the steps to his Jeep where he opens the door for me as well.

  He doesn’t say anything as I climb in and he shuts the door. He wasn’t acting like much of a gentleman last night but I don’t bring it up. I’m curious as to why he’s nervous, practically jumping out of his skin, wondering what he wants to talk to me about. I have a feeling it’s something good since his mood is on the up instead of on the down.

  That said, I’m not sure if he’s entirely sober or not, a thought that crosses my mind when I notice his fingers tapping against the steering wheel in agitation, the way he almost ran a stop sign when he pulled off onto a road that takes you to Chairman’s Peak.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him after the silence has simmered in the car for long enough. “Where are you taking me? Hiking?”

  “I’m fine,” he says quickly, giving me a tight smile. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “You don’t say,” I muse. “That makes two of us.”

  “I know,” he nods, frowning, seeming to take what I just said more serious than he should. “I know.”

  Finally, after a million switchbacks that snaked higher and higher up the mountain, he brings the car to the parking lot at the trailhead. We’re the only people here and at this height on this side of the mountains, the frost is thick, white, and refusing to melt.

  It’s gorgeous.

  Cold, but gorgeous.

  “Here we are,” he says.

  I’m still absolutely dumbfounded as to what’s going on, especially as he gets out of the Jeep and comes around my side, opening the door for me.

  “So we are going hiking?” I look down at my Sorel boots. “I’m not sure how these will hold up.”

  “We aren’t,” he says. He waves an arm at the view, gesturing to the glittering frosted valley and the town of North Ridge below. “I just thought this was a beautiful place.”

  “For what?”

  He takes both of my hands in his and squeezes them. Takes in a deep breath, the air clouding at his exhale. His smile is shaky.

  What the hell is happening?

  WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

  “Delilah,” he says. “I’m going to make this quick because I’m, well, I’m scared to death and I know you are too and the sooner we can move onto the next stage of our life, the better.”

  I can’t seem to swallow properly. I’m hanging onto his every word, like I’ll be freefalling when he’s done speaking.

  “I wish it was more romantic than this, but it will have to do,” he says and just those words alone are hitting me inside my chest, rattling around my heart.

  It will have to do.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring.

  A dull, brassy plastic ring.

  He drops to one knee in the frost.

  And I am beyond stunned.

  Beyond. Stunned.

  This isn’t what I think this is. This isn’t happening.

  Fox is not proposing to me…

  “Delilah, I think we should get married. I know this would be better under other circumstances, but it will have to do. Will you be my wife?”

  Again, those words.

  It will have to do.

  Why I’m focusing on them more than on everything, the words I’ve longed to hear from him my whole life, I don’t know. But I am.

  God, I want this to be real.

  But I don’t know if it is.

  So I don’t say yes.

  Not yet.

  There are a million champagne corks inside me ready to pop, streamers poised to come down, but I hold them back because I can’t quite say yes to this as it is.

  “Del?” Fox repeats and now there’s wild fear in his eyes, maybe some anger too. “You did hear what I asked, didn’t you?”

  I manage to swallow, a heavy, sharp pain
building inside of me. Those champagne bottles are fading into the distance. “I heard,” I whisper. “But…I need to think, Fox.”

  “You need to think?” he asks incredulously, squeezing my hand, the ring poised to go on my ring finger. “Del, I want to marry you. I want us to be a family. I want this baby to have a family. It’s the right thing to do and you know it.”

  “I know,” I say, my voice hushed as I feel the tears threatening me. “I know you do. But Fox, we can’t just get married because you think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Why not?”

  God, he looks so afraid. That look in his eyes…

  “Because. Because you need to love me. You need to love me Fox, you need to want to marry because you love me and can’t imagine life without me.” I’m starting to shake, everything is unraveling at lightning speed.

  “I can’t imagine life without you, Del,” he says and now his voice is rough, trembling. “I can’t. You are my life.”

  “But am I the love of your life?”

  He presses his lips together, eyes searching mine like he’s searching for the truth in me. Maybe he is.

  But I know his truth. I know it because I know him.

  It’s the truth I’ve always known.

  “I love you,” he says. “I’ve always loved you.”

  He says it like a fact. Like it’s something we both just need to accept.

  “But are you in love with me?” I whisper and in that moment I feel the air around us still, the very cells inside me pause and wait, wait for the pain.

  His eyes give it all away. The shame. So much shame.

  “Delilah,” he says, his voice higher, breaking. “Please. We have to do this for the sake of the baby.”

  “Are you in love with me?” I repeat, my voice rising too.

  He gets to his feet, taking the ring back, squeezing it into his fist. He licks his lips, his brow scrunched with frustration. “Why does that have to matter? Why can’t we just take things as they come?”

  And there I have it.

  The truth.