by Jess Bryant
Zach pushed himself out of the bed and stripped the damp sheets. It had been a long time since he had that dream. It came a lot in the first months after it happened. It had faded away until his father’s death but he’d suffered through the nightmares for nearly three years after the fact. Only as he got older had it faded away again. But now it was back because he’d had that stupid fight with Riley, he knew it.
He went to the kitchen, poured a glass of ice water and downed it before returning to the bedroom. He’d done some research over the years. He knew that a lot of times nightmares were related to stressful events in life and feelings of helplessness. He knew why the dream had come back now.
He hadn’t protected his little brother once and he’d almost gotten him killed. He’d been overprotective of Riley ever since. Sure he’d let him get away with more because of it over the years because of the guilt. He’d tried to keep him a kid but Riley hadn’t been a kid for a long time.
He and Devin were adults and they didn’t want to be overprotected anymore. They wanted responsibility. They were insisting on it actually which meant for the first time since all those years ago he had to think about letting them make their own mistakes and not being there to catch them if they fell.
He didn’t like change. He didn’t like added stress. So he had dreams that kept him up half the night to add to the stress his brothers were already putting on him. Fantastic.
He was just a regular old guy. He didn’t like to think about his issues with his dead father or his brothers or the land that was divided up between them. He didn’t have some deep well of fears of abandonment and failure. No, he didn’t. He just needed a new distraction because remodeling the house was not taking up nearly enough time or helping with his restlessness.
That thought immediately turned hard against the memory of Bluebell in his bed. She’d been a fantastic distraction and she’d seemed to need one as badly as he did. It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to him since he woke up without her there less than twenty-four hours ago but he’d told himself it was just because the sex was so good and he’d had nothing better to do all day than either get lost in the memories of last night or his fight with Riley.
He wasn’t the type of guy to go chasing after a skirt though, distraction or not. And she had enough issues to deal with right now, like he didn’t remember that forlorn look in her eye when he asked about Montgomery Oaks? No, that’d been a mistake he was happy she’d distracted them both from but he’d lucked out there. He’d be crazy to go back for seconds so instead he got back into bed and fought to get some decent sleep and put thoughts of Bluebell Carter, Riley and the question of exactly what he wanted out of life out of his head.
“Damn it Bluebell, what do you think you’re doing?”
She took a deep breath before she turned to face her father. He’d been working really hard on ruining the good mood that had permeated her body the past forty-eight hours. Now that he was awake again, he seemed determined to break her.
When she snuck back into the house before morning light after her romp with Zach she’d thought for sure nobody had noticed she was gone. Arlene hadn’t commented at breakfast. Everything had been as normal as they’d ever been. Normal continued right on through Lyle Carter waking up and becoming his usual overbearing, demanding, grouchy self.
She’d had a great night just one great night and the lightness it had left her with had been practically blissful. When she’d watched Zach fall asleep and then grabbed her clothes and high-tailed it away it wasn’t because she couldn’t wait to get out of there. It’s because she’d wanted to stay.
Not forever, lord no, just long enough so she wouldn’t have to face her problems for a little while longer. But their night had been over so she’d kissed the top of his head, murmured a quick thank you in his ear and gone back to the real world. The real world that royally sucked.
“I’m just putting some flowers in the room to brighten things up.” She arranged the vase on his dresser.
“I’m dying girl. There ain’t no bright side.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him and bit her lip to stifle the flood of emotions at those words. He’d rarely muttered the truth in the past few weeks. He refused to talk about it. She had no idea if he’d accepted it or was in denial because he wouldn’t talk to her about it. He was stubborn and proud and about as open about what was happening as Fort Knox.
“What can I do to help Daddy?” She tried to swallow but found it too difficult.
“Not a thing sweet girl, not a thing.”
“I could help with the ranch. There has to be something I could do to help Bobby or Arlene.”
“They’ve been doing their jobs for longer than you’ve been alive. They don’t need your help.”
“Okay, then something else, something that you’ve been doing that’s fallen to them? Payroll? Accounting? I’m good with numbers. I always have been.”
“I haven’t done payroll since 1985 Bluebell.” He looked at her as if she was crazy, “Oran handles all the finances. You going to take his job away from him just so you can feel needed?”
Son of a bitch she wanted to scream. She had no idea who Oran was. She’d never heard him mentioned by anyone on the ranch. But yeah, if it’d give her some sense of responsibility and duty she’d take his job if she could. She needed to be needed but she sucked it up and tilted her chin up like her father expected.
“Of course not. I just want to help out on the ranch.”
“The best thing you could do for the ranch is stay out of the way. You don’t know a thing about ranching.”
True. It was all true. It didn’t make it hurt any less though because he couldn’t even be brought to spare her feelings on his deathbed. He was Lyle Carter and he didn’t know how to be sensitive.
“And whose fault is that?” She muttered and righted the flowers and her tear-filled eyes before turning back to him, “Bluebell’s Daddy. Mama’s favorites.”
“Your mama loved those flowers. Prettiest I ever saw her was when she was standing in a field of bluebell’s though she was always the prettiest girl in any room too. Never a hair out of place, never anything less than a smile for a neighbor or friend. She loved this place. She’d never have left it.”
“Guess I didn’t turn out much like her.”
“No. You didn’t.” He sighed heavily, “Even when you were a little girl and she tried so hard to dress you up in those frilly dresses and put you in those beauty pageants you weren’t a thing like her. You were wild and independent, even then.”
If she thought she’d ever had her feelings hurt by her father before she’d been sorely mistaken. He just couldn’t help but keep cutting away at her. He wouldn’t know how to talk to her, to show a lick of emotion if his life depended on it. Not even now.
“I didn’t mean to be different.”
“I know. You couldn’t help it. It’s just who you are.” He flipped on the television like they’d just been discussing the weather and not all of her faults.
She stared at him in bewilderment. How was this man her father? How could she love him so much and not understand anything about him? She didn’t look like him. She didn’t act like him and yet he was the only parent she had. It wasn’t fair and she felt some of the fissures inside her heart break open.
“You know what Daddy, I may not have won beauty pageants or sang in the church choir but I’m not a failure. There are people out there who would be proud of what I’ve done, who don’t look at me and see nothing but faults.”
“I never said I wasn’t proud of you.” He growled, “Don’t be dramatic Bluebell.”
“You never said you were proud either though.” She shook her head, “I finished school. I got my degree and a good job. I have a good life.”
“Then go back to it! If you’ve got somewhere better to be then just go. You weren’t supposed to be here anyway. Just go back to your wonderful life Bluebell.”
Oh how she wan
ted to. She wanted to rush down the stairs and get in her completely impractical sports car and leave. She wanted to leave Fate in her rearview mirror. She wanted to leave Montgomery Oaks and her father and all of her misery and memories behind.
But she didn’t. She simply finished folding her father’s laundry and put it away and then she went downstairs and sat at the too big dining room table all by herself and wondered how her life had spiraled so far out of control. Her father didn’t want her here. She didn’t want to be here but she knew she had to.
She looked around the empty dining room and felt the urge to be anywhere else but here. The problem was that she didn’t want to be just anywhere though. She wanted to be in Zach’s house where things weren’t stuck in the past, where there was a table you could actually eat at, where she was just a good time girl who knew how to smile and laugh.
But she couldn’t do that either. As much as she’d prefer to get naked and forget her problems that wasn’t an option. They’d just had sex. He’d probably already moved along to another of the smiling masses that didn’t want anything from him.
It just sucked that despite growing up in Fate the number of people she considered friends was measly at best. She could call Jenny Sue but she’d have her kids at this time of the week. She could call Molly but she was a newlywed fresh back from her honeymoon and it didn’t seem fair to bring her down so soon. She might be able to reach Maddie but she didn’t really know the younger girl well enough to put her bad mood on her either.
As sad as it was, the person she’d talked to the most since arriving back in Fate was Zach. Yet it wasn’t his job to entertain her, as much as she’d like for it to be while she was here. She’d just have to find something else to do with her time, some way to keep herself sane until… well until when she didn’t know.
Until her father talked to her about the ranch? Until she figured out what was expected of her? Until he died? Until forever? No that last one wasn’t an option but it did get her up off her butt and onto her feet to find something to do.
Chapter Twelve
Zach hated stopping a project in the middle. He hated that he hadn’t noticed he was running low on supplies too. What he hated the most was that he’d been so distracted the past few days that not even demolishing the guest bathroom had provided an outlet for his frustrations.
The dreams just kept coming and the more he had them the more he wanted to sweep in and save Devin and Riley from themselves. He’d taken a hands-off approach to the whole thing which was so far the opposite of his personality he didn’t know what to do with himself. So he avoided his brothers, he ignored them when need be and he worked on his house.
A bead of sweat slid down his face and he used the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe it off as he drove into town to hit up the hardware store. The AC was working overtime but the drive was too short to get it good and cool in the truck before he reached his destination. It’d be a short trip, he just had to grab a few things and get back so he could finish up the cabinetry and move on to the next phase of his renovations.
The more he worked the more he wanted to keep working. It was a strange feeling since he’d spent all of his life working the ranch and he’d never done anything but wait for sundown and then dread the sunrise the next day. He’d spent the past twenty-four hours letting his little brothers deal with the ranch and focusing on his own life like they claimed they wanted him to do.
Turned out that was just as frustrating as dealing with the two of them. The more he ignored the ranch and his brothers the guiltier he felt. The guiltier he felt the more he set about taking his mind off it and it continued in a loop of annoyance and frustration that was eating at him.
He loved the ranch. He couldn’t imagine leaving it but he loved this other part of him that could build something with his hands too. He needed to figure out a way to do both. Once he did, he knew he’d feel more like the old Zach again, the one that was responsible and in control. He could make it work. He always made things work for everybody.
Grabbing a shopping cart he headed into the only hardware store in town. Ten minutes later he had a basket full of nails, screws and caulk and lumber. He was just rounding the corner to head to the front when he heard a familiar voice call his name and cringed.
“Zach. Hey. Whatcha doing in town?”
He prayed for strength as he turned to face the unwelcome greeting, “Maddie. Hi.”
“Well is that all you have to say for yourself?” She pursed her lips and cocked an eyebrow, “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were avoiding me.”
If he didn’t know any better he’d have confirmed it for her straight out but his mom had taught him better manners than that. It seemed everywhere he turned these days Maddie was hanging around. He’d been nothing but polite but he didn’t have any interest and he thought he’d made that perfectly clear.
“I’ve just been busy.” He said instead.
“Well you missed my birthday.”
“I did?” He caught her frown and screwed up a smile, “I did. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get away.”
She waved away his comment, “I heard. Your brothers showed up and Riley told me all about how you’re working on renovating your house.”
“Yep, sure am.”
“Well what do you think? Do I look a whole year older than the last time you saw me?” She cocked a hip with one hand and tilted her head like she was posing for Miss America.
Zach furrowed his brow. How was he supposed to answer that question? It had to be a trick. If he said yes, he thought she looked older and that was never a good thing for a girl was it? And if he said no he might as well call her a baby.
“You uh… you look different that’s for sure.” He finally shrugged, thankful it was the truth so he didn’t have to break his rule about lying to women. “Did you change your hair?”
“I sure did. It’s so sweet of you to notice.” She giggled.
He thought it was a couple of inches shorter at most but she had some light streaks in it he’d never noticed before. He probably still wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for a way out of her trick question. Still, he hadn’t wanted to be sweet. Sweet gave women ideas, silly ideas about him being boyfriend or worse husband material.
“I think it looked fine the other way.”
She raise her eyebrow again, “You don’t like it?”
“Not really. Sorry.” Well that definitely wasn’t sweet but he hadn’t been able to think of a nicer way to put it, manners or not.
To his utter surprise she giggled, “You’re so honest. I’ve always liked that about you Zach.”
“You’re not mad?” He eyed her warily.
“Nah, I’m not surprised. You seem to prefer blondes but I ain’t dying my whole head just to get your attention.”
Well that was a relief, maybe. Except at the mention of blondes memories of the only one that’d caught his eye lately drifted back into his head. He hadn’t seen Bluebell in three days, not since he fell asleep and she went home without waking him up. He’d definitely thought about her though, thought about her so much that he’d probably have been worried except he knew he was just stressed and looking for a distraction and she’d been really good at that for a few hours.
“Oh, well, okay.” He managed a shrug for Maddie.
“I’m glad I ran into you actually. I wanted to ask your opinion on something.”
“My opinion? On what?”
“An older man that I have a crush on.”
Oh hell. Tension clenched in his shoulders. He didn’t want to deal with this right now or ever. He was pretty good at dealing with women that knew how he played the game but Maddie was too young to know things like that. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings and there was no way he could deal with it if she started crying.
“Look, Maddie…” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice, “I’m flattered and all but I’m thirty-six years old.”
“Really? You’r
e thirty-six?” She blinked at him with a look of confusion. “You seem a lot older than that.”
What. The. Hell. He did not seem older than thirty-six. If anything he got told that he and Devin could be mistaken for twins all the time and Devin was four years younger than him. What was that supposed to mean?
“Sorry, that didn’t come out right.” Maddie smiled sweetly, “It’s just that you seem so responsible and mature for your age. That’s why I wanted to talk to you, because I know you’ve been a really good big brother to Devin and Riley and I never had a big brother like that.”
“Big brother?” He tilted his head in confusion.
“Yeah, like an older big brother, you’re old enough to give good advice and I could really use some.”
See there it was again. Older, much older? He wasn’t that damn old. He didn’t even feel old except when he spent all day working out in the heat and sun in the fields. Sure his muscles ached and groaned sometimes but that was normal for somebody that did as much physical labor as he did. It wasn’t about age.
The chime over the door dinged a few feet away and Zach looked over to see who he could ask to save him from this conversation. The minute his eyes landed on the woman that walked through the door he forgot all about being old. He certainly didn’t feel old when his body reacted to Bluebell like a horny fifteen year old.
The sun shining through the big glass windows at the front of the store glinted off her blonde hair. A pair of classic Ray-Ban’s shielded her eyes but a pair of soft pink lips was clearly visible. Those lips that’d been all over his body just a few days ago and tasted like heaven lifted into a smile as she noticed them.
“Hey Maddie. Hey Zach.” The door swung shut behind her as she headed down the aisle towards them.
She was wearing another dress. Did she own anything but dresses? He hoped not. He liked the smooth expanse of long legs beneath the hem, liked the idea that he could back her against a wall or pull her into his lap, lift the material, push her panties aside and have her again anytime anywhere.