by Joanna Bell
***
It was the early winter that year when the little old Ford I shared with my mom decided to crap out on me as I left the Super Mart, where I had a part-time job after school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. My meager wages were supposed to help pay art school tuition, but even at 17 I knew it would take 100 part-time jobs to pay for a single year at one of the fancy institutions I spent hours reading about online.
But my phone was broken, and instead of going back into the Super Mart to call someone to pick me up, I stupidly decided to just walk the 3 miles home. It was almost dusk – and already below zero – but I had a coat, and pockets to shove my hands into. It would be fine.
Within half a mile my fingers, toes and lips were numb with cold. I kept walking, listening to the crunch of ice and road grit under my sneakered feet and veering off to the side every time a vehicle whooshed past me on the road. I wasn't even halfway home when the rumble of a large truck slowing down filled my ears. Someone was pulling over behind me. When I turned around to see who it was, I was immediately blinded by headlights.
"Hailey?"
Jackson. I couldn't see him, but I knew that deep voice. I tried to raise my hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the headlights, but my arm didn't want to move. So I tried to say something and my mouth didn't either.
"Jesus," he said, jumping out of the truck and jogging up to me. "What the hell are you doing? It's 15 damn degrees out here."
"I know," I replied. Well, it's how I tried to reply. What actually came out was a slurred 'iii-ooo' sound.
"Get in," Jackson told me as he realized the state of near-hypothermia I was in. "Why didn't you call someone? Too goddamned stubborn to call someone for a ride, is that it?"
He began to hustle me towards the truck without bothering to wait for my response, which was fine because all I could do was make incoherent, vaguely indignant sounding noises.
"Come on. Get in."
But I couldn't get in, either. All I could do was stand there, frozen. So he lifted me into the passenger seat, shut the door and ran around the truck to get in the other side and begin the lecture I knew was coming.
"Well?!" He asked, cranking the heat up to maximum when we were safely shut inside the blissfully toasty pick-up. "Are you going to tell me what you're doing wandering down the busiest road in town dressed like that when it's below zero or what?"
I wanted to tell him my phone was broken. I wanted to tell him I didn't realize quite how cold it actually was outside. I wanted to defend myself. But I couldn't do any of those things because my mouth still didn't want to form actual words.
"Fffff..." I slurred. "Jaaaa..."
Jackson sat in the driver's seat staring at me the way you would stare at a particularly reckless idiot.
"Fffff..."
"Are you trying to tell me to fuck off?" He asked a few seconds later, laughing out loud but not looking particularly amused. "Doesn't that just take the fuckin' cake, Hailey Nickerson! I shouldn't have expected anything else from you, though, should I? I mean, this does fit the pattern. I try to do something nice and –"
"FFFFF!"
I don't remember what I was trying to say, but it wasn't 'fuck off.' I think I was trying to say something about my phone. Jackson was completely wrong about my intentions, but I couldn't tell him so.
So we sat in his big, shiny pick-up truck for a few minutes, him not making any effort at all to hide what he thought of my sub-zero walk home and me sighing with frustration at not yet being able to talk properly.
It was strange sitting next to him. Really strange. Something was different. Did he feel it too? What even was it? We'd barely spoken for the last few years, maybe it was that?
But it wasn't just that. It was the fact that, actually, everything was different. I used to feel like a child during my interactions with Jackson Devlin. But I was no longer a child on that cold evening. And he was no longer the older brother figure he'd once been to me. It wasn't anything either of us had decided. It wasn't conscious. It just was.
And I found the sass that never used to be in short supply when I was around him replaced with an awkward self-consciousness that made me feel like I didn't recognize myself. Jackson himself seemed to perceive something of this difference in me, too, because he soon laid off the teasing.
"For real," he said a few minutes later as I held my poor, icy hands up directly in front of the heating vents. "What were you doing out there?"
I must have heard him say my name hundreds of times already by that point. But it never hit me before like it did that night. A part of me that I didn't even know existed before that very moment softened at the sound of my name on his lips.
"I wash..." I started, pressing my lips together a few times to try to make them work properly. "I wash – I was walking home."
"Yeah, I can see that."
"I work at the shh... the shhh... the Super Mart now."
"I know."
"How do you know?"
I looked up at him and for whatever reason the universe chose that instant to hit me with a ton of bricks. It's not like I didn't know Jackson was attractive. I knew he was the prom king of Sweetgrass Ridge, doted on by older women, lusted after by the younger ones and respected by all the men even at 22. But I didn't really know it until that moment. I didn't feel it until something about the way his hair swooped down over one of his high, broad cheekbones made my heart skip a beat in a way that had never happened before.
Terrified by my own response, I looked away immediately.
"What?" Jackson teased. "You think I'm stalking you or something, you egomaniac? This is a small town, Hailey. Everyone knows –"
"I know!" I cut him off, totally freaked out and trying desperately to hide it. I was not a little girl anymore. And I think maybe I didn't quite realize it until that evening, when the sight of Jackson Devlin's jaw line did something new to me, made me feel something particular that I had not felt before. "I don't think you're stalking me. I, uh – I'm – thank you. Thank you for stopping. I was really cold."
My rescuer feigned shock, widening his blue eyes and leaning back in his seat as if I'd just announced I was actually an alien from another solar system.
"Whoa," he said, smiling broadly. Did he always have that smile? "Did the cold get into your brain? Did you just say thank you?!"
"Shut up!" I responded, trying not to giggle and doing it anyway. "Idiot."
"There we go. That's more like it."
I would have tried to come up with a smart ass remark in response, but my hands were suddenly aching.
"Ow."
"Hands?"
I nodded.
"Yeah that's what happens when you get really cold like that. It hurts when everything thaws out. Here, give them to me."
He took my cold little hands between his big, warm ones and gave them a vigorous rubbing. He was leaning close to me, then. Close enough to feel the heat of his body. Close enough to smell the earthy smell of hay and cattle on his jacket.
"Better?" He asked a couple of minutes later. I tried to concentrate on the feeling in my hands.
"Uh – yeah. They don't hurt as much. How do you know how to do that?"
Jackson side-eyed me. "Why does no one in this town think I do any actual work? You know I graduated almost 4 years ago, right? And that I work for my dad now? You think working a ranch as big as ours is an office job?"
I sat back, considering. I did know ranching was difficult work. But I admit I also didn't think the Devlins actually did any of it themselves. "I guess I thought your dad had people. You know – employees."
"He does," came the reply. "But he wants me to take over the ranch. I'm the oldest son. It's my "duty." And if you think Jack Devlin is just going to hand me the whole operation without working me like a fucking packhorse for a couple of decades first, well then you don't know Jack Devlin."
Up until that point the conversation was light. Maybe a little awkward, but funny and even a little silly.
But there was a strange note in Jackson's voice when he talked about his dad, one I'd never heard before. He must have known it, too, because he immediately changed the subject before I could say anything.
"So – you were headed home?"
"Yeah."
He pulled back onto the road and we sat quietly together for a little while as he drove. Even without talking it still felt strange. It never used to feel like that to be with him. I never used to be nervous.
"So what's the deal with you not talking to me for years?" He asked out of the blue a few minutes later while were stopped at a red light.
I felt my cheeks begin to tingle slightly and looked out the window. "Um. What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? You understand English, don't you? Why didn't you talk to me for so long?"
He wasn't joking around anymore. He was actually asking me. And I didn't have a single clue what to say.
"I –" I stammered, rubbing my still-chilly hands together. "Didn't I? I thought it just...I thought it was mutual? I didn't do it on purpose, Jack–"
"Bullshit."
Still not joking around. He actually sounded angry. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know what to say to being called out like that by a person who, in the previous iteration of our friendship, had been so willing to make allowances for me.
"I –"
"You know what?" He said, before I could continue mumbling and tripping my way through whatever explanation I could muster. "I'm sorry. It's been a shitty day. Shitty week – hell, shitty month. That's my fault, not yours. It was just weird, is all. One day we're friends, the next you're ignoring me every time I see you at Tiago's."
In front of us, the light turned green and the truck rolled forward. Without me even realizing it, we'd grown up. That's what the new tone was in Jackson's voice. It was just what happens when you grow up, and even being the captain of the football team and the prom king and dream boyfriend of every pretty girl in town isn't enough to insulate you from... life. Hell, maybe being someone like Jackson Devlin made it even harder to accept that not everything was going to work out your way every time?
I wanted to do something to make him smile again. To take whatever weight he was currently carrying off his shoulders for a few seconds. The least I could do was be honest.
"Do you honestly not know what that was about?" I asked, surprised at what I was about to reveal, which was something I wasn't sure even I had truly faced up to until that very moment.
Jackson turned to look at me briefly. He'd lost his boyishness, now that I could see him up close again. The angles of his face were sharper now, broader and straighter. A layer of dark stubble covered his lower face and his shoulders had a muscular depth that was obvious even under the flannel work jacket he was wearing. "No," he said, shaking his head. "No I have no idea what that was about, Hailey."
I almost wanted him to stop saying my name in spite of the little thrill it sent through me. It was distracting as hell.
Once again, I looked out the window. In the rearview mirror the Rockies were fading into the darkening night sky. "Because I was jealous," I said, slowly and quietly.
"You were what? Jealous? Of me?"
"No not of you. Of your, um, your girlfriend. Or your girlfriends. Whatever."
When there was no response and I was forced to turn to face him, I could see he was baffled.
"Are you surprised?" I continued. "Don't you remember that day you found me crying about my dad and I asked you if you had a girlfriend and –"
"Of course I remember it. I also remember that you were 12, Hailey. Are you seriously telling me you were jealous of – fuck, I don't even remember her name."
I couldn't help but laugh at that. Of course he couldn't remember her name. How many had there been, I wondered. How many girls more than eager to be seen on Jackson Devlin's strong arm?
"Yeah," I shrugged self-consciously. "How are you surprised by that? I had the biggest crush on you, you know."
Oh God. I pressed my lips together so I wouldn't blab any other humiliating confessions and busied myself with examining my fingernails.
Jackson whooped with laughter. "A crush?! You had a crush on me? I mean, I guess I kind of knew? I just thought it was some possessive little kid thing. I didn't think you'd stop talking to me over it. You were 12! That's pretty inappropriate – you know that, right?"
He was laughing at me. I don't like being laughed at. No one does, but I had an inkling even then that perhaps I liked it even less than the average person.
"You know what?" I replied tightly, frowning. "Why don't you just take me home?"
"Don't be like that," he protested. "Aw, Hailey. Come on. Don't do that."
"Then don't laugh at me when I'm trying to tell you the truth!" I shot back. "I don't even know why I said anything – it's hard for me to talk about personal stuff sometimes. I thought you knew that."
"The last time I knew you was a long time ago! Listen, I'm sorry, OK? I –"
"Just take me home."
Jackson sighed and tightened his hand on the steering wheel. "Fine. I'll take you home. Just like old times."
"In the 'old times' you didn't used to make fun of me for telling the truth!" I said under my breath, irritated because my feelings were hurt – and because I was embarrassed by my confession.
"Yes I did!" Came the response. "I used to laugh at you all the time – and you used to laugh at me! I'll tell you one thing that hasn't changed at all though and that's you. You still have zero chill."
We drove the rest of the way to my house in silence. I was torn between being hurt by the fact that whatever part of Jackson used to be able to take any level of shit from me and still think it was funny and cute seemed to have disappeared, and knowing he had, once again, saved my ass. This time from a long, freezing walk home that could well have ended in frostbite.
"Thank you for picking me up," I said when he pulled into the condo complex.
"It's not a problem, Hailey. Hey – at least you learned how to say thank you."
I peered at him in the gloom, unsure if he was joking or not. When he didn't offer me anything further I decided I wasn't going to beg him for his approval and opened the door.
"OK, well. Thanks again."
"You're welcome."
I was careful not to slam the door. I'd already shown Jackson Devlin too much of my soft underbelly that night. I wasn't going to give myself away any further with childish door-slamming antics.
When I got the front door to the condo open I heard him beginning to reverse out of the driveway. I was secretly hoping he would stop, come after me, tell me he didn't want to leave our first conversation in years on such a bad note.
But he didn't come after me, and I closed the front door without looking back, not sure if I was more annoyed at myself or him.
Was that it then? One awkward conversation and we were just going to go right back to not talking to each other?
Chapter 5: Jackson
So Hailey Nickerson turned out beautiful, all luscious curves and luminosity, her eyes shining as if lit from within. It's not like I didn't already know it before finding her shivering on the side of the road on a cold winter's night. Sweetgrass Ridge is a small town. You see people around. Your friends see people around.
I was angry at myself after driving her home. Truth was, I'd missed the stuck-up brat. I often wondered if there was some way to strike up our friendship again, this time as a more grown-up thing than it had been before. Does that sound creepy? I don't mean it that way. I was 22, busy with the ranch from dawn until dusk and under ever increasing scrutiny from a father who seemed reluctant to show any sign of approval or affection towards the son he had raised from birth to take over the family business. I had a girlfriend – Katia, a blandly pretty former cheerleader who made no effort to hide the fact that all she wanted out of life was a husband and a bunch of kids – and lots of friends.
I was also really lonely, and not fully aware of it. Tha
t might have been the first lesson of my adult life, now that I think of it. You can have a girlfriend, friends, a big family. You can be surrounded by people. And you can still be lonely. Ranching is hard work when you're doing it all yourself – and I was doing as much of it myself as any man could have. A week after high school graduation my father and Darcy sat me down in the enormous dining room that overlooked the foothills and informed me that they were giving me responsibility for my own herd. Not one steer, or two, or ten. A whole herd. 200 head. It was suddenly going to be my job to get the beasts to weight, to keep them alive and safe from predators and disease.
My first reaction was to be flattered. They must have thought I was incredibly responsible to give me my own herd at 18, right? Devlin Ranch beef was famous, restaurants all over the country paid eye-watering premiums just to be able to say they got their beef from us. And that meant there were a lot of rules to follow when it came to raising our cattle. A certain number of days per year they had to be out on the range grazing on wild grasses. We couldn't use the antibiotics and medicines other ranchers did, so disease and keeping the cattle free of it was difficult and stressful.
I shouldn't have been flattered. The herd wasn't a gift – it was a test. One that, 4 years after it started, I was still taking. I was a glorified, unpaid ranch-hand. And all talk of Devlin Ranch's finances, business strategies, future business plans? I wasn't allowed to take part in any of that. No. It was my job to get up at the goddamn ass-crack of dawn every single day, rain or shine or snow, Christmas day or Wednesday and spend the whole day working my butt off so those cattle didn't die. Or worse, lose their ability to be sold as 'Devlin Ranch Organically Farmed Grass-Fed Beef.'
To say it was a shock after a childhood of generally being indulged by everyone around me would be putting it mildly. To say I was chafing at the bit of my father's control would be another such mildly-put statement. My friends, who I saw less and less of as time went on, didn't understand. I couldn't blame them. Tiago's family didn't have money. His mom – like Hailey's, although she didn't really talk about it much – struggled to put food on the table for years. To Tiago I was just a whiny rich kid who couldn't take a little hardship before being handed a multi-million dollar business and lifelong financial security of a kind he could only dream of.