Last Call: A Camden Ranch Novel

by Jillian Neal

  “This is not my fault,” Natalie snarled.

  “Of course it’s not,” Holly huffed. “But you two are the only two people who can fix this.”

  “I don’t think I can ever trust him again.”

  “Coming from us…” Dec put his arm around Holly, “…two people whose entire relationship existed because of complicated lies we told everyone around us, I can tell you that the trust you had before can never be rebuilt, but you can build a new kind of trust, a better kind of trust, one that can’t be broken,” Dec concluded.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The ache of his feet in his boots was all too familiar yet Aaron continued to pace. He tried to believe that somehow some way this would all work out. There had to be something he could do or say to convince her to give him a chance. He marched on. It was all he really knew how to do. He needed her. Every breath, every heartbeat hinged on the belief that he could hold her in his arms again. Somehow.

  Dec closed the door behind him. He offered Aaron a consolatory half-smile. “Give her a little more time. The Camden women like to get everything sorted out in their minds before they take action. She’s still processing.”

  “She told you to leave didn’t she?” Aaron knew.

  “I didn’t listen but yes.”

  “Got any other ideas, Doc? I’m losing it.”

  “I can go to the office and get you enough samples to get you through the next few weeks.”

  “I will not be drugged into believing that I haven’t just ended my own life.”

  “You’ve gotten through so much, Aaron. This isn’t over with. You’re just going to have to give her a little more time.”

  “My life depends on her opening that door.”

  “I know it does. I promise you I will not let you lose her, too. You have room for one more in this camp?” He asked the team.

  “You got food?” Voodoo grinned.

  “I’m a decent cook and I can let you men make use of both my pantry and my plumbing facilities instead of digging a latrine.”

  “The more the merrier, Doc.”

  “Did you boys really think I was gonna let you camp out on my ranch and not feed you?” Jessie and Austin approached carrying platters of food. Grant pulled up in his truck.

  “Ms. Camden you don’t have to feed us.” Torn between wanting his friends to have plenty to eat and not wanting the Camdens going to any more trouble on his behalf, Aaron shook his head.

  “She’s gonna feed you and she’s almost as stubborn as her daughters are, so eat,” Austin directed.

  Grant hopped out of his truck and pulled a folding table and a stack of chairs from the back. “You want these in the big tent?”

  “You really don’t have to…” Aaron started but T glared at him.

  “Shut it, man. They want to help and Jesus Christ himself knows you need to learn to let people help you.”

  “Put it in the tent, Grant. Is Katy coming down?” Jessie commanded.

  “I ain’t letting her sleep on the ground with us, but she’s bringing coffee, and fixins, and her cherry pies.”

  “Dude, where were they when we were in the sandbox?” Smith chuckled.

  Austin unfurled a Coleman sleeping bag before Aaron could stop him. “You don’t have to…” he tried again.

  Austin held up his hands. “One, I want to see somebody out-stubborn my sister. Two, I owe you one. Three, Summer’s mighty ornery right about now in her pregnancies. I ain’t making much of a sacrifice being out here ’stead of in there. And four, my young’uns love to camp out, so they think this is great fun and it’ll get ’em out of Summer’s hair.”

  “I’ll agree on the first point,” Grant explained as he arranged a sleeping bag beside his brother’s. “On the other hand, Katy gets sweet and cuddly right about now so this is a little more of a sacrifice for me. But it’s worth it to see my sister finally have to admit she mighta been wrong and that she might have to give a little latitude every now and again.”

  Aaron was quick to correct him. “She isn’t wrong. I’ve been lying to her the whole time. I was wrong.”

  Grant shrugged. “I ain’t one of those people dumb enough to believe that lying for a good reason is as bad as lying for the wrong reason or for no reason at all. Way I see it you had the cajones to actually do what we all been wishin’ we could do for years now. If I get the chance, I’ll tell my little sister that, too. And don’t tell my old man but me, Austin, and Luke got a pool going on how long she’ll make you wait out here ’fore she caves. I got a hundred dollars on tomorrow afternoon if you want to keep that in mind.”

  “She ain’t goin’ down that fast,” Austin huffed. “This is Nat we’re talking about.”

  Mr. Camden’s dirty boots hit the dirt next. He chuckled as he entered the camp area. “Nice job, if I do say so myself. You know I think I got an extension cord long enough to run from Dec and Holly’s out here if you want me to bring a TV. I got a buncha old army movies we can watch while we wait.”

  Aaron stared skyward not certain what he was praying for. Half of him believed he was back on those painkillers they’d given him after his surgeries that made him hallucinate.

  “Ev, no one wants to see The Thin Red Line with you, honey. I’m sure these boys have seen all kinds of real red lines and they don’t want to see any more. Now, have you talked to our daughter?” Jessie rolled her eyes.

  A foreign sensation overtook Aaron. It took him a minute realize that he was chuckling. Nothing made sense without Natalie beside him. He longed to tell her how kind her family was and how funny. She knows that, moron.

  “I ain’t talked to her yet ’cause all of you who’ve already tried are wasting your breath. You gotta let her stew on it.”

  “Well, when do you plan on talking to her? ’Cause this is plain ol’ ridiculous. So, he wanted to kill Mick. Ain’t like every single one of us out here ain’t had thoughts like that most of the time we’ve known him.”

  “It’s not that. It’s that I lied to her, ma’am. She has every right to hate me.”

  “She don’t hate you,” Jessie assured him. “If she hated you your truck would already be in flames.”

  That was the second time that oddly specific warning had been given. “Did she actually set someone’s car on fire at some point?”

  Ev and Jessie nodded and then both doubled over with laughter.

  “When she was about nine, calf thieving around here was pretty common. They’d take ’em before we could get ’em branded. Then they’d try to sell ’em back to the ranchers they’d taken them from,” Grant explained. “One day, this old truck with a trailer pulls up to Mama and Daddy’s and our calves are in the back. We knew what was up but before Dad could get the cops out here, Nat snuck outside and stuck a pack of fireworks in the hood of the truck while they were in our kitchen horse trading on our own cows. They realized we were on to them, took off, firecrackers went off, truck went up in flames. She single-handedly caught the thieves. She’s never lived it down though.”

  “That’s my girl,” Aaron vowed without thought. She wasn’t his anymore.

  “She don’t take well to anybody trying to take advantage of anybody else,” Grant explained.

  “Yeah, but life’s not always fair,” Jessie commented. “She knows that. She just don’t like it. I’m going in and Everett Camden you are coming with me.”

  “All right, fine.” Ev set down a fried chicken leg he’d taken from one of the baskets Jessie had provided. “If we ain’t back out here in a half hour start thinking up a rescue mission boys,” Ev commanded T-Byrd.

  “We call them tactical evacuation missions, sir, but we won’t let you down. If you want to do a little recon for us while you’re in there, we’d appreciate it.”

  “You got it, son.” Ev saluted and every member of Team Seven bit back hysterical laughter.

  “Seriously, what the hell happened to your bed?” Holly dissolved in another fit of giggles.

  Natalie kept her gla
re trained on the camp right outside her front door. “I cannot believe Grant and Austin are taking their side.”

  “Oh, I’m on their side, too. I’m just in here with you because you’re my sister and I don’t like to camp.”

  Whirling around to glare at her sister instead, Natalie didn’t get a single word out before there was another knock on her front door. “So help me if they think they’re getting in here to use my bathroom.”

  Holly joined her at the bedroom window. “It’s Mama and Daddy. Come on. We cannot let Dad see your bed.” She jerked Natalie down the hallway and let their parents in. Before she closed the front door, her mouth fell open. “Oh my gosh, did Katy make pies?”

  “Yep and Indie’s on her way with her potato soup,” Jessie informed them.

  “It’s a good thing I love you, Nat,” Holly huffed.

  “I don’t think he’s going anywhere, baby girl. Why don’tcha just hear him out?” Her father tried.

  “Because he lied to me about basically everything.”

  “He did not lie to you about everything. He lied about trying to figure out who’d hurt you and about his friends breaking into half of Main Street,” Holly explained yet again.

  “I can’t believe you all are on his side.”

  “I am not taking sides,” her mother assured her. She went to the kitchen and poured a mug of cold coffee. “I’m just here because it don’t matter how many holes are in the waffle it does always have two sides and I want to hear both of ’em. So, start talking my stubborn little cowgirl.”

  “Let’s see here. I trusted him with everything and he lied.”

  “Once again, you did not trust him with everything, Nat.” Her sister was officially on her nerves.

  “Did he ask you who’d hurt you, Natalie?” Her mother stared her down.

  “Yes.”

  “And did you tell him?”

  “No.”

  “And why was that?”

  “I didn’t want Uncle Mick to have anything to do with me and Aaron.” Just saying her uncle’s name swirled bile in her stomach.

  “Fair enough. Did you explain to Aaron why you wouldn’t tell him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seems to me he was trying to respect your mission while conducting one of his own. You didn’t want to think about Mick. He wanted to kill him. The way a man’s mind works the two never had to cross paths.”

  “That’s ridiculous. He cannot kill Uncle Mick.”

  “Why not? I almost did several times. Most of the time I wish I’d succeeded. If it weren’t for your granddaddy, I would’ve, too,” her father vowed. “And every single time you had one of them nightmares after it happened, I swore to myself I was gonna drive to North Carolina and shoot him, beat him, and drown him one after another.”

  “Please try to remember that Aaron is also not thinking entirely clearly,” Holly leapt in again.

  “How could I forget? You bring it up every five minutes.”

  “All right you two. Now, the night I was out here and we had tea you told me you were worried sick about him because of his PTSD. Did he tell you about that?” Her mother already knew he hadn’t. Natalie could tell.

  “No.”

  “So, how did you go ’bout figuring that out?”

  “She asked Dec, and then she asked me, and then she researched it. Oh, and she also asked several of his friends about it behind his back.”

  “Ain’t that interesting. Tell me, cowgirl, did you tell Aaron you were researching his diagnosis?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Natalie ground her teeth.

  “And why not?”

  “I didn’t want to upset him.”

  “My, my, my. Pot meet kettle. And why did you do so much research, sweetheart?”

  Natalie refused to answer.

  “Mm-hmm, I’d say it has something to do with the fact that you love him and you want to protect him. I’d bet every head of cattle on this ranch and a few on another that those are the very reasons he didn’t tell you what he was doing.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay to lie.”

  “No, it don’t, but love and protection are two pretty good places to build a relationship. I saw the look on the boy’s face when you went running up to your old room. If you don’t want to trust him right now, trust your mama. He ain’t ever gonna lie to you about anything ever again. People do make mistakes, sweetheart.”

  “Nat, baby, you know trust doesn’t have to be all in or all out.” Her father winked at her. “You can build it back slowly over time. Take a little faith, turn that into trust, and go from there.”

  “You never lied to Mama about anything,” she reminded him.

  Her mother choked on a sip of coffee. “Dear Lord,” she cleared her throat. “Your daddy likes to forget the part of our getting-together story where he’d been seeing someone else on occasion when he picked me up on the side of the road. What was her name, Ev?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Uh-huh, well she shows up on the ranch demanding to know who I was. I started demanding to know who she was. Your daddy kept assuring me she was a very distant cousin.”

  “Well, that was kinda true if you think about us all being related ’cause we all came from the people on the Ark and all.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes so hard Natalie was momentarily concerned they were going to lodge in her skull.

  “Another time, I went back to Denver to help my mama move into assisted living. You all were little but your daddy kept assuring me he could handle everything. When I got back, Luke had a cast on his left arm and his right hand. Grant hadn’t bathed in a week. Austin had tied four saddles onto three heifers. You had a calf up in your bedroom you’d dressed as a cowgirl princess that your daddy didn’t know was there, and Holly had learned to curse and had finger-painted all over my walls with the manure she found in your bedroom. Whole time I was gone he kept telling me how everything was totally under control.”

  “So that’s a good example of your mother’s forgiving nature and learning to trust me again.” Ev sighed.

  “She also never left all of us with you again,” Natalie pointed out.

  “That ain’t the point.”

  “Holly said shit more than she said mama for an entire year, Everett.”

  Natalie hated the loneliness she’d felt as soon as she’d banished Aaron from her life almost as much as she hated that he’d lied to her. The desire to hear the entire story straight from him continued to shimmer in her mind. “So, all men lie. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “There you go, Jess. Turnabout’s fair play ain’t it? You want to correct her or shall I? What was it you told me when I asked you ’bout a dozen times if you were sure you’d ridden a horse before?”

  “I told him I’d ridden my whole life. I’d never ridden. Got my ass thrown in the dirt. There I lied, too. I was trying to impress him.”

  “Then she got mad at the horse and hit me when I went running out to make sure she was okay.”

  “As long as we’re on the subject I might also have lied to your daddy more than a time or two about how much a pocketbook cost. And… I might’ve let him think that I got to keep my employee discount at Dillard’s for a year or ten after I quit my job there.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Ev shook his head.

  “Fine. I will think about maybe, possibly talking to him but not right now,” Natalie conceded.

  “No time like the present, darlin’,” her father reminded her.

  “Not. Right. Now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “What are the chances she’ll hate me more if I just kick down her door?” Aaron fumed as night fell. Despondency had set in. He could no longer make out the green grass or the hazy orange sunset. Colors leached rapidly from the world around him. How had he lost the one and only thing he’d ever really wanted to live for?

  The tags against his chest agitated his skin. It was the only feeling he could decipher beyond the pain that made him unabl
e to breathe. How could he have been so stupid? How had he really believed he could orchestrate a mission that wouldn’t end in disaster? He had precious little evidence to prove him otherwise.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Luke cringed. “Better than decent chance she’d come up with some way to hate you more.”

  “Yeah, well, it’d have to be better than sitting our here worrying about her.”

  “A, deep breaths. She’ll come around eventually. Deal him in,” Griff ordered Austin who was shuffling a pack of cards.

  “Don’t you fucking get it? I don’t need to play cards, or to drink, or to do anything other than beg her forgiveness. I need her. I don’t want to walk, talk, breathe, do anything unless she’s mine again. None of it even fucking matters.”

  “Could someone please tell me what the hell this is all about?” Brock appeared out of the enveloping darkness. “My dad is a grade A asshole. We all know that. But what does he have to do with Natalie? I’ve been walking around this ranch trying to put the pieces together because I can’t stand that he’s divided this family again. Why were you looking for him? Why did you want to kill him? I’m not even necessarily opposed to the idea I just… I think I deserve to know why.”

  Every eye in their makeshift camp turned to Aaron.

  “Son, well…” Ev started but Aaron was tired of the lies.

  “Your father sexually abused Natalie when she was a little girl.”

  “What?” Brock jerked back like he’d been physically struck. “No way. He… God please tell me… Are you…? Oh my God. That’s why she hates me. That’s why you made us leave.”

  Ev stood. “It wasn’t because of some fight Mick and I had. I never dreamed he’d actually take you with him, but I had to help my daughter deal with what had been done.”

  “I have to apologize to her, offer to move, do something.” Brock swayed but then directed his boots toward Natalie’s door.

  An audible gasp worked through the crowd when the door swung open. Instinctively Aaron moved toward her.

  “You don’t have to apologize for what your father did, Brock,” she choked.

  “Yes, I do. Nat, I had no idea. I would’ve asked you before we moved back. I would’ve done… something.” Brock held his hands up. “Jesus, do I scare you? I know I favor him. I never meant to.”