Second Chance Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  She hooked her arm through his and pulled him the last several feet to their destination, where his father’s casket sat suspended over the rectangular hole in the ground.

  “Nice suit,” Walker sneered. Jack could barely see his brother’s eyes under the brim of his hat, but he knew they were narrowed.

  “Aren’t you supposed to remove your hat to show respect for the dead?” he countered.

  Jack thought he heard his youngest brother growl.

  “Is that what that getup is?” Walker asked, taking a step closer. Jack was sure he smelled liquor on his brother’s breath and decided to let any sort of comment about drinking before noon slide. He’d give him a free pass for today. “A sign of respect?” Walker continued. “Since when do you respect the man who almost killed you? And since when do you have a fucking say? This ain’t your home anymore, pretty boy.”

  Jenna gasped.

  The funeral officiant cleared his throat.

  Luke, taking his role as middle brother literally, stepped between the other two men, removing his own hat and holding it against his chest.

  “All right, boys. Let’s save this twisted pissing contest until later and shove our dicks back in our pants. Shall we?”

  Jack caught sight of the laceration across Luke’s cheek, the few stitches holding it together. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “Here we go,” Walker said, turning away. He’d either lost interest in pushing Jack’s buttons or was happy to let the attention fall on Luke.

  “Tried my first bull,” Luke said with an easy grin. “He didn’t like me much.”

  “You’re riding bulls now? I thought this rodeo stuff was a hobby. When the hell are you gonna take life seriously?”

  Luke’s ever-present smile fell. “You mean like running the ranch you left? Hell, I know you send money, Jack. Helping in your own way. But I take life plenty seriously when I need to. When there isn’t need, I think I’m entitled to a little fun.”

  Jack spun to Jenna, who had conveniently backed away from the conversation. “You knew about this?”

  She shrugged. “Y’all are big, grown men now. You can make your own decisions.” Then she laughed. “Though I hate to see him mess up that pretty face of his.”

  Luke threw his hat back on his head. “If it’s any consolation, Jenna, the ladies do not complain.”

  His aunt shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “Sometimes I think it was easier when you were teenagers.”

  Jack gritted his teeth and fisted his hands at his sides. It didn’t matter how long he’d been gone. After their mother died, their father had been far from a model parent. Jack had practically raised his brothers himself through their teen years, but he wasn’t going to lecture Luke, not now. Instead all he muttered was “It’s dangerous.”

  Luke threw an arm over his big brother’s shoulder. “It’s fun, asshole. Thought by now you’d have figured out what that word meant.”

  Again, the sound of a throat clearing interrupted their reunion, and all four of them looked up to find the funeral officiant, a small man with a gray comb-over in a suit one size too big, fidgeting as he stood at the head of the grave.

  “Sorry, folks,” he said. “But I have another service in an hour. I don’t want to rush you, but—”

  “Good,” Walker said, joining the fray again. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The officiant swallowed. “Does anyone have something they’d like to say about Mr. Everett before interment?”

  Jack’s stomach twisted. He wouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he sure as hell wouldn’t say anything of import for the man who only knew how to speak with the back of his hand. He remembered standing here for his mom’s burial, the space crowded with family and friends—their local pastor leading the small ceremony. Jack had been thirteen, Luke twelve, and Walker ten. They’d watched the cancer and treatment ravage her body for a year. That was all they’d had from diagnosis until the end. When they’d lowered her into the ground, tears had streamed down both his brothers’ cheeks, but Jack decided then and there he had to be strong—for his brothers and his father. It hadn’t taken him long to realize he’d failed at the latter, but as for Luke and Walker, he was still trying, even if they ended up hating him for it.

  “If no one says anything,” Jack finally said, “does that mean it’s over?”

  The man raised his shoulders. “I work for the funeral home, so this is not a religious ceremony,” he said. “Usually the way it works is a family member or friend reads something. Or—or gives me something to read. If you have something prepared—”

  Jack shook his head and looked at his brothers, who both studied their boots.

  “Well, then…” The officiant wrung his hands. “If no one has any words…”

  “I do!” Jenna said, a little too loudly for the small gathering. “I mean, someone should say something, and if y’all don’t want to, that’s okay. But—but someone should.”

  She strode up to the head of the grave, and the man stepped aside. In her floral dress and cardigan, she really did look like their mother. Jack was so used to Jenna in a tank top and denim shorts—rain boots up to her knees as she stepped inside her chicken coop or chased rabbits from her garden. If this was a new look for her, it would take some getting used to.

  She squared her shoulders, and the Everett boys all gave her their attention.

  “Hi,” she said. “Um, yeah. Okay.” She took in a long breath and blew it out. “Jackson Everett Senior was my brother-in-law and the love of my big sister’s life. When we moved here from Houston, I was a scrappy seven-year-old who knew nothing more about love other than crying when our baby chick died. We lost our daddy when I was too young to remember him, and though I loved our mama—like I said, I was all about the chickens when we came here.”

  She swiped at a tear under her eye, and Jack thought he should go to her, hold her hand or something. But the thought of standing there while she paid her respects to a man he’d lost all faith in years ago only made him clench his teeth harder, so he dug his heels into the soft ground and decided to stay put.

  “When Clare, my sister, came home from her first day at her new high school, she told me she had met the boy she was going to marry, and when Clare Owens said something, it was the truth. Always. When she and Jackson were only eighteen and got pregnant with you, Jack?” Her eyes glistened when she looked at him. “Well, he practically married her on the spot. His dreams were always your mama and Crossroads Ranch. You boys were his legacy—the second generation of Everetts on that piece of land.” She took a breath, the tremor in it audible amidst the silence. “They built the place up with the little savings they both had, filled the house with boys born to be ranchers, but—” Another pause as Jenna seemed to relive the loss of her sister—their mother.

  Jack noticed Walker was holding his hat at his side now. Bitter as he was toward Jack Senior, his baby brother would never disrespect his mother, no matter how many years she’d been gone.

  Jenna choked on a sob. “He broke when he lost Clare. We all did. I know that. But something in your daddy broke real deep. And I’m so sorry I didn’t know—” A hiccupping breath stole her words. “I’m so sorry—”

  Jack was at her side now, his arm around his aunt. No way in hell was he going to let her fall down the rabbit hole of guilt. He’d spent enough time there to know it wouldn’t do her an ounce of good.

  “Jenna, don’t,” he said as he led her from the grave. “You didn’t know,” he added. “No one knew.”

  He’d made sure of that. Because despite the verbal attacks—and the physical ones—Jack Senior was all he’d thought they had. He’d cut his boys off from any other family. Jack had always believed he could wait it out until he was eighteen. Because what was the alternative? Report his father and risk him and his brothers getting separated in the foster system?

  Instead Luke and Walker had almost lost him completely.

  She wrapped her arms arou
nd him and buried her head in his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  All he could do was whisper “shhh.” She might have been eight years his senior, but she felt like a child in his arms, clinging to him to keep steady.

  He knew her tears weren’t for his father. And as much as Jenna missed her sister, the choking sobs weren’t for her, either. They were for what Jackson Everett Sr. had hidden from everyone for five years—until that 911 call and the last words his father ever spoke in his presence:

  Help. I think I killed my boy.

  Ava Ellis stood in the open doorway of the empty bedroom—empty but for the countless portraits lining the floor—the ones filled with still lifes of fruit or images of the dog in various states of play—and the easel in the corner, the one holding the blank canvas waiting for another attempt at the one thing she still hadn’t captured. She could make a million and one excuses not to walk in there.

  I should really catch up on laundry.

  I haven’t put in enough hours at the vineyard this week.

  It’s almost noon. I should start prepping dinner.

  It’s Saturday. It would make more sense to try again on Monday.

  Ah, yes. That last excuse was her favorite. Everything seemed possible on a Monday—until Monday actually came around and the week got away from her again.

  The sun peeked through the curtains, dappled light and shadow cutting across the blank canvas—the silhouette of the olive tree outside the window.

  “Don’t tease me, tree,” she warned before huffing out a breath and reaching behind her neck to tie her auburn mane into a loose bun. “I’m just—preparing.” She laughed quietly. “Preparing and talking to a tree.”

  She’d been intending to paint it since she’d moved into the house several years ago. The hulking yet beautiful tree had been what drew her to the property in the first place, a reminder of something she’d lost and was still trying to find.

  She pulled the small case of charcoals from the back pocket of her jeans.

  “It’s only drawing,” she said to no one in particular as she crossed the threshold into the room. She certainly wasn’t still talking to a tree, trying to trick it into acquiescence. “We’re not ready to paint, yet.” We’re. Shit. She was still talking to the tree. “Fine,” she added. “If we’re going to be spending the weekend together, I guess we both better get used to the talking. I don’t do quiet.”

  Yet here she was, in her quaint split-level, alone in what many would consider blissful silence compared to the whirlwind that was her life, and she was ready to go mad.

  She opened the case and set it on the table beside the easel, eying the different widths of the charcoal sticks before settling on a short, stubby one that fit comfortably between her thumb and fingers. She rolled it there for a minute, getting the feel for it as it smudged the ridges of her skin. And then, as if it was the most natural thing to do, she drew a leaf. One, simple, perfect, lonely leaf. It barely took a minute—barely took any space up on what now felt like a colossal piece of canvas.

  “Shit,” she said. “It’s too goddamn quiet.”

  She dropped the charcoal onto the table, not bothering to fit it back into the case. What would be the point? She was coming back. Eventually. Another day or two meant nothing in the grand scheme of years—except that now she actually had a deadline. If she wanted to apply for late admission to Cal Poly’s art program, she needed to produce a piece of meaningful art. Soon. Still Life of Labrador Catching a Frisbee wasn’t exactly meaningful.

  She would succeed. Just—not today.

  Famous last words.

  Barely touching the six steps to the lower level, she grabbed her sunglasses off the kitchen table, raced toward the back door and out to the shed. It was the weekend, after all, and the grass wasn’t going to cut itself. And hell, she needed noise.

  With the mower on, maybe she could ignore the stupid, taunting tree. Maybe she could forget walking past the room with a wistful glance for the past six years, always aware of what lay beyond the curtained window. And maybe, if she kept at it, straight through to the front yard, she could convince herself that a tree—a freaking tree—had not been getting the best of her for each of those six years.

  She yanked the starter on the mower, smelled the familiar odor of gasoline, and then there it was—noise.

  But it didn’t matter if she wouldn’t admit it out loud, not when her own inner monologue refused to shut up.

  The first place she’d seen him had been under an olive tree more than ten years ago, across the street from Los Olivos High School. She couldn’t hear what he was saying but knew by the way the other two boys listened to him so intently that it must have been important. There was no mistaking that they were brothers; each boasted a similar mop of golden, California waves. But he was the oldest, patriarchal in his care for the younger ones. She could see it in the way he tousled the youngest one’s hair even though the boy responded by slapping his big brother’s hand away, in how he gave the other that all-knowing single nod of the head. All this while he balanced easily on his left leg, keeping his weight off the right, the one wrapped in plaster from the knee down.

  That was where she’d first laid eyes on Jack Everett, and it was where, six months later, she’d broken both their hearts.

  She pushed the mower across the lawn, her jaw clenched and heart seeming to constrict with each beat. Breaking up hadn’t been her intent when she’d asked him to meet her there one late summer night, even after what had happened at the graduation party. She’d had other news to tell him. But instead she’d told the boy she loved with all her heart that she didn’t love him at all. Ava had freed him under that very same tree—and then she’d gone and bought a house with its doppelgänger looming in the backyard. She’d thought if she could paint it—draw it at least—that would mean she was over it. Over him finding happiness in a life that didn’t include her. But she hadn’t been able to finish a single attempt. Today’s leaf was the furthest she’d gotten in months.

  Ava knew the truth of that tree, why she’d wanted to be so close to it. Whether or not she’d ever gotten over her first love didn’t matter when she couldn’t forgive herself for what she’d done. That was why she was an artist who couldn’t create anything more than a replica of fruit or the dog. It was the real reason she needed the tree. Because why let guilt eat you from the inside out when it could stare at you every day?

  “Good question,” she said aloud, over the roar of the mower. The tree didn’t answer. Not that it ever did.

  Then she bumped straight into said tree.

  “Damn it!” She yelled as the handle jammed into her ribs. She turned the mower off and growled at the ugly beast of a plant. “Enough,” she said, a small weight lifting with the word. “Enough,” she repeated, and her next breath came even easier. “I don’t need your approval,” she snapped at the tree, and for the first time she actually believed it.

  There was plenty of meaning in her life. Maybe not the dog catching a Frisbee, but there was so much inspiration to draw from. She’d pick a new subject to paint, complete her application, and turn it in by the end of the month. It’s time to stand on my own two feet, she thought. She’d given up her independence for her son, and she wouldn’t trade the experience for what she’d thought was her carefully constructed life plan. But she didn’t want to rely on her parents anymore for financial stability. She didn’t want a job at the family vineyard. She wanted a career. A passion. Something just for her. And nothing—not even a tree—was going to get in the way of that.

  Chapter Two

  Jack stood for several long seconds outside the modest two-story house, the living quarters of what was commercially known as Crossroads Ranch. The rich wood of the shingled siding had paled in some areas, so that now patches of weathered tan mottled against the dark brown looked like fading bruises. The wraparound porch was still intact, but he could tell on first glance it needed to be refinished and st
ained. He’d add that to his to-do list. He was sure that after they’d gone through Jack Senior’s things there’d be repairs here and there to make, but he also knew Luke and Walker had kept an eye on the ranch, so he wasn’t worried about having to stay too long. He’d need to check the stables and the herd, meet with the accountant to ensure they could continue paying the hired hands. All this, of course, following today’s visit from his father’s estate attorney.

  It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten the place and all the work it took to run it. That was why he sent money each month to help keep the place afloat—to make sure the mortgage got paid. Luke and Walker were plenty capable. They’d proved that well enough. But the money only did so much to ease the guilt of his absence—not from the ranch but from his brothers’ lives. Now that Jack Senior was gone, he could be the positive physical presence he hadn’t been all those years ago. At least until he up and left again.

  “You gonna take a fuckin’ picture?” Walker asked as he strode past him and up the porch steps.

  Luke approached next. “That’s asshole speak for ‘Come on in and grab a beer,’” he said with a grin.

  “When you’re ready,” Jenna added, standing next to him now. “And maybe when you need a break, you can drive me home. Walker picked me up but…”

  She trailed off, only confirming what he’d suspected when he’d smelled the liquor on his brother’s breath. Walker would be in no shape to drive anyone anywhere in the immediate future.

  “He’s been pissed at me for a lot of years, hasn’t he?” he asked. “I left. I own that.”

  But his brothers had understood. Hadn’t they? He’d had to go. After what he’d done to Derek Wilkes, he was lucky the guy’s family hadn’t pressed charges. He’d only meant to be gone through college. But plans had changed, thanks to the fiery redhead he’d never quite forgotten.

  Jenna lifted a hand to his shoulder, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Did you ever think that maybe it’s not you he’s pissed at?”