Meredith sits down, looking all sorts of wrong. “I’ve got nowhere to go.”
I cannot fucking believe this. “What’s it going to take to get you to leave?”
She taps her finger on her chin like she’s thinking it over, real careful. “How about we get your new girlfriend and tell her the truth together?” She flashes a smile. “At least that way I’ll be assured you can’t weasel out of it with some lie.”
“You know this won’t change anything, don’t you?” I do my best to reason with her, even though it’s hopeless. “I told you that night it was over between us.”
She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t mean that.”
“I did.” I glance at the house. I don’t have time to deal with this crazy right now. I need to talk to Cat as soon as possible and minimize the damage. “I’m going to Cat. I’ll deal with you later.”
And before she can say another word, I’m racing back to the house.
I fling open the door and call out, “Cat?”
“She’s upstairs,” Gwen says from the sitting room.
I turn to see her, Wyatt and Jackson, and none of them look pleased. I hold up a hand. “I promise I can explain all of this, but I need to talk to Cat first, cool?”
Wyatt narrows a gaze on me. “She’s got some pretty interesting claims.”
“She’s…not in her right mind.”
One of Gwen’s brows rises. “Are you actually claiming crazy ex-girlfriend here?”
“Yes!” I run a hand through my hair. “Is it that hard to believe?”
Jackson swirls the toothpick hanging out of his mouth. “Hayes, of the Happy Harvest Hayes?”
I sigh. Happy Harvest is one of the top-producing heirloom organic farmers in the US. I’m not surprised he’s heard of it, which is exactly why I didn’t want to discuss my past employment history. They’d call, and then Meredith would have found out where I’d gone, and then this would happen.
The evasion didn’t end up saving me anything, did it? All it did was cost me everything. And isn’t that just like me? Always making the shittiest decision imaginable.
I nod. “Yes.”
He shrugs. “I put in a call. I’m waiting to hear back.”
I glance toward the stairs leading to Cat. “You let me know if I need to pack my bags, but I need to talk to Cat.”
I turn and bound up two stairs at a time, but when I hit the landing, she’s at the top, dragging a suitcase. She gives me a scathing look. “I’m out of here.”
“Wait. Let’s talk.”
Her hand tightens on the handle. “Is that woman still here?”
“Yes. She won’t leave.”
She walks down two stairs and the wheels bounce too loud against the steps. “Don’t worry, I will.”
“I don’t want you to leave. I want to talk.”
She looks at me. “I’ll stay if you answer one question.”
I am 100-percent certain this will be a question that will make matters worse, but what other choice do I have? “What?”
“Are you engaged to that woman?”
I shake my head. “No, not anymore.”
“But you were?”
“Um…kinda.”
She frowns at me. “Goodbye, Caden.”
“No, wait. Please let me explain.”
“You never thought to tell me this? Not once in all the times we’ve spoken?”
“No, I didn’t.” I shake my head. “It wasn’t relevant.”
“You having a fiancée didn’t seem relevant?”
“She’s not my fiancée. She was a horrible mistake, and I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that.” She pushes past me, dragging her suitcase with her.
I grab her arm. “Cat, let’s just go upstairs and talk this through.”
She stares at me, her expression tight with confusion, her eyes searching. “Did you leave her in the middle of the night, like she said?”
I understand why she’s asking, because she had a father who did the same. And if I’d do it to one woman, I’m likely to do it to her too. More than anything I want for this not to be true, but I don’t want to lie. The truth is the only thing I can offer her at the moment.
“Yes, but it’s not what it looks like.” I squeeze her arm. “Cat, please.”
All the color washes from her face as a stricken look crosses over her features. “I can’t. Not now. I need to be by myself.”
She rips her arm away, and I don’t try to stop her. She crashes down the stairs and yells to her family, “I’m going to Uncle Beau’s. Leave me alone.”
Then she slams out of the house, and as the heavy door clicks closed, I watch my love, my life, and my future die a swift, sudden death.
She’s gone.
She’ll come back, of course. This is her home.
But I’m no longer an included part of that picture.
Just as she was starting to see it, I ruined it, just like I ruin everything.
I didn’t outrun my past at all.
Cat
* * *
I turned off my phone, put my stuff in Uncle Beau’s spare room, and have been curled up on the couch watching bad romantic TV on the Hallmark channel—and crying intermittently. I wanted to drink to blot out the shitshow of the last couple of hours, but I couldn’t manage even the first sip of the whiskey I poured. Instinct told me alcohol would lead to a swell of emotions I don’t have the stomach to process.
As crazy as it sounds, I believe Caden has a story that will make sense of this mess. Maybe it’s a story that is even plausible, that will make sense to me.
He wants to rush in and explain it all away, to convince me that woman has nothing to do with us, and maybe he’s right.
Only his story doesn’t fucking matter to me right now.
His story—the details and who did and said what—makes no difference. What matters to me are two things he can’t change: One, he didn’t tell me he’d been engaged. And two, regardless of why, he left that woman in the middle of the night. He might feel justified, but he abandoned her. He disappeared instead of facing the situation, no matter how hard it was.
It makes me think of the day we visited his mom, how I had to force him to go.
If it hadn’t been for me, he’d have avoided the whole thing.
And I can’t escape the truth, no matter how much I want to.
This entire mess has made me see Caden for who he really is—a man who runs when things get hard. He’s been telling me all along. Warning me. But I ignored it, because like my momma before me, I wanted to believe it would be different with me, that everything had clicked into place for him the way it had for me and we’d change—for ourselves and for each other.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I wasn’t vigilant, and I am once again paying the price for my stupidity. Now that my eyes are open, I can’t even pretend it doesn’t make sense.
The delusion fed in to all the things I secretly still hope for…and I see it all clearly now.
I’ve been spending my time trying to figure out what my dreams are, what I want my life to be—ignoring that deep down I already know.
All I really want is to belong, to invest in something that feels like it’s mine—to feel safe. Loved. Special.
It’s what I couldn’t articulate with my horse-breeding fantasy. The horses weren’t the real fantasy. They aren’t what I was after. Yes, I do love them, and Caden is right that I should get back in touch with that, but breeding horses was merely the package I assigned to something I couldn’t explain.
I want a connection to that time in my life when I felt at peace.
The Spencers doted on me. I didn’t have to compete with Wyatt and Jackson. They made me feel important. Riding horses made me happy and free, and when I’d come in from the stables Mrs. Spencer would give me a slice of warm apple pie and homemade whipped cream.
We’d sit at the table and talk. And when I spoke, I felt
heard. I didn’t have to be talented like Jackson, or smart and strong like Wyatt. I could be me.
That was the dream.
Feeling whole.
When they died, it was a blow. And the horse they left me was the only thing I had left of the dream. Then my daddy sold it, and that was ripped away too. Things only got worse from there.
I’ve never felt that way since. Life is just too hard for softness.
I believed that. Lived it. Accepted that that would always be the way it was for me. I shielded myself from anything that brought me excitement or happiness, kept myself separate from the business and my brothers, because anytime I experienced a moment of contentment, comfortable and safe, life pulled the rug out from under me.
All the defenses and walls I built to protect myself worked.
Until Caden came along.
He gave me all those things I’d convinced myself I didn’t need. With him, I feel loved and safe enough to be a little wild. He made me feel like I mattered, that I was the most important person in the world. He made me want to dream again, made me believe there was something and someone that belonged to me, and that I deserved to have my own life, not operate on the fringes of everyone else’s.
Just at the moment I began to see a future, to love him the way I’ve always wanted to love someone, it’s been ripped away. Now I don’t know what to do, so I’m sitting here, contemplating my options, seeing if I can salvage anything from the rubble.
My uncle walks in and sits down on his ancient recliner, moving the lever to lift his feet. “How are you doing, girl?”
Tears sting my eyes, and I shake my head. “How’d you do it, Uncle Beau? Love her even though she didn’t deserve you?”
I don’t know why I asked the question. I guess I’m hoping I can somehow come to understand the family sadistic streak. We don’t talk about the fact that Uncle Beau, who was my daddy’s brother, fell in love with my mother the second he laid eyes on her. It’s a well-known family secret we never, ever discuss.
His gaze narrows. At sixty-one he’s a handsome man—a silver fox, as they like to say. And though I know he’s had what he calls “lady friends,” it’s my mom who holds his heart, even years after her death.
I don’t want to become like him. I can’t. Only it feels like it’s barreling toward me, and I’m unable to escape.
He’s silent long enough that I don’t think he’s going to answer, but then he shrugs. “Who said she didn’t deserve me?”
“I do. You’re the best. You should have been our father instead of him.”
Even though my mom didn’t deserve him, selfishly, I’m glad we had him. Way back before the bar, Beau had been the sheriff, and the only positive male role model we had. I’m not sure what would have happened to us if he hadn’t been so dedicated to her.
He laces his fingers across his stomach. “I’m not even close to the best. What you don’t understand is that in the end, we’re all just a bunch of flawed fuckers stumbling our way through life, doing the best we can.”
I tighten my ponytail until it stings at my temples. “But didn’t you want someone who loved you and not someone else? Why did you hang on to the fantasy for so many years?”
He sighs, long and deep. “I don’t know why. She became a habit I didn’t know how to stop.”
“What about after she died? Did it set you free from her?”
I don’t like the reflection he’s shining on me, so I need to understand how to avoid it. I have to understand how you move on.
I’m in love with Caden. There needs to be a way to recover.
“It did, in a way.” He glances at the TV. There’s a couple slow dancing under a fairy-lit gazebo. “But I never found anyone I loved more, so I kept letting them go. I liked them enough that I wanted them to find someone who loved them the way they deserved. It doesn’t matter. I’m good. I’ve got the bar and you guys. It’s enough for me.”
“I don’t like it.” I’m defiant. I need to have hope for him so I can have hope for me.
He shrugs. “Not everyone is destined to grow old with someone. All I can tell you is I’m at peace with it. It’s not a priority at this point in my life.”
I have no answer for that, and I don’t want to think about it, so I change the subject. “I know you have a soft spot for Jackson because he looks so much like her.”
“I’ve got a sweet spot for all of you, just in different ways.”
I search his expression. “Oh yeah? What’s your sweet spot for me?”
“You don’t know?”
I wrinkle my nose. “No.”
“When you were a little girl, you used to crawl into my lap and beg me to read you a story. As soon as I started reading, you’d lay your head on my chest and get very still, like you were listening with your whole being. Until the day I die, I will never forget what you felt like, snuggled up like a kitten, your silky hair brushing under my chin.” He smiles. “Your brothers were never like that.”
The memory makes my heart ache, because it’s another time I experienced that indescribable feeling. “I used to love the sound of your heart thumping in my ear. It sounded so sure and steady, like something I could depend on.”
“You were my reward, and that was enough for me.”
My throat grows tight, and I speak, in halting words, the hurt from my past. “I didn’t know. I just remember wishing I was somebody’s favorite.”
The tears well again. Those might be the truest words I’ve ever spoken. My heart breaks open, and my chest aches. I want so bad to be Caden’s. For a blink of an eye, I let myself sink into it, but it turns out I’m just one in a list.
He frowns at me. “You were your momma’s.”
I shake my head. “No, I wasn’t. Daddy was her favorite. He always came first with her.”
“That’s not true. She protected you kids from a lot. Things I never told anyone.” He shifts in his chair. “She did the best she could.”
“I can’t let that happen to me, Uncle Beau.” Wetness weaves a path down my cheeks. “I loved her, but I have to figure out a way to break the pattern.”
“You will.” He smiles at me. “She used to tell me God blessed her with a strong-willed girl to show her how life would have been if she’d been better.”
Another failure mark in her column. I guess it’s good she didn’t live to see how I turned out. I sigh. “Do you think she’d be disappointed in me?”
“Hell no, Catarina McKay. Not in a million years.”
“But can’t you see I turned out just like her?”
“In some ways you are—in all the best ways.” His head tilts. “But you keep going, no matter how many times you get kicked down.”
“Dragged along, you mean. There’s a difference.”
He huffs. “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard.”
“What? It’s true. Wyatt came up with the distillery. I just went along because I had no other choice in the matter.”
“Bullshit. You were as much a part of your survival as Wyatt was. You just forget because it’s easier for you to think you had no part in it.”
“Why would that be easier for me?”
“I don’t know. Why would it be?”
I squeeze deeper into the corner of the couch. “It doesn’t feel like mine.”
“Well, it should. You put in the work to claim it.”
We fall silent.
My brain is so tired from all my thinking. I can’t do it anymore. I sigh. “Well, I hope someday you find someone that deserves you.”
“You keep using that word, girl, and I think you’re confused.” He flips the lever on his chair, and it springs upright. He leans forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “You’re under the mistaken impression that the world owes you something because you’ve suffered, and I’m going to be blunt with you. Take it from an old guy who knows: you don’t deserve anything. Life’s not a point system. It’s not a bank that pays you interest.”
The words stin
g, and I want to lash out against them. But I don’t because I know they’re true.
His fingers lace between his knees. “You can’t keep waiting for something to come along and make you happy and fulfilled. If you do, you’re going to have a long wait. If you want something, it’s up to you to make it happen. You’ve got to show up for it each and every day. So it’s time to ask yourself: are you ready to show up? Are you just going to take what life’s dishing out, or are you going to do something about it?”
“What would you like me to do?” I throw up my hands, anger replacing the heartache. “Is it my fault I went and fell for a guy who was supposed to marry someone else and failed to mention it? Why is it my responsibility to fix it?”
He shrugs. “It’s not. But you’re looking at it all wrong.”
“How?” I’m stumped, but he seems so sure of the answer that I keep listening, despite my frustration.
“You need to ask yourself if you want to be happy or right.”
“I don’t understand.” It’s like he’s speaking in a riddle.
He gazes at me intently. “You paid a price for what you have today. It was hard, and it was lonely, and it beat you down, but you kept getting back up. So I ask you, when’s the last time you got back up?”
“That’s what I was trying to do,” I yell. “And look where it got me. I took the risk and got burned.”
A muscle works in his jaw, and he’s silent for a moment before he goes on. “You asked me why I kept going back, even though I shouldn’t have. But the truth is, I made a choice. Maybe it was the wrong choice, and the stupid choice, and maybe everyone saw me as a fool for making it, but right or wrong, I didn’t care. I loved her, and I loved you three hellions. I didn’t want anything else. Yeah, it says something about me, but I never saw myself as a victim. I chose to take the part of her she gave me. I chose to be the role model my brother refused to be. Those nights when we all sat around the table laughing and eating dinner together, those were like little glimpses of heaven to me. I don’t regret them, even the mistakes, because they were mine. I own them. Right or wrong.”
But he settled, can’t he see that? Doesn’t he see how it was so much less than he deserved? I want more, goddamn it.
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