Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
NOW
A CRASH FROM DOWNSTAIRS brings an abrupt end to scribbling down the dream I just woke up from. It’s the same one I’ve had countless times since arriving in Bezer, but this time when I found the same woman outside the apartment building, she ran to me and kissed me. I’m careful to avoid the creaking spots of the old stairs in the farmhouse as I walk downstairs to investigate, but my defenses fail when I see who is behind the disturbance.
Charlie rummages through the cabinets in the kitchen, muttering to herself about needing a snack, and something about Cooper.
“Looking for something?” I ask, and the sound of my voice sends her tumbling to the ground in those godforsaken heels. The same pair she wore the last time I had to pick her up from the bar on Valentine’s Day.
The next thirty minutes are a mixture of trying to get her upstairs to her room without waking up her dad and keeping as much distance between us as possible. She tends to get a little handsy when she’s drunk, especially the last few times. This will make three times I’ve come downstairs to find her stumbling around, and I can only hope we’re not going to make a habit out of it.
“Middle and bottom drawer,” Charlie calls from the bed when I attempt to find her pajamas. She stares at the ceiling the whole time, even when I drop a pair of sweats and an oversized T-shirt on the bed.
“Goodnight Charlie,” I say and leave without waiting for a response.
“Get any warmer out there?” Joseph asks from the stove when I walk into the kitchen the afternoon after Charlie’s late-night kitchen escapade. He stirs something in a pot, probably his “famous” stew, the perfect meal to fight the nip that lingers in the cold air outside. Tomorrow is the first of April. It should be warming up soon, but the forecast has been calling for cold weather through the next week.
“Still pretty chilly,” I say, lifting my ball cap and running my fingers over my scalp. My hair is longer than it has been for most of the last year. I’ve been thinking about letting it grow again. Who knows, maybe a change in appearance will help trigger something.
“Sure hope it breaks for the festival next weekend.” As my time here ticks by, Joseph has been telling me more and more about life in Bezer, including the Blossom Festival, one of Bezer’s proudest traditions. A yearly event on the first Saturday of April, the Blossom Festival celebrates the new year and the blossoming of new life that comes with the end of winter. The day is filled with live bands, a rodeo, a carnival, and local vendors. This year is the first time Charlie will be in the rodeo in over a decade. “I’d hate for you to miss it.”
I can only nod in response because I don’t know what to say. While I appreciate everything Joseph has done for me the past year, every day I wake up hoping it will be my last one here—hoping I’ll finally remember something, or that someone will rescue me. The festival is supposed to be a celebration, but I’m not in the mood to celebrate much of anything that coincides with the one-year mark of my arrival in town. Thinking about still being here at the end of the week, let alone tomorrow or the day after, is enough to throw me into the thick of the depression I’ve been fighting my way out of for months. Every day is a challenge, some worse than others, but I remind myself there are worse places to be. At least I’m alive with a roof over my head, food on the table, and a warm bed to sleep in…
“Might be a good distraction for you,” Joseph adds when I still don’t say anything.
I hum in response, filling my coffee tumbler from the fresh pot that has finished brewing. When I turn, ready to face the cold again, I’m face-to-face with Charlie in the doorway. She’s dressed in a different set of pajamas than the ones I pulled out for her at three-thirty this morning.
“Well, good mornin’, sunshine! ’Bout time you got up,” Joseph calls over his shoulder, a slight chuckle in his tone.
“Can you not be so loud?” Charlie grimaces.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?”
“I have a massive headache, and I feel nauseous.”
“You sick?”
I don’t move from my place against the counter, I’m too interested to see where this will go. Charlie is her father’s pride and joy, and I’ve realized that he tends to turn a blind eye to his daughter’s antics—especially when it comes to partying. I raise a brow when she looks at me. What is she going to say? Time is ticking, and she better come up with something soon.
“No, I, uh…I just stayed up too late,” she stutters.
Finally, Joseph slams the wooden spoon down and turns to look at her. “Charlotte Grace Blackwood, were you hangin’ around that Hayes boy again?”
Let me correct what I said earlier…He turns a blind eye to her antics, except when it comes to her hanging out with her ex-boyfriend. According to conversations I’ve overheard between Joseph and his friend, Bill Wyatt, Cooper Hayes is bad news, alongside his friend, Dakota. They’re the town’s local bad boys. Whenever there’s trouble, you’d usually find them at the center of it. But for some reason, nothing ever stuck, and they always walked free.
Charlie has been adamant she isn’t interested in her high school sweetheart anymore, but it seems like they’ve been running into each other more than normal since he and Dakota made their big return to town two weeks ago. I haven’t seen them, but town has been buzzing with the news ever since.
“Cooper?” Charlie scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
Joseph’s face says he doesn’t believe her.
“I wasn’t! I mean, yeah, he was there, but—”
I scoff, cutting her off.
“Something you wanna say, Xavier?” she hisses.
“Nope,” I say, taking a sip of coffee. “Nothing at all.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“That’s enough, Charlie.” Her father sighs. “Go get cleaned up and take a Tylenol. I need you to do the stalls.”
Charlie glares at me. “You’re not done? It’s like…two o’clock!”
“And I needed him to do some other stuff this morning. So, you’re on stall duty.”
“I can manage the stalls, Joe,” I say. “I was gonna work on the tractor some more, but I can do that later. I’m sure Charlie would much rather stay inside and nurse her…headache.” I take another sip of coffee, catching her glare over the rim of my mug.
Joseph looks between us, before shaking his head. “Obviously, I’m missing somethin’ here, and you know what? I don’t want to know. You two can figure it out yourselves.”
“Don’t worry about it, Princess ,” I say to Charlie, walking out of the kitchen. “I can handle it today, but you owe me.” I wink at her from the door and leave, but within seconds I hear her frustrated groan before she stomps up the stairs and slams her bedroom door.
I hum along to the rock song playing on the boombox on the ledge above the tack room entrance. The stalls aren’t too bad, all things considered. I’ve been taking my time, enjoying the solitude working in the barn offers. The barn has become somewhat of my safe space at the ranch. A place I can disappear for a while without any interruptions, working on different projects. Since my arrival, I’ve found that working with my hands is one of my favorite ways to work through whatever thoughts are swirling in my mind.
As I finish spreading a fresh layer of bedding on the stall floor, I turn to the stall next door, where Shadow waits impatiently. I tried putting him in the pasture for fresh air, but he refused. I swear if he were a human, he’d be standing there with a raised brow, critiquing everything I’m doing, complaining about it taking so long…but I love that damn horse. “C’mon, Shadow, you’re all clean, bud.”
The black horse huffs in response.
“I know, I know. I won’t take so long next time,” I say, rubbing the bridge of his nose before taking hold of the halter and guiding him into his stall.
I learned that Shadow came to the ranch not long before I did. We were like kindred spirits, both lost and trying to find our place in the world. Loners with no other place to go, and Bezer had offered us refuge. It seemed fitting that we ended up here considering that’s what the town calls itself—the City of Refuge. Sloan had asked Joseph to take the horse in after he’d been found at an abandoned farm with evidence of abuse and mistreatment for who knows how long.
“I still can’t believe you’re the one who could break that damn horse.”
Over my shoulder, Charlie stands at the entrance of the barn. Locking the stall door, I grab one of the apples I had swiped for Shadow and pass it to him, ignoring her.
Charlie sighs. “I’m sorry for earlier.” She walks farther inside, digging her hands into her coat pockets. “I shouldn’t have been such a bitch when you could’ve easily outed me to my dad.”
“I didn’t have to do anything; you did that yourself.” I rub the bridge of Shadow’s nose before turning to look at her. “I thought you were over Cooper.”
“We were just talking.” Charlie shrugs.
I lean my elbow against the stall door, lips pulling into a line. “And drinking.”
“How is that any of your business, huh?”
“When you come home in the middle of the night drunk off your ass, waking everyone in the house up—me included—it becomes my business.”
Okay, maybe she didn’t wake me up, per se, but if I hadn’t been awake because of the storm…she would have done so.
“Besides, what kind of jackass feeds someone drinks and doesn’t make sure they get home okay? You shouldn’t have been driving in that state.”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“How’s that?” I ask, handing Shadow another apple.
Charlie takes a few steps closer but maintains a good distance between us. “You say you don’t want anything to do with me, but you get jealous when I hang out with my ex.”
“Your ex who is notorious for causing trouble around town.” I shake my head, turning away from her to put the muck tools away. This conversation is going nowhere and is going to end in an argument. One that I don’t care to have. “Be careful, Charlie. I’d hate to see you end up on the wrong side of things.”
“That what happened to you?”
Her words stop me.
“How else would you end up in this situation, right?” The only sound is the shrug of her shoulders in her windbreaker. Biting down on her lip, she rolls her eyes and steps back. “Whatever. You want to continue to pine after something that hasn’t come looking for you in almost a year instead of seeing what’s right in front of you, be my guest.”