Chapter 17 Everett
EVERETT
I’m teeming with frustration and worry by the time I make it back to the ranch.
My plan was to pick Al up and bitch at him for working himself so hard, then convince him to spend at least today in the office so he’d stay out of the sun.
Jenny’s back early, so I figured if he wouldn’t listen to me, her puppy dog eyes would do the trick.
She and I may not join forces often, but we both care about Al.
It was a fairly simple plan, and I hoped it wouldn’t eat into too much of my time.
The issue is that the fucking hospital won’t discharge my right-hand man, and they won’t give me a straight answer as to why.
No matter who I talked to, I got the same answers.
Waiting on bloodwork. A few scans came back with some concerning markers. We don’t have a diagnosis yet.
Heat stroke is bad enough in the first place, and now I have to worry about whatever the hell the doctors won’t tell me. As if hospitals don’t make me uncomfortable enough already.
Even Al is refusing to tell me anything.
He keeps saying that he doesn’t understand the “medical mumbo-jumbo,” but there’s a look in his eyes that says he’s hiding something.
It only makes me more unsettled, knowing that whatever’s going on is serious enough that he won’t tell me until he can lay everything out.
I try to tell myself that worrying about it now won’t do me any good. Laura always told me not to borrow grief from the future, but it’s so hard when I don’t even know what to be worried about.
I take a moment to cool my head after I park, leaning heavily against the steering wheel and taking deep breaths.
It doesn’t work as well as I’d like, my head a mess of memories of those white-washed hospital walls.
Watching Laura fade away against the backdrop of hospital bed sheets had ruined me.
Then seeing Al in that same horrible paper gown, hooked up to the same endlessly beeping machines, made me nauseous.
The queasiness has yet to fade, and all I want is to hide away from everything until my hands stop shaking.
There’s work to be done, though, whether I’m in any shape to do it or not. We’re already down a man today.
I don’t want to make it any harder on my ranchers than it already is.
I should really tell Jenny what the nurse said before I throw myself into the day, but I can’t bear to say the words out loud right now. Besides, things with her are rocky on a good day. Probably best to just get ahead of the work and deal with the consequences when they roll around.
Before the door closes behind me, Jenny and Mary round the corner of the barn.
They’re talking excitedly, Mary gesturing around and pointing at things on the little tablet in her hand as Jenny listens attentively.
My daughter actually looks happy, relaxed in a way I don’t often see nowadays.
That easy smile is certainly never pointed my way.
I start over toward them without much thought, desperate for any form of comfort or distraction I can get.
It’s probably important to talk to Mary about broaching the subject of our relationship with Jenny—and Christ, it’s weird to think about being in a relationship after all this time.
Right now, though, all that really matters is getting to stand close enough to smell her perfume, maybe even being gifted one of those city-lighting smiles if I’m lucky.
I need the world to be gentle to me, just for a moment.
Before I catch either woman’s eye, I hear Jenny’s ringtone float up out of her pocket. She sees me just as she pulls her phone out and excuses herself from Mary to answer the call.
“Be nice to Mary,” she hisses as she passes me, covering the receiver with her hand. “She’s got questions about the barn.”
I don’t get a chance to respond. Jenny’s behavior immediately shifts to something brighter as she switches her attention back to the phone call. She wanders away, continuing her conversation with whatever debtor she’s trying to sweet-talk into giving us an extension on the bills.
It’s a clear dismissal, and I let my gaze wander right back to Mary.
She’s standing at the entrance to the barn, tapping away on her tablet.
A lock of hair has fallen free of her ponytail, and my fingers itch to tuck it behind her ear.
She looks up as I step closer, her smile going from excited to embarrassed to shy in the course of a second.
A light flush blooms across the ridge of her nose, and I just barely manage to hold back a smile.
“Ms. Bryce,” I say, stopping in front of her.
She raises an unimpressed brow, but the corner of her lips twitch. I follow when she steps inside the barn, seeking some shade.
“Back on a last name basis then, Pops?”
I instantly cringe back at the nickname, stumbling over my own feet. She laughs when she sees the look of pure disgust on my face, and I shake my head.
“Don’t call me Pops,” I say vehemently. “I don’t need a reminder that you’re closer to my daughter’s age than mine.”
She rolls her eyes at me and tucks her tablet beneath her arm, staring me down.
“Don’t call me Ms. Bryce, then,” she tells me. “My name is Mary. Use it.”
I’ve never been quite so enamored by someone giving me sass, but for some reason the no-nonsense look on Mary’s face lights a fire in my gut.
I stare straight into her eyes, enjoying the challenge I see there.
Suddenly, I can’t bring myself to be worried about telling Jenny, because all I can think about is Mary.
She’s wearing a loose t-shirt and jeans, and my mind immediately conjures up thoughts of how soft her skin would feel if I slipped my hands under her clothes.
“Mary.”
My voice is soft, a low rumble in my chest, and her face shifts from teasing determination to something heated and interested.
“Everett,” she says, just as soft.
I should be more in control than this, right? I’m closer to 60 than I’d like to admit, but I feel 20 again when I’m around Mary.
I don’t even try to stop myself from stepping closer, and she grins as she steps back, leading me into the unused stall behind her. She lets me herd her up against the wall, the shadows not dark enough to hide anything, but enough to let us pretend we have a little privacy.
All I want is a kiss. I won’t let myself take more. I swear it to myself even as I wrap my hands around her hips and pin her against the well-worn wood.
“Everett,” she says again.
It may have been the start of a sentence, or she may have just been saying my name, but I slot our mouths together before she has the chance to say anything else.
She tastes like coffee, and her nails claw into the nape of my neck.
I drink down the sounds she makes, stepping in closer when she tugs at my hair.
Heat blooms between us, a spark that fans to a flame near instantly.
I stifle a groan in my chest when her teeth gently tug my bottom lip.
There’s this raw, unstoppable magnetism that keeps pulling us together, and I feel like I’ll explode if I don’t keep Mary close.
My hands slip beneath the hem of her shirt, desperate to feel her warmth.
She arches into the touch, winds her arms around my shoulders and tilting her head so she can kiss me more deeply.
My entire body aches with need, and just as I’m about to force myself to pull away, a gasp breaks the quiet of the air around us.
Mary and I yank back from each other as if on cue, and I spin to face the entrance to the stall, panic coursing through me.
My blood runs cold when I see Jenny standing there, her hands clenched into shaking fists, eyes flitting back and forth between us in disbelief.
Her eyes are wide and furious, color high in her cheeks as her chest rises and falls in barely controlled breaths.
“What—” she spits out, “—the fuck?”
I step between Mary and Jenny instinctively, wanting to shield her from Jenny’s anger. There’s no reason for her to get caught up in this. I’m more than capable of handling the blowback.
“Jenny,” I start, hoping I sound reasonable and not totally rattled.
She silences me with a glare, and my heart cracks when I see a sheen of angry tears beading at her lashes. Her breath hitches on an outraged laugh before she speaks, her voice raw and vicious.
“Al is working himself so hard to keep your ass in business that he’s in the fucking hospital,” she spits at me, “and you’re here fucking some girl half your age in the stables like you don’t have a care in the world!”
I flinch back from the accusation, grief and guilt welling in my chest and making my mouth water with disgust at my own actions. All I know how to do with Jenny is argue, so I lean into the anger that flares in my gut and open my mouth to do exactly that.
“Don’t you take that tone—”
“And you!” she cuts me off, stepping into the stall to fix her piercing glare on Mary. “Don’t you have a fucking job to do? I didn’t realize I was paying you to fuck my dad.”
Mary makes a soft, wounded noise behind me, but Jenny is shouting again before I can get a word in.
“You’re fucking disgusting, both of you!” Her lip curls into a sneer, but I see it wobbling with the angry tears she’s working to hold back. “If it wasn’t all I had left of Mom, I’d let you run the ranch into the ground just so I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.”
I swallow hard around the lump that wells in my throat. The truth of the statement is right there on her face, anger and betrayal and hatred, and I deserve every last bit of it. She fixes her snarl on Mary again, shaking her head.
“To think I was happy I got to see you again,” she says scathingly. “Get your shit and get out. I don’t want you anywhere near my dad, or my home.”
I look back at Mary in confusion only to find her pale in the face and shaking as she stares down at the ground.
Whatever Jenny meant about being happy to see Mary will just have to wait, because I can’t stand the thought of losing her.
I step forward, cutting Jenny’s line of sight off from Mary, and frown down at my daughter.
She sneers right back up at me, not cowed in the slightest.
“Jenny, I understand why you’re upset,” I say. “But you can’t just make these decisions on your own. This isn’t Mary’s fault, and I won’t let you take it out on her. Be mad at me all you want. I deserve it. But Mary has nothing to do with this.”
The angry mask on Jenny’s face slips just long enough for me to see the bitter pain in her eyes. It’s not fury that lies there, it’s betrayal.
“Shut the fuck up!” she shouts, her hand trembling as she points her finger furiously at me. “You sit there and act like you know everything all you want, fuck if I care. It’s always the same shit with you. You don’t understand a single fucking thing, Dad.”
She turns away from me just as the first tear slips down her cheek, and I reach out for her just a second too late to stop her from marching away. I have no idea what to say, no idea what to do. Isn’t that just the story of my life? A day late and a dollar short, never quite enough.
“Jenny,” I whisper, too scared to call out properly and have her ignore me.
I drop my hand back to my side, my mind a mess of worry and bitter guilt.
All I can do is turn back to Mary and assure her I’ll figure this out, but she flinches away from me when I reach for her hand.
Her eyes find mine, but they’re unfocused and terrified, and her mouth doesn’t even try to lift into her usual bright smile.
“Hey,” I whisper, shaking my head as she steps further away from me. “Mary, hey, I can fix this. I’m going to fix this.”
She just stares at me with those wide, scared eyes as she steps backward toward the stall door.
“I don’t know if this is fixable, Everett,” she chokes out, panic ripe in her voice.
I take a step forward as she stumbles her way out of the stall, reaching out to her. She glances at my hand, but doesn’t take it.
“Don’t…” I trail off, my throat closing up on itself over my words. “Don’t go?”
“I…I’ll be at the house.” She pauses, shakes her head, turns away from me. “I need to figure out what to do.”
And she leaves me alone, standing in an empty stall. The smell of hay and the oppressive warmth surround me, and I can only stare at her retreating form as overwhelming fear crashes down on me.
Am I about to lose everything all over again?