Chapter 6
SIX
Ramsey
Hazel and I are locked in uneasy silence standing at the kitchen table in the ranch house. It’s still my mother’s massive old oak table, and it warms my heart a little to know she didn’t replace it. Looking around, there’s still a lot of my family in the house, even all these years later. Some memories I want and others I wish I could forget.
“Do you want something to drink?” She hovers near a chair.
“I’m good.” I shake my head and pull out the one that was always mine to sit.
“Okay…” She shifts on her feet for a moment before finally following my lead. “I’ve thought about your offer and talked it over with Curtis. We decided that we’ll do it but only under a few conditions.” She emphasizes the we in the sentence like her life depends on it, and I resist the urge to correct her.
“Which are?” I don’t like conditions. I don’t like that he has any say in something that should be between me and my wife, but then I guess after five years I have to earn that understanding back. Something I have every intention of doing.
“I’m still talking to Curtis throughout the ninety days. He’ll be out of town most of the time anyway. But I’m not cutting him off.”
“I didn’t imagine you would.” I’m not worried. I’ve seen Curtis. He’s a fucking speed bump I’ll run over in due time.
“I want all the paperwork presigned. We can put it in a lock box at the bank and give the key to Bo.”
Bo is her oldest brother and my best friend, Boden Briggs, although my hurting her put some long hard miles on that friendship.
“We can do that,” I agree.
“You sleep in the guest room.” She looks down at the table when she says that one because she knows what my reaction will be. I was clear about what I want, and I’m tempted to argue the point. I want to insist I’m in her bed—our bed—from the start. But I’m holding back. I don’t want to cause friction with her already—not when it seems like she’s about to agree to this fucked-up plan of mine.
“I’ll start in the guest room. Give you time to adjust.” I study her face as her eyes slowly lift to mine. “But once you get used to me around here again, I want my room and my bed back.” I see her start to speak, and I cut her off before she can make a comment about her going to the guest room. “With you in it.”
“I’m not promising anything on that front.” There’s a steely defiance in her eyes.
“You don’t have to promise.” I fight the smile that tries to form, but she registers it anyway, and her eyes narrow in response.
“I’m not the girl you remember. ”
“I’m counting on that.”
“Then count on being disappointed. I don’t give a flying fuck about men like you anymore. The tattoos and muscles and that little lopsided grin you do when you think you’re being clever have lost their luster. They’re all just warning signs for me now.”
“Well, that explains your choice of boyfriend.” That part I can’t resist.
“Fiancé,” she corrects.
“Use whatever fancy French names you want for him, sugar. It’s still Hazel Stockton, the last I checked.” I see her nose twitch ever so slightly when I say her last name.
“Don’t read anything into that. I was too lazy to change it—nothing more.”
I’m definitely reading into it. If she hated me as much as I thought she did when she asked for the divorce, she would have changed it. She wouldn’t have been able to stand all the times she had to say it over and over again just in the daily course of her life. It meant something that she didn’t go back to Briggs—whether she can admit it yet or not.
“Any other rules?”
“We don’t tell my family the dirty details of this. Or anyone in town. We make up a lie about your needing to be here for parole and with the glitch in the system that we’re still married, it looks better to the justice system if we’re a happy family. We’ll tell them Curtis and I are on break for the meantime while we work through the mess this still married thing has made.”
“I don’t like lying to them.” I might be an asshole, but honesty is high up there on the short list of morals I do have.
“Bo would kill you if he found out you were treating me like this, and I’m not going to do all this just to lose out on the money when he puts you six feet under. ”
“You wouldn’t lose out. If anything, that’s the fastest way to it. Assuming you can stomach being a murderer.” She’s still the beneficiary of my will. My parents are long gone, and my siblings have their own money. If anyone deserves a payout for all the hell I caused this world, it’s her. Her eyes are wide with that information, and then she shakes her head like she’s off somewhere distant, trying to process that information.
“I’ll leave the murder to you.” She realizes she’s said it out loud and her hand covers her mouth. “I’m sorry, that was… unkind.”
I shrug. “It’s true.”
A beat passes, and then a curious look crosses her face. “Did you really snap his neck?”
I nod and there’s a sharp intake of breath before she considers it further.
“I couldn’t believe it when they showed you handcuffed on the TV. I mean, we didn’t exactly play by the rules around here. Your family less than the rest, but…”
Murder in the middle of the day with people watching is a bridge too far. That’s what she means.
“He tried to kill Bea. Shot Cooper. I just saw red, and it was what it was after.” I look out the window. I don’t remember snapping his neck, but I’d seen the video in court enough times to know it happened.
“Is Bea… someone to you?”
“Coop’s girl. Not mine. But she’s some of the best people I’ve ever known. Coop doesn’t love anyone easy. I couldn’t stand there and watch him lose her like that.” They’re one of the biggest parts of my life back in Cincinnati that I miss. They’d gotten me through the trial and the prison sentence.
“I see. I’m sorry that all of that happened. To your friends and you.”
“I did what had to be done. It ended well. That’s all that matters.” I hate talking about this, but I didn’t imagine I was going to get out of the conversation. Might as well have it now.
“Do you have someone back in Cincinnati?” She asks the question quietly, like she doesn’t really want the answer.
“You think I’d be here if I did?”
There’s a wince on her face, and she pulls back. I realize how she’s taken it, and I shake my head.
“I don’t mean it like that. Just… you know me. I’m a lot of fucking things, Haze, but I’m not a cheater.”
“But you’re asking me to be one.”
“Nah. I’m asking you not to cheat. I’m the one you’re married to, remember? Besides, I thought you just said old boy agreed to it.”
Her eyes narrow again, but she doesn’t disagree with me on the merits of my argument. The uncomfortable silence returns and when her knee starts to jiggle, I know it’s my turn to fill it.
“So we’re pretending to be a happy family for my parole officer? Is that what we’re telling them then?” I ask.
“Yes. It seems the easiest explanation. It’s not entirely untrue. I assume that’s part of your motivation.” Her eyes search my face.
“Are you asking my motivation?”
“I don’t think I want to know.” She looks out the window, staring into the distance where a couple of her rescue horses are grazing.
“Well, if you ever do, all you have to do is ask.”
She glances down at the table, her fingers running over a small dent in the surface that my brother made when he used it as a racetrack for his toy car when we were kids.
“What are we telling the rest of the town?” I ask when I think about my brothers and the gossip mill beyond our friend circle.
“Curtis is leaving. I’ll just… let everyone think we broke up wh en we found out we were married again. He won’t care. He doesn’t put much stock in what the people here think about him anyway. Beyond that, let them think what they want. I don’t care either.”
“So the rest of the town thinks we’re making things work, and your family is in on half our secret? Sounds like quite the web you’re weaving.”
“You want me to tell them the truth and let Bo and Anson beat you to a bloody pulp?”
“Unless Anson’s right hook has improved, I think I might have a fighting chance,” I joke, but she just presses her lips together until they flatten.
“You can move your things into the guest room this afternoon. I’ll get it ready and make some space in the fridge if you have any food you want to bring in.”
“He already gone?” I’m surprised he left so quickly. I thought he’d draw this out a bit.
“He will be tonight. He leaves tomorrow, and he stays at a hotel down in Denver the night before so he doesn’t have to make the airport drive in the morning.”
“Where’s he headed anyway?”
“Vegas.”
“Thinking he can gamble his way out of this?” I smirk.
“Actually, he works at the casino, and he’s being promoted. They’ve got some training and networking he has to do down there ahead of it.” The smug look on her face tells me she’s proud of him, and it sends a flood of newfound jealousy through my veins. It makes me wonder if she ever looked like that when she talked about me. ’Cause my football career had been a huge part of the reason we fell apart in the first place. But I’m not about to let any of it show.
“Good. How long’s he gone for?” I ask.
“Ten weeks. ”
It’s like it was meant to be. I’m grinning before I realize what I’m doing.
“He doesn’t have to be here for me to be thinking about him every day.” She’s dead set on reminding me that I mean nothing to her.
“And yet you both agreed.” I shrug.
“Because the inn is having a rough patch and your timing happens to coincide with it. It’s nothing more than that.”
“Well, given you’ve been leaning more grandma’s getaway and less wide-open skies and Wild West, I can guess why. I doubt those ladies are riding horses or paying to go on hunting or fishing excursions.”
“We do bird watching and wine tasting,” she answers defensively.
“People come out here to feel alive again. They want to feel whiskey burn down the back of their throat and get lost in the woods, hike two miles to stand on top of a mountain and see how big the sky is up there. Bring home something they put on the table for dinner. Ride into the sunset or ride a cowboy after. You’re offering them things they can do in their backyard back East.” My mom had kept the inn going after my dad’s mom gave it up. She’d been good at keeping a mix of activities to entertain everyone. I didn’t hate the way Hazel ran the place or the dreams she had for it, but I worry that she leaves too much money on the table.
“We do just fine.” Her arms cross over her chest. Stubborn Hazel is practically an immovable force. She’d run the inn into the ground before admitting she’s wrong if she doesn’t like the person telling her. So I’ll be better off keeping my mouth shut on the subject and changing it to another one that’ll piss her off.
“If your boy toy is okay with me even breathing in your direction, things can’t be fine.”
“I told you. The inn is having a rough patch. He knows it as well as I do, and he wants to do his part. It’s not like you gave him much of a choice.” She glares at me for even implying there’s trouble. “And don’t make assumptions about our relationship. You don’t know the first thing about what a good one looks like.”
I’m tempted to take the bait, but I refuse it. Reminding myself that if I play the long game, I’ll get something a lot sweeter than just winning an argument. It’s the war and not the battle I need.
“Which room are you using as the guest room these days?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder to the stairs.
“Your old bedroom.”
“Fine, and don’t worry about the fridge. I’ll eat at the inn or go to the cafe in town. I’ve been missing Kit’s cooking so might as well take full advantage.”
Hazel always hated cooking, and the few attempts she made after we married were disasters that make me smile just thinking about. I can’t imagine she wants to revisit the attempt, and I won’t force her to do anything she hates.
I eat my words and the plate of food she serves her boy toy and me later that night. It’s not half bad, and far better than anything I could make. I just hate that it’s another thing that’s changed about her. One I didn’t know about and wasn’t part of.
There’s a lot about her and this town I could do without, mainly the misery they’ve both caused. But my heart still aches at all the small moments I’ve missed. The ones everyone takes for granted when they’re happening, but when you’re the one who’s been absent, they seem monumental in retrospect.
She kisses his cheek as she clears the plates, returning everything to the kitchen and putting them in the dishwasher. The small gesture nearly tears a hole in my chest, but I smile and stand, taking my own plates in behind her.
“I have to run back to the inn. There’s a speaker tonight, and I need to welcome them and get them set up for the guests. Do you think you can be civil with each other while I’m gone for a bit?” She eyes us warily as she pulls off the apron she has on and hangs it next to the fridge.
“No problem on my account,” Curtis answers her, but her gaze is locked on mine as I walk back through the kitchen. Obviously, I’m the problem.
“I’ll behave.” I return to the table to finish my beer and kick back in my chair.
“Don’t let him say anything stupid. Just walk away if he tries.” Hazel looks at Curtis, and then her eyes fall back on me. “And he will try.”
“No faith,” I muse, threading my fingers together and putting them behind my head as I lean the chair onto its back legs.
“Absolutely none,” she confirms, shaking her head and then heading for the door. “I mean it. No bullshit, Ramsey.” They’re the last words before I hear the door slam shut behind her.
“She’s awfully worried I’m going to hurt your feelings.” I take a draw off the bottle as he finishes his.
“She’s got no reason to be. We’ve always been honest with each other, and she’s told me enough about you to know I don’t need to be worried.”
“Huh.” I grin at him. “Well, that’s good. I can’t say I’d feel the same if I was on your side of the table and knew how easily she agreed to it.”
“I wouldn’t say all this…” He waves his empty bottle around. “And a million is easy. I’d say that’s a pretty steep bribe.”
“If you knew Haze as well as you think you do, you’d know she can’t be bought. She doesn’t do a damn thing she doesn’t want to.”
He gives me a tight saccharine smile and sets his bottle down hard on the table. His eyes lift to mine, and I can tell I’ve hit a nerve. Whatever she said about him being fine with this, he’s not.
“Maybe she just thinks you’re an easy way to make a lot of money to start her life with me.”
“Does that sit right with you? You knowing you’ve been living in my house on my ranch with my wife?”
“It certainly seemed like she knew whose bed she was in when she was saying my name last night.” The little smirk on his face makes me want to take him outside and wrap his jaw around one of the fence posts, but I keep the smile plastered in place.
“ Last night. But tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that… she’ll forget you even had a name when that engagement ring you got her is sitting on the edge of the sink, and her legs are wrapped around me.”
“She might, if you’d ever been able to make her come.”
My smile falters at that. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I was the first guy who was patient enough and willing enough to try whatever she needed to make sure she could come. It was half the reason she kept coming back to me in college even though she knew then I was a bad bet. His face screws up, and he laughs at my reaction.
“Yeah, Hazel and I… we share everything. Even the painful details of how woefully bad you were in bed. That’s gotta suck for someone like you. All that fame and money. But you can’t manage the simplest thing a woman needs.”
If Hazel told him that—I have to guess she had her reasons. And any protest I make is just going to make it seem like I’m desperate to undermine the narrative. So I keep my mouth shut. Long enough that it makes him uncomfortable, and he stands abruptly.
“I need to head out and say my goodbyes.”
“Ah, yeah. It’s convenient that you’re on the road. Makes this whole thing a little easier for all of us.”
“Fairly certain it’ll be over before we know it.” He gives me another simpering grin and then heads out of the room. I don’t see him again for the rest of the night, and I’m thankful for it.