CHAPTER 33
Owen
“She didn’t come home last night, either. It’s been four days since she’s slept here.” I cracked my neck and blew out a deep breath. There were knots in my neck and shoulders I didn’t think would ever go away. My body was becoming a physical manifestation of how I felt inside. “She’s like a fucking ghost on the ranch. I know she’s coming to work but I’m always one step behind her.”
Keaton shot a glare at Gray. “Not too much longer until she’s gone for good.”
Gray laced his fingers behind his head as he paced back and forth on the balcony. “She’s not leaving.”
“That’s what you keep saying. Yet…she’s gone.” Keaton had never been angry for so long at either of us. We all usually got over shit quickly if we got mad at each other in the first place. This was different, though. This was Billie.
“She’s not fucking gone, Keaton.” Pacing to the edge of the balcony, Gray stared down at the carriage house. He shuddered and I knew he was picturing Billie sitting on the porch railing with another man between her thighs. It’d looked too real.
“What were you thinking? You saw the look on her face. You hurt her on purpose.” It was the same argument Keaton had thrown at Gray for days. “What if all your misguided bullshit about being too old for her is just that? Bullshit? What then?”
Gray spun around and jabbed his finger into Keaton’s chest. “Fuck you. I did what I thought was right in the moment. She’s still young! She got attached to us because we took her virginity. You think it’s right to bind her to us because of that?”
“I didn’t take anything!” Throwing his hands up, Keaton stormed into his room and slammed the door shut.
I turned a blank stare at Gray. “You should’ve made sure it was okay with us first. You turned her down without considering what we wanted.”
“I know what you want! I know what Keaton wants and I know what I want! We all want the same fucking thing but I did the right thing!” Chest heaving, Gray sank into the chair next to me. “I did the right thing. She’s too young. She…she deserves more. Right?”
I felt sorry for him then. Gray had always taken the leadership role out of the three of us and he’d made a bad call we were all having to live with. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and even though I was angry at him, I loved him too much to let him sit in his misery for too long.
“What’s more than the three of us, Gray? She is young, but she’s smart and strong and has been devoted to this ranch her entire life. She’s not some silly child who changes her mind with the wind.” I stared at the roof of the carriage house, wishing I knew where she was. “Maybe she feels what we feel, Gray. Then, what? We’ve just been condescending assholes who talked to her like she was too stupid to know if her feelings were real.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“She’s not gone, yet.”
He scrubbed his hands down his face. “She may as well be. She hates me.”
I swallowed a lump of fear. “She can’t.”
“She should.”
I slapped his shoulder and stood up. “I’m going to go see if I can find her. This place is only so big.”
“What are you going to say?”
“What we should’ve a few nights ago. That we care about her and would be fucking gutted if she left.” I stared at him. “Comments?”
He shook his head. “Seems you know better than me.”
I gave a short, humorless laugh. “About time you realized that.”
I drove into town, searching for signs of Billie. I didn’t know what to do when I didn’t see her truck anywhere so I turned into the parking lot of the diner and went in to see if anyone there had seen her. I sat at the counter and looked around for Charlie. Instead, his older brother came over to take my order and I instantly recognized the dark circles under his eyes. Those and the haunted way he looked up at the door with a hopeful expression every time the bell rang.
“What can I get you?”
I anxiously tapped my fingers on the countertop and leaned closer. “Have you seen Billie around in the last few days?”
He frowned. “No. Is everything okay?”
I rubbed the back of my neck and shrugged. “I don’t know. We had a sort of fight…”
Chase grunted. “You, too, huh? Have you seen Joanie around lately?”
I tipped my head. “She was staying with Billie until we pissed Billie off. Now I don’t know where they are.”
He sighed and leaned heavily against the counter. “It should make me feel better to know they’re together, but it just makes me nervous for some reason.”
I thought about Joanie blocking me from going in to see Billie at the carriage house and frowned. “I understand that feeling.”
“Why can’t any of you men seem to figure this stuff out on your own?” A woman appeared next to me with bright pink hair and an entourage of two other old ladies behind her. I recognized them from around Lilyfield but that was as far as my knowledge went.
“Sorry?”
The woman behind the pink-haired lady was dressed in all black from head to toe and had what looked like a tactical belt around her waist. “If only men knew how to say that sooner.”
“Never leave a man to do a woman’s job.” Pink hair rolled her eyes and slapped a twenty on the counter. “Keep the change.”
I turned to watch the three women leave and then looked back at Chase. “What the fuck was that?”
He shuddered. “Do you kind of feel like you just faced off with death?”
“I feel like she just cast a spell or something.” I looked back over my shoulder to make sure they weren’t sneaking up on me again.
“She tipped me thirty-seven cents.” Chase sighed. “I miss Joanie.”
I pushed away from the counter and nodded at the pie case. “Can I have a couple of chocolate muffins? Maybe if I leave one out, Billie will appear.”
That earned a laugh from him. “If you’re ever on her good side again, I’ll be sure to tell her that.”
I took the muffins and shook my head. “Good luck.”
“Same to you.”