Chapter Fifteen #2
Landon could turn around and go back to bed without dealing with this.
He could go wake Aly up and have her deal with it.
After all, she and Sam had repaired their friendship, mostly.
And even if Sam and Landon had found a common ground, an almost ease with each other over the course of the last year, they’d spent a lot of years before that at serious odds.
Surely, she didn’t want his company right now.
And yet he found he couldn’t convince himself to do anything but step outside. “Thinking about running?”
Sam didn’t jump or spin around. She must have heard him open the door or step out. “Yeah.”
The honesty was good, he supposed. “You could, but Aly would just hunt you down in the morning. Drag you back up here. Force feed you muffins and positive reinforcement.”
She didn’t so much as crack a smile. “Can’t hunt me down if I’m long gone.”
He had to admit, she sounded a little bit more like herself in this moment. Hard-edged. Strong. It was a relief. He certainly didn’t know what to do with ghost Sam, who appeared fragile. In all his years of knowing her, he had never once considered her that.
“It’s hard for me to imagine you being long gone while Nate’s in a cell.”
Sam inhaled, the sound melding with the faint rustle of the evening breeze. He expected her to say something, maybe get offended.
She was quiet. She was shivering.
On a sigh, he stepped back inside, grabbed one of Aly’s coats off the rack and his own. Back on the porch, he draped Aly’s coat over her shoulders before he shrugged into his.
Sam didn’t move. Not to put her arms in the sleeves or anything else. She just stood there. He couldn’t make out her expression in the dark, even with the moonlight and starlight, but he could feel her tension.
It mirrored his own.
“Cal knows what he’s doing,” he said. Out loud and sure. For the both of them.
“Yes,” Sam agreed. “I keep telling myself that. He sure did a number with your father’s case.”
That hung between them, because it felt like an echo.
That he’d once defended a man accused of murder.
A man who’d lived in this house, run this ranch, and raised three men in such a way they hadn’t even recognized their own abuses until it was too late.
Had terrorized his wife so much she’d hidden a fourth son—one who wanted nothing to do with the family.
Landon couldn’t even blame Bo for that.
Cal had been a big reason Benjamin Bennet had finally been taken down. But so had Sam. And Nate. And Glenda and Jill, and Aly.
Landon wasn’t sure he’d done much of anything except finally accept he’d been wrong. It didn’t feel like enough in this moment, or any moment, really.
So he tried to do something in this moment. Offer … something, even though he was pretty sure they shared all the same concerns and worries.
“There won’t be any evidence since he didn’t do it. Maybe they can fuck us all up for a while, but it ends when they finally accept they don’t have anything on him.”
“Does it?” Sam replied.
Her tone was almost mild enough to believe that was a casual response.
Almost.
“I told myself that once, Landon. I’ve got bad news for you if you believe it now.”
“It’s not the same.” He knew that was a knee-jerk response.
In a lot of ways, how was it anything but the same as when her father had been arrested for his mother’s murder? But … but this was Nate. This was now.
She laughed. Bitterly. And he thought maybe she was crying too. Shit. He really should have stayed in his damn room. He wasn’t equipped to handle this. He was no friend, no confidant, no cheerleader.
He sure as hell didn’t know what to do with Sam’s tears.
She wiped them away, but they just kept coming. And so did her words, in a fresh torrent of pain.
“It’s exactly the same. Exactly. Someone I love is somehow wrapped up in a murder they have nothing to do with.
Last time, I didn’t know how it could end.
I didn’t know that I could fail day in and day out for fifteen years.
Now I know. That I can work my ass off, follow every thread and every trail, and there is a distinct possibility it doesn’t fucking matter. He suffers, and I fail.”
Landon didn’t have a response to that. What response was there?
He’d lost his mother all those years ago.
Sam’s dad was still alive, even if he was in prison.
But Landon could acknowledge in this moment that she’d lost him all the same.
And while, in the end, it had been of his own doing, for fifteen years, it hadn’t been.
“The thought of failing him is unbearable, Landon,” she choked out.
She looked right at him for the first time.
The moonlight made the tears on her cheeks shiny.
“So, you’re right, I guess. It’s not the same.
” Her face crumpled. She covered it with her hands, and though her next words were muffled with sobs, he heard them all the same. “It’s worse.”
He wanted to swear and reverse time and never come out here, but he could hardly just let her stand there crying. Sobbing, actually. Just wrecked. It twisted inside of him because he felt just as wrecked, but he was trying to keep a lid on it because…
Because that was how he always got through things. Push it down. Push it away.
What the hell was he supposed to do when someone just let it all out?
Aly would hug Sam, comfort her. Landon didn’t really feel like that was something Sam would want from him, but he didn’t quite know what else to do. Except gingerly cross the space to him, and pull her into a very, very light hug.
It shocked the hell out of him that she leaned in. That she sobbed into his chest. He patted her back awkwardly, trying to find some words that might fix all this. He wasn’t a fixer, though. That was Aly. He was more of a close his eyes and hope the problem goes away guy.
Who is going to be a father.
Such a strange thought to have in this moment. Such a strange feeling of purpose when up to this moment, he’d mainly felt fear and worry and … well, like if he closed his eyes, it’d all fix itself. Sure, a baby would come, but Aly would be the one who would always know what to do.
But sometimes, a person had to meet a moment that was theirs. Sometimes, a person had to stop being a fucking coward. And if he was going to be Aly’s husband and their baby’s father and Nate’s brother and … of all things … Samantha Price’s friend, he supposed this was his moment.
“It’s not worse,” Landon managed. He wouldn’t let it be.
Not for any of them. “Because last time you were a fifteen-year-old girl. Alone. No one believed you except maybe your aunt. You had no agency, no power, and no one. Everything and everyone you should have had to rely on and take care of you was taken away from you.”
He managed a sharp inhale, spoke firmly even though his throat felt closed up tight. “My father did that to you. And I was certainly not an innocent bystander.”
“So the Bennet martyrdom runs deep.” He knew she wanted to sound flippant, but her voice still broke when she spoke. And she didn’t pull away, so she wasn’t feeling the least bit better about anything.
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just life, wishing you could do things better than you did.”
She inhaled at that, let it slowly out, and he managed to put his hands on her arms and pull her back so he could look into her eyes. Make her a promise that she deserved, whether that was his martyrdom or not.
“We’re not going to let it be the same now.
Not any of us. Because in the now, you have years of experience.
You have Cal and his years of experience.
But more than that, you aren’t alone. You have all of us.
Nate has all of us, not just a teenager fighting for him.
We are stronger than we were, and we are in this together.
That’s got to mean something. We’re going to make it mean something. ”
Sam searched his face like she was looking for some kind of lie. But after a few moments, she nodded. There were still tears on her face, but she didn’t seem to be actively crying.
“Together,” she muttered. She inhaled deeply, let it out, still searching his face. “Thank you, Landon. I needed to hear that.”
“Well, who’d have fucking thought it’d come from me, huh?” he muttered.
She laughed, a watery laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “I still don’t know how to do this.” She inhaled, and her breath hitched, but she pulled away and she didn’t cry.
“You don’t have to. We’re going to figure it out together because we’re in this together. All of us. No matter what.”
Sam nodded. Blew out a breath. “No matter what.” Like a vow.
One Landon was going to keep.