Chapter 27
SHE’S TOO SWEET FOR ME
I dust my hands on my thighs, sore and achy, but eager to celebrate one of my last true practice rides before the big day. I didn’t want to come back, or make a “comeback”, but the truth is, it’s been bringing me back to life. Things feel like they’re coming together.
I pinch the top of my hat and lower it to the counter as I make my way to the sink. “Love said to come wash my hands,” I tell Quinn, who is already at the sink, water running.
She turns to me. “Actually, I wanted a word with you.”
“Ah.” I smile. “So you all are in it together.”
She nods, partially smiling, a passive smile, one that doesn’t reach her eyes or give off even an ounce of genuineness. She shuts off the water, and suddenly I’m aware this isn’t about washing my hands, or telling me how good I looked out there today.
Occupying her nervous hands with an old dish towel, she finally looks up at me with so much emotion in her face that concern curls in my gut. “Can I ask you something?”
I nod. “Anything.”
The pause she takes, the breath she sucks in—all of it has my stomach knotting. “Why is the ranch in trouble?”
Scrubbing my hand down my face, I let free a deep sigh.
I’ve not exactly gone out of my way to hide the piles of unpaid bills, but she’s right.
I’ve held tight to just how bad it is, how it got that way, how I couldn’t pull the ranch out of the depths I got it in.
I’ve been so ashamed of myself, so embarrassed.
I look down at the simple gold band on my finger, forged by Love, who is my best friend’s wife, but she was Amelia’s best friend, too. It’s time for the full truth. She follows my lead when I take a seat at the table, and we settle in.
“Everyone loved Amelia,” I tell her, eyes already burning—to hell with the preamble. Her attention holds mine so intently, I’m not sure if she’s even breathing. “Love was Amelia’s best friend in the whole world. I told you we all grew up together, me, Tate, and Love. I told you that, right?”
She nods, patient and understanding. “You did.”
My head bobs easily, maybe because I feel a little detached from myself at the moment.
I loved Amelia, but I don’t relish discussing this wicked, awful, tyrant season of my life.
Smoothing my hands down my spread thighs, I pray to get through this as easily as I can. For Quinn’s sake, I owe it to her.
“When Amelia got sick, my sole focus was saving her.”
She listens.
“Everyone loved her, and we’d just had a baby.
” She knows this, but I find telling the story sequentially makes it easier for me.
“I wanted to change places with her, but I couldn’t, so I tried everything I could to save her, no matter the cost.” Quinn has never been married, but I believe she understands the depths of this love, and her gentle focus, paired with the way she takes my hands and kneads them for comfort, makes it easy to continue.
“I wanted to save her so badly, so… selfishly,” I say, remembering the fear echoing in my veins at the thought of losing my wife.
“There were times I didn’t even think of Sadie losing her mom because I was struggling so much with who I knew I was going to lose,” I admit, my voice unexpectedly broken.
“But…” I shake my head. “Everyone loved her.”
“She sounds like she was truly special, Landry.” She continues gentle passes of her thumbs over my knuckles.
I hold her eyes, shining emeralds, beacons of love and hope.
“She was. And at first, I couldn’t even wrap my mind around her sickness being real.
How could that happen, to a new mother, to a generous, loving person, you know? ”
She nods. “I know.” Quinn is so calm.
I glance out the window near the door and spot the pickup, and a memory flashes through my mind.
Driving Amelia to Dallas, Love Collier in the back seat, tending to Sadie because Amelia was too weak from the radiation.
She didn’t want to be without Sadie. It was like…
she knew their time together was cruelly short and terminally limited, so she had asked Love to come.
I hold a special place in my heart for my best friend and his wife, because in my darkest hours they were there for me. For Sadie, too.
“I got her into trials, every trial I could. I got a laptop just so I could start lookin’ things up online, treatments, off-the-beaten-path homeopathic stuff.
Everything.” I have not opened that laptop since.
“But it all was so expensive. Traveling and the accommodations, not to mention they required lab tests, X-rays, other imaging, hospital stays, prescriptions, homeopathic treatment courses… I couldn’t afford any of it.
So I had to find a way. I couldn’t let money be the reason I let my wife die. ”
Quinn’s eyes are full of sadness for us, for my late wife, for Sadie, for everyone. She drops one hand consolingly to my knee, kneading as she patiently awaits more.
“I took out a loan against the land, against the ranch house. Got an equity line of credit, and just about panhandled my way up and down Sable Sky. Started one of those crowd-sourcing fundraisers, too.”
“Oh, Landry.” She doesn’t move to swipe her own tears, but instead still consoles me with her gentle touches and delicate focus.
I can’t look at her right now, sad and beautiful as I share a truth I should’ve shared months ago.
I look out the window and take in the happiness spread over the lawn.
Happy little girls, my best friends, summer and ice cream.
I look back to Quinn. “Treatment didn’t stick.
The cancer was so aggressive, there wasn’t time for chemo.
She did some trials and the radiation but…
” I shake my head, no need to finish that sentence.
We’re both very clear on how it worked out.
Love catches Sadie by the wrist before she sneaks in, buying us more time.
“That’s how the debt started. I fell into a pretty good depression when she passed, and I had a newborn to take care of.
Love and Tate, they helped me a ton, and Mabel, too.
But Love had her own baby and Tate and I had to get back to work.
Ranches never quit, not for death, not for grief, not for nothin’. ”
My gaze finds hers again, mostly because my heart craves it.
I glance down at our joined hands, realizing that holding Quinn’s hand helped me get through what is normally an emotionally disastrous story, even all these years later.
“I just never caught up, and when Sadie was two, we lost a couple mares to sickness, the coop got destroyed in a flood, there was a fire in the barn, and, I don’t know, life just piled on.
And with no cash and no credit, I was stuck. I’ve been stuck.”
Quinn strokes her thumbs over our joined hands, nudging her chair closer to mine. “Thank you for telling me now.”
I glance outside at the people I love eating ice cream, enjoying the sunshine. Quiet lingers between us for a moment, then she pulls back.
“Landry, I—” She looks down at her hands, and I wonder if holding this back from her will cost me her. If I’ll lose another woman I love. “I understand why you did everything that you did, and it’s so noble. Courageous and noble.”
It doesn’t feel that way, but I nod my head, feeling lighter from the truth being out. But when I look up at her bright green eyes, sadness still touches them.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” I say, feeling desperate not to lose her, feeling like not sharing this part of myself was foolish and prideful. Suddenly, everything feels like it’s on the line again, or still, like maybe I was never safe.
“I just don’t understand.” She shakes her head, teary eyes meeting mine again.
“Why didn’t you tell me the ranch is in this serious of trouble?
That you’re weeks away from losing everything?
I mean, that feels vital. That feels important.
We got our stories straight about everything and…
It just feels like something your wife should know. ”
I squeeze her hands. “Talking about it, it just reminds me that… I failed and… I just… I didn’t want you to see me that way. As a man who couldn’t save his wife or his land, and is gonna lose his daughter, too.”
“Honey.” She drags the endearment out softly, like lying the first rose across a casket. She immediately loops her arms around my neck, burying her face in my throat. “You won’t lose Sadie. You’re not a failure.”
“I’ve felt like it for so long,” I finally admit. I’ve held that truth in my heart for so long, letting go feels freeing.
Her eyes hold mine. “You didn’t want to come back. That’s why you were resistant to the film. You only entered the rodeo for the money, to pay down the debt from the trials. To save the ranch.” Quinn says this more to herself than to me, but I nod to confirm.
Agony unlike anything else tears through my chest, and it causes me to straighten for a moment as I calibrate to experiencing a sharp bout of grief. It’s been so long.
“I didn’t care about the rodeo after I lost Amelia.
All I cared about was Sadie. I put my everything into that child because she is my everything,” I explain, voice unusually thick, heavy, and sure.
“I didn’t know how I was gonna get out of it until I saw that rodeo flyer.
But then when the Montgomerys came for Sadie, I realized I had to wake up and… reclaim my life.”
I stop talking because her hands are on my face, pulling it up, holding me steady, her thumbs sweeping gentle crescents beneath my eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but the touch is so tender and so unexpected amidst the argument that it almost breaks me.
“I’m sorry for not telling you.” When my feelings got serious, I should have shared. If she had some big secret, I’d feel the same way. “I’m ashamed. Ashamed I couldn’t save her, and ashamed I couldn’t be a better man, a better husband, father, provider…”
“Landry,” she says again, voice lined with anger, but still gentle enough to not sting. “It was not your fault.”
The back of my nose burns.
“Landry,” she says, drawing nearer to me, the laughter outside falling to a low roar as my ears begin to ring.
“Amelia was very sick and you did everything under the sun that you could, okay?” Her thumbs continue stroking gently beneath my eyes, so I let my lids fall closed.
“You were amazing, and nothing was your fault, and no one believes that, either.”
She presses her lips to mine. “I’m sorry I looked at your things in the office.”
I clear my throat. “You wouldn’t have to if I had told you.”
She kisses me, and I open my eyes to find her beautiful, glowing face staring up at me. “You could have told me. I want you to know, moving forward, you can tell me anything. I don’t judge you, Landry. I admire you. I have respect for you, honey.”
I can’t help but crash my lips against hers as tears slide, hers or mine, I don’t know at this point.
“I was terrified of the pity, and I didn’t want you to stay with me out of obligation. You’re a respectable woman, Quinn, and everyone who’s met you has only good things to say. Especially Mabel. Having a person like you ruin your life out of some sense of guilt would end me.”
She dusts her lips against mine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, electrified, my groin aching. “I’d only ever stay because I love you, not for any other reason.” She kisses me, and while we don’t discuss her staying just yet, I know now it can’t wait.
The tension in my neck when this conversation started has melted away. “Sleep with me tonight. In my bed.”
She smiles. “Of course.”
“You’re not angry that I didn’t tell you this? That you found out this way? I feel like an asshole. I was just… ashamed. Embarrassed.”
Quinn strokes her palms along the sides of my biceps and looks into my eyes.
“I wish you would have told me, but I understand how hard it is to talk about these things. And… it’s okay.
I’m not angry. I’m just glad to know now.
” We get to our feet, and my eyes burn when she steps onto my boots the way she always does, then rocks up, kissing my lips. It’s everything my soul needs.
“Wanna go out there? Join the fun?” She peers out the window, then back to me. “I’ll come up to your room, around eight, after Sadie’s in bed.”
I shake my head. “Just go up with me after dinner. It’s okay.” I don’t want to talk about my plans to discuss this all with Sadie at a later date, not right now.
She nods. “Okay.” And I lean in, press my lips to her throat, and leave a gentle kiss on one of my favorite places.
She may’ve read things that weren’t for her, and she had every right to be hurt, but we worked it out. And now we’re closer.
I can’t ignore how good that makes me feel.