13. Meg
CHAPTER 13
MEG
M eg spent the morning out with the horses under the guise of giving them all a thorough check-over. She was still here to do a job; she had to periodically remind herself of that. Though work was the last thing on her mind right now. They had stumbled out of the treehouse, abandoning Nash’s picnic supplies, and then stumbled back to the main house and into his bedroom. Only when the morning came, with Nash asleep beside her, had Meg been able to bring herself to leave and head outside for some fresh air.
Opal was prancing around, happy as a clam, doing a zoom around the pasture before running back to the safety of her mother. Meg already knew this foal was going to be trouble; she was confident and full of energy and far too smart for her own good. Meg already loved her to bits.
Opal whinnied, and Meg looked up to see a truck rattling up the driveway. As it got closer, Meg could recognize Will through the windshield. She raised a hand in greeting, got a wave in return, and started walking back towards the house. Mostly her stomach was guiding her. The world was properly awake, and she hadn’t eaten anything since the picnic yesterday afternoon. She’d been a little too distracted to make herself any dinner…
Just as she reached for the doorknob, the door swung open and Nash appeared. Meg’s hand was still stretched out and she was slightly off balance as she avoided walking face-first into his chest. He looked just as surprised as she felt, blinking like an owl in the morning light, his hair even more disheveled than usual. In each hand he held one of the muffins they had brought from town the other day, and he held one out to her.
Meg took it with a shy smile. God, why was she acting like she’d never met him before?
Well , her brain chimed in, not so helpfully. Maybe it’s because, for the first time ever, we’re both on the same page. No more stuff going unsaid, no more feeling pushed down or pushed away. We’re adults, with our own freedom.
So, it really was like she’d never met him before. She’d never met this version. Meg tried not to think about how daunting that actually was and took the muffin that he offered her.
“Thanks,” she said. She’d never had a proper concussion, but this must be what it felt like… scattered thoughts, no real control over her words, tingling sensations in her extremities. Surely these were the symptoms of some sort of brain injury. Surely emotions couldn’t make you feel this ridiculous. But of course, Meg knew that they absolutely could.
“It’s fine,” said Nash. At least they were both as awkward as each other, standing there holding muffins like idiots.
The slam of a truck door brought them both back to reality, their bubble bursting open and the rest of the world rushing in.
“What are you two talking all serious about?” Will asked, strolling over with a lazy smile.
“Renovations,” Nash said, not missing a beat. Thank God he was quicker on his feet than Meg was.
Will made a face as he stopped beside them, looking confused. “Renovations? Uh… why?”
He looked at Meg, who was supposed to be part of the whole selling the farm business. Instead, she had been helping to save it.
“Not here,” Nash said, jutting his head at the house and taking a bite of his muffin. “The ones up on the hill.”
Now Will only looked more confused, and Meg was starting to realize how insane this plan of theirs was when Will , of all people, was looking confused.
“Again,” he said. “ Why ? Is this part of the sale or…”
“We thought maybe,” Meg said, “we could do the buildings up and rent them out as vacation venues or something…”
Saying it out loud to someone new really did make it sound like a last-ditch effort. Desperate was a word that came to mind. But that wasn’t what Will focused in on.
“ We ?” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Are you two in cahoots or something now? Aren’t you employed by the enemy?”
“I’m a rogue agent, I guess,” she said with a shrug, and Will cackled. Nash finished off the last of his muffin and shook his head.
“You wanna see how they look?” he said, brushing crumbs off his hands.
“So none of the roofs caved in? No one’s going to catch tetanus staying there, are they? ’Cause that’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“Do you want to see or not?”
“Yeah, yeah. I want to come look at what you’ve done, you busy beaver. Just want to make sure that everything’s above board, that’s all.”
“There was a skunk living in there,” Meg added, not super helpfully.
“Aw, but they’re cute,” Will said with a smirk. “In a stinky sort of way.”
“You’re both as bad as each other,” Nash said, and went to find his keys.
Will whistled as he looked around, spinning slowly and drinking it all in.
“Jeez, I would never have believed it. It didn’t even look this good in its heyday, I bet.”
Meg couldn’t help it; she preened at the praise. She and Nash had worked so hard on these buildings, pouring all of their energy into this last chance for him to keep his family’s ranch. What had sounded crazy down by the farmhouse actually seemed plausible as they stood inside the freshly painted barn, smelling of lemon-scented cleaner and white paint. With the morning sun lighting up the space and the tall ceiling rising above them, Meg could so easily see this taking off as a wedding venue, excited guests taking their seats with the scenery spreading out around them.
“Man, Nash,” Will said, pulling his gaze away from the ceiling that was now free of cobwebs. “This place looks amazing. Like something out of a magazine. You’ve done great, my dude.”
“You should be giving your praises to Meg,” Nash said, deflecting the compliments as if he had nothing to do with all of this.
“I just had the idea,” she insisted, which was true. “Nash actually followed through with it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how to decorate stuff,” he said, waving a hand. “You’re the one who knew to paint it all white and pretty-looking. You knew how to take all the photos too, to make it look good. It wouldn’t be looking like this without you.”
“I think you’re selling yourself short.”
“No, you’re just giving me too much credit,” he drawled.
Meg rolled her eyes at Nash’s inability to take even the simplest compliments. In doing so she caught sight of Will, standing there, not saying a single word. His hands were planted on his hips like he was concentrating on something while he was glancing between them, his eyes growing more and more narrow by the second.
Meg started tugging at her hair, rearranging it into a fresh ponytail, her hair tie between her teeth so that she had an excuse to pretend like nothing was happening. Will’s eyes grew even narrower, his gaze switching back to Nash.
“You two cool?”
“What?” Nash asked, looking annoyed, his arms crossed over his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Why’re you acting weird?”
“We’re not acting weird. You’re the one who thought the earth was flat for like two years.”
“Maybe,” Will admitted, more gracious than usual, not letting Nash’s barb distract him. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with why you two are acting all shifty.”
“It’s early in the morning,” Nash deflected.
“Yeah, and you’re ranchers,” scoffed Will. “Being up early is kind of part of the job.”
He was onto them; Meg knew it. Instead of hoping to avoid the inevitable, she just braced herself internally for the moment when he finally figured it out.
“Dude,” Nash said, sighing in annoyance while trying to act completely unbothered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The deflection might have worked, except that Nash’s neck was turning bright red, and that was all Will needed to know that his brother was talking complete garbage.
Meg stayed silent and perfectly still. Hopefully, she would just blend in with the surroundings. Everybody would forget she was even there, and Will wouldn’t turn his scrutiny in her direction. It was wishful thinking, but Meg was going to take advantage of it for as long as humanly possible. Because when Will put it together, he was going to be insufferable. He was Nash’s older brother, after all…
“We’re just tired, okay?” Nash said, getting snappy as he grew more defensive.
“Why? What did you get up to last night?” It fell out of Will’s mouth as a stupid joke, one that would usually be accompanied by waggling eyebrows, but as soon as the words were out, Will realized why they were acting the way they were. Then a smug little grin brightened up his whole face.
“Oh. Oh, okay. I see how it is.”
Nash said nothing, but Meg, preparing to just get this over with, sighed. That was all the confirmation Will needed.
“Oh! Well, thank goodness for that!” he crowed, acting like this was the best news he’d ever received.
That… that was not the reaction that Meg had been expecting. She tried to catch Nash’s eye, but he was looking at Will, still perfectly still.
“Whoo, boy,” continued Will. “I thought I’d be six feet under before this day came, but here I am, still kicking and getting to witness this miracle firsthand.”
“You were expecting this?” Meg asked, still surprised by that. Because according to her , this had only ever been one-sided on her part until very, very recently. But the way Will was acting…
“I mean, no ,” Will said, grinning like all of his Christmases had come at once. Meanwhile Nash was still. So, so still. “I never in a million years expected Nash to come clean about this whole malarky. But here we are. I guess I better keep a lookout for some flying pigs as well, because apparently anything is possible.”
He laughed at his own joke, and Meg smiled in an automatic response, her body taking control. Nash still wouldn’t look at her.
“Well, don’t mind me, then. I’ll be off. You lovebirds have a good day. Call if you need me, but I doubt you will. Farewell for now.”
With that he sauntered out the door and back towards his truck, like a cartoon character of some old prospector. Meg was surprised he wasn’t whistling a tune and kicking his heels together as he made his grand exit.
Everything slowed down as what Will had said registered in her brain. Nash’s strange reaction added to her thoughts.
“Come clean about what?” she asked, even though a tiny little part of her already knew what was coming. She hoped desperately that Will was just being crazy like he usually was.
Nash finally looked at her. He looked so sad. He looked absolutely furious. With each passing second a different emotion flashed across his face, and Meg figured she must be looking exactly the same.
“Nash?” God, her voice sounded so quiet in all this empty space. Nash sighed, and it was deep and sad. Then he looked her right in the eye.
“I… I had a massive crush on you in high school. Well, massive is kind of an understatement. But, yeah. I carried a torch for you. I guess you’d call it that. That’s why Will was acting like this was a long time coming… because I’ve felt that way for a long time…”
He petered out with a shake of his head.
“You just wanted to be friends?” Meg had always been so certain that was what he’d wanted. Any time she had tried to step sideways into a conversation about feelings, he had shut it down. Just friends .
“But how Will was, like, celebrating just now… Did he know that I was in… that I had a crush on you?”
‘Had a crush’ was such a pathetically inadequate way to describe it. Nash’s eyes flashed with a million different feelings as he put together puzzle pieces of his own.
“It wasn’t just me hiding feelings, then?” he said, not accusing her of anything, just sounding sad.
“I tried to say it,” said Meg, her own eyes darting around the barn. “I didn’t know how to say it.”
“But I did?”
“I don’t know… No. Why didn’t you tell me now about back then?”
It was all coming out jumbled, a reflection of all the thoughts that were whizzing around her brain, all of them too fast to make sense of.
“I didn’t want to lose you,” he said.
She knew how that felt. But her brain itched, still trying to piece things together.
“That’s fine,” she said, processing her thoughts out loud. “That’s all fine because, yeah, I wasn’t exactly able to say it either. But prom… ” Her voice broke on the word, which felt so stupid, but she couldn’t help it. She’d pretended for years that it hadn’t completely ruined her, and she couldn’t pretend anymore.
“Yeah…” Nash said. “Yeah, prom.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore, like he was too guilty to keep looking her in the eye.
“Nash, you were so mean,” she said, tears finally welling up in her eyes. This was the first time she’d talked about it in all these years. She wasn’t even used to thinking about it all that much. Saying it out loud felt like she was falling from an impossible height.
“Nash, you were cruel that night,” she said, and Nash practically flinched at the accusation. “Why did you just ditch me there? If you really didn’t want to go at all, then why weren’t you at least nice about it? I would have understood. Why did you…”
Why did you have to destroy everything?
Meg didn’t say the last part out loud. She couldn’t; the lump in her throat wouldn’t let her. But Nash looked like he knew exactly what she’d been about to say. He hung his head, his hands clenched into fists by his sides.
“I… I didn’t want you to stay in Fordswell just because of me.”
It looked physically painful for him to say. But Meg still wasn’t sure what he was talking about.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
Nash took a deep breath and threw himself into the deep end.
“You were already so close to staying here when you had so many better opportunities. If I’d told you how I felt, you would definitely have stayed. I wanted to make sure you weren’t deciding your whole fate on some stupid kid like me…”
Meg had to take a deep breath as that soaked in. Upset turned to anger. All throughout school, her entire childhood and through her teen years, her parents had micromanaged her choices for her, trying to push her to do what they thought was best. The one person she had trusted was Nash. And here he was, admitting that he had done exactly the same thing.
“So…” she said, feeling like her whole body was frozen. “You knew what was best for me. Just like everyone else.”
He didn’t look at her. Good. So he was ashamed. As he should be.
“I was a stupid kid,” he said softly.
“Yes. You were. What’s your excuse for the last few weeks? For not coming clean from the moment I showed up on your ranch?”
“I didn’t want to lose you,” he repeated.
“Not the point.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I’m so sorry, Meg.”
“Me too.”
She took a few steps back, like she was backing away from a rabid coyote or something, not wanting to spook it.
“I need…” Meg had no idea what she needed. She needed to not be here. She needed a time machine. She needed a million different things, all of them impossible. “I need to go.”
“Meg…”
“No,” she said, looking at him with her jaw set. “No, you don’t get a say in what I do. You’ve had enough influence over my life, thank you very much.”
With that, time sped back up to its normal pace. She turned and left the barn, not once looking back.