Chapter 44
Forty-Four
SHE STOOD THERE AND brOKE HER OWN HEART TO SAVE MINE.
WYATT
The walk back to the main house starts out slow, my boots dragging like I'm walking through mud.
But the closer I get, the madder I get, until I'm taking the porch steps two at a time.
I slam through the front door hard enough to shake the whole frame and head straight for my room, barely noticing that my parents aren't at the kitchen table anymore.
My gear bag's in the corner. I grab it and start throwing things inside—pressed shirts, clean jeans—don't matter that it's going to wrinkle. I need distance between me and that cottage before I do something idiotic like march back over there and beg her to run away with me.
The zipper jams halfway. I yank it hard enough to break the thing. A boot hits the floor with a thud, followed by my Jackson Hole buckle skittering across the wood floor.
"What the heck are you doing?" Kit’s voice rings out behind me.
I don't turn around, just keep shoving things into the bag. "Packin'."
She leans against the doorframe; arms crossed. "I can see that, dummy. What's going on? Are you getting married to that hussy?"
"How do you know about that?" The words come out hard. She wasn’t at the party.
“I’m sick, not dead.”
I grab my good boots from the closet.
Kit's still standing there, watching me tear my room apart like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have.
"So, you're running away?" Her voice rasps and she gulps and then winces. She’s been on antibiotics for twenty-four hours but she’s not better yet. I bet it’s killing her that she missed last night. "That's your big plan?"
"I'm not running away." I slam the gear bag closed and hoist it over my shoulder. "I'm giving everyone some space to figure this out."
"Bull—."
I shoulder past her toward the stairs and cutting off her curses, but she follows.
"Where are you even going?"
"Utah. Phoenix. Somewhere there's bulls to ride." I keep walking.
"Oh, so you're going to get yourself stomped to death instead of dealing with your problems. Real mature, Wyatt."
I stop at the kitchen doorway. Dad's reading glasses sit folded next to a stack of papers I don't want to think about.
"Tell them I'll be back in a week or two."
"Tell them yourself."
"Can't." The admission tastes like acid. "Just... tell 'em."
Kit follows me out to the truck, still running her mouth about stuff she doesn't understand and coughing in between. “Get back in the house before you catch your death.”
“Already caught it.” She coughs again. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Too late.” They didn't see Kinsley standing there in that unforgettable blue dress with tears running down her face, telling me to marry someone else.
They didn't watch the strongest woman they know fall apart and still put everyone else first.
I throw my bag in the truck bed and climb behind the wheel. The engine turns over with a growl that sounds like freedom, or maybe just running away. Kit's probably right about that.
"Don't get yourself killed, you idiot," she yells through the passenger window.
I don't answer. Can't trust my voice not to crack.
The truck lurches forward, gravel spraying behind the tires as I gun it down the drive. In the rearview mirror, Kit stands in the dust cloud, hands on her hips looking a lot like Mom.
Grandpa's riding fence in the south pasture, sitting easy in the saddle. He looks up when I tear past, shakes his head slow and disappointed. Probably thinking about what Dad's going to say when he finds out I took off without a word.
Whatever. They'll figure it out.
The ranch disappears behind me, swallowed up by dust and distance. I hit the county road doing sixty and keep accelerating, like I can outrun the mess I'm leaving behind.
But even with the windows down and the radio up, I can't get her voice out of my head.
The way she said "goodbye" like it was the hardest word she'd ever spoken.
The way she turned her back on me and waved that kitchen towel at my family's cattle like they were the enemy instead of just dumb animals doing what comes naturally.
My phone buzzes on the seat beside me and my heart jumps like a spooked horse. Maybe she changed her mind.
Jake's name shows up on the screen, and I want to throw the thing out the window. "What?"
"Well, good morning to you too, sunshine," Jake's voice crackles through the speaker.
"Not in the mood."
"Rough night? I figured you and Kinsley would be all twitterpated and lovey-dovey because your big plan worked out."
"Well, it didn't." I take the curve toward town too fast, tires squealing on asphalt. "It went south in the worst possible way."
"What happened?"
Where do I even start? With Senator Martinez showing up like some kind of mob boss? With Brittney claiming I knocked her up during a night I can't remember? With me punching a United States Senator in the face?
"Buckle Bunny Brittney was there. Claims we hooked up while I was out of it. Now she's pregnant and her daddy wants me to marry her."
"They have tests, you know." Jake states the obvious.
"I can’t prove it’s not mine in time.” Even if I could, Martinez would make me marry her because I’m who she wants.
Gritstone is disappearing in my rearview mirror, getting smaller and smaller until it's just another dot on the map. The wide-open road stretches ahead but I still can’t breathe deep.
"Where are you?"
"Right now? Getting as far away from here as possible. I'll find a bull to ride, something to make me feel like myself again."
"What about Kinsley?"
I try to answer but my voice cracks and I clear my throat hard. "She let me go, Jake. Made it easy."
"That doesn't sound easy.”
He's right, and that makes it worse. She stood there and broke her own heart to save mine.
"I have to marry Brittney." The words come out raw, scraped from somewhere deep.
"Come on, man, don’t be stupid.”
“I was stupid and now I’m paying the price.”
A semi-truck passes me going the other direction, its horn blaring in the wind.
The phone goes quiet, and I figure Jake's run out of things to say. Can't blame him. What do you tell a friend who's stuck?
"Call me when you get wherever you're going," he says finally. "Don't ride blind.”
Riding blind is when your head is somewhere else, and you aren’t dialed in. "Yep.”
I hang up and toss the phone on the passenger seat. The radio's playing some song about heartbreak and whiskey, like every country song ever written. I punch the button and find talk radio instead. Weather reports and traffic updates, the kind of ordinary problems that have ordinary solutions.
The speedometer needle creeps past seventy, then eighty. Fast enough to feel like escape, not quite fast enough to outrun the truth that's chasing me down this empty highway.
I have to marry Brittney Martinez.
I might save the ranch, but it’ll cost me Kinsley.
I’m never going back there.