Chapter 18 Gunner
Gunner
I stride quickly down the hallway, still rubbing my eyes and trying to wake up. I’ve been up for an hour, half of it spent staring out the window at the snow, and I still don’t feel awake.
I do, however, know that we need to start doing the things we’ve been putting off.
This year has been so dry so far that Gabe and I have been neglecting the things we should have done last month.
Getting the barn and all the animals ready for winter.
Making sure we have enough firewood and supplies for when we inevitably get snowed in.
Measuring the gas tanks and oil supplies of every vehicle.
Because it’s still snowing hard outside, and at this point I’m starting to think Mother Nature is trying to make up for being late to the party.
And isn’t that just my fucking luck. I’m finally on break from the college and free to get some work done in the shop, but the snow is suddenly here and will make it harder to get into town.
We aren’t prepared, and with my luck we’re going to get stuck here for days on end with nothing to do but talk to each other.
This would be bad enough with just Gabe and me here.
It’s going to be even worse with Taryn present.
I haven’t looked at what happened between us last night, partially because I can’t bear to, but I do know that being trapped in the house with her will be nothing short of torture.
She’s already put her mark on everything here, from the kitchen where she bakes half the time to the great room, where she’s decorated everything to her liking.
I’ve caught her and Gabe together more times than I like, and as for my own emotions. ..
Well, I already said I’m not looking at those.
That doesn’t mean they’re silent, though.
I snort at how stupid I’m being, letting a girl like that distract me, and am about to turn out of the hall and onto the landing when Taryn herself stumbles into the hallway.
She’s been asleep, I can see that much. Her hair is messy and her face is flushed with slumber, like she just woke up.
Her eyes are wide and glassy, and she looks shocked.
She’s wearing the same thing she was last night. Shorts that are too small and a shirt that has a tendency to ride up to right underneath her tits when she reaches for something. I know because I was watching it do just that last night in the kitchen.
That thought flies right out of my brain when I realize that she just came out of the wrong door wearing that outfit, though.
Because that’s not her room. It’s Gabe’s.
And given the state of her hair, she definitely slept in there.
I go from half turned-on at my memories of her to filled with rage in a heartbeat, and that morphs into disgust at the thought of the two of them together. Betrayal at the idea that she ran to him when I wasn’t available. Jealousy at the same idea.
Shame at the jealousy, because it’s not my place.
I fucking know better than to let her in, and I know better than to admit my feelings for her, even to myself.
She used to be a part of my life but she’s not anymore, and she hasn’t been for some time.
She ran to the city and spent four years changing into someone I hardly recognize anymore.
Someone who may or may not be fucking my son.
Disgust rises up in me again and I round on her, letting it take control.
“That’s not your room, Taryn. What the fuck were you doing in there? In that?” My voice is harsh and judgmental, leaving no room for any innocent explanation. I’m being unfair but can’t seem to stop myself.
It’s so much easier to be angry than hurt.
“What?” she asks, her voice a breathy counterpoint to my anger. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“And yet you were in my son’s room in your pajamas,” I note coldly. “And I’m guessing you weren’t sleeping. What were you doing, trying to get back into his good graces? Using all your charms?” I sneer the last word.
The moment her eyes grow wet with tears, I hate myself for it.
“How dare you?” she whispers. “What the fuck is wrong with you, that you would even ask something like that?”
“Because I’ve seen two making eyes at each other since you got back!” I shout. “I’ve seen you brushing up against each other for no reason. Touching when you don’t have to. Staring at each other. Hell, I caught you practically making out last night.”
Now she draws herself up to her full height, looking absolutely furious. A tear is sliding down her cheek, telling me exactly how upset she is, but she’s letting her anger get the better of her, too. And boy does she have a temper.
“And what’s it to you if we were?” she shouts back. “It’s not like you want anything from me. You’ve barely had time to fucking talk to me since I got back, and when you do, you act like I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you!”
I get in her face, unable to stop myself. “Maybe you are! Maybe I used to love you but stopped the moment you and your bitch mother ran out on us. Have you ever thought of that? Ever thought that maybe I don’t want you back here at all?”
She draws back, betrayal clear as day on her face. That was a blow too far, and no, she’d never thought that maybe I didn’t want her back, because why would she have? When she left, I was so attached to her that I’d been planning the rest of my life as her dad, and she knew it.
I’d told her as much.
And now I’m here taking it back in the cruelest way possible, because I’m jealous of something I shouldn’t even want.
I know nothing was going on in there. She and Gabe were best friends when they were kids and were probably in there talking.
Catching up. Christ, maybe she can help him get that temper of his under control so we can go back to actually having a relationship.
Maybe she can save him, because I don’t know how the fuck to do it.
But no matter how innocent it might be, the base of it all is the same. She was with him rather than me.
And that’s the fucking problem, right there. This never happened before she was here. I’ve made a career of being cold and disconnected from everything. Maintaining the boundaries I very carefully built after she and Helen left.
But now that she’s here, she’s tearing through them like they don’t exist. Taking my walls down to rubble and making it impossible to keep my emotions in the box I built for them.
And as long as I have emotions, I may as well use them on the person who’s causing them. It’s a harsh, terrible thought.
That doesn’t change my mind.
I open my mouth to shout at her again, though I can see from the look in her eyes that she’s already stopped listening to me and started protecting herself.
I don’t care. I need to say what I need to say.
Before I can, though, Gabe comes flying out of his room, hands up and ready to fight.
He slaps his palms on my chest and shoves me backward into the wall, then gets in my face.
“What the fuck?” he snaps. “I have to wake up to the sound of you screaming in the hallway, lying to her like it’s your fucking job?”
That’s not all he says, but I’m too busy coming up with an answer to listen.
This kid has no idea what he’s talking about.
He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose one wife and then another, in quick succession, and right when you’re trying to start trusting someone again.
He has no idea how hard I work to keep a roof over his head, and how challenging that is when he no longer even talks to me.
He can’t know how fucking lonely I am, and how I spend most nights lying awake and staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
I scream back at him, barely taking a breath, and he shouts at me until our words are so mixed up with each other that I can’t tell who’s saying what or if we’re even making sense anymore.
We’re both venting out all our frustrations and fears, and I don’t know if we’re fighting each other or ourselves.
Or if maybe it’s the same thing.
By the time we stop to draw breath, our chests heaving and our cheeks burning with anger, I think we may have destroyed what little relationship we had left.
I turn my eyes to the ceiling, trying to rein my emotions in, and then look to the doorway where Taryn is standing.
Except she’s not there anymore.
Gabe turns when he sees my face, and startles at the emptiness where she was. Moments later, we hear the front door slam.
A few seconds after that, we hear the engine of the truck start.
“Oh my God,” Gabe breathes.
We both look to the window, where the world has become one mass of swirling snow, and realize in the same instance that a full-blown storm is coming on. That’s not normal snow out there. That’s dangerous snow.
And we’ve both seen what that can do.
“You idiot,” Gabe breathes. “You’ve driven her away and right into the arms of the storm.”
He rears back, swings at me, and connects with my nose, and I go down hard, hitting the floor like a sack of rocks.
I hear the pounding of footsteps and his cursing, and by the time I can get my eyes to focus again he’s jumping down the stairs and dashing out the front door.
In the driveway, one of the Jeeps starts up and skids out of the driveway, the tires trying to find purchase on what’s left of the asphalt as he goes after our girl.
While I bang my head against the wall, cursing myself as five thousand sorts of fool for having let my anger get the better of me. Because he’s right. It’s my fault she left.
It’s my fault a city girl is out there driving in a storm that could well kill her.
If it does, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
And I’ll lose my son forever.