Chapter 4
Oakley
The sun slants through my passenger window as I follow Lawson’s pickup, trailer included, along the highway out of Kansas.
His words play on repeat in my head.
“You left me.”
Wanting a distraction from the heavy ache in my chest, I ring my dad. He picks up quickly, his voice cutting through my truck’s Bluetooth.
“Oakley?”
“Hey, Dad. Did, uh… Did Lawson mention I’m moving back?”
He hums, a thoughtful sound. “He did not, but I wondered as much when he asked me and your mom to keep your place free for a while. What’d he do, drive down there to haul you home?”
“Yep. That’s exactly what he did.”
My dad laughs, calling for my mom, his voice distant as he says, “Oakley’s on the way home, Sienna.”
My mom’s voice is equally as quiet. “That so? Tell him the house is cleaned up and ready. I’ll stock the kitchen.”
“She doesn’t have to do that,” I interject.
My dad makes a psht sound. “Nonsense. You’ll be on the road for twenty hours. You gonna stop at Plum’s on your way through with a miniature cow in tow?”
He’s got a point. “Well, tell her not to go overboard.”
My dad doesn’t relay the message. “Bring Lawson by for dinner once you’re settled. Y’all still like those dino nuggets? I think they have spicy ones now. Sienna, don’t they have spicy dino nuggets at Plum’s?”
I sigh.
“Tell him I’ll leave the key under the mat,” my mom says.
“Your mom says—”
“Yeah, I got it,” I tell my dad. “Thanks.”
He grunts his acknowledgement. “I’m glad you’re coming home, Oakley. We’ve missed you.”
There goes that ache in my chest again. “Yeah. I’ve missed y’all, too.” Lawson signals for an exit, so I do the same. “Dad, I gotta go. I’ll see you soon, all right?”
“Drive safe.”
I can hear my parents in the background talking about dino nuggets for a moment before the call ends. Forty-three going on four, apparently.
I follow Lawson into the parking lot of a fast-food place. He parks off to the side with the trailer, so I pull up next to him, rolling down my window.
“Get us some food?” he asks. “Coffee, too.”
My lips twitch. I suggested we make breakfast before leaving this morning, but Lawson wanted to get on the road as quickly as possible.
I can’t blame him, considering our plan to drive straight to Montana without rest. Finding somewhere to stay for the night with Bell would be a logistical nightmare better avoided.
He sure didn’t make it long without coffee, though.
“Any requests for your Royal Highness?” I ask.
Lawson doesn’t comment on my cheekiness. “You know what I like.”
Suppose I do.
With a salute, I pull around to the drive-through, ordering enough food and drink to last us a while. Lawson looks amused when I hand his share of the haul over through his open window.
“Some of this for Bell?” he asks.
I stare at him, appalled he’d even joke about such a thing. “Don’t you dare think about feeding any of this to my cow, Lawson Darling. She’s bad enough as is. Could you imagine if she got a taste for fast food? She’d be like a shark after blood.”
He huffs a laugh. “Oh, so now she’s your cow?”
“Don’t start,” I warn him. “I can still turn back around, y’know. Then she’ll be your cow and your problem.”
“You won’t do that,” he says, confident he’s got me on his hook. And damn if he doesn’t. “Come on. Let’s get back on the road.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, peeking into the trailer to make sure Bell is all right. Of course she is, her tail swishing merrily. She’s probably plotting her next attack.
I return to my vehicle, and Lawson pulls back onto the road, me following. I want to be mad at my friend for so easily uprooting me from the life I’d tried to create in Kansas. But apparently, my roots weren’t buried down that deep, were they?
Lawson was right. There wasn’t a thing tethering me to my temporary home in the end. And now that Montana is on the horizon, the two of us traveling steadily that way, all I feel is a familiar sort of longing for everything I chose to leave behind.
My house. My job at Darling Ranch. My family. Wendy. Lawson.
I traded one life for another, thinking the benefits would outweigh the loss. They didn’t, though, did they? Even with Stevie and I at our best, I never felt settled. I kept waiting for it to come, that feeling of home.
But it never did.
Which is probably why I didn’t fight harder when Stevie told me it wasn’t working. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t, either.
And it’s why I can’t be mad at Lawson for dragging me back to Darling.
It was inevitable. I just wish my failed attempt at love hadn’t hurt the one person I never meant to.
Once I have some food in my stomach, I ring Lawson’s brother Jackson. Although younger than Lawson by a couple years, Jackson is the head of the family ranch, ever since the responsibility passed from his parents to him. Lawson never wanted it.
“I wondered when I’d hear from you,” Jackson says in greeting, his voice piping into the cab.
“I take it you already talked to Law?”
“He called this morning at an ungodly hour. Everybody was pretty worried about him these past few days. He didn’t tell anyone but Wendy where he was going.”
I cringe. That’s not like Lawson at all. “Sorry for the trouble.”
“Not your fault. You coming back?”
“Still have room for me?”
“Always,” he says, voice a little gruff. Heaven forbid the man show any tenderness to the outside world. He and Lawson are polar opposites in that regard.
“Well, I appreciate it,” I tell him truthfully. “I really am sorry for the trouble. When do you want me back?”
“Next week? Take a few days to get settled in again at least. There’s no rush.”
“All right. Don’t suppose you have room on the first shift?”
He chuckles. “There’s room. See ya four o’clock on Monday.”
With that, Jackson clicks off the call, and I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not that I doubted Lawson’s conviction that a spot at the ranch would be waiting for me, but the reassurance after quitting my job without any notice whatsoever has my chest loosening ever so slightly.
I didn’t think it would be this easy, returning to my old life. But it’s almost like it was waiting for me.
I sit in silence for a few minutes before calling Lawson.
He picks up, the rumble of his vehicle mixing in with mine. “Needa pee already?”
“No,” I huff. “Entertain me. I’m bored.”
He snorts. “It’s gonna be a long trip then.”
“Not if you entertain me. Talked to Jackson, by the way.”
“Uh-huh. Told you I handled it.”
“I know. He said you didn’t tell your family where you were going?”
There’s a brief pause. “Didn’t need to.”
“You know they’re the worrying type.”
“I’m a grown man. They don’t need to worry.”
I don’t think that’s how it works when it comes to family, but I keep my mouth shut on the topic, sure Lawson knows as much. Hell, he’s a dad himself. He gets it.
“Law… Why haven’t you found a place yet?”
There’s another beat of silence. “I like the ranch fine.”
“You don’t. You like your quiet.”
Lawson’s always been different than his brothers in that regard. Jackson runs the ranch now. Colton is a farrier, just as much a part of the bustle as everyone else. And Remi, the youngest, looks after the horses and petting farm animals.
Lawson, though, ever since he was a child, has been drawn more to stories and literature than the grueling work of the ranch life he was raised in. Him becoming an English teacher was a surprise to no one.
He’s not soft. Not exactly. Lawson is blunt. Downright demanding at times. He gives just as good as he gets.
But he’s also idealistic in a way most folks aren’t. His head is in the clouds, a trait that reminds me of his father, Hank.
Lawson is a dreamer. Always has been.
I think he always will be.
“It’s fine,” Lawson insists about living at the ranch. “I’ll find a place eventually.”
I hum.
“What?” he asks, voice even.
“Will you tell me what happened with you and Laura? I thought things were getting better. You were in couples’ counseling.”
“I told you. We just…drifted apart. It was too big a chasm to repair.”
There’s gotta be more to it than that. “Did you want to repair it?” I ask, voice quiet, as if that’ll make it easier to talk about.
Lawson doesn’t answer right away. I give him time to sort through his thoughts, knowing he’ll speak up only once he’s ready.
“No,” he finally says, the word so short I’m startled by it.
“No?”
“I thought I did for a while. But…no. There was no fixing it.”
I swallow roughly, my chest tight again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” When he and Laura were having troubles, when he moved out, when the divorce went through… I wasn’t there for any of it.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice nearly lost to the road. “I am, too, Oak.”
Fuck.
“You gonna forgive me?” I rasp.
“Already have.”
“Really? That easily?”
“It’s not complicated,” he says, when it feels anything but. “I was mad. I told you. Now I’m moving on.”
I shake my head, constantly astounded by this man. “God, Law. You’re so…”
“What?”
“Forthright,” I tell him. “You’re so damn honest and open. Except, apparently, when it came to my relationship with Stevie.”
“Because that wasn’t about you and me. It was about you and them.”
“Well I’m giving you permission to be honest about my future partners,” I say a touch hotly. “I trust you more than anyone. So don’t…keep shit to yourself just because you think I won’t want to hear it.”
“All right.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Full transparency. I promise.”
I nod to myself. “Okay, then.”
“You needa shave.”
“Pardon?” I sputter.
“You look like you just rolled out of a barn. Shave your damn face, Oakley.”
I stare at the back of Lawson’s trailer, indignant. “Fuck you very much. My facial hair is fine.”
“You’re gonna give someone beard burn.”
“I’ll have you know that’s half the appeal.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Huh.”
Jesus Christ, straight men. “I take it back. I don’t need your honesty.”
“Too late.”
I mutter a “Fuck,” and Lawson laughs. I redirect us quickly. “Tell me about Wendy. Has she finished applying for colleges yet?”
The next hour passes with Lawson catching me up on his daughter and which colleges she’d most like to attend after her final year of high school.
I feel another pang of guilt knowing I missed so much of her life while in Kansas, even as we stayed in near-constant contact.
I missed a lot. My dad’s knee surgery. My mom’s retirement from the local flower shop-slash-nursery. The end of Lawson’s marriage.
I missed them, period.
And I missed my town, even as I tried not to.
Midday, Lawson and I stop for a quick bathroom break before getting back on the road.
As the highway passes, I make several calls.
First to my neighbor, letting him know to stop by and take whatever food he wants in the next couple days.
After that, to one of the guys at the ranch who mentioned he’d be more than happy to resell what little furniture I left behind.
Then a cleaner, who’ll scrub the place top to bottom.
And finally, the realtor who sold me the house in the first place. It’ll be back on the market in a week.
It’s remarkably easy, tying up all the loose ends from that life. Lawson said moving on doesn’t have to be complicated. And I suppose, in some ways, that’s true. It’s a choice. One a person needs to be ready to make.
I guess I’m ready to return to where I was meant to be.
And the future? Well, I’ll figure that out one day at a time.