Scarred
FOUR
Autumn
“Okay, hit me,” Nanette said on the video call. “Show me the contenders.”
I propped the phone against the toothbrush holder and held up the first option against my body, in front of the bathroom mirror.
The royal blue wrap dress from the Forest Grove church thrift shop only cost two dollars, tags still on it, because church ladies in this town donated nice things, I discovered.
“Hm. What are the wedding colors again?” She appeared doubtful.
“Sage green and pops of red. It’s being held in an apple orchard,” I explained.
“Interesting. But that’s not the right dress. Next.”
Hanger two, with a floral thing and ruffles, I had my doubts about.
“That’s one hundred percent a no. Return it. Next.”
“This is the final option.” Hanger three held a deep green satin dress, with slim straps and an asymmetrical hem, showing a bit of leg.
If I happened to dance, which the Wylde sisters told me I would be even if they had to drag me to the dance floor themselves, this one would let me move rather freely.
“I almost left this on the rack.” But it seemed to call to me, whispering something about string lights and moonlight and a handsome man—for no reason I cared to admit. “Well, Nanette?”
She’d gone quiet.
“I’m crying. That’s the one. With the red in your hair?
Oh yes, the green one.” She sniffled. “Remind me again—who exactly are you dressing for, Autumn Michelle? Because a woman doesn’t panic and send me three outfit options at the last minute for a wedding where she knows only a dozen people unless there’s a particular cowboy going to be looking at her. ”
“There’ll be plenty of cowboys there.”
“Including your cowboy.”
“I don’t have a cowboy.”
“You will, being in that dress, by the end of the night.”
She cracked me up. “You’re impossible. You know I’m not looking for a man right now.”
“You should be. How is Jake anyway?”
I sat down on the edge of the tub smoothing the green satin across my lap. “He’s fine.”
“And? Because I can tell there’s a bunch you’re not saying.”
I shook my head; she knew me too well. “I got jealous the other night, seeing another woman come on to him.”
“OMG! I need details immediately.”
So I told her everything about that night at the Sapphire, Tess’s hand on Jake, the beer glass I’d dropped, and the conversation in the parking lot. Of course, we laughed about the truck windows steaming up and the couple inside of it, too.
Somewhere behind her, glasses rattled in the racks of the Ropin’ Roadhouse. Her father hollered something about a ladder.
“Hold on. Dad’s changing out the video security system again. I told him he probably didn’t need the expense, but he swears keeping videos all these years will save his butt in a lawsuit someday.” She put the phone down and I waited.
I scooted across the hall to where Stetson fussed in his crib a little.
He’d wake from a nap soon, but I needed him to sleep a little longer.
We had a big wedding night ahead of us. I hung the green dress up and quietly let myself out of the room.
In the kitchen, I reached for my can of coffee grounds. An afternoon pick me up was in order.
“Sorry. I’m back. Now, what else am I missing about Jake?” Nanette came back on the line. With her blonde hair pulled up in a messy bun, her green eyes shone brightly on the screen.
I sighed into the phone. “He’s kind, and patient. He shows up. I keep waiting for him to mess up but he never does. He’s almost... too perfect.”
“And you’ve always gone for the bad guys. Look where that’s gotten you. A bunch of bruises and a baby—”
“I will never regret Stetson.”
“Sorry. I know that. But you get my point.”
“Loud and clear.” Jake’s own words floated back to me—Not all men, did you need to run from. “But at this point, we’re such good friends. I’d hate to lose that.”
“Because friendship doesn’t require you to be brave. It’s comfortable. It’s what you’ve needed. But there’ll come a day when you might desire more. And every time you send me a photo that has Jake in it I wonder if your desire is dead. Are you even looking at the same man I am?”
I giggled with her. “I know he’s good-looking. Maybe there is something wrong with me. I’m broken, because I want to see scars on him. A flaw or two. Something that makes me go, hmm?” I shook my head. “But there’s another problem. Jake clearly adores Stetson. And my baby calls him Dada.”
“What?”
“Jake didn’t teach him that. It just happened. I can’t ruin our friendship because I can’t break the two of them up.”
“Okay, hun. Listen. Here’s what we’re going to do.
Tonight you wear the green dress, get gorgeous, and let Jake get a good long look at you.
You’ll dance as friends, and have a good time.
You are not deciding the whole rest of your life tonight.
Save it for the end of the summer when I come to visit.
Believe me, I will grill Jake McCall personally.
If he survives me then you can think about being brave and seeing if friendship can survive more. One step at a time. How’s that sound?”
I snickered. “I’d like to see you try to interrogate a Navy SEAL.”
“Oh honey, come on. I’m a bartender’s daughter from Wyoming. He should be terrified of me,” she cackled.
A notification of another call coming in flashed across my screen: Montana State Prison.
“Nanette, I have to go. Trig’s calling.”
“Wear the green. Send pictures. Have fun with your friend,” she laughed, clicking off the call.
I answered the prison line, and accepted the collect call charges.
“Hi, Trig.”
“Hi, sis. Are you two doing okay? Kid sleeping all right? Keeping cool in that upstairs apartment of yours?” He sounded tired, prison tired. Like he stayed on alert every night in his cell.
I hated this for him, but honestly, he’d always had a wild side. This might be the thing that got him to take a good long look at his life and set it right when he finally got out.
“We’re fine. Harper let Jake install a new window unit. Keeps us good and cool up here,” I explained.
“Jake, huh? Is he there a lot?”
“He babysits so I can work nights. You know that.”
“Been several months now, hasn’t it?” His voice remained low; he’d commented before that there were always ears listening around him. “A man doesn’t put in that kind of time without wanting something.”
“As a friend. You asked him to watch over me ”
“Yeah.” A breath went out of him, hard. “And I once trusted my last best friend with you too. Look what that brought you.”
What happened in Wyoming sat between us on the line, everything neither of us admitted out loud.
“You had no idea he would be so cruel,” I said, trying to absolve Trig of any wrongdoing.
“I knew the type of person he was better than you. And yet I introduced the two of you. Gave him my blessing to date you. Went off to the military and never came back. Then you show up in Montana with bruises that still make me sick thinking about them.”
“None of that was your fault.” My coffee was ready. but something about this call and his tone of voice made me too shaky to pour.
“Listen. I need to tell you something, but don’t go spiraling off. My lawyer was here and said that his family reached out to him about you. The Eatons are looking for you.”
He said the name I’d been avoiding for months, pretending they didn’t exist.
“Brantley?” I’d erase his name from Stetson’s birth certificate if I could. Everything inside of me went cold.
“My lawyer mentioned only his parents.”
“I’m not exactly in hiding, Trig. I work at a bar with my name on the schedule in the town where you held a last known address. Do you think I need to disappear or something?” I braced myself with a hand on the counter.
“What did you expect, Autumn? Your kid is their flesh and blood—their heir. And you ran. Families like theirs, they don’t lose track of what they think belongs to them. I just wanted you to know that they’re looking.”
My life of the past year flashed through my eyes in a heartbeat. But I wasn’t the villain here. As the victim, I had rights, including the right to stay put and never run again. The right to fight back if they ever come after me—and my son. But why would the Eatons care? Brantley clearly didn’t.
“Tell Jake to keep watching over you real good, you hear?” I didn’t like the warning in his voice.
“Okay.” Stetson wailed from the bedroom, finally waking up.
“Jeez, is that the baby? He sounds older. I meant to send him a birthday card. Guess I kinda forgot. I haven’t seen you since they transferred me here. Think you can come visit and bring the baby?”
“Sure. Soon. Tonight we’re going to the wedding of—”
The operator’s voice cut in, warning one minute remaining.
“Whose wedding?” He asked.
“Daisy and Knox.”
“Hm. Is he a deputy yet?”
“Yes.”
“You know he took a bullet for Daisy, right?”
“I heard.” The entire town knew the story, about the night Daisy had been kidnapped by her long-time stalker.
Knox had saved her. There were several stories like that circulating, about the men of the Off-Duty Rescue Ranch protecting the women they loved and cared about.
It seemed to me, if the Eatons were coming for me, this would be as good a place as any for me.
“Good. Tell Jake to tell him—”
The line went dead before he could finish.
I ran to the bedroom, scooped up Stetson, and curled around him on my bed. His hand patted against my chest, like he needed as much comforting as I did. A few hot tears sprang into my eyes. But I quickly brushed them away.
Trig was right. I could so easily spiral about this. But those people didn’t deserve another tear of mine.
My knees almost buckled at the sight of Jake at my door. His jaw dropped, sweeping his eyes over me.
“Wow.” That was it from him.
“Uh, good wow? Or bad wow? Can you be more specific?” I cocked my head. Great. This two dollar dress wasn’t cutting it.
He took his black cowboy hat off and entered the room speechless.
Then it was my turn to suck in a breath, taking all of him in. That night at the Sapphire, he’d looked good. This was next level. He must have worked hard all afternoon to shine his black boots like that, and had ironed a crease down the legs of his black jeans.
I caught my bottom lip eyeing the way a crisp white pearl-snap shirt stretched across his broad chest. And that leather belt at his trim waist with a big silver buckle? Where had that been all these months?
The thing that gripped me the most—the smell of a good man wearing nice cologne. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes. Oh my God… Nanette’s ears should be ringing because my desire just woke up.
“Autumn,” he finally managed. “You in that green. Wow. Good wow. Definitely.”
A smile split my face. My hand reached up, checking on my up do, and fiddled with my drop earrings. “Good wow, to you, too, Jake.”
Stetson added his own opinion with a grunt from the playpen where I’d set him after dressing him in the baby tuxedo Daisy had sent over. But not just any grunt.
With a cry of effort, fierce and determined, he pulled himself up, fist over fist, legs wobbling, swaying dangerously until he was up and standing.
“He’s standing, Jake. Do you see this?” My hands flew to my mouth.
“I see him, little Mama. Look at you, buddy. Way to go.”
Stetson cooed and giggled at our reaction, right there on his own two feet. He even bounced a little, showing off for us, and we hovered over the playpen, shoulders touching, smiling and laughing, until my eyes blurred.
“Oh. We need pictures. Hurry.” I dabbed my tears before my makeup ran.
Jake did the honors, snapping away on his phone, until whoops—Stetson fell backward. Unfazed, my offspring went right on giggling.
“That was amazing.” Jake gazed down into my eyes.
“All of his firsts are. I’m glad we shared this one together.” This close, something was different about him. He’d shaped up his beard and mustache more than he normally wore them, sculpted even. Scars appeared along his jawline I didn’t know were there before.
I reached a hand up without thinking. He didn’t pull away. He let my fingertips rest along his jaw—beard unexpectedly soft, the skin beneath it fever-warm—and his throat moved in a swallow I swear traveled the whole length of my arm.
I was touching Jake McCall’s face. And he was letting me.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“Shit. I trimmed too much.” He pulled away, and slung the diaper bag over his shoulder.
“Tell me. Please?”
“Why?”
“I need to know.”
He shook his head. “Horrible acne first. And then a… a knife fight I got into long ago.”
“Tell me how it happened?” I picked up Stetson.
“Maybe someday. Come on. Ready to go?”
I nodded, not prying further, because he had scars after all. Scars he hid from the world for a reason. And I liked that he wasn’t so perfect after all.