Chapter 18
ROWE
Dear Rowe,
I’m okay. Are you? I want to come visit, but Ash says to wait. The last thing I want to do is make things worse for you. Trust me, I don’t hate you. Far from it.
Ezra hasn’t contacted me. The cops deleted everything from all of his devices. I think he’s old news now. Thank god. Or thank YOU, I guess. Nobody outside of my family and our friends know that the videos existed in the first place.
Can you be honest with me this time? Do you hate ME?
I don’t want to make this a pity party for myself, but I feel so, so guilty.
I want to send you something but I don’t know what.
A gift sounds so . . . lame. Like I’m trying to buy your forgiveness.
They probably don’t let you get gifts there anyway.
I’m just worrying about you. I’ve been at the ranch a lot these last two weeks. Diesel is okay, but he’s sad. Sometimes I see him searching for you when we’re out on a ride, and it makes me cry. Is that pathetic to admit?
Anyway . . . just let me know that you’re okay. We’re all missing you. If you tell me I can come see you, I’ll lie to Ash about it if I have to. I just want to hug you.
Hellcat
“We can’t kill him, Tilly.”
“No, you can’t.”
I start after her, jogging to keep up with her lightning-quick pace.
She’s gone from angry to sad to hurt and right back to angry in the matter of a few minutes.
I don’t blame her for feeling as deeply as she does.
It’s taking every ounce of self-restraint I have not to set Walt’s entire ranch on fire with him tied up and left to burn with it.
It’s been a long goddamn time since my stomach’s churned like that.
Standing on a filthy floor, trapped in a hot box of piss and crud that’s been multiplying by the hour for who knows who long, I nearly curled over and puked.
The hot flush up my spine was met with one of ice water, keeping me too unnerved to react the way I would have under different circumstances.
Tilly didn’t have that problem. She doesn’t restrict her feelings well, and I knew if I didn’t get her out of there quickly, I’d be an accomplice to a crime.
She might not mind seeing me get taken away in a cop car for the second time, but with the aggravated assault charge on my record, I’d be going away for a lot longer this time around.
“What do you plan on doing, then? You need to just hold up for a second and think before you try to fucking stab him,” I bark.
She suddenly stops, her braid whipping behind her when she whirls around, facing off with me. The wet gleam in her eyes is a blow to the chest.
“He deserves it! Those babies are broken in there. I can’t leave them here, Rowe. I can’t. They must think we’re here to save them. We can’t just leave!”
“We’re not leaving them here forever. They’ll be okay while we come up with a plan. We need one, Tilly.”
She sucks her lip into her mouth, worrying it.
I let myself go to her, not giving a shit that she could very well turn all of that rage simmering under her skin at me instead of Walt.
Her lashes are bare and thick, a deep blonde to match her hair.
They fan across the skin beneath her eyes as she blinks, holding herself still.
I drop my hands to her shoulders and squeeze, my grip tight enough to successfully distract the both of us.
Dropping my chin, I cut our height difference in half and hold her gaze. She has no choice but to look at me, and I wish I could smile at her right now. “I promise you that we’ll come back for them.”
Her throat pulls with a swallow. I hear the gulping noise and stroke my thumbs over the skin below her shirt. She lifts her hands, and then her fingers are circling my wrists. I wait . . . half expecting her to use her hold to rip mine away.
It’s the opposite.
Pushing down on my hands, she keeps them in place. I don’t move. Don’t so much as breathe too hard.
“Swear it to me, Rowe.”
I don’t hesitate. “I swear.”
“Okay. I can’t see that man again. If you’re going to talk to him, I don’t want to be close enough that I can hear his voice.”
“I’m not talking to him. His horse isn’t coming back here. There’s no reason to waste my time.”
“You’ll still help him, right? The rest of them too?”
The desperation in her voice ruins me. In a blink, I’m a sixteen-year-old boy again.
I’ve got Diesel saddled up beneath me as we run down the edge of the highway to the campground, a bag of my mom’s pumpkin muffins tucked between my legs, and the knowledge that she was in her room crying over some asshole with a lifted single cab.
They were her favourite, and fuck—the only kind I ever told my mom to make.
I’ve always hated the taste of pumpkin, but Tilly’s had an obsession with it since she was nine.
“He’s already starting to see Painted Sky as home. I’m not taking him anywhere else,” I say.
She nods, letting her breath out. “Okay.”
“Let’s go. I’ve got to make a couple of calls.”
There’s no fight left in her right now. The comedown from the hurricane of emotions she was just overcome with has left her silent and uncharacteristically accepting of help. It’s as rare as it is worrying. My protective instincts are going haywire with the need to get her away from this place.
She lets me take her hand as we leave the stable, following our earlier path through the dead grass.
I try to focus on anything but the feeling of her fingers pressed to mine.
They’re so small and soft, yet calloused on the undersides the same way mine are.
I could squeeze too hard and break them. My grip loosens slightly.
On high alert, I move Tilly in front of me, guarding her with my body as we pass the house. She doesn’t argue, and my chest tightens at her lack of fiery words. Under normal circumstances, she’d be spouting off about not needing my protection.
I open the door for her and release her hand, using my palm to tap her back instead. “Get in.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she snaps weakly.
I’m a glutton for punishment. My mouth twists at the corner.
Once she’s inside, I close the door and look back at the house. The porch is empty, Walt nowhere to be found. I don’t linger, knowing better than to trust myself right now.
It’s only when I’ve started the truck and take a last look past Tilly to the house that he comes rushing outside. His lips form words that I don’t give enough of a shit about to try and understand. I put the truck in Drive and press the gas pedal so hard the tires nearly spin on the gravel road.
What a sight it would have been to see a rock hit him in the head.
The motel’s shit.
It’s a two-level building with rusting metal staircases and a front desk worker who didn’t know how to listen when I asked for a room with two beds.
I hold our bags in my hands, hesitating to drop them anywhere out of fear we’ll go back home with bed bugs.
The single double bed in the centre of the room is dressed in brown florals that match the carpet and armchair beneath the window.
I eye the long dresser across from the bed and the lack of TV atop it.
There’s no artwork on the walls, only peeling paint and something that looks a lot like a burn mark from a cigarette.
“You’re checking the bed. I dibs out.”
I tighten my hold on our bags. “What are you, twelve?”
Tilly walks inside the room ahead of me and dips her head into the bathroom, flicking the light on. With her face hidden, all I have to go off is the groan that comes a beat later.
“I’ve seen bed bugs once, and I couldn’t sleep comfortably for a week afterward. If they’re here, I don’t want to see them,” she explains, pulling away from the bathroom. “It’s just as bad in here, in case you were curious.”
“We can go back to Painted Sky tonight, and I’ll come up tomorrow to get the horses.”
She shakes her head and peels open the thin brown curtains, looking out at the parking lot. “Not a chance. We’re already here. I get why you wanted to take a breather, so just make your calls. I’ll order food.”
I let it go. Making the three-hour drive an extra time isn’t appealing to me. Not when I’m already fucking exhausted from this shitshow day.
Tilly stays at the window, and I shift both bags into one hand and rip the sheets back on the bed to check the mattress.
It’s free of tiny black bugs, so I put our shit down.
She doesn’t look back at me once, either distracted by something or ignoring me.
I don’t spend time thinking which one it is before pulling my phone out and exiting the room.
Once the door is closed behind me, I call my dad. The line rings four times before he picks up, voice gruff and angry.
“What the fuck did you do over there, Rowe?”
My eye twitches. “I didn’t do anything. Walt’s a fucking abuser who’s lucky I wasn’t alone when I found his horses.”
“What do you mean?” he barks.
“What did he tell you when he called to rat me out?”
“That you took off without a word and didn’t do a damn thing we agreed on.”
“His horses are half-dead. I’ve got enough photos of their neglect to ruin his life and make sure another animal doesn’t take one step onto that pathetic ranch of his. I’m taking them with us when we head out in the morning. They’re Painted Sky horses now.”
“Slow down. You can’t take his horses without reporting him first. Neglect or not, they belong to him.”
“You can’t be serious. Filing a report and getting the peace officers out there will take days. If not longer.”
“That’s how it works. You want to take his horses, fine. But you do it legally,” he demands, voice as hard as granite.
I want to send my fist through the wall. “I’m not coming home without them.”
“You are unless you want to see the inside of a jail cell again.”
“If you believe that I don’t think that’s worth the risk, you’ve gotten too goddamn old to think clearly.”
His words are nearly growled when they hit my ear. “Get home right now.”
“We’ll be back tomorrow.”
I hang up before he can respond and walk down the long concrete balcony that’s connected to every room on the second floor.
With every step I take, my desire to throw my phone hard enough to shatter it grows.
The parking lot below me is too full for a place this rundown.
I stare at the black diesel branded with my family ranch’s logo and grit my jaw.
The horses we left behind are mine now. They’re coming with us regardless of what my dad wants, but that doesn’t settle me. I wrap my fingers around the rusty railing and lean my weight against it, daring it to break.
“I ordered food.”
Her voice makes me tense. I don’t respond.
“I took a guess that you still like burgers, so that’s what I got. The restaurant I ordered from looks like it could be a front for something else, so just know you’re risking food poisoning if you choose to eat. It was the only option in this town.”
“Tilly,” I warn gruffly. “Stop talking.”
“So you can self-destruct? Not a chance.” She joins me at the railing, choosing to drape her arms over it. “Come back in the room.”
“You should be happy that I’m leaving you alone. Isn’t that what you prefer?”
I don’t know why I say it, only that when I do, I regret it.
“We can argue if that helps you feel better. But don’t make assumptions like that when you were the one who abandoned me,” she says, sounding far too strong for how messed up I feel right now.
Turning my head, I stare at her, wishing she’d do the same.
Her eyes stay looking forward, fixed on a random car in the parking lot.
The bridge of her nose is perfectly straight, regal almost. It broke when she was twelve and face planted into the dock at the campground, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at it.
Mine’s the opposite. I’ve broken it more times than I’ll ever admit, and it looks like it.
“I tried to make up for it. You’re the one who didn’t reply to my last letter.”
A muscle in her jaw moves. “Your last letter? The one where you told me that we couldn’t talk anymore? You used my— You turned against me. I knew for years that I shouldn’t tell you how I felt, and all you did was make sure that I’d regret my clouded judgment every day for the rest of my life.”
That wasn’t what my last letter said. Yes, I sent the one she’s referencing, but two months later, I wrote another.
She sounds so confident in her claim, though.
And I’m not interested in rehashing our past right now.
Not when I’m subconsciously leaning toward her, too weakened from today to keep my distance.
“What kind of burgers?” I ask, pushing off the railing.
She hesitates for a beat, sliding her gaze across the space between us. “They have bacon.”
I tip my chin in acceptance, and her eyes linger for a second longer before returning to the parking lot. We stare out together, neither of us having the energy or desire to speak again.
The silence is enough to protect us from the words we don’t know how to say yet.