21. Ava
TWENTY-ONE
AVA
Early morning or not—sleep deprived or not—I have so much nervous energy, I know I have to keep busy or I’ll quite literally freak out. Dew glistens on the spiderwebs that cling to the rafters of the barn, shimmering in the cool morning breeze.
I fill one of the buckets with the water Knox treated yesterday and lug it to the horse trough. Knox has been upstairs so long, I have no idea what’s being said between him and his father, but every minute that passes makes the knot in my stomach tighten. Instead of throwing up, though, I laugh.
Rooster, Loca, and Poppy all look at me like I’m crazy, their ears shifting to the sound of my escaped hysteria. “I am,” I admit, shrugging. “I’m losing my damn mind. It’s finally happening.” I scratch my forehead. I don’t know what’s worse, the wave of nausea when I consider leaving and being on my own, or the absolute certainty that Knox would leave with me before he let that happen, whether he wanted to or not. Because that’s who I’ve learned Knox is, duty bound to a fault.
“It’s a little early for chores, isn’t it?”
I startle and spin around to find him leaning against the steel drum, a clean shirt tucked into his Wranglers and a baseball cap on his head, like it’s just another day on the Bennett Family Ranch. He reaches out, rubbing the old, brown mare’s face lovingly.
“I needed some air,” I admit. Turning back to the horse trough, I empty the rest of the bucket, using my knee for leverage. I hadn’t even realized I’d pulled on shorts in my haste to get dressed and out of the house. Water splashes on my legs, sending a wave of chills over me in the cool morning air. Or is it the way Knox is watching me?
Lucy scampers up, her tongue hanging out of her mouth after making her morning rounds.
“It’s going to be fine,” Knox tells me, and I know what he’s referring to.
I nod because I know he wants me to believe him, but I don’t.
“I’m serious.”
“I know, but...” I set the water bucket beside him, exchanging it for the feed scoop instead.
“Ava?”
I turn for the grain barrel. I should call Julio. We haven’t tried that yet. Just because Knox couldn’t get his phone to work doesn’t mean mine won’t.
“Ava—” He takes my arm, the flannel of my shirt bunching in his grasp, forcing me to stop. When I look up at him, he glances at his hold on me and lets go. “My father won’t bother you. I promise.” I hear his determination as much as I see it in his eyes, but all of this is so much bigger than Mitch Bennett.
Suddenly, every wound up part of me deflates, and the feed scoop hangs at my side. “It’s not just that, Knox. Being here—it puts you in a weird position.”
“No, it doesn’t?—”
“Not to mention your dad.”
“What about him? He’s got his own issues to worry about, and he knows where I stand with you.”
My head tilts of its own accord as I consider what, exactly, that means.
“I told him that if you decide to stay, he has to accept it.”
“And?” I deadpan. “He’s totally fine with that?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. But no, he didn’t argue with me about it, if that’s what you’re worried about. So, we stick to our plan. We work on the inventory today. We prepare for—” He shrugs and readjusts his ball cap on his head. “Whatever the hell happens next.”
Even though I refuse to acknowledge the way his muscles flex, my eyes linger a little too long on his arm.
“Ava?”
My gaze snaps to him. “Yeah?”
“Are we good?” There’s a pleading look in his eyes I don’t expect to see.
Before I can find the wherewithal to argue, I nod in answer. “Yeah. We’re good.”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “We are? You aren’t just saying that?”
“Yes, Knox.” This time, I can’t help a small, mostly sane laugh. “We’re good,” I promise. “Thank you.”
His gaze narrows slightly before he seems satisfied, and with a heavy sigh, he peers around the ranch. “We’ll finish with the animals, then wrap up the inventory before it gets too hot.”
Though the cloud cover is gray, the air is turning muggy already, and I peel my flannel off. I glance at the beat-up Prius in the driveway. “I didn’t peg your dad as a hybrid guy,” I say in jest. Knox tears his eyes away from me, and he stares over his shoulder.
“I don’t know the story behind it, but I have a feeling it saved his life.”
Though I never thought I’d care one way or another what happens to Mitch Bennett, I can tell Knox is anxious and concerned about his dad, and suddenly, I worry a little about him too. “Is he going to be okay?”
Knox glances up at his father’s bedroom window on the second level. I half expect Mitch to be looming in it, watching us with a menacing glare, but he’s not. “I think so,” he murmurs.
Without thought, I reach for his arm this time. “Are you ?”
Knox looks at me with tired eyes, too shadowed for me to see the green and gold that usually brighten them. “I’m fine,” he murmurs, but something passes over his features before he grabs the feed scoop I dropped. “We’d better get to work.”
* * *
Despite the thick, gray clouds, the afternoon is sweltering. It smells of smoke, and sweat dampens every part of my body—even my palms. Dust and grime embed in my nails and the creases of my hands, and I want nothing more than a cold shower and an even colder beer.
Knox slams the F-250’s tailgate closed. Thunder rumbles in the distance, punctuating the strange charge that’s been filling the air all afternoon. But still, no rain comes, despite the stormy day.
“We should take a break,” Knox says, as exhausted as I am. “Get something to eat and see how we’re feeling after.” He nods to the trailer. “If we have to leave, I’ll want to take the horses. Which means I need to make sure we have supplies for them too.”
I glance at Loca’s buckskin head hanging over the rail of the paddock, watching us intently. “Do you think they know?” I ask, because it feels like the horses have been watching us all day.
He watches the mare as she begins to pace along the fence. “They know something’s up—like they think we’re going somewhere.” The corner of Knox’s mouth curves up, and he leans his forearms against the truck, smiling at me. “Do you even know how to ride a horse?”
Knox is smiling . At me. It’s stunning and gives me pause.
When I realize he’s waiting for an answer, I lick my lips and look at Loca again. “No. Well—I mean, I’ve never done it before.”
For some reason, that makes Knox chuckle. A throaty sound that dissolves my unease and makes me grin. I smack his arm. “Why is that so funny?”
“I don’t know, maybe because you live in Texas of all places.”
“So? What reason have I ever had to ride a horse?”
“Not even in sixth grade? Did you go to the ropes course and dude ranch with Mr. Thomason’s class like the rest of us had to?”
I shake my head. “I was out that day, apparently.”
“Well, we should go for a ride, then,” he says, sobering a little. “You need to know how.”
As reality settles over us again, our smiles fade, yet I feel the lightest I have in days. Even with Mitch here.
The screen door squeaks open. “Come and get it!”
Knox and I turn toward the house as the screen slams shut again, Mitch disappearing inside. My heart thuds, and my palms feel clammier than before. It’s one thing to know Mitch is inside, but another to be in the same room with him.
Knox looks at me, his brow lifted in surprise. “I guess grub’s on,” he says, and with a shrug, he heads for the house.
This is the moment I have been dreading all day. The first meeting since I woke to find Mitch looming over me in bed. I could refuse, but it would only make things more uncomfortable, especially for Knox.
Reluctantly, I follow him into the house, steeling myself for whatever comes next.
Lucy trots up, her butt wagging like it might be time for her lunch too. Knox pets her as he opens the screen. “You hungry, pup?”
It smells like Old Spice the instant I step inside. Mitch’s back is to us, his hair damp and combed like he’s just showered and donned clean clothes.
Knox doesn’t give his father a second glance as he heads for the table that’s only had stacks of mail and unused placemats on it until now. I keep a safe distance behind him. Three sandwiches are plated, and a few bags of chips are in the center. A half pitcher of iced tea sits beside a stack of napkins.
“I didn’t know what you wanted,” Mitch mutters, bringing over a jar of pickles. “But we only had roast beef in the fridge, so that’s what you get.” When I look up, Mitch glances away from me, his freshly shaven jaw ticking slightly.
My lungs burn from holding my breath, and exhaling, I glance at my sandwich with an erratically pounding heartbeat. “Uh, roast beef is fine. Thanks.”
Knox meets my gaze with a look that’s both stoic and encouraging, and I pull a chair out across the table from him.
Finally, Mitch finishes whatever he’s doing in the kitchen and comes to join us. I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for a comment to slip, or a disgusted look to be cast in my direction, but Mitch doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t look at me again. He simply pulls out his chair, sits down, and takes a giant bite of his sandwich.
Knox crunches on a crisp pickle, oblivious to my internal freak-out as I pick up my sandwich. This is happening. The three of us are eating lunch together as if the past doesn’t exist here.
“Eat,” Mitch commands, eyeing the bread squishing in my firm grip. “You two have been out there all day. You can’t work on a ranch and not have food in your belly.”
I take a bite because Mitch Bennett tells me to. “It’s not poisoned, is it?” I joke, but the instant the words are out, I wish I could shove them back in. Knox and Mitch both look at me, mid-chew.
My cheeks burn, and internally, I chide myself for bringing more attention to the absurdity of this situation. “Sorry. Bad joke.” I brush the crumbs from my lips and, this time, I take a huge bite so no other words will sneak out.
“I thought you would be resting,” Knox eventually says, breaking the awkward-as-fuck silence. He eyes his father over the brim of his glass and takes a gulp of tea. “You didn’t have to make us food.”
Mitch shakes some barbecue chips onto his plate. “I don’t want to rest all day. Too much thinking.” He plops one into his mouth and bites down with a crunch. “I was going to do an inventory, but it looks like you’ve already done it.” Mitch’s gaze shifts from Knox to me.
I look away, licking my lips. “Well, thank you. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
He grunts. “It’s just a sandwich.”
Just. A. Sandwich . I take another huge bite to stifle the hysteria.
The longer we sit in the tension-filled room, the greater sense I have that something more lingers in the atmosphere of things unsaid. Whatever relationship Knox and his father have, it isn’t a great one, and Mitch’s return hasn’t seemed to change that. They are stilted around one another, and what I thought might be a wordless standoff of sorts feels more like the crossroads of what was and what will be moving forward.
“After the past couple days,” Knox finally says, only this time he looks at me. “We need to be prepared for anything.” I don’t know if he’s considering what happened at the supply store, our water situation, Scott, my episode yesterday, or his dad’s sudden return from the dead, but Knox exhales and shoves a chip in his mouth.
“We.” It’s a quiet, almost breathless word, and Knox and I both look at his father. Mitch swallows a bite of sandwich. “You two—you’re... a thing now?” Mitch might sound concerned or confused—or maybe a mixture of both—but he doesn’t seem outraged by the idea. Still, I’m wary of his calmness.
“No,” I say. The expectant silence and myriad of thoughts Mitch is probably thinking is too much to bear. “We just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, is all. Knox has been stuck with me ever since.” It’s another awkward joke, and it falls on deaf ears.
Knox watches his father closely, but Mitch has no outward response as he takes another bite. “At least he hasn’t been alone,” Mitch mutters. Knox’s brow lifts slightly in shock.
And just like that, the past ten years of drama between our families is squashed. At least for now. I eat my sandwich and chips until all hunger pains are sated, and Knox does the same. Each time a piece of roast beef falls from his sandwich, he feeds it to Lucy, sitting semi-patiently at his feet.
“This medicine you mentioned,” Mitch says, scooting his chair out. He plops the last chip on his plate into his mouth and walks toward the sink. “Is it something Britton might have next door?”
Knox shakes his head, swallowing his final bite. “Not unless he has epilepsy.” The thought of Knox and his father talking about me at all is unsettling, but it feels acutely personal that they were discussing my health.
Mitch looks at me and tosses his napkin into the trash compactor. “No.” He moves to the counter and caps the mustard. “I don’t think he does.”
I busy myself rolling the chip bags. “I’ll be fine,” I reassure them. It’s not terminal, just really inconvenient. I won’t let it be a burden to you.” But the instant I say it, I know that’s not entirely true; yesterday with Knox is proof.
Mitch strides past the table and grabs one of a few Stetsons hanging on the coat rack. “You two clean the kitchen,” he says, settling his hat on his head. He stares through the screen. “Your mom has some medical books on the shelf in the formal living room, Knox. You might find something useful in there.” He elbows the door open. “I’m going to check on the generator.” Then he heads out, the screen slamming shut behind him.
Knox and I look at one another. “That exchange was...bizarre,” I say, taking my plate into the kitchen.
He watches his dad pass the living room window, headed around back. “Yeah. It was. Especially mentioning my mom like that. He never talks about her.”
“Should we be worried?”
Knox doesn’t answer at first, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so. If anything”—he meets my gaze—“it seems like he’s finally waking up.”