Chapter 12 #2
Four whole days without seeing Ava, and I feel like I’m crawling out of my fucking skin.
I refuse to let myself think about all the ways I’m right back in that place, desperate to know what she’s thinking, how she’s spending her days.
I can’t help but wonder if she regrets any of this yet, if she’s finally realized what a bad idea it all is.
It’s not too late to stop it.
I look at her now, seated next to me in a matching armchair while Pastor Brown studies us from the other side of his obnoxiously large desk.
Her face is a perfect mask of patience, beautiful but guarded.
I know her well enough to know there’s a fire deep inside that she’s learned how to keep hidden.
“As I stated in our initial meeting,” Pastor Brown remarks, “today’s session is all about heart.
” His focus bounces back and forth between Ava and me.
“This discussion will allow me to evaluate the stability of the more . . . intangible strengths of your relationship. A common issue I see in young couples seeking to be married is that they are in it for all the wrong reasons—like lust, money, or status—when really, love and God should exist at the center of any marriage.”
It takes effort not to react. I’m not sure how much love or God I have in me these days, but the goal is to make the old man believe plenty of both exists. I sneak another look at Ava and find her still calm and relaxed.
The good pastor starts off with a bang. “How do you like to fight?” he asks, flitting his gaze toward Ava.
She smirks. “That’s actually one of our specialties.”
“Do you fight often?”
“Not as often as we used to,” she says carefully. “But even when we do . . . I’d call it a love language we share.”
“How so?”
She tucks her hair behind her ear, revealing two small gold hoops hugging her lobe. “With me and Kasey, fighting is basically foreplay.”
“Ah.” Pastor Brown clears his throat. “You’re saying that fighting often leads to . . . physical intimacy?”
My face heats. Ava just smiles.
He taps his knuckles against the surface of the desk, considering his words. “Tell me, do you find that . . . strategy leads to healthy resolution?”
“Oh yes,” Ava says emphatically. “Lots of them.”
Fucking hell.
“What about general communication with each other? Would you say that’s something you excel at?” He looks at me to answer this one.
“Yeah,” I say. “Definitely.”
“Give me an example.”
“We tell each other hard truths. Even when it hurts.”
He considers. “What’s Ava’s biggest fear?” he asks.
Dread spikes through me. “What does that matter?”
“It’s not so much the ‘what’ of it as much as it is ensuring that you know.”
My traitorous eyes slip sideways and look at her.
Her gaze is already trained on me, but it gives nothing away.
There’s a cautious expression on her face, one that I can’t read.
I look back at Pastor Brown and straighten, shifting in my seat.
“Not having the opportunity to realize her fullest potential,” I answer.
“It’s important to her that she has her freedom. ”
I don’t know if it’s the right thing to say here, in this room, under an old man’s judgement.
But at least it’s honest, and I can’t see how a little honesty would hurt.
The truth is I’ve always known Ava never wanted to be tamed, never wanted to feel shackled to any man or course of life.
And I know I complicated that with both my love for her and my dedication to the ranch.
She’d asked me to go slow, to be patient with her.
And god—I tried. I tried so fucking hard to wrangle the intensity of my feelings for her, terrified letting it loose might scare her away.
I thought I could reveal the way I felt little by little, like pressure escaping out of a valve slow enough that nothing would burst. After a couple of years together, I guess I thought she could handle it.
I thought she would trust my presence in her life enough that the strength of my feelings wouldn’t send her fleeing.
Boy was I wrong.
“Ava, what’s Kasey’s biggest fear?”
“Failing his ranch,” she says plainly.
“And what would ‘failing his ranch’ look like?”
She levels him with a flat look. “It’s been in his family for generations.
There’s a pressure he and his brothers naturally feel to make sure it flourishes for generations to come, but it’s not easy.
It’s expensive, and at times risky. They don’t like to show it, especially not to people in this town. But they worry.”
I wait for the internal bristling, for the irritation at being exposed like that.
But it doesn’t come. I’m actually surprised to feel a sense of .
. . relief, at the truth of it. A reminder to this man, to this representation of others in this town, that my family is human.
That, like everyone else, we’re doing our best.
“Do you trust him?” Pastor Brown asks.
The question sinks into my gut like a heavy stone.
Ava shoots him a frustrated glance. “What kind of a question is that?”
Pastor Brown shrugs. “One would argue it’s a rather important one.” He steeples his fingers and rests his hands on the desk in front of him. “Do you trust him?”
“Of course I do,” she snaps. “I trust him with my life.”
“And with your heart?”
Ava doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t so much as flinch on the topic. Her attention is wholly focused on him. “If I didn’t trust him, I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t be here.”
He nods, then he turns to me. “And you?”
“And me what?”
“Do you trust Ava?”
I look at her again, my heart hammering in my chest. “Yes,” I answer, but it doesn’t sound nearly as confident.
She must hear it, because she whips her head my way. Hurt flashes across her face before it smooths over and that mask of patience returns. My hands start to sweat as the question flips over and over in my mind. Do I trust Ava? Can I trust her, after everything? I want to, I think. But . . .
“She left home once,” the pastor’s voice cuts in. And I wonder if he knows how deep those words ring true, if he realizes the bull’s-eye he’s managed to hit.
I swallow. “Yes,” I repeat, lamely.
“Should we talk about it?”
“Do we need to?” Ava chimes in, defensive. I don’t blame her. “I’m not sure how it’s relevant to anything.”
Pastor Brown keeps his eyes trained on me, sensing my vulnerability like a wolf would sense a newborn calf. “Kasey?” he presses.
I blow out a breath, avoiding the pull to look at Ava again.
“Ava left home the summer after we graduated, and it broke my heart,” I admit.
“Obliterated it, actually.” I feel her go still in the seat beside me.
“But I would be a fool to sit here and tell you it wasn’t worth it.
I mean, shit, she’s a lawyer now. She went and found something for herself that this town couldn’t offer her, and I’m proud she made that choice. ”
“Even if it hurt you?”
“Especially because it hurt me,” I counter.
“She could have stayed. She could have taken the easy way out to spare my feelings and try to make things work. But what would that have accomplished in the end, besides leaving her trapped in a life that doesn’t fulfill her?
It might have hurt, but she was brave. She knew what she needed, despite the pain it would cause.
And she chose it. I could never fault her for that. ”
I suck down a breath, and for the first time since Ava walked into Wild Coyote and back into my life, the air reaches deep into my lungs.
“I see,” Pastor Brown says, eyes glinting. “Tell me, do you worry she might leave again?”
Yes, I think, heart clenching. “No,” I say aloud, with all the steeliness needed to keep up this ruse, both with him and with her.
I can’t let her see how deeply I still fear the loss of her.
I refuse to show her that still-gaping wound.