Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Delilah
Me
Dad seems depressed. He was up on and off all night, asking for his mom. I don’t know what to do.
Roberta
Maybe try an activity to get his mind occupied. He likes card games.
Me
I couldn’t find the cards. I tried a puzzle, but a piece was missing, and that made him even more upset.
Roberta
Get him out for some fresh air. I promise it works wonders. :)
My eyes beg to close the entire drive down to the coast. I’m exhausted, but with every mile that passes, Roberta’ s advice seems more and more sound. The drive is quiet. More peaceful than the last twenty-four hours in their entirety. Dad’s gaze remains locked on the scene unfolding outside the window. Rolling hills are replaced by sugar-sand beaches. Sunbathers stand in for Truett’s cattle. It’s amazing to me how much the landscape of Alabama can change in a forty-five-minute drive. Another point in the Pro column, though I’d never admit it to Truett.
Dad comes to life the minute his toes sink into that soft, white sand. We play in the waves, laughing like we did years ago on this same beach. We eat more fried seafood than anyone should in one sitting, then watch the sunset pool on the surface of the water before the horizon swallows it whole. We sing along to Dad’s favorite Greatest Hits of the ’90s CD on our way home, and I think how badly I wish I could hold on to this moment forever. The two of us, suspended in time. Before the worst that life has to offer comes back for another round.
As I park next to Dad’s car in the driveway, I note the lights on in Truett’s house, and my stomach clenches. I texted him an invite this morning to prove I’m not morally opposed to friends but got no response. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. It shouldn’t. Distance from him is exactly what I need, after so many blurred lines this past week. But I find myself staring up at those lights anyway, wishing I could explain myself in a way that he would understand. Wishing there was nothing to explain in the first place.
Would I love to simply pick up where things left off with Alicia as though nothing ever happened? Absolutely. Because I wish nothing had ever happened. But it did. And I don’t know how to reconcile all these people—Truett, my dad, Alicia, even Lucy—with the version of them that lives in my head. The version with clear-cut motivations and even clearer consequences. I was comfortable with the slightly pessimistic view I had of the world because I knew my place in it.
But where do I belong in this one? The one where people might have made mistakes because they were human, not because they didn’t care enough about me to do the right thing. The one where Truett and I might not actually be on opposite sides of the playing field but on the very same team.
I hover nearby as Dad brushes his teeth and casually hand him pajamas to change into from the load of laundry I’m putting away. He accepts the help better from me when it’s not obvious that’s what it is. That’s what I’m learning, anyway. And it could all just as easily change tomorrow.
I leave Mom a voicemail letting her know that I’m feeling better and that I miss her. That same sense of being ships passing in the night of that big house has followed me here. I get her texts during meetings and can’t reply. I call when she’s out with Debbie and her other friends from work, so she doesn’t pick up. Late at night while I’m sleeping, she’ll leave a voicemail letting me know how badly she wishes I’d come home. That I’ve done enough for my dad after everything he did to us.
I just don’t know anymore. And it’s the not knowing that keeps me from acknowledging those voicemails. The idea I formed of Dad during all those years when he didn’t call is yet another that I can’t reconcile. That’s not the same man I stayed up all night watching The Truman Show with while he ran a hand through my hair, my head on his lap. I don’t know how to feel about any of it, so I ignore my feelings entirely and focus on anticipating Dad’s needs, toeing the line of ignoring Mom while still letting her know I’m here.
The distance from her has made it clear this ebb and flow of love is a tool of hers, one she wields when she senses me pulling away. I’m so exhausted by it that I can’t be bothered to play along .
In the midst of it all, I find that Truett’s the one I want to talk to most. No matter how illogical. No matter how dangerous it feels for my heart. I think of the way he looked at me in the truck when I lamented about this small town that we both know I love. Like he could see right to my core, and he couldn’t believe I’d deny what was there.
If he’d truly seen past the walls, though, we’d be in much deeper shit. Because he’d know that he’s taking up the largest space in my heart. That he always has.
It’s more than enough reason to keep my distance. Should be, at least.
But the next morning when I hear the rumble of the lawn mower outside my window, I practically tumble out of bed. I rush to slip into cutoffs and a green flowy tee, shoving my feet into my shiny new Keds as I race to catch him before he leaves.
It’s not him who I find walking away from the mower, though. This man is shorter, with thick, dark hair that curls around his ears and a goatee that reminds me of the man Mom dated briefly following the divorce before he got sick of her mood swings. Tony, was it? Hell if I remember.
“You’re not Truett.”
He glances toward me. “Correct. Just the delivery boy,” he grumbles, tipping a brown cowboy hat in my direction. “I’m Ollie. I drew the short stick this morning. Now I get to walk all the way back to the north field.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Is everything all right?”
He nods and arches a brow. “Yep, just having to move some fencing panels to construct a temporary pen for a few of the steers that got too fat on grain. They’re going on a diet.”
“So he sent you to bring me the lawn mower?”
“Apparently so.” Ollie’s dark eyes cut from me to the zero-turn. “You know how to drive that thing? ”
I grit my teeth. I enjoy people assuming I’m incapable about as much as I enjoy being incapable. “Truett gave me a lesson.”
Ollie huffs a laugh. “I’ll bet he did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turns to walk away, waving a hand over his head as he does. “Oh, nothing. Just that I won a bet with the other guys about why Parker’s britches are in a wad this morning. Have fun and watch out for trees.”
I narrow my eyes in the direction of the north field, though it’s shrouded from view by the rolling hills and dense groves of oak and pine that spread between me and a certain dirty-blond cowboy who’s taken a note from my book on avoidance strategies.
Ollie left the mower running, and thank God because Truett never taught me how to start it. I resign myself to at least knock this out, and then I’ll find a way to talk to him, even if I have no clue what on earth I want to say.
By the time I finish, sweat slicks my back and my whole body feels like it’s vibrating. Grass clippings coat my shins and thighs, and I’m fairly certain my scalp is sunburnt. My fault for forgetting to grab a hat in my mad dash out the door. Roberta’s white SUV bounces over the newest pothole in Dad’s driveway as I round the last tree trunk in the front yard. I point toward the farm, and she nods in understanding.
“You want a glass of water first?” She slams the door behind her, gaze scanning me as I drive past. “You look hot, and not in the way I think you’d appreciate.”
I huff a laugh. “Thanks, Roberta. I’ll grab one as soon as I get back.”
“Suit yourself. Should I save you some coffee? ”
“Throw it in the fridge, please!” I call, moving the bars out of neutral to pull forward.
She throws a thumbs-up, and I echo it, then head for the road.
I debate leaving the mower at the shed behind Truett’s house and walking to the north field, but then I remember how far of a trek it is and decide to take the ride while I’ve got it. Poor Ollie. I crest the last hill in time to see four men on ATVs herding a group of cattle the color of midnight through a narrow opening in a wall of steel fence panels. The steers huff and bellow in annoyance as they’re forced to shoot the gap, their large bodies knocking and sliding against one another in a mesh of hooves and hindquarters. The men work in perfect sync, circling the herd and pushing in close from every angle. In a matter of minutes the cattle are sealed into their new home.
Ollie moves the final steel gate into place with a loud clang. “Enjoy WeightWatchers, boys!”
The other three men let out a chorus of cheers from their mounts. I spot Truett on the four-wheeler closest to me. He rises up on his long legs, arms rippling as he revs the throttle and angles away from the pen. A straw cowboy hat shields his face from the blistering sunlight, but it doesn’t hide the spark in his eyes when he clocks me.
He lays off the engine. “You know I’ve got cows to keep this grass short. Didn’t exactly need you to mow all the way out here.”
Ollie walks along the perimeter of the new fence, head down as he pretends to check the links between the already-secure panels. The other two men—one with hair the color of fire and another so bulky I’m shocked the four-wheeler holds him—don’t even attempt to hide that they’re listening. I can practically see their ears perk the moment I open my mouth.
“I wanted to talk to you, actually.” I open the handlebars and dismount the lawn mower. My legs wobble for an unnerving moment. I glance back at the zero-turn. “I also don’t know how to turn it off.”
The two men closest to us erupt with poorly suppressed laughter. Truett’s gaze cuts to theirs, silencing them with a hard look that I can only half see from my position in front of him. One of them chokes on it, and the other grabs a water bottle from a pack strapped to his ATV and takes a swig. Ollie continues staring intently at the same panel he’s been inspecting for a beat too long, but I note his shaking shoulders.
“Ollie, that fence gonna run away if your eyes don’t hold it up?”
“Huh?” He whips around. “Oh, no. Sorry, man, I must’ve zoned out.”
Truett grimaces. “Like hell. Jason, take the mower back up to the shed, please.” The redhead glances up, raises his brow, and points to the center of his chest where sweat has turned his gray shirt black. Tru nods. “Ollie. Emmett. Go do a calf check. Rosie looked about to pop this morning.”
“Got it.” Ollie climbs back onto his ATV. He jerks his chin toward the bigger guy—Emmett—and the two of them take off toward the field on the west side of the house where the cows and heifers reside.
Jason cuts the engine on his four-wheeler and ambles over to the lawn mower. His skin is embossed with thousands of freckles. They’ve bled together on his forearms, forming some semblance of a tan. He clicks his tongue. “You owe me lunch.”
“How do you figure?” Tru’s head tilts, jaw taut.
“Because I did not participate in the bet”—his green eyes cut from me back to Truett—“and I would’ve won for sure.”
“What bet—” Tru starts, but Jason is already pulling on the left handle to whip a U-turn and head back up the hill.
I cross my arms, grimacing as my sweat-slicked skin sticks together. “They bet on why you were in a bad mood today. Apparently I had something to do with it?”
He stares at me, stone-faced, for a few too many heartbeats. It’s unnerving to see him so serious. I shift my weight, thighs chafing as I do. My stomach flips. His gaze drifts downward, following the dip of my shirt over my lace bralette before tracing the expanse of my legs. When he settles at my feet, his lip quirks. “Guess I shoulda bought you boots instead of those white tennis shoes.”
I follow his gaze and sigh. The toes of my Keds are smudged with a mixture of dirt and grass clippings. “Fantastic.”
“You sure are dirty, Temptress.” He folds his arms over the handlebars and leans forward, brow raised. “Did you come all this way to ask permission to skinny-dip in the river? Get cleaned off? Because you know I’m not opposed.”
My throat dries out as heat flares in my cheeks. “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
I drag my teeth along my bottom lip. It’s humiliating to say aloud, but I’m sick of the way it makes me feel for him to tease like this. We both know it’s a stupid joke that I happen to be the butt of, but asking him about it is like acknowledging the elephant in the room. Once you do, someone has to pick up the elephant’s shit.
His shoulders slacken, and he looks exhausted all of a sudden. Like waiting for me to find my words is the last thing he has time for today. “Just say whatever you’ve got to say, Delilah.”
“Fine.” I uncross my arms, letting them fall to my sides. “I don’t understand why you insist on making comments like that.”
A wry grin stretches his lips. He’s the cat that caught the canary. “What comments, exactly?” He wipes a speck of dirt from his jaw, but the smile remains in place. “You’re going to have to be more clear. ”
I blow out a breath, but my chest is still so tight. My skin prickles with awareness of his gaze. I want to crawl into a hole for even having brought this up, but I stand tall. I’m not going to let him see how much it bothers me. “Pretending to flirt with me, Truett.”
His eyebrow lifts. “Who said anything about pretending?”
My mouth opens and then closes. Several times. He studies me, noting every attempt at rebuttal, until at last I give up and clamp my lips together.
“I’ve never understood why you can’t see just how remarkable you are, you know that? You were way out of everyone’s league here. No wonder you moved away.”
I scoff, but my heart triples its pace. “Now I know you’re lying. I was never anything special, let alone remarkable. There at the end I was practically a social pariah. I wasn’t out of anyone’s league.”
“You were out of mine.”
We stare at each other, neither of us blinking, as that statement settles like dust.
He sits up, braces his hands on his hips, and jerks his chin toward the house. “You wanna continue this conversation inside? I am sweating to death while you take your sweet time chewing on that revelation.”
I glance over my shoulder, grateful for an excuse to break our intense stare, and then back at Jason’s abandoned four-wheeler. “Want me to take that?” I manage to squeak out.
He smiles. It takes over his face easily, like the expression is his natural state. While mine is a nervous scowl, apparently.
“Long as you promise not to go as slow as you did the other night.” He waits for me to mount it and turn the key before revving his engine. “Last one to the house is a rotten egg.”
“No way, Tru?— ”
“Giddy up, Delilah!” He takes off, startling a few grazing steer on the other side of the fence.
Forcing myself not to overthink this, I let it rip, hightailing it after him up the hill. The dust his wheels kick up clouds my lungs. I rise up on my feet as we crest the ridge, then flop on my ass hard once the ground levels out. He’s fast, but he’s cocky, making wide serpentine sweeps over the field in front of me. I find the path of least resistance, a straight shot that cuts right through a swath of mud, and gun it, spraying him with clumps of it as I zip past. The last thing I see is his mouth going wide to yell something intentionally flirty , I’m sure—though I hardly believe him—before a sizable splotch of mud hits him square in the chest and he slows, a look of shock rippling over his features.
“Giddy up, Truett,” I grumble, a feeling of triumph washing over me.
“I cannot believe you did that.”
Tru tips one of his mother’s amber glasses beneath the faucet and fills it with water. He knocks it back. I try not to stare at his throat working as he swallows, but I fail. It should not be as sexy as it is. I know that. Still, there’s a responding pulse between my legs, and I cross them to cut it off at the pass.
He can’t just do things like call me remarkable and expect me to act like everything’s normal. Can he?
I shrug, feeling anything but nonchalant. “Don’t start fights you can’t finish.”
He turns to me, lips stretched wide in a grin that makes his dimple pop. His shirt is splattered with mud, his forearms the same. He tosses his hat onto the counter and runs a hand through his sweat-darkened hair. It’s left sticking up in a few directions, but my chuckle dies in my throat when he crosses the distance from the sink to the island where I’m sitting and leans forward on arms braced against the granite’s edge. “I never said we were finished.”
“You were mad at me, if I recall?”
“Not mad.” He shakes his head, gaze narrowed on me like he’s taking my measure. “Irked. You irk me.”
I choke on a nervous laugh. “What an honor.”
“It’s hard to hear you talk down on this town when I know you love it.” He licks his lips, his gaze dropping to the glass in his hand. “It’s hard to hear you talk about leaving when what I really want is for you to stay.”
It’s impossible to swallow when my throat is this tight. Immediately all I want is to read into those words. To believe them with all I’ve got. But for the sake of my fragile heart, I can’t. I let my gaze drop, scanning the room instead of meeting his intense stare when it finds me. He’s updated some things since I was last here, but the stained-glass window above the sink where Lucy would wash dishes while I sat and talked her ear off is still there. I half expect her to walk out of the hallway and ask if I’d like some tea.
Tru must track my thoughts, because he leans back and his voice is softer when he says, “Is it weird being back here?”
“Not weird,” I rasp, overcome with an emotion too painful to name.
It’s so familiar. There’s the pantry that Tru and I would raid after school when his mom pretended not to look. The barstools are the same, solid wood and painted white one summer day when Lucy had had it with all the dark wood in the kitchen. Now the cabinets, once a deep cherry, are painted white, too. I can’t help but smile. “Did you do the cabinets before your mom…”
I can’t bring myself to say it, and from the way his eyes crinkle at the edges, I think he appreciates it.
“No. I wish I had, though.”
“She’d love it. ”
He smiles softly. Runs a hand over the closest drawer. “Yeah, I think so, too.”
“When did you get so handy?” I cross my legs. A question that’s been bubbling below the surface overflows. “Did your dad help you?”
I know his dad left, but I’ve wondered if he ever returned. Though, guessing by the look on Tru’s face, I’d say that’s a Hell no.
Tru’s gaze turns to stone. He bites at a barely healed notch in his lip and grunts in response. My stomach sinks to the floor.
“You were right, you know.” My voice quiets. Though I know it needs to be said, it doesn’t make it any easier. His eyebrow lifts, inviting me to explain. So I do. “It happened to you, too. Your parents’ marriage—your life —imploded right alongside mine. I’m sorry I wasn’t more sensitive to that.”
A guttural sound rips from his throat. He shakes his head. “No, you were right. It was different for me, Delilah. And I forget sometimes that the best thing that ever happened to me was the worst thing that happened to you.”
I balk. Surely I misheard him. “What do you mean, the best thing?”
He strides around to my side of the island and straddles the stool beside mine. Our knees brush. His are covered by blue jeans, mine grass clippings, making the sensation muted yet familiar. Intimate in a way that shouldn’t feel so good.
“My dad was… How do I put this?” He picks at a cuticle, gaze trained on the half-moon of his nail bed. “He was a piece of shit, Delilah. Self-righteous as all hell. You know that much. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand just how awful because Mom was too careful to hide the worst of it from me, but he was so angry all the time. And when he wasn’t taking that anger out on the animals, he was taking it out on Mom.”
I cover his hand with my own. He doesn’t look up .
“And when I got big enough, I tried to take her place as best I could.”
My lungs are suddenly impossibly tight. “I’m so sorry, Truett. I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t.” He sighs softly, the sound damp with unshed tears. “You were my bright spot. I didn’t like to bring the clouds out when you were around.”
Tears burn my eyes, and they pool in Truett’s. He blinks. Glances up at the ceiling. Anything to keep them at bay.
“Sorry, I don’t know why it still gets to me like that.”
Rage stirs in my gut, but I force myself not to give it the reins. What good would my anger do him now? What he needed was protection that I couldn’t give him, and that’s a truth that’s harder to swallow than any emotion. Our hands pulse against one another, each of us trying to comfort the other. When I finally find my voice, it’s laden with sorrow. “Do you ever hear from him? Your dad?”
“No. If there’s one thing Waylon Parker can’t stand, it’s damaged pride. When everything came out about Mom and Henry, he took off. Last I heard he was out in Arizona with a newer, younger wife. Grandpa shared that particular piece of news before he stopped talking to me, too. Good riddance, honestly. To both of them.” Pity flashes in his gaze. “I think a lot about her. The new wife. Wonder if she’s safe. If she has anybody who looks out for her.”
I savor the warmth of his touch. A reminder that he’s here. That he’s safe. “Like you did for your mom?”
“Not me.” He shakes his head gently, measuring my reaction. “Henry.”
My brow knits together. “What do you mean?”
He releases my hand but trades it for my knee, squeezing it tight. His knuckles are dirty, but so is my leg. We match in that way. “I don’t think Mom ever would’ve had the courage to leave my father. What happened with Henry…it’s the only thing that saved her. Being loved like that gave her hope.”
Love. It was there, in my dad’s tearful confession that night. But still some part of me couldn’t believe it. Refused to. “You think it was more than an affair? You really think they loved each other?”
He raises his brows, his forehead crumpling slightly. “Why don’t you ask your dad?”
“Do you think he’d remember?”
An echo of a smile flits across his face. He’s watching me so intently that I forget to breathe as I wait for his response. The edge of the barstool digs into my ass. I’ve moved close, literally to the edge of my seat, to hear what Truett thinks of this mess that is our lives.
“I don’t think he could forget.”
There’s something in his tone, in the glint of his gray-blue eyes, that makes me ask, “Tru, what do you know about our parents that I don’t?”
He sighs. “It’s not my story to tell.”
“But isn’t it mine to know?”
“No.” Truett moves closer until our legs are interlocked. “It’s theirs. We have our own story to worry about.”
I remember the glass I abandoned on the table and grab it, taking a sip of water to quench the desert that is my throat. When did it get so hot in here? And why can’t I fucking breathe?
I can feel him along every inch of my overheated thighs, and I don’t hate it. My gaze meets his like I’m seeing him for the first time instead of the millionth. For a moment I let myself imagine what it’d be like if we’d never grown up together. If I hadn’t loved him since I was old enough to give that feeling a name. What if we were just two strangers who met in a bar? What if he asked me to dance, then bought me a drink and we sat on a pair of barstools like the ones here in his kitchen, but we were a hundred miles away from the place so deeply tied to our grief? What happens then, between two people who look at each other the way he’s looking at me now?
Like I’m remarkable, when I’ve always been anything but.
“Delilah,” he breathes, and that breath washes over my lips, which part like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do.
And perhaps it is. Wanting Truett has always felt as right as breathing, and equally necessary.
“What are you doing?” I murmur.
A smile touches those eyes, the palest shade of blue. My favorite one. “Oh come on, Temptress. Surely you remember what I look like when I’m about to kiss you?”
He leans in and our noses brush. My stomach hollows out. He’s wrong. I don’t remember. When he asked to practice kissing beneath the shade of that willow tree, I watched him coming, sure. But in the aftermath? When everything I knew shattered into a million pieces? I forced the memory of that moment into the recesses of my mind, determined to forget how it felt to be wanted by Truett, even for a moment.
Even for practice.
His hand cups my jaw. “Beautiful,” he whispers, his lips featherlight against mine.
The front door slams against the wall as it swings open. “Boss?” Ollie asks as he steps into the room. “The bull got out again. He’s in with the ladies— Oh, shit. Sorry.”
We break apart, scrambling to our feet as the barstools clamber to balance themselves out. Truett smooths a hand through his hair. “I’ll be there in a second, man.”
Ollie nods. “Right. Meet you there.” His gaze cuts to mine. “Sorry again.”
As the door shuts behind him and Truett turns back to me, I feel my spine go rigid. What on earth was I about to do? I almost opened the biggest can of worms with the one person who’s as entrenched in my dad’s care as I am, save for Roberta. So we kiss, then what? What happens when everything implodes between us, and then Dad refuses anyone’s help but Truett’s again? What happens when Truett decides things have gotten too hard and he ices me out all over again?
How the fuck could I be so stupid?
“Th-that should not have happened.”
I move for the door, but Truett cuts me off. His hand cups my bare elbow, sending a shiver straight to my core that I hope he misses. I can’t look at him to check. Can’t meet his gaze after everything that I know. Words he said but couldn’t possibly mean.
I flinch away from his touch, and his arm drops. He pops his lips, and against my better judgment, my gaze flits to them.
His jaw flexes. Those eyes, which were so bright a moment ago, are swallowed by blown pupils. Lust. Desperation, I reason. I’m the closest thing to a fresh face he’s gotten in this town in God knows how long. Nothing more.
Nothing like what I felt for him back then. What I still feel for him, despite everything. I curse myself silently for having aged nine years but learned nothing at all.
“Well, I’ll be.” Truett tuts, gaze full of regret. “Delilah Ridgefield does make mistakes.”
I blink back a fresh wave of tears and skirt past him. He doesn’t know how right he is, and I’m not about to tell him. My hand hits the brass doorknob just as his lands on my waist. I pause, only for a moment, and soak in the feeling before turning out of his touch.
He catches the door when it swings open. I feel small compared to him—not belittled but protected. And it’s such a dangerous feeling. Depending on other people. It never works out well in the end.
He leans in so close that his lips brush my ear, sending a shiver down my neck. “You know, it’s okay to want things just for yourself.”
No, it’s not, I want to say. Everything I’ve ever allowed myself to want has ended up hurting me in the end. First Lucy, then him. Even my dad is being taken from me now. Can’t he see that? Doesn’t he get it?
Instead I say, “Bye, Tru,” then hit his porch at a run, jogging down the steps and onto the road that will lead me home.
Rather than boots or Keds, he should’ve bought me running shoes, because that’s all I seem to know how to do.