4 Sterling Darling—Zach Bryan #2
“He lost everything on his last tour. We’re all he’s got left.”
“Yeah, well, he isn’t the only one who’s lost everything.”
Making a hasty exit, I slam the door hard enough to rattle the hinges. I love my baby brother, yet his incessant need to mend every last problem that threatens the status quo grates on me. He’s protective. I get it. But sometimes that fountain of empathy needs shutting the hell off.
Unlocking my red truck, I check the tools for today are in the cargo bed then swing into the driver’s seat. I’ve been working on the local library’s grounds for the past two days, taming the wild overgrowth while the town hibernates under its winter coat.
I’m unsure what caused the librarian—sharp-witted, eighty-six-year-old Melville—to suddenly want to prune the sarcophagus that’s covered the stone building for as long as I can remember. He’s worked there since the seventies and never cared before.
With a mouthful of banana and my gritty eyes trained on the road ahead, I hit accept on the hands-free when a phone call comes through.
“Vale Landscaping.”
“Sleep well?” Cassidy’s voice croons.
“Fucking fantastic.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Sterling Vale. Next time you decide to start a fight in my pub, I’ll toss you out before you have the chance to leave.”
“It wasn’t a fight, Cass.” I bite back my annoyance, fearing her wrath. “Just a disagreement.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Then you heard wrong. I didn’t touch the dickhead. Just told him to watch his mouth and left before I did something stupid like punch his lights out.”
“Take a breath, hotshot. I know you’re not a troublemaker. I’m just worried about you.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’ve known you for thirty-odd years,” she reminds me. “And I know you’re in pain.”
“Alright, enough of this—”
“I miss her too,” she interjects on a heaving breath. “But we have to live our lives without her now and that includes you too.”
All at once, anguish wraps a barbed claw around my heart, sinks its deathly sharp daggers in, and plucks the remaining strings clean in half. The plummet echoes through my bones, sending me spiralling into a place I rarely dwell in.
“I’m sorry,” Cassidy adds. “Call it tough love.”
“Love or meddling?”
“Love. I care about you.”
Because she isn’t here to do it anymore.
My fist strikes the steering wheel as if it can offer any possible explanation for why this life is so fucking cruel. Why I’m forced to do it alone now. Why happiness was torn from my arms with no warning or explanation.
But the useless foam circle can’t give me the solace I’m still frantically looking for. Truthfully, there isn’t an answer to give. Not one that will adequately explain why I lost the love of my life before our story even really began.
“The world keeps turning, Sterl. Maybe it’s time to rejoin it.”
“My world stopped turning the day her body turned up,” I admit throatily, pain drenching each syllable.
Her sigh crackles down the line. “You still need to live.”
“I’m living the only way I know how without her.”
Abruptly ending the call, I grip the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles turn snow speckled. I’ve known Cassidy since we were toddlers. She’s practically family. But hell if that doesn’t incentivise her meddling. She’s just as bad as Leo.
My thick gold wedding band catches the corner of my eye, glinting on strained skin. Throat thickening in an all-too-familiar way, I tear my eyes away before the stinging burn behind my corneas can intensify. I don’t have time for that today.
One foot in front of the other. That’s how I live.
Day in, day out, I focus on work. The town.
My fucked-up family. Every morning and every night for a little over four years, I’ve scraped the remains of a life together.
Never once allowing the memory of her cold, dead body on a slab to fade from my mind.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Vale.
Meaningless words. Even from law enforcement.
It did little to bring me peace.
The town library appears in a copse of bare oak trees, forcing me to push the mental ghosts aside. It’s one of the original buildings from when Hawkthorpe was first established as a rural town in 1893. All these decades later, the whitewashed moorstone is still intact.
The buildings around here are dotted amidst the barren countryside, but they’ve been lovingly cared for across multiple generations.
Cottages were hastily constructed for those working in the old copper mines, cobbled together with stone and mortar joints, traditional thatch roofs, and quaint, picket-fenced gardens.
I’ve always loved the idyllic, traditional architecture of my hometown in the Lake District. It’s a picture-perfect retreat from Britain’s industrialisation, a simple, rustic oasis ensconced in thick forests, distant stone mountains, and low-hanging rain clouds. Our own little world.
Beautiful, albeit suffocating.
And it means nothing without her here.
“Sterling!” Melville calls my name when I park up.
“Morning.”
“You’re late.”
Despite being the eldest resident in town, the tiny, wizened elder can run rings around anyone who dares to cross him. Even when we were kids, he had a reputation for being an old grump. Particularly to those who returned books late or damaged.
I chuckle while slamming the door shut, my phone now tucked into my jeans pocket. “Hardly. Go back to bed, old man.”
“I’m young enough to tell the time,” Melville grouses, fiddling with the pocket watch tucked in his waistcoat. “You’re four minutes late.”
“So bill me.”
“I intend to. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just got caught dealing with something at home.”
“That kid giving you grief?” He smiles knowingly.
Fighting a snort, I unlock the truck bed to unload. “Leo is almost thirty now.”
“I remember the day your ma drove him into town. Patience of a saint, that woman. Who else would adopt a teenage stray? And a single mother, no less.”
“We gonna stand here gossiping all day?”