Chapter 32
Ava
I kept seeing the fire die in his eyes. Over and over.
I’d wake up, shift positions, drift off, and there they’d be, dull and dark as charred debris.
“Call if you need anything.” Still giving, still helping, while simultaneously plundering my chest, stealing my last shred of sanity.
Because want and need weren’t the same, and Nina came first.
As sleep dragged me under again, I prayed I’d done the right thing.
A song repeated, and something poked at my arm, though I hardly felt it over the pain that clawed up my leg.
I pried open one eye to find Nina standing at my bedside, holding my phone.
With a few blinks, the numbers focused, and I recognized the song for my alarm.
But the clock didn’t match the time I’d set it for.
“Mama, who’s calling?”
Fuuunnel cake.
It had been singing for hours, and I’d slept through it!
“No, baby. It’s an alarm to take my medicine.” Which I’d left in the bathroom. Along with my water.
I forced myself up and threw my legs over the side of the bed, an action I immediately regretted.
Splintering pain and heavy pressure pulsed under my cast. For a few uneasy seconds, I worried I might hurl right onto the carpet.
I should’ve staged everything on the box next to my bed before falling asleep.
That’s what Eli would’ve done. Heck, he would’ve snuck downstairs to make sure I took it.
“I’ll be around.”
My heart gaped like gills out of water, and I deserved every sharp spasm. “Nina, can you get my crutches?”
I downed my pills at the bathroom sink, meeting my hollow gaze in the mirror.
For the first time in years, I missed my mom.
I hated her for giving up when my dad died, but suddenly I understood.
You could be as hard as a river rock, but life’s non-stop current still wore you down.
My husband was dead. My truck was dead. And if I didn’t act soon, my ranch would be dead.
Did she know something I didn’t? What would she tell me now?
I dropped my head and stared at the sink. Promises, responsibilities–I had to offload something. To get out of the current, before it left Nina without a mother.
When I’d woken in the ambulance, it wasn’t Jason’s face I searched for, or his voice I longed to hear.
It was Eli’s. But I couldn’t sacrifice everything for a man I’d just met.
I still loved Jason. My feelings for Eli could never replace him.
The reasons that had sent me running from Hidden Meadows a year ago were now my reasons to keep it.
To show Nina her father in the shift of horses.
To hear him with every hoof-clomp. To feel him on the breeze as it passed through the sweeping mesquite trees.
We were happy once. I had to get back there.
For Nina.
Instead of tossing in my bed for hours, I tucked her into her blankets and migrated to the den, only to scroll blindly through the TV guide.
The pain medication wasn’t working, hunger gnawed at my insides, and when sunrise hit, I would have to get dressed and get myself to work.
Assuming I still had a job. Then I realized something.
I had no car! My head fell against the back of the couch.
I could not call in sick. And I loathed the thought of asking Eli for help.
Somehow, I knew if he overheard me ask Bill, he’d sweep in and insist on doing it himself.
I swiped away frustrated tears, idly remembering to elevate my leg.
Not that lifting it hurt any less. How did I make it stop?
The pain, the guilt, the rising panic in my chest. I had all the same tasks, but now I had to do them truck-less, with a broken leg!
And shy an ally. I’d pulled the Cinderella card–been sent back to the beginning. Again.
And my hope was somewhere in the discard pile.
The sun squinted through the French doors when August found me and Nina firmly planted under a blanket, watching Paw Patrol. “I was looking for Eli,” he said. “But I find you like this?” He gestured to my cast. “Mijo, what happened?”
I tried to make light of it. “Oh, this ol’ thing? Nina and I decided to be twins.” The stolen joke made me frown. I rubbed at the pinch in my chest.
August hissed his disapproval. “Where is Roxy?”
Unwanted emotion expanded in my throat. I blinked back to our show. “The scrapyard.”
“?Qué?”
“And I’m not going to fix her, so don’t ask.” I didn’t deserve her anymore. I didn’t deserve a lot of things. And still, I had the audacity to ask August a favor. “Can you–” I shifted Nina, deciding. “Can you give me a ride to work?”
His furrow almost surpassed his chin. “You should rest, no?”
“If I don’t go, I will lose my job.”
His hand cupped the back of his neck as he watched me get to my foot. Perhaps contemplating how I planned to make myself presentable in thirty minutes. “If I take you, you will tell me what happened?”
I glanced at Nina. She was completely engrossed with the dogs on the screen. Still, “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Twenty minutes later, I hobbled up the stairs, creaking and thumping in yesterday’s dress over a pair of shorts and a messy top knot. With each step, my pulse increased. Would I run into Eli? What if he handed me a cup of coffee? Or lifted Nina in a football hold just to make her giggle?
But the kitchen was empty. No coffee waiting. No plated pancakes. Just a sinking anchor where joy used to be. This is what you wanted, Ava. Less. Remember? When I turned to the window, only Bill’s truck sat out front, and that sinking anchor smashed into the ocean floor.
It sure as heck didn’t feel like less.
I hobbled to the coffee maker to fill the water tank.
It was the right thing to do. The timing sucked.
My life consisted of too many variables.
I was stretched too thin, and everything was suffering.
My job, my business deal, my health. I couldn’t take care of Nina if I didn’t earn money, if I didn’t have a home for us.
Water flooded over the side of the tank and onto the counter. “I can’t even pour water right!” I yanked a paper towel off the roll to clean up the spill.
I hated this version of myself, doing everything just well enough to stay afloat, but nothing well.
We’d basically been couch-surfing! That wasn’t stability.
Had I been impulsive? Did I let my attraction for Eli color my choices?
What a mess! I’d become a woman I hardly recognized.
So far from the girl who booked horse lessons in the margins of a calendar and bought white cowboy hats.
Or painted her nails in bright, bold colors only to chip them off a day later.
I didn’t even have time to paint my nails!
“Where’s E-why?”
I turned to see Nina enter the kitchen with Bill.
Silence descended.
Where was Eli? He could’ve been running an early errand. Pulled his truck into the third bay? But I knew better.
“He had to go, Kiddo,” Bill said.
“Why?” she asked.
Because I ripped his heart out. And apparently mine along with it.
“He doesn’t live here. Guess he had something to get to.”
“But I want choc-kit chip pancakes.”
My insides shattered. How did I think I could do this?
“Well, you’re in luck.” Bill crossed to where I stood to collect a plate from the overhead cabinet. “There’s some in the fridge.”
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to him. Two silent words that would fix nothing.
He put the plate on the counter and studied me with a wrinkled brow. “You know, staying doesn’t mean much if you’re not true to your boots.”
A desperate laugh popped out of me. “You sound like Terry.”
“We have a few things in common.”
“You both own ranches?” I asked.
“We both want what’s best for you and Nina.”
I stared down at my cast. “Well, this isn’t the boot I normally wear.”
Eli never stayed in one place. He said as much from the very beginning. But Nina and I? Where did we belong?
Cathy said nothing initially, probably because she was processing my termination paperwork. It put me on edge all morning.
The pain medication plagued me with mental fog while also not numbing the discomfort.
At best, it shaved off the piercing edge.
And because of that, my tasks took twice the effort.
I started questioning everything I’d ever said and done.
Especially when I hobbled down the block to the local taco truck for lunch, realizing too late I had forgotten my purse.
When I dug in my pocket for my phone to pay digitally, I found a twenty-dollar bill folded inside a sticky note with the message, “xoxo.”
What have I done?
I could live with the pieces of my shattered heart–I’d survived before. But to run off Bill’s son? To sentence the older man to lonely dinners at an empty table? He’d sell the ranch, and Eli’s mom’s house would be lost to them, decorated by someone who never knew her.
Because of me.
Six o’clock finally rolled around, and I wanted to rip out of my skin just to escape myself. Or run to someone strong enough to absorb all my frustrations. To tell me it was okay, that they’d fight for me. Even if I didn’t deserve it.
At least Cathy hadn’t fired me yet. Maybe she’d keep me out of pity. Why did that feel worse?
August’s red truck waited in the lot. As I eased down the steps, he swung the passenger door wide. “You sure you wanna go? You look a little, eh, like you–”
“Tired?” I supplied.
“Sí.”
I’d texted him earlier with a request to take me to Hidden Meadows. I’d put it off too long, too busy playing house. “I have to speak with Terry. Face to face,” I said. If he regretted our deal, I’d see it. If I were being selfish, I’d know once and for all.
It had to be 110 degrees outside. August’s AC tried, but with my leg accessory, I graduated to a new level of misery.
“There is a water,” he said, pointing to my door pocket.
“Thanks.”