Chapter 12 #2
He’d told me to come find him after the wedding.
Did he mean at the reception? Did he want to dance with me?
Maybe approaching would cheer him up, but…
maybe it wouldn’t. What if he’d changed his mind?
The fact that his attention had shifted away from me caused my hesitation.
I clasped my hands beneath the table, fighting the urge to pick at my nails.
Estelle had given me a mini-manicure after I cried last night, and I couldn’t ruin them with my stupid habit.
Before I decided what to do about Jesse, Cooper sauntered over to my end of the table. He looked down at me, a bored look on his face. “I think I’m supposed to dance with you.”
I glanced around him, and sure enough, the bridesmaids and groomsmen were pairing up. Jesse already had Jackie’s hand. “Oh!” I quickly stood.
Cooper’s hands were in his pockets as we walked to the center of the dance floor. “I have no clue how to do this shit.”
I giggled. “It’s not hard. I can teach you.”
“Okay.”
“First of all, get your hands out here.”
He took them out.
“Your left hand you hold up like a platform for my hand to rest on. Like this.”
He copied my gesture.
“Then your right hand goes on my waist or back.”
His hand tentatively hovered an inch from my side. “Right here?”
“Sure. Now we can do fancy stuff or just sway. Up to you.”
He snorted and started to sway. “I look like I’m ready for fancy stuff?”
“Absolutely. You’re basically a pro now.”
The right corner of his mouth ticked up.
“So what do you do at Meadowbrook?”
“All the crap no one else wants to do.”
“Ah. You’re the grunt.”
“Yup.”
“Do you like it?”
He shook his head. “I like that I get paid, have a place to sleep, food on my plate, and freedom to leave.”
“Sounds like a great gig. I can’t leave my job,” I joked.
He frowned. “Oh, are you in a contract or something?”
“I was kidding.” I laughed. “I meant my kids. I’m a mom.”
“Gotcha.” His halfhearted smile returned. “What’s it like? Being a mom?”
I tried to hide my surprise at such a question.
It seemed like a strange, almost juvenile thing to ask.
“Well, it’s…” I considered listing all the things I did alone every day, but the words died on my tongue.
I’d be lost without my girls. “It’s a joy.
They are my world. Sometimes, it’s hard taking care of little ones all the time and not being able to put myself first, but…
the best things in life require giving ourselves away. And they’re worth that.”
Cooper’s brows furrowed in thought, but he didn’t respond.
“I noticed you and Tag don’t have any family here beside your cousin. Are you close with your parents?”
“No.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s better that way.”
His curt tone told me he didn’t want questions about it. My gaze dropped to his long sleeves again, reminding me of his lack of cowboy attire. “Are you a cowboy?”
He chuckled bitterly. “Not in the slightest.”
“Just work with the horses for the paycheck then?”
“Yep.”
I hummed. “Interesting. Is there something else you’d rather do?”
For the first time, his grey eyes looked into mine, searching out my intent. An answer bubbled to the tip of his tongue and his lips moved as if he was about to tell me but the moment broke as his gaze cut away and he shrugged. “Not really.”
Our small talk, or rather my interrogation, continued until the song ended. When we broke apart, my gaze slid to Jesse who had sat back down next to Harlan.
I didn’t dance again.
A while later, the new couple cut the cake. Tag tenderly fed Bea her bite of cake, and she opened her mouth, drawing toward him without one iota of fear. From that cake bite on, my smile drooped. And my emotional energy spun down the drain.
I had begged Garrett not to smash cake on my face. He liked pranks, but I had never enjoyed practical jokes like that. I was so scared he would ruin my hair and makeup. When I tearfully asked him not to do such an awful thing, he called me sensitive and boring and instructed me to wait and see.
“You’ve never been able to take a joke.”
With cake smashed into my mascara, I’d rushed to the bathroom alone and scraped away the icing and tears. I didn’t ask for help because I had no friends with me. The only people present were Garrett’s. The entire time, I blamed myself for my reaction. Too sensitive. Too insecure.
Now, watching Tag touch Bea’s face with a holy reverence I could only dream of, hot tears welled in my eyes. I tried to talk myself off my emotional cliff.
I’m happy for you, Bea. You deserve this. I’m so…so…
What was I even saying?
I’m so jealous.
The only good things that came from our union were the two angels holding hands and spinning around the empty patch of grass reserved as a dance floor, their sashless dresses swishing around their little legs and bare feet.
As soon as Garrett had smirked at the tears gathering in my cakey eyes on our wedding day, I should’ve predicted what the future held.
Garrett said he started out loving me, but I got cranky and moody and connecting with me grew too difficult.
Honestly, I couldn’t remember much about our early years together.
The pain blurred past—it was easier not to dwell.
And truthfully, I probably was difficult to love during that time.
I didn’t mean to be though.
But even then, did Garrett and I ever have what Tag and Bea did?
Did we start off happy like Peter and Sarah?
Would Garrett miss me if I died? I scoffed at the thought.
Of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t even bother to glance over his shoulder before walking into a whole new life with a brand new woman.
But, then again, I’d never had his full attention.
Even though I did everything in my power to receive it.
He’d thrown me crumbs and I pretended it was a feast.
Why did everyone else get an unattainable fairy tale?
It had to be me.
Maybe I just didn’t deserve that kind of love.
My hands started shaking again and I stuck them in my lap, underneath the table where I sat alone. Empty cake plates and cups of half-melted ice sat abandoned all around me because my family was off dancing, chatting, and celebrating like this was the happiest day of their lives.
For the millionth time, I scanned the party for Jesse.
“I liked it, Hollie. I like you.”
They were dangerous words—words that could break me.
My eyes followed him as he stood to refill his punch then meandered a few steps away from the group, looking out across the pasture again.
Suddenly, Jackie’s sharp voice broke my focus on Jesse.
She stood on the dance floor, facing Cooper, who wore a smug smile on his face.
She looked ready to slap him, but he threw his hands up in surrender, sidestepping away from her.
Shaking a finger in his face, she scolded him, and I would’ve paid big money to hear what she said.
He slinked off as Jackie stalked over to my table, face red and angry.
She smacked her hands on the table, crouching down to whisper. Wisps of nearly black hair framed her face and brushed against her fair neck. “You will never believe what that giant asshole just asked me.”
“What…” My words trailed as I realized Jesse was leaving. He tossed his cup in the trash and walked through the field toward the barn. The urge to follow him was so strong, I shot out of my seat, wobbling on my feet a little.
“Um! Excuse me! Where are you going?”
“I want to hear what happened, but, uh…” Was I really doing this? “I—forgot something.”
“What did you forget?”
“I’ll tell you later.” I called over my shoulder, “Can you watch the girls?”
She scoffed. “Okay?”
The cool night air brought goosebumps to my skin, helping me devise a plan.
If anyone asked, I would say I was getting a jacket. Just walking through a huge, dark ranch to rifle through my sisters’ suitcases in order to find a thin cardigan so I didn’t freeze in the seventies temperatures.
Perfect.
I rolled my eyes, pressing forward through the grassy pasture anyway.
Up ahead, Jesse’s silhouette disappeared into the barn. When I made it into the barnyard, I stopped in indecision. What was I doing? There were no cardigans waiting for me in the barn. If Jesse saw me, he would know I followed him. My heart thumped in my chest as I stood frozen in the moonlight.
A distant, warm-up guitar strum filled the air. Then Bea’s voice over a microphone. “Hey guys, you know I would never pass up an opportunity to sing for Tag. The first time we met, I sang for him…”
I should’ve stayed for her song. I forgot she wrote something for Tag.
What do I do?
I should’ve walked back to the reception, but my feet were frozen to the gravel.
Garrett would ridicule me if he could crawl inside my brain right now. My thoughts and feelings were fickle—completely erratic and unstable.
“Just make a damn decision, Hollie.”
My chronic indecision was irritating, even to myself.
Why couldn’t I lean into what I wanted without hearing him or doubting myself for a few blessed moments? Why couldn’t I just make Hollie happy?
I gritted my teeth and urged my feet forward. The gravel crunched beneath my sandals. The background noise from the reception faded as I opened the barn doors, and the squeaking hinges joined the pounding of my heart.
A single patch of light from a side room fell across the dirt floor of the barn.
The corridor beyond was dark and shadowy.
I inched my way up the hall, uncertain if I should call out and announce my arrival or peek through the doorless entryway to make sure it was really Jesse in that lit up room.
A tinkling noise, like the clinking of metal against metal, filled the air.
I stopped just outside the light’s boundary and peered around the door frame.
Jesse leaned over a work table, fiddling with some sort of…horse bit, maybe? His soft waves hung off his brow.
What did I hope would happen?