Thirty-one
THIRTY-ONE
Tag
I gained forty years overnight.
My body resisted every movement and tears, yes tears, filled my eyes when I forced myself out of bed at five o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever felt so much pain. The lactic acid in my muscles was straight-up having a party and even stretching did nothing.
I didn’t want to limp around in front of Bea, but I had no choice. I hoped she was sleeping in, forgetting all about the morning feed. Knowing her, I doubted it.
When I came down the hall, she was already sipping coffee and my cup of tea was waiting.
She did too much for me. And it seemed like all I’d done since she showed up here was take advantage of her kindness. Why didn’t I get up earlier and have her coffee waiting instead? The better question was why did I allow Bea—gentle, soft-skinned Bea—to manually haul five hundred gallons of water yesterday? She had to be hurting as bad as I was. Had to be.
I suppressed a growl. The thought of her in pain twisted my insides into a thousand knots .
To make things worse, she had to look so freaking gorgeous every day. If she could be less sexy and mess up her hair or something that would be great. Then maybe I could have a halfway coherent, non-idiotic thought.
This morning, she had her cut-off jeans which were starting to fray around the edges from the daily washing, and the white fitted tank top. And one of my red bandanas tying back a wrapped knot of her hair.
A frown pulled onto my face even as I checked her out from behind.
For the love of everything…
She turned, swiveled more like, and grimaced when she saw me. “Good…morning?”
“Hi.” I mumbled.
“You’re alive?”
“Barely.”
“Can you move?”
“Barely.”
She made a soft ooh sound. “I’m sorry.”
“I should be alright once I get movin’.”
I would not. My obliques hurt so much I could hardly breathe.
I grabbed my tea off the counter. “Thanks for the tea.”
“It took me a long time to make that complicated order.” She smiled at her joke, gathered a pile of apple slices off a cutting board, plopped them in a paper bowl, and handed them to me. Her upper body, neck to waist, moved as a unit.
She palmed her mug of coffee, flinched, then adjusted the hot cup to her fingertips.
She couldn’t twist, couldn’t touch the heat, could hardly turn her head. My poor mood soured.
I asked, but my intuition knew the answer. “How you feelin’? I’m not the only one who worked their butt off yesterday.”
“I’m okay. Could be worse.” She took a stiff sip of her coffee then thunked it down in a hurry, fisting her palms and folding her arms across her midsection.
I held my hand out flat between us. “Lemme see them.”
“See what?” She shoved her fists into her back pockets.
“Your hands. ”
“My hands are fine.”
“Every morning you cuddle with that coffee cup like it’s the only thing standin’ between you and hypothermia. Let me see.”
Her guard melted a little when she realized I’d cornered her. “It’s really okay. I have a little blister. No big deal.”
She stepped away, but I lurched behind her, catching her forearm. Her fist popped out of that pocket and she gave a tiny yelp when I spun her around. I belatedly realized the innocent spin probably hurt her somewhere else. I’d yelp if someone grabbed my arm right now, too. I whispered a pathetic sorry and peered at her closed fist stuck in my grasp.
A defiant flash lit in her eyes, and I fought the urge to laugh. Stifling a smile, I chided her. “This ain’t the time to be stubborn. If you’ve got an open wound, I need to treat it.”
Her gaze darted away.
“Bea.”
She hesitated.
“Come on.”
“I wanted to help you, Tag.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to see it and freak out or something.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“Please don’t feel bad.”
“ Open your hand.”
She lifted her other and slowly uncurled all ten fingers. Swollen and popped blisters dotted the palms of her hands and the soft spots across her fingers. Red, raw skin was exposed where layers had peeled away. Using her hands at all would be excruciating. I took a deep, steadying breath and ran a hand through my hair.
I promised her I wouldn’t freak out— why did I promise her that?
“They look awful.” I nodded toward the counter top. “Lay your hands flat, and I’ll put something on ‘em.”
She obeyed, and I rifled through the cabinet, mentally kicking myself. Retrieving a tube of ointment, I made my way back over and uncapped it.
“I can do it myself?—”
“Hush.” I mimicked her from the night before. “Let me take care of you. ”
She glanced up at my face, eyes round and seeking. I wished I could somehow know exactly how those eyes saw the world. How they saw me. Maybe I didn’t want to know.
Bea would never understand what her simple actions last night meant to me. I’d spent every spare moment between then and now thinking about her stooping to take off my muddy boots. She shouldn’t have…but she did. And it pushed my heart over a ledge.
I leaned close, silently and gently tapping cream onto her blisters. Her fingers reflexively jerked from the pain.
I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Bea. It’s been one disaster after another since you got here. You should be restin’ like you intended.”
“Tag.” Her bright smile made me feel worse. “I am happy to be here. I think it’s cool I ended up at Meadowbrook when you needed someone.”
“You keep getting hurt.”
“So what! I got a little burn?—”
“It was not little.” I grabbed some tape and gauze, covering the worst spots.
“—and I got some blisters. But your horses are okay, Tag. That’s the important thing. And you know what’s way worse than blisters?”
“What?” I followed her lead-in, helpless against the current of her positivity.
“The idea of you doing all that by yourself.” Her concerned face always looked the same. A gentle crease between her dark eyebrows, slightly puckered lips, wide eyes. She averted her face, her tone softening. “You shouldn’t be alone, Tag. You do way too much by yourself. Don’t”—she shifted—“don’t you ever get lonely?”
She was trespassing onto territory I’d roped off and put caution signs around.
Discomfort burned in me. I spun around and opened the cabinets to put the bandages away. How was I supposed to answer such a complicated question? I ached for a companion to degrees she would never comprehend. I struggled to find my voice. “Sometimes—alone is better.”
She blinked. “That sounds like something the boy in the hayloft would say.”
Did she want me to take a dagger to my chest right here and now? I didn’t have time for the repercussions of dredging up my life story at five in the morning. Why did she insist on chatting before the sun came up?
Like a complete and total jerk, I opened my mouth. “I thought therapists only worked nine to five.”
Bea’s gaze snapped up from her coffee. A pink blush touched her cheeks. Her response was quick, frustrated. Her exhale a noisy puff. “Nevermind.”
I ran a hand through my hair, wanting to pull it out by the roots. You’d think I’d be ecstatic someone cared, but no, my defenses ignited like a wildfire. I murmured, “Bea—shit. Bea, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. I’ve been alone so long that I…”
Her brown eyes found mine.
Train of thought left my mind as I got lost in those eyes. I’d wanted this for fourteen years—the chance to be real with her. The opportunity dropped in my lap, only for me to act like a wounded idiot. A tight sensation in my throat made me swallow twice. Burning started in my eyes. I blinked and shook my head.
Bea had simply asked a question.
And I was derailing.
What is happening right now?
I wanted to scream from the rooftops. Of course I didn’t want to be alone. Maybe some people in the world, like me, felt too picked over to offer anything. But no one, at the end of the day, truly wanted this.
Everyone alive deserves to choose someone and have someone choose them.
Mom chose Sloan. Cooper chose freedom. So did my dad, wherever he was. Gran chose help on the ranch, not a grandson. As much as I loved Judd, he chose the paycheck. And he was the first to leave when Meadowbrook hit a crisis. Randi would choose me, maybe, but she lived in a different state and had her own broken life to worry about.
Pretending I meant something to them got me by. If I took hell from Sloan, Mom would stay happy and maybe pat me on the back or something. If I paid bail, Cooper would come home. If I made sure Gran was comfortable, she would die at least appreciating me. If I ran myself into the ground, maybe the horses would perk their ears when I walked by.
How pathetic could someone be? I wanted to tear out my brain for letting me hear those thoughts.
But those thoughts led me to a truth. One I had to acknowledge.
Bea chose me.
She was the only one who ever had. For years, Bea showed up week after week, not asking for anything in return. Wanted nothing but my heart and thoughts. She didn’t deplete my meager offerings—she filled me. When I was starving and empty, she filled me one letter at a time. Now, she was getting up at five o’clock on her vacation to ride with me.
I want to choose her.
My eyes and nose tingled. For goodness sake, if I cried in front of this woman, I would never forgive myself. I picked up my cup of tea and noticed my hands were shaking. She noticed, too.
I rasped, “Give me ‘bout fifteen minutes, and I’ll answer your question, alright?”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I need to.”
Our eye contact held again. Her gaze roamed my face. She whispered, “Okay.”
A beat of silence fell as I awkwardly stood there. I needed to take my medication, and it was the first morning I hadn't been able to discreetly slip it in while her back was turned. Today, she was ready and simply waiting on me.
Oh screw it .
I opened the cabinet, grabbed my prescription, shook a pill into my hand, and swallowed it with a swig of tea. Took five seconds and she didn't bat an eye.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
I didn’t keep my promise. Fifteen minutes flew by, and before I knew it, we’d finished the morning feed and it was 6:30 a.m. Muscles did significantly loosen up though, which improved my mood more than I thought possible.
We’d worked in near silence, and I was thankful. I needed the quiet to process what happened in the kitchen. The mindless work choked the fire blazing behind my breastbone.
Walking back to the barn, Bea tapped my forearm. “Stop for a sec.”
I turned. “Hmm?”
“Look.” She waved her hand down the driveway.
The sunrise.
The sun had kissed the edge of the horizon, a shred of fire between the sky and world. Dazzling pinks and oranges chased out the violet and the stars dissolved into the light of the sun. Bea stood there, smiling at it, her cheeks a warm pink in the morning’s glow.
Without looking at me, she said, “You were so focused, I was afraid you’d miss it.”
“It’s one of the things I love about this ranch.”
“The sunrise?”
“And the sunset. Meadowbrook has the perfect sun-watching spots.”
“Sun-watching. I like that term.” She scuffed the gravel with her shoe, her tone adopting a bit of sarcasm. “Is this spot right here the prime location for sunrise watching?”
I huffed a soft laugh. “No.”
“Where is it?”
I pointed south, past the barnyard. “Creek’s that way. If you follow it up and over to the top of the ridge”—her gaze followed my hand—“you get a panoramic view of everything that hill blocks. ”
She bit her lip. “Rodeo’s a bit later today, right?”
“We don’t gotta be there till about three o’clock or so. Why?”
“Maybe you could take me.” She shrugged her shoulders innocently. “To the ridge.”
“Oh, well, I can’t really drive up there.”
“Then let’s ride.” Her eyes lit, a flame of excitement glowing in her chocolate irises.
“The sun’s already comin’. By the time we saddle two horses, it’ll be?—”
“Let’s go bareback then. Pick one and we’ll both hop on.” Bea took a step toward the pastures with a slight hop of excitement. “Come on! Whichever one we can catch first!”
“Are you—are you serious? You wanna ride the ridge bareback?”
“Sure!” Our communication was hurried, frantic.
“You’ve never done it—it’s steep.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Tag, you look so serious. Let’s be adventurous for twenty minutes. You won’t let me get hurt.”
She looked to me, waiting in anticipation. That smile could charge a dead battery. Every time I looked at it, life jolted into my chest. Before I realized what was happening, we were jumping the fence, calling after Windy Foot.
Bea cooed, “Oh, come here little, Windy Windy, we have some molasses for you.”
A laugh bubbled up from my throat. This was insane. After all this nonsense, we were going to miss the action anyway. We chose Windy because he was one of the most extroverted creatures I’d ever met. He ran over to us like we were walking bags of treats.
I made a loud kissing sound and Windy sidled up next to us.
I turned to Bea and her eyes danced with wild excitement.
“I’m gonna throw you up on his back.”
“Okay.”
“Grab his mane like it's the horn, pull, and swing your leg over while I lift you. Got it?”
“Wait. I forgot my legs feel like two-by-fours right now.”
I sputtered a laugh. “Mine too.”
“Is this going to hurt? ”
“Uh…yes.”
She cussed. “Fine, just do it. I'm ready.”
I put my hands on her hips and counted down. “Three, two, one.” We both groaned in pain, but completed the mount, smooth as honey. Like we’d done it a thousand times.
“Scoot back.”
She scooted back on Windy, and I settled right in front of her, tapping him gently and reaching for his mane. He took off into a trot when I squeezed him.
“Hang on to me. We’re goin’ uphill.”
Her hands snaked under my arms, tucking around my torso. A sharp breath ricocheted through my lungs. I glanced down at her trusting hands as they gently clutched my rib cage. For some reason, flashes of memory hit me from left field. Like my refusal to play on the skins team in P.E. Like the summer I wore a t-shirt swimming for a few weeks and Randi said it was weird.
But the memories didn’t feel bad. Not right now anyway.
She palmed the front of me as I leaned forward and prodded Windy faster. As we neared the ridge, Bea squealed in fear and hid her face between my shoulder blades. “I’m slipping backward!”
“You ain’t slipping. I got you.” I reached back and wrapped my arm around her, pulling her flush against me. I leaned forward, activating my core and gripping Windy with my thighs. My muscles screamed in pain, but I’d die before letting soreness steal this moment away.
She held on tighter, squeezing the life out of me for the entire five minute ride.
I pulled us to a stop when we reached the clearing and patted Windy’s neck. “Whoa. Good run, Windy.”
Bea craned her neck over my shoulder and gasped. Her voice was breathy. “Tag, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Told you.”
The sliver of sun had turned into a semi-circle. The earth exploded with light, and the green all around us was lush, dewy, nearly transparent. The vibrant colors in the sky were fading away, but watching the rising orb of light roll out the blanket of sky blue would be worth the trip.
Sitting here together, on Windy’s back, was worth the trip.
The way her hands slid from my ribs to my waist—that alone was worth the trip.
I wanted to focus on the scenery, but I couldn’t. I could only think about Bea—her hands, her chest on my back, her head leaning on my shoulder, her legs bracketing mine, and her laugh.
I’d once told Bea I didn’t believe in miracles. But this moment might’ve changed my mind. In a flash of spontaneity, I was living out a fantasy I thought I'd only witness in dreams.
Bea and I. Together. Here.
I took a deep breath, letting it all sink in. We watched in reverent silence. When the sun hovered a few inches from the horizon, Bea whispered over my shoulder, “Thank you.”
“I didn’t answer your question…from earlier.”
She picked her cheek up off the back of my shoulder and put her chin there, shifting to listen. Puffs of warm, calm breath bathed my neck. The entire ten minutes we’d been up here, she hadn’t made an effort to put space between us. Her arms still gripped me like she might plop into the grass at any second.
The way she was snuggling told me she wasn’t afraid, just eating this up.
I was too.
Every line I’d practiced during the morning feed sounded hollow to me now. “I—I am lonely, Bea.” I took a deep breath. “When you go through life all by yourself, you just start thinkin’ there must be something wrong with you. No one wants to put up with me and all my baggage and they’ve got their own problems to deal with. Now, it’s easier for me to keep people at a distance than let them in.”
She whispered. “What baggage?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know where to start in answerin’ that.”
“Your mom?”
“She’s got a lot to do with it, yeah.”
“You don’t trust easily, do you?”
“No. ”
“Why?”
I weaved my hands into Windy Foot’s mane. “Because people only see what they can take. It’s easier to be alone than to have other people constantly use you and not care.”
“Is that why you said you don’t ever want to be romantically involved with anyone?”
Her question reminded me of her fingers gently scraping my abs. Yes, I wanted a woman to love—what man didn’t? “There’s more, but yeah, that’s the gist of it. Working hard…is what I’m good for.”
She shook her head. “No, Tag, those are lies you’re believing. You have so much to offer someone.”
That’s what she thought, of course. She had no idea that my life was riddled with anxiety attacks and nightmares and so many intrusive thoughts I’d filled dozens of journals with. She had no idea that I coped by grabbing handfuls of dirt or hay and smelling them just to remind myself I was still alive. Because some days I existed in a different dimension, like the walking dead or something. I would not invite anyone into my misery.
Especially her.
I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “I’m happy with the ranch.”
“The ranch can’t hold you at night.”
A pang shot through my chest but I denied it. “No one has ever held me at night. Not sure why I’d suddenly need that.”
Her voice was gentle, wavering. “Come on, Tag. You know what you’re saying isn’t real. Everyone needs someone to hold them on bad days, no matter how ugly they think they are. We all need a special person to know and understand us—baggage included.”
We fell silent and squinted up at the sky. The light had morphed from orange to white, the baby blue mingling with the clouds.
Her voice was quiet. “You need to know something, Tag.”
I looked over my shoulder to find her face only inches away. She scooted closer, her hips sliding into the back of mine as she squeezed, her face lifting.
“I’m not afraid.”
I whispered, “Of what? ”
“Of you. And whatever you feel is too ugly to love.” Her hands moved, unknowingly soothing a place of violence and driving her point. “As long as I’m here, you’re not alone.”
My vision blurred, and I blinked frantically.
“Thank you for telling me all that.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry for snappin’ at you in the kitchen.”
She laughed softly. “Oh trust me, that’s not the first time I’ve been accused of being too chatty early in the morning.”
“I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. You can chat whenever you get the urge. I just—got defensive.”
“We all do that sometimes.”
I wanted to linger and make this moment last. Fire pooled low in my gut as my awareness of her grew. Why was she everything I needed and nothing I deserved? Why, when I had sworn off ever having someone, was she here? Touching me, getting me to open up, saying things I could never unhear, and doing things I could never unsee?
She felt…right, good. So good.
The hug we shared on Wednesday had been on repeat in my mind. I held her in an eager, relieved embrace. She was a thousand times softer than I imagined she would be. And she’d clung to me like I was oxygen.
Those hands slid across my abs again, and I almost groaned out loud. Desperate to touch her back someway, I moved my left hand from Windy’s mane to Bea’s thigh, running it to the top of her knee. Her sharp intake of breath made my heart stumble. I did it again, running my palm up and back over her bare leg, letting my thumb brush her knee like it was no big deal.
But Bea froze, her arms and legs tightening.
All the reasons I’d been preaching to myself about why I shouldn’t touch her flew out the window. Her soft thigh shredded my resolve. Feelings I’d shut down had me in a chokehold. With every strand of my DNA, I wanted to move her in front of me, adjust those thighs over mine, and kiss her. I closed my eyes against the mental image.
I could never, ever do that. I would break her heart a second time.
The gravity of truth crushed my heart against the ground. Here I was, touching her, wanting her, opening up to her…I was already well on my way to breaking her again, wasn’t I?
I removed my hand. “You ‘bout ready?”
She took two shaky breaths. “Y–yes.”
“Big day.”
She nodded. “Big day.”