Chapter 24
twenty-four
. . .
Ronan
Colin left to get burgers. I told him I wasn't hungry.
I fell asleep on the couch with my throbbing hand resting on a pillow on my chest. My phone rang, and I reached over to the coffee table quickly and clumsily with my left hand.
The phone fell on the floor. I snatched it up, hoping it was Rachel. It was Zander.
"Hey," I said, my voice still fuzzy from sleep.
"What the fuck? You sleeping?"
"I just dozed off. Colin and I went riding—"
"Yeah, yeah, I don't have time to hear a narration about your day." I could hear Nev in the background telling him not to be an asshole when asking for a favor.
"What's the favor, asshole?" I asked.
"Nev and I are in the city. She's looking at a new refrigerator for the sandwich shop. I need you to feed the horses. Dad said his back is out again."
I lifted my bandaged hand. There was so much tape, the last three fingers couldn't move at all. I supposed that was the whole point.
"We fed and clothed and kept you warm for many days," Zander said.
"Oh my gosh, you really do excel at being an asshole," Nev said sharply. She grabbed the phone. "Sorry to ask this of you on your day off, Ro, but if you wouldn't mind. You don't need to muck. Just drop a flake in each stall and check that the waterers are flowing."
"Yep. I'll head over there just as soon as Colin gets back with his car."
"Thanks, you're a peach."
Zander's laugh followed. "A real fucking peach."
"Thanks again, Ro. See you later."
I got up, took some aspirin and pulled on my boots and coat. Colin walked in a few minutes later.
"Need to borrow your car. Z needs me to feed the horses."
"Where's Dad?"
It wasn't easy zipping a coat with one hand. Colin had a good time watching me do it. "He threw out his back or something." I got the zipper up and smiled victoriously. "I will need help with my fly and wiping my ass later."
"Yep, above my pay grade, bro. Womb-mate or not. I'd go with you, but Bucky and Gary are heading over. Bucky wants to get started early on his birthday celebration. You going with us tonight?"
I shrugged. "I'll let you know when I get back. Right now, I'm not feeling it."
"Shit, this girl really got to you, didn't she?"
"Nah, it's not the girl." I lifted my hand.
"Or did you forget that I nearly left my pinky on a tree this morning?
" It was a lie because it was mostly the girl.
I was thoroughly bummed that conversation with Rachel this morning felt somewhat cold and short, and I hadn't heard from her since. I knew she had most of the day off.
"Right," Colin said wryly. "I've seen you sit at a bar and down a pitcher and dance all night just hours after you were released from the hospital with a broken clavicle.
It's not the finger. It's the girl. You forget I have the magic twin connection, and I know everything you're thinking before you say it or lie about it. "
I stared at him. "Yeah? What am I thinking right now, buddy?"
Colin put up his hand. "Yep, guess I deserved that."
"Hmm, you really can read my mind."
"Can you drive with one hand?" Colin asked as he handed me the keys.
"I can drive with both hands behind my back.
" I walked out to the car. Clouds had moved in, and it looked like we'd get some rain.
I glanced at my phone once more before driving to the ranch.
No word from Rachel. I was no expert on relationships, the opposite in fact, but my gut instinct was telling me she was already done with me.
That fucking sucked. I wasn't going to let that happen again.
I was going back to meaningless sex … and whatever came with that.
Maybe a night out would help ease the pain I was feeling, especially since that pain had nothing to do with my finger.
The horses whinnied as I slid open the barn door.
Their stomachs worked like clocks. They always knew when it was feeding time.
Zander liked to keep them on a tight schedule.
He said it meant less vet visits, and it helped keep him on schedule, too.
I pulled the chain hanging in the doorway.
The single dusty lightbulb turned on. The horses had their heads hanging over the stall doors.
Soft snorts and appreciative sounds came from the whole group.
I walked over to the pyramid of hay and pulled down a bale.
The twine cutter was hanging on the tack room door.
I opened a bale and gave Irish, our oldest mare, the first flake.
She looked older and a little less horse-like with each passing year, but she could still hold her own in the pasture with the younger horses.
Like with many animal species, a herd of horses had a pecking order, and Irish with her sloped back and bowed legs was still the queen.
I rubbed her neck as she dropped her muzzle to the pile of hay.
"It's you." Dad's tone wasn't accusatory, but it also wasn't "hey good to see you, son."
I glanced back at him, but only for a second. "I thought you threw out your back."
"Sure as fuck did." He immediately rubbed his back.
Like Irish, he was putting the years on fast. It was hard to match the slightly hunched-over, flabby-muscled old guy using the bales of hay to stand upright with the hard, fast and mean man I grew up with.
Back then, people used to cross the street just to avoid passing Dad too closely.
"Zander didn't tell me you were coming."
"Probably didn't want to disappoint you." The hay was jamming itself into the creases on the bandages. "I've got this. You can go back to the house." I was hoping he'd take my suggestion. Instead, he sat down on a bale of hay.
"What happened to your hand? Thought you were working construction."
"Thought I was too." I dropped hay into the next two stalls and walked back for more. Dad had a funny look on his face that told me he was in pain. "Told you, go back to the house."
"I'll go back to the house when I damn well please," he said angrily, then shook his head once. "Look, Ro, I kicked you out for your own good. I was hoping it would push you to start doing something with yourself, for yourself. Something other than drinking and chasing tail."
I stared at him. "What? And ruin your low expectations for your fuck-up son?
Didn't want to disappoint you by getting my act together.
As you can see—" I held up my hand. "Still a screw up.
But that's all right cuz you still have four sons who make you proud.
" I snatched up another flake of hay. I really wished the old man would go back inside, but he sat stubbornly on the bale of hay.
I returned to the bale I'd opened. It was just ten feet from where he sat.
"Son, I don't think that about you. I worry about you cuz in a lot of ways you're a lot like me. Of all my sons, you take after me the most."
A dry laugh shot out. "Is that supposed to be a pep talk, because that's not the compliment you think it is."
"Fuck off. Don't you think I know that?"
I picked up another flake of hay. "We're not alike at all." Even as I said it, I was desperately trying to convince myself it was true. The last person I wanted to be compared to was Finnegan Wilde.
"Look, Ro, you can come back home."
I dropped the flake into the stall and faced him.
"You threw your back out so now you need someone to help yank your old ass up off the chair and the toilet.
The great and mighty Finnegan Wilde has fallen far, hasn't he?
I used to see men practically piss their pants when they spotted you coming toward them.
Now you're hunched over rubbing a bad back and your ticker is just one bad pump away from blowing up.
" The words tumbled out, and I instantly regretted them.
I wasn't sure why. My dad had said far worse things to me, but he looked frail and old and unusually vulnerable sitting there on that bale of hay.
He'd had a health incident, a mild heart attack, not long ago, and I had to admit it scared all of us.
Mostly because we all realized that we'd actually miss the fucker when he was gone.
I walked over and sat down next to him. "I had a concussion.
I was out of it and in pain, and the one thing I needed was my house, my bed …
shit, my dad. You've lost a lot of that cruel edge that had other people and your own sons afraid of you but I saw it again that night.
Sometimes it seems you've become a completely different person.
I think being a granddad has something to do with that. "
Just bringing Rio up made him smile and chuckle. "God, I love that kid. She's a lot like me, too."
Before I could protest loudly, he put his hand on my arm.
"I mean she's persistent. She doesn't take shit from anyone, and of course, she's smart.
Like your old man." He looked over at me.
His eyes no longer held that glint of unstoppable energy they once held, but I preferred the cloudy, less intense gaze.
"I sent you off that night because I knew you could just walk across the ranch to Z's place. "
"It was an asshole move. You could have waited for me to at least get rid of my gnarly headache and the ear ringing and the dizziness."
"Yeah, yeah, let me go grab my violin. I'm sorry. Next time I'll wait till the dizziness clears. You want to come back?"
"No, I'm staying with Colin. For now." I stared down at my taped hand. "Everything was going in a good direction, then I raced Colin down a fucking hill and broke my pinky on a tree."
His laugh shot out before he could stop it. He winced and reached to his back. "Shit, remind me not to laugh." He pointed at my hand. "All that tape is for a broken pinky? Well, that won't be too bad. Will you have to miss work?"
"It's my right hand and zipping my jacket took like fifteen minutes. Not sure what good I'll be on the worksite."
Dad tried to push off the bale. "Shit, sat here too long. I'm all seized up again."
I helped him stand. When I was young and stood next to him, he was like a powerful pillar of stone.
I was both afraid of him and in awe of the man.
I wanted to be like him and, at times, I told myself I never wanted to be like him.
Finnegan Wilde was that complicated of a character.
You didn't know whether to love and admire or fear and loathe him. It was always some of both growing up.
"Son, I wasn't all bad, you know? Yeah, I did some crazy shit, and I wasn't a great parent, but I raised five sons." He looked pointedly at me. "Five sons, not four sons and a black sheep. Five sons and I'm proud of every one of them, even the fuck up. Come in and have a beer?"
I nodded. My throat was tight, and I didn't have a good response. Plus, I'd learned that Dad liked to have the last word.
I double checked the waterers and then Dad and I walked toward the house. "Think you'll ever love me like you do Nate?" I asked teasingly.
"Oh, hell no, that Nate is as cute as a button," Dad said.
I laughed. "Gonna tell him you said that." I helped my old man up the front steps of the house, and we walked inside for a beer.