Chapter 19 #2
Jo lets the hot water pour over her, indulging in a much longer shower than she’d normally allow herself.
Her chest hurts like she’s been punched in the sternum.
The ache won’t go away, no matter how she massages it.
It’s more than skin deep. What she really wants to do is call Paige and have her come over.
Just to sleep nearby so she doesn’t have to be alone.
She doesn’t want to apologize for the awful things she said to her best friend, but she knows if she did call, Paige would come.
Paige would always come. The tears that spill down her face are hotter than the spraying water.
Once in bed, Jo tosses and turns. She gives up after an hour, grabbing her phone from the bedside table.
She gets out of bed and pads across the room to the glider in the corner.
The glider was the first thing she’d bought when she found out she was pregnant.
It doesn’t make sense to keep it since she isn’t planning on having any more children, but she can’t make herself give it up.
The longest nights of her life were spent in this chair, rocking her stubborn baby to sleep.
She’d stare down at that tiny, perfect face and think ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ It was so fascinating how she could feel so much love and fear at the same time.
She opens her browser and types in Lila Donovan.
The first hit is the obituary, which she reads.
She’s struck by how much Lila looked like Shayne.
Her beauty is undeniable. Jo can’t help the twinge of jealousy, which she immediately feels awful about.
Lila is dead, taken decades too soon. She clicks back to the results page, scanning until she finds the profile link Paige mentioned.
Again, Lila’s face fills her screen. Jo scrolls through the photos until she lands on the photo of Lila and Andy.
Her heart stops beating. It’s him. No question.
That jawline? The way his hair tucks behind his ears?
She’s run her fingers through that same hair countless times.
But what hits her hardest is the look in his eyes.
Even in profile, she can see it. It’s a look she knows very well.
A look she thought was only for her. Andy’s eyes are half-lidded, but that can’t hide the lust in them.
The world could fall away, and he wouldn’t notice.
The only thing he can see is the young woman in front of him.
He wants her. Most people wouldn’t see it, but Jo has loved him for more than half her life.
* * *
When she opens her eyes again, it’s morning and Kody’s warm body is snuggled up next to her.
She must have snuck in early. Jo checks the clock.
It’s 6:30. Shit. Typically she’d be up by 5:00 but Shayne has been feeding the horses in the morning, so she’s gotten used to not setting her alarm.
She told him to leave last night, and Spike has the day off.
Shit shit shit. She’s going to have a pasture full of cranky four leggeds.
She slides out of bed quietly and pulls on a pair of jeans and a jacket over her pajamas, then creeps softly out of the room. Kody shouldn’t wake up for another hour, and she knows well enough to come by the barn if she wakes and no one is in the house.
The morning air has a bite to it today. Jo’s breath fogs out in front of her as she picks her way down the misty sloping path towards the pasture.
All her brain wants to do is fixate on the photo of Andy and Lila.
It takes all her willpower to push it down.
Andy will be home later this morning, and she can talk to him then.
What she has to do now is focus on the task at hand.
If she lets herself get overwhelmed by what her brain is screaming at her—He lied to you Jo!
He’s a lying, cheating, son of a bitch — she’d never have been able to get out of bed this morning.
Kody needs her. The damn horses need her.
She reaches the bottom of the path. Ten or so of her forty-five head herd are waiting impatiently by the pasture gate.
She unlocks the gate, resting a boot on the lower rail as the horses file into the corral.
“I know, I know. I messed up,” she calls to her four leggeds.
She spends the next hour feeding and attending to the herd.
This really is a job meant for at least two people, and she mentally kicks herself for not thinking about how back-breaking this work is to do alone before asking Shayne to leave by morning.
Andy knew she hated jewelry. Why that ring?
“Mommy I’m hungry too!” Jo turns to see Kody wrapped in a flannel blanket, waiting at the top of the path near the house.
Her voice sounds impossibly small from this distance, as if she’s still a toddling baby.
How had six years gone by so quickly? He slept with a beautiful young woman while you were home, covered in spit-up.
She lifts her hand to wave to her daughter.
“I’ll be there in a minute. Just finishing up down here,” Jo calls.
She opens the gate back to the pasture then turns and heads into the barn.
In the office, Jo logs into their accounting software and prints out Shane’s final check.
She briefly considers throwing a stamp on it and dropping it in the outgoing mail pile for one of the wranglers to deal with on Monday morning but instead grabs an envelope on her way out of the barn.
Once inside the house, Kody requests chocolate pancakes, so Jo obliges.
She’s just about to shovel a bite of warm, gooey pancake into her mouth when she realizes she hasn’t checked her phone all morning.
It’s now 8:00—Andy or his parents have probably called.
She rushes into her bedroom, retrieving the phone from where she’d tossed it the night before.
A jagged crack now splits her screen in two.
He had an affair with a beautiful young woman who died not far from here.
Five missed calls from Andy’s mom, Susan.
Her stomach instantly sours. Susan just has that effect on her.
Jo notices a text from Paige but clears the notification without looking at it.
No reason to poke at that wound so early this morning.
A text from Susan pops up on her screen.
We should be there in thirty minutes! Hope everything is okay???
Why so many question marks? One is enough. It shouldn’t bother her, but it does.
Everything is fine. Was feeding the horses. Then Kody.
Sorry I missed your calls. Hope the drive is going well!
“Kody,” Jo calls over her shoulder. “We’ve got to take a quick ride to the cabin.”
* * *
Shayne is shutting the tailgate of his truck when Jo and Kody pull up in the F-150.
“Stay in the car,” Jo tells Kody. “I’ll be right back.”
Kody nods, then rolls down the window. She pulls herself up onto the door ledge so she can get a better angle into Shayne’s horse trailer. Duke’s enormous head hangs out from inside the trailer’s depths.
Shayne waits for her to approach, his face composed into an impressively neutral expression. It’s only his eyes that remain wary of her as she closes the distance between them. She immediately hands him the envelope with his final earnings.
“Thank you for your hard work.” she tells him, jamming her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Wish things had ended differently.”
He pockets the envelope and offers her a small smile. “So do I. I really enjoyed my time here…despite everything.”
Jo has to crane her neck up to meet his gaze.
“I’m really sorry for what happened to your sister, Shayne.
I hope you know I don’t make light of your pain.
Losing someone you love, it changes you.
I’ve never looked at the world the same way since my dad died.
” Jo is confused why she feels compelled to say anything to Shayne.
She doesn’t owe him anything. He’s the man who tried to ruin her marriage!
Still, a small part of her refuses to let them part on bad terms.
“Thank you, Jo. I wish you and that girl of yours nothing but happiness.” It’s glaringly obvious who else is missing from that statement.
Jo nods then walks back to her truck. Kody is still perched on the door, half of her body hanging out the window.
“Bye Shayne! Bye Duke! Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?” Kody shouts before dropping back down onto the passenger seat.
Jo feels her face crack into the first genuine smile she’s had in days. “Where’d you hear that?”
“YouTube. There’s this family who lives in a big mansion, but they’re mud people, and they say that to everyone.”
Jo shakes her head and the corners of her mouth tilt up. Her daughter’s mind is a beautifully bizarre place.
Back at the house, Jo sets Kody up in the kitchen with a coloring book and some crayons while she finishes setting up the guest room for her in-laws’ arrival. She’s just finishing changing the sheets when she hears a car horn trill its arrival.
“DADDY’S HOME!” Kody yells as she races to the front door.
Jo feels her heart drop to feet. She glances down, realizing she’s still wearing her jeans over her pajamas and races to her bedroom to change.
She pulls on a fresh pair of jeans and a clean shirt.
She catches sight of herself in the mirror above her dresser and almost doesn’t recognize herself.
Her eyes are sunken-looking, with deep purple smudges under them that look like bruises.
Her lips are dry and cracked, her hair a knotted pile on top of her head.
She does her best to scrape her hair into a more appealing high pony-tail and then pinches her cheeks a couple times. That’ll have to do.