Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
HER FAMILY TREE IS A WREATH
Dallas
“I need you to find her,” I growl to my sister over the phone while my truck bounces in a pothole.
Frankie tsk-tsks in my ear, which she knows annoys the shit out of me. “I looked! Someone said they saw her with Josie Mae. I’m sure she’s fine.”
I sigh, exasperated and more than a little freaked out. “’Kay, thanks. Call me if you see her.”
Wade called me at the fair right after I lost sight of Shelby, saying I needed to get back to the ranch as soon as possible.
I only got out of him that something is wrong with Ridge before the line dropped.
You’d think a town as big as Hornville could get their cell service operational as a matter of basic safety.
So here I am, driving away from the woman I just confessed my love to, after I nearly burned down the fair, and she had to defend me to her ex-boyfriend. My fist hits the steering wheel, but even that sharp sting of pain doesn’t help me feel less frustrated. Ridge better be fucking dying.
My truck skids to an abrupt halt on the dirt cut-through when I see the hulking outline of my older brother in the field that borders Wade’s farmland.
He’s got a bonfire going, which isn’t abnormal.
This spot is where we often have a controlled burn, but when Ridge tips his head back and drinks something before staggering around the fire, I know something’s off.
Ridge isn’t a drinker. Not to excess anyway.
I hustle over, checking out the fire and seeing that it’s contained.
My responsible brother even has a hose ready to go just in case.
I swing my focus to Ridge. He takes another swig, and I’m close enough now to see it’s whiskey.
He wipes the back of his mouth with his wrist. When he sees me, he leans left and then staggers right.
“Whadya doin’ ’ere,” he slurs.
Well, fuck. “Coming to check on you, big bro. You okay?” I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Goddamn, he’s rocking more than a canoe in a hurricane. Takes a lot to make the sturdiest Gamble boy sway on his boots.
He bats off my hand and tilts back his head for another sip. With a growl, he takes the bottle from his lips and tips it over the dusty ground. It’s empty. He throws the damn thing in the fire, where it shatters and sparks.
“Whoa, easy there,” I mutter, hoping he doesn’t have another bottle somewhere on his person.
Ridge points at me, then staggers to the right. “Nothin’ but a goddamn whore.”
My eyes widen. Ridge isn’t exactly a ray of fuckin’ sunshine, but he doesn’t usually use that kind of language to describe women either. “Who is?”
He grunts, kicks a pebble, and nearly ends up on his ass. He rights himself just in time to stay on his feet. A cloud of dust now hovers over our boots.
“Is this about Tiff?”
“Tiffany Grace!” he snaps, correcting me like she would. He spits, then steps right in it when he staggers left.
“Did she come back?” I feel like I’m playing the guessing game with a drunkard.
Ridge scoffs, grinning up at the sky like a maniac. “She come back?” His laugh makes me grimace.
“Okay. She’s still gone, I take it?” I reach for my phone to check for a text or call from Shelby and realize I left it in the truck. I think about getting it to call Pops. Maybe he can talk some sense into Ridge.
Ridge swings his head back and nearly plows right into me, losing his balance.
I barely right us both. Scratch that. Not calling Pops.
Ridge is too unstable right now. He ricochets off me and bends down next to the fire.
I reach for him, worried he’s going to take a header into the flames.
He straightens, unscathed, with a stack of papers that had been held down by a rock.
“Look at this shit,” he spits. He nearly throws the stack of papers at me.
I manage to keep it all together by some small miracle, but it’s the heading on the top page that has my blood running cold.
Summons: Petition for Divorce.
My head whips up to see Ridge wiping his hands over his eyes. Oh fuck me. Is Ridge crying? Personally, I think this calls for celebration, but maybe now’s not the time to verbalize how much I despise my sister-in-law.
I wave the stack of papers. “Didn’t know this was coming?”
Ridge snorts and has to wipe his eyes again.
He plops down in the dirt and stares into the flames.
I sit down next to him, giving him enough room to take a swing and not hit me.
Even drunk he could do some damage. Clearly, he’s in shock.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he started a fight just to have something to take his mind off the impending divorce.
We end up sitting like that for close to thirty minutes without physical violence. The flames start to die down, and I’m itching to get my phone out of the truck and call Shelby. I don’t, though. My brother needs me right now. Besides, Frankie knows to look for her.
“Had no fuckin’ idea,” Ridge finally says, voice raw. “Went out to my truck to check the cattle and some fucker in a polo shirt handed me the papers. A polo shirt. Can you believe that shit?”
He’s still slurring his words a bit, but he’s built like an ox. It would take more than half a bottle of whiskey to take him down. I’m not sure the polo shirt is what I’d be focused on in this situation, but I go with it.
“Total dipshit, I agree.”
Ridge turns to me suddenly, and I brace for impact. Instead, he grabs my shirt by the fistful and shakes. “She left to visit her parents! What kind of bitch doesn’t even call and just sends divorce papers?”
I want to answer that one because most of us know exactly what kind of bitch Tiff is, but now’s not the time.
She made my brother feel guilty for all the time he spent keeping the family ranch going, as if she didn’t know his responsibilities when they got married.
Then she made him feel less-than because he didn’t come from family money like her.
When asked to help in an emergency, she’d find half a dozen excuses to get out of it.
Don’t even get me started on not being able to give her a simple nickname without her biting our heads off. She just…didn’t fit in.
“She got some fancy lawyer.”
Now that’s got my attention. Is Tiff gonna try to take Ridge to the cleaners?
This ranch is our family legacy. I don’t know the particulars of whose name is on the deed for the land or the running of the business, but if that woman tries to take what’s been in our family for generations, she’s going to have to have more than a fancy lawyer.
We’ll all fight tooth and nail to keep what’s ours.
“Women,” Ridge spits. “Run, little brother. Don’t get mixed up with ’em. They’ll rob you blind and leave you humiliated.” He shakes his head, eyes wet. “Gave her ten years of my life and all I have are these papers.” He jabs his finger into the pile of papers on the ground between us.
“Were you happy for any of those ten years?” I’ve wanted to ask him that since the day they got married. He’s never seemed happy with Tiff, but it was never my place to point that out.
“Not sure I know what happy feels like,” he muses, staring hard at the dying flames.
“Momma died. I took over the ranch because Pops was a mess. Then I married Tiffany Grace because we’d been dating for four years, and it was time to shit or get off the pot.
I spent most days trying to convince her to stay on a dying ranch in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma.
” He snorts. “I’m forty-five years old and not sure I ever had a day of happiness. How fuckin’ pathetic am I?”
Pretty sure that’s rhetorical, so I don’t say a thing.
His hand whacks me on the arm. “You got whiskey on you?”
I shake my head. “Nah, man. I didn’t know we were having a breakdown today.”
I spent my morning getting ready for my grand gesture at the fair. Not that I want to tell Ridge about that. Then again, misery loves company. Hell, he may not even remember this conversation tomorrow when he sobers up.
“I told Shelby I love her today.”
Ridge’s expression doesn’t change. “No shit?”
I shrug. “Yeah. At the fair.”
“And?”
“And…she didn’t say anything back.”
Ridge winces. “Fuck. That ain’t good.”
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
He shakes his head and sighs. “Man, you had it good too. Best friends for years. Why’d you gotta go and fall for her and ruin things?”
My head falls until I’m staring at the dirt.
“I don’t know what to do now. She probably hates me.
At the very least, I’ve made things uncomfortable.
Maybe I should do the public breakup thing we always planned on.
Let her move back to her place. I can’t imagine she wants to stay with me and Ryder, knowing how I feel. ”
Ridge just stares at the smoke drifting up into the sky. Thankfully the temperature has come down as the sun sets and the flames die down. The fire is mostly gone, just a smoldering pile of ash left in its wake. There’s a metaphor in there I don’t want to analyze too closely right now.
“Least you didn’t give her your last name and share your finances. Your house.”
I wince, remembering how I offered to give Shelby a baby. That’s a hell of a complication. Good thing she was smarter than me and never took me up on that.
“I always knew Shelby would be the one woman to bring me to my knees.”
Ridge grunts. “Yeah, we all saw it. She’s the only woman who ever meant something to you beyond the physical.”
That just makes the pain in my chest ache that much more. We sit side by side for another hour. The sun starts to sink into the horizon, giving our land that golden hour glow that always takes my breath away. I could never leave this place like Houston.
Then again, now that Shelby’s broken my heart, I might need to take a temporary trip.
Any ol’ place to get away from her for a bit.
I just need some time to drop this stupid love thing.
I can get back to my free-spirited ways, right?
I just need a trip to the beach or something.
Some sun, sand, and tanned bikini bodies. Surely that’ll do the trick.
When my ass is officially numb from sitting in the dirt, I stand up and brush myself off. “We can live without ’em, right?”
Ridge grunts, standing up and shaking his legs out. He sways once but catches himself. “Got no other choice.”
I nod once, then drop the subject. “Want a ride back?”
Ridge nods too, then follows me to my truck.
I drop him off at the big house, making sure he gets inside with his paperwork and doesn’t detour to Knockin’ Boots.
The last thing that guy needs is a drunk and disorderly charge to add to his woes.
Besides, if word gets out that Ridge Gamble is single again, all the ladies north of thirty will be hounding him.
Shit, maybe once the fake engagement is officially off, he and I can ride together and pull in the ladies.
That thought should make me whoop with excitement, but instead it just makes my ribs ache like I fell off a horse today. My phone dings from the passenger seat, where it’s been this whole time. I see a string of messages and missed calls. I ignore them all and head for home.
It’s time to face the music.
Time to face Shelby and end this ridiculous fake engagement. If I’m lucky, we’ll be able to salvage our friendship when all is said and done. If I’m not lucky, I might just have to make that beach vacation permanent.