Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
TIMOTHY
I moved through the motions of making the coffee I desperately needed. It might’ve only been five-thirty in the morning, but I hadn’t slept since Gia bolted.
Instead, I’d spent the night doing what any emotionally stable man would do after having his soul ripped out through his chest—violent manual labor.
I knocked out every barn project I’d ignored for weeks. I rehung the stall door that needed new hinges and replaced the splintered boards on another stall that one of our horses had cribbed on like he was auditioning to be a beaver. I scrubbed buckets until they gleamed like surgical equipment.
When I ran out of chores there, I wandered over to the dairy operation and started tackling problems. Disaster number one: the bull who had decided he wanted to kill all humans.
That meant I needed to schedule his removal.
Just to confirm he was still homicidal, I checked on him myself.
The bastard charged me. Now he got to spend his final days locked in the back barn, where he could reflect on his poor choices and rage in private.
Disaster number two: one of the newer hands somehow managed to drive a tractor into the sawdust shed wall, which took a special kind of talent considering the shed was large, stationary, and had been in the same spot for thirty years.
I cleaned up enough sawdust to make room for the repair crew coming later.
Then I spent the rest of the night elbow-deep in one of the tractors trying to figure out why it wouldn’t turn over.
It never started. By five a.m., I briefly considered setting the whole damn farm on fire and taking up accounting.
Throughout the whole night I kept the baby monitor close. Sofia, for once, hadn’t woken up a single time. Maybe, like me, it felt right to have Gia in her life.
Not that she was. The woman left me. Again.
I poured coffee into a mug and sat at my kitchen table. Alone.
Sofia would be asleep for at least another hour before I had to start the prep for preschool—breakfast, clothes, snack, hair, shoes.
For the hundredth time, I replayed flashes of last night. The way Gia had looked at me, the sounds she made when I touched her, and how for a while every wall between us had fallen clean away… I’d thought I knew everything about great sex. Turns out I hadn’t known a damn thing.
Before Gia, it had all been mechanics. Angles. Timing. Knowing what to do and how to do it. Then Gia happened. Hours later, I could still feel her, as if she'd reached inside my chest and wrapped herself around something vital.
Then it all shattered.
One minute she'd been curled against me, trusting me with every vulnerable piece of herself. The next, she'd gone still, braced for impact, waiting for me to become another man who hurt her.
What the hell was I supposed to do to prove to her I wouldn’t?
Everyone who had gotten their hands on her before me had left fingerprints I couldn’t erase.
The back door opened. Without a word, Dad came in, poured himself a mug of coffee, dumped in a quantity of sugar that Mom wouldn’t have approved, and sat across from me at the table.
I’d forgotten to go down to the cow barn at 4:30 this morning. I rarely missed morning milking.
That would be a red flag to my father that something was wrong with me.
I glanced at the mud caked on his boots and the trail he’d tracked across my clean kitchen floor. For one brief, shining moment, I fully understood Mom’s lifelong boots-at-the-door campaign.
In silence, we drank coffee and stared at each other.
His silence had weight to it. The kind of weight that asked questions, judged your answers, and called you an idiot without ever opening his mouth.
Finally, he said, “Did you get the manure tractor going?”
“No.”
A second sip of coffee. “Did you fix the bull?”
“No.”
Dad hit me with a look so loaded with disappointment it could’ve come with subtitles.
“And,” he said slowly, “you fucked it up with Gia.”
I straightened. Dad never used the f-word. After years of my mom riding him for bad language, he gave up real curse words and, like her, used ridiculous alternatives.
“I did not fuck it up. Gia…” I dragged a hand over my face. “She bolted.”
Dad nodded once, like that clarified everything. Then his lower jaw shifted in a way that shouted a clear you-messed-up, a motion I’d gotten a lot in my teenage years.
I dropped my elbows to the table and covered my face. “I’m too old for this. I’ve got too much going on to deal with whatever this might be with Gia. I should act like an adult and figure out how to let her go.”
Dad grunted.
I peeked at him through my fingers. “You don’t think I should let her go?”
He took a long sip of coffee, then looked at me over the rim of his glasses and grunted again.
Same grunt. Different meaning.
I set my mug down hard enough coffee sloshed over the side.
“Whatever you’re winding up to say, spit it out.”
“You rushed it.” Dad took off his worn ball cap and put it on the table.
He ruffled a hand through his hair peppered with more grays each month.
His ruffling barely fixed the mashed hat-head do.
“You get that from your mother.” He took a deep inhale.
“I wouldn’t want to be in this life without her.
If she dies before me, I want to die the minute after.
But when she puts her mind to something, nothing and no one’s going to slow her down.
You should’ve seen her when she decided I was the one for her. ” He whistled low.
I put a hand over my eyes and muttered, “No…don’t tell me. I don’t need to know.”
“That woman is ferocious. She darn near had me naked in the middle of the grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon in the cereal aisle. My shirt was off before we got back to my truck.”
I groaned but he didn’t even acknowledge me. Once my dad got going on a story, nothing could stop him.
He continued, “She had a ring on my finger within weeks after that. Ain’t got one minute of regret.
” He rocked his head. “Except for that time I ate an entire rhubarb pie when she was insecure about changing up the recipe. I’ve never been a fan of rhubarb, but she had tears in her eyes—the big crocodile type.
After an entire night on the toilet afterward, we decided it best she stick to the original recipe.
I promised never to eat a whole pie again.
” He cracked a smile as if about to burst into laughter.
Then he waved a dismissive hand. “When she makes up her mind, you better hang on to your seat. Same goes for you.”
“Maybe I did go a little fast.” Perhaps, I should’ve taken her on dates and slowly introduced her to my life.
Maybe that would’ve shown her she did know how to love enough.
That I wouldn’t hurt her. I shouldn’t have lost my clothes and bared my soul the second she paid her full attention to me.
But those green eyes hollowed out with pain did something awful to my insides and made me lose my sanity.
He shook his head. “And son…she’s a McClary.”
“I’m aware.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s not helpful.”
He gave me a look over the rim of his glasses. “You think you know what that means, but you don’t.”
I sat back. A story was about to come at me whether I wanted one or not.
“Jimmy wasn’t always in charge over there. His older brother, Caleb was a decent man. We had an arrangement for years. He took the bull calves for his beef operation, and in exchange, we used the north side of the lake for our herd. It was simple and neighborly. Worked fine.”
Dad took a slow sip of coffee. “Then he died in suspicious circumstances. Jimmy inherited everything. That’s when the peace ended.”
I opened my mouth, but Dad held up a hand.
“Listen, son, this matters. Jimmy doesn’t hate us because of some old family feud stretching back generations. That’s the story people tell because it’s easier than the truth.” He set down his mug. “The truth is, Jimmy hates me because I married your mother.”
I blinked.
“He chased her for years. Wanted her bad. Your mother has always had a gift. She sees straight into a person’s heart within minutes of meeting them.
No pretending gets past her. That’s how she knew what kind of man Jimmy was before he ever opened his mouth.
Same way she knew Milly wasn’t worth two bits.
Same way she took one look at Gia and saw something worth inviting into our family.
She also told me she sees a hell of a lot of hurt in Gia.
Like soul hurt.” His lowered his tone. “Your mother said the h-word, son. That’s how serious it is. ”
Mom said hell?
That was bad.
Dad’s eyes locked on mine. Apparently, this story wasn’t anywhere near done.
“This lawsuit isn’t about land. Or cattle.
Or some ancient nonsense people like to whisper about.
It’s about a bitter man who never got the woman he wanted and spent decades feeding that wound until it poisoned everything he touched. ”
Something dark moved across Dad’s face—anger, disgust… maybe fear. “He does horrible things to his wife. Poor Valerie.” His voice roughened. “Can you imagine if your mother had ended up with Jimmy?” He stopped there, shaking his head like even imagining it was too ugly to put into words.
“You’d be in prison.”
“Perhaps.” He glanced up from his coffee with determination etched into his face. “I’d make sure Lisa was free of him no matter the cost.”
That was the kind of relationship I wanted. The fiery love my parents had was something worth fighting to keep, even dying for. Josh found it. Even if he and Erika fought loudly, they loved each other without question.
“Why is it important that she’s a McClary?”
“They’re not bad people. Just Jimmy.”
“I never said she was bad. I know she’s not. She’s been hurt a lot.”
“Jimmy taught her how to lead with distrust when it comes to the heart. He never taught her how to be loved.” He took a sip of coffee. “Gia might not know how to accept it for herself.”
“She might think she doesn’t deserve to be loved?”
“Something like that.” Dad shrugged as if that was the end of that.
He sipped his coffee and stared.
I pushed my chair back from the table with my leg to have more space. “You’re doing it again. Judging me.”
“Did she get to you from the start?” He stared at me over his glasses again.
I swallowed hard and nodded.
“Did you wish every woman you tried to have something real with was her?” He stared into the coffee like he was reading tea leaves. “Did being with her in the biblical sense take you to places you thought impossible?” He slowly blinked as he looked up at me.
I nodded.
He compressed his lips and glared at me. “If you don’t go after her and win her once and for all, you’ll spend the rest of your life disappointed.”
He stood, put his coffee cup in the sink. “I think I’m going to go remind my wife about that time in the grocery store. Nothing makes her lose her clothes faster than a box of Fruit Loops.”
He winked at me.
I groaned and made a mental note to stay out of the big house for the next few hours.
My phone dinged with a text. My heart hammered with hope it’d be Gia, but it wasn’t.
Mark: Starting the squeeze. He’s got a plot he rents to a guy across the street to grow pot. Know he takes a cut. Let the DEA figure out where he hides the money.