Chapter 16
Lacey
Beckett kept his word and stayed in the living room as I hurried down the hallway to the familiar master bedroom and bathroom.
I wasn’t out here much as a young kid, but as I became a teenager and Carson got older, it was my own little escape.
I would stay out here most nights by myself, imagining what it would be like to have my own place.
I wish I could tell that little girl she doesn’t want to grow up too fast because that means her parents are growing old, too.
If Carson knew I was here, in the same place as Beckett, and about to be naked in the shower; he would lose his mind. He talks so rudely about Beckett.
No, I take that back; Carson won’t say a word about Beckett and when he does get brought up my brother just gives me the “don’t go there” look and changes the subject.
I love my brother, and I will support him in all he does; after all it is just him and me now—well, plus Beckett, too—but our parents are gone, and I can’t lose my brother, too.
I throw my soaking wet clothes to the bathroom floor, before turning to double check that the door is locked and opening the shower curtain, turning the warm water on.
Stepping inside, I let the pleasant feel of the shower water run over me, washing off the dirt and filth my body has accumulated from morning chores and being in the round pen with the filly.
The dust clinging to my skin mixed with sweat is an odd feeling you cannot explain unless you have experienced it before.
The weight of the last few days falls heavy on my chest, my shoulders go to my ears.
My mind falls back to my mama and the letter she left me.
Mama, I don’t know if I am as strong as you think I am.
A tear escapes my left eye and falls down my cheek, the overwhelming feeling of anxiety of being without her takes over and before I realize what’s happening, I am hyperventilating, holding my legs up to my chest, sitting in the floor of the walk-in shower.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this without you.
I rock back and forth, tears mixing with the shower water hitting the top of my head.
She thinks I can do this; she thinks I can hold our world in my hands and keep it moving but I think she is wrong.
I think she is asking me to do more than I am mentally capable of right now.
My capacity for anything else other than my grief is asking too much of me right now.
I am just a little girl who lost her mother, her best friend.
I don’t know a world without her voice telling me I am going to be okay.
I don’t know how he got in here, I don’t know how long he has been listening to me, all I know is one minute I am on the bathroom floor having a panic attack and the next I am being wrapped in a towel, the shower turned off and held like a baby in Beckett’s arms on his bed.
“Shh, Lace,” he whispers to me. “Hey, Lace, look at me.” His big fingers come to my chin as he forces me to look at him. “Hey, Lace. It’s me, it’s Beckett.” He gives me a soft grin, but his eyes look concerned. “Come back to me, Lace. You’re safe.”
“She’s gone. She won’t ever see me have kids, get married, run this ranch. I won’t ever hear her sing her favorite songs, feel her kiss my forehead again. She’s gone, Beckett. My best friend in the whole world left me. She took a piece of me with her.”
“Shh.” His voice is strained. “She will always be with you.”
But she isn’t. She’s not here the way I need her or want her to be.
She’s a ghost in a world watching over me when I need to see her smile and hear her laugh.
I need her to tell me what to do right now.
I need her to tell me I am going to be okay, because I don’t feel like it right now. I am far from okay.
Beckett’s embrace tightens around me, the feel of his broad chest against my shoulders, the sound of his voice, and the thump of his heart steadies me slowly, snapping me out of whatever trance I was in, and it feels like Beckett’s entire body relaxes when I look up at him voluntarily.
His arms wrap around me tighter and pull me into him, his hand rubbing the towel over my shoulders to warm me up against my violent shaking.
“Panic attacks are no fun.” He finally says after my tears stop and shaking eases. “One minute you’re fine and the next you are not yourself and spiraling.”
I nod, laying my tired head against his chest.
“This wasn’t your first one?” he looks at me, surprised.
It takes me a moment, because I have never told anyone this but no, this wasn’t my first one. “I started having them when my father died. I guess it just shocked my entire nervous system that my whole world could change as easily as a switch flipping.”
Beckett’s arms tighten around me, “Yeah, that will do it to you.”
I look up at him, “Please don’t tell anyone. I have always done my best to hide them.”
Beckett sighs, “Me too.”
My eyes widen as reality finally comes back in full, “Oh my god, Beckett, I am naked. I am laying in your lap, naked. Oh my god.” I jump up in a hurry, making sure the towel is pulled all around me, and run into the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it.
“Shit!” I yell.
Beckett chuckles, “What now?”
“I don’t have any clothes.”
“The towel looks wonderful on you,” he teases.
“Shut up,” I sneer.
“I guess I can find you some of mine to wear over to the house.”
“Ugh, okay.”
* * *
I leave Beckett in the cottage and make my way back to the main house in oversized sweatpants, one of his high school bull ridings t-shirts that I will admit, smells heavenly, and cross my arms over my chest because I don’t have a bra on.
It’s nowhere near cold outside but my nipples apparently didn’t get that memo.
Beckett told me to leave my clothes at the cottage and he would put them in his morning laundry.
I grin, Beckett doing laundry? Now, that is a sight I would pay big money to see.
The tender way he just cared for me back there is making my brain malfunction. Normally, when a panic attack comes on, I am left to my own mercy. Normally just riding the waves through until it is finally done, and I can go about my day, alone and exhausted.
Beckett made me feel . . . safe.
He calmed me down faster than if I was alone.
Even if I was naked, in his lap, on his bed, he was still my safe space in that moment and my body knew it. It felt it.
I wince at the thought of being naked on him. He saw me so vulnerable and weak yet took care of me. How do I even begin to process such a thing?
The Beckett my brother has an issue with is clearly not the Beckett I just got to witness.
I slowly shut the front door of the house behind me, hoping Carson is still asleep upstairs. Everything in the kitchen is how I left it this morning when he got in so hopefully, I can make it to my room before he seems me in Beckett’s clothes.
Carson would not give me the time to explain before he runs out the door to kill Beckett himself.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I peep down the opposite hallway from my room and relax some when Carson’s door is still shut, and no light is peeping from under it.
It seems that boy could sleep through anything after a night like he had out in the elements.
Reaching my bedroom door, I rummage through my closet and pull out a pair of Wranglers and a tank top to put on for the remainder of the day.
Folding Beckett’s clothes, I slide them in my top drawer; you know, in case of a rainy day.
I have bills to look through, a house to clean, and I guess I need to start thinking about something for dinner.
The normal everyday things my mother would do are all up to me now.
She passed the torch too soon.