Chapter 6
six
Boone’s skull felt like it was splitting in two.
He pried one eye open, immediately regretting it as the weak morning light jabbed through the bunkhouse window.
His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, tasting like he’d licked the bottom of an ashtray.
The whiskey bottle from last night sat empty on the floor beside his bed, a silent accusation.
He pushed himself upright, the room tilting as his feet hit the cold floor. A dull throb pulsed behind his eyes in time with his heartbeat. Christmas Eve morning, and he was hungover. Again. He’d managed three weeks sober at Valor Ridge until last night.
He staggered down the hall to the bathroom and waited to see if his stomach was going to revolt. When it didn’t, he splashed cold water on his face and stared at his reflection. Bloodshot eyes, stubble darker than usual against his pale skin. He looked like hell warmed over.
I say I don’t deserve forgiveness.
The words from last night echoed in his ears.
He’d said them to push her away, but they were the truest words he’d spoken.
He didn’t deserve this place. Didn’t deserve Walker’s belief in him.
Didn’t deserve Dr. Perrin’s understanding eyes as she’d sat with him in that cold barn, listening to him spill his guts.
Back in his room, he rummaged through his duffel bag for a clean shirt. His hands shook slightly as he pulled on a fresh Henley. Four years sober in prison, and it had taken just a month of freedom to fall back into the bottle. His father’s ghost laughed somewhere in the back of his mind.
A pounding at the door made him flinch, the sound reverberating through his tender skull. He froze, hoping whoever it was would go away.
The pounding came again, harder this time. “Sheriff! Open up!”
Boone’s stomach dropped. He knew that voice. Sheriff Hank Goodwin. His bastard of an uncle from his mom’s side. The last person he wanted to see right now.
The knocking continued, each thud sending a fresh spike of pain through his head. He swore under his breath and trudged to the door, pulling it open mid-knock.
Hank stood on the porch, uniform perfectly pressed, his face a mask of righteous anger. The sheriff’s badge gleamed in the early light, polished to a shine that hurt Boone’s eyes. The sky was just beginning to lighten, streaks of pale pink cutting through the gray.
These long, cold winter nights just might kill him before the booze.
He blinked, trying to focus on his uncle’s face. The man looked tired with deep lines etched around cold eyes that held no sympathy, only judgment.
“Jesus,” Hank said, nostrils flaring as he caught the smell of whiskey. “You been drinking?”
Boone didn’t answer, just leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. No point denying what they both knew was true.
“Just like Micah,” Hank spat. “Your old man couldn’t stay sober for more than a month either. Always had an excuse. Always had something driving him to the bottle.”
“Why are you here?” Boone’s voice came out as a gravel-rough scrape.
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “Where were you last night?”
“Here.”
“All night?” The question had an edge that made the hair on Boone’s neck stand up.
“Yes. Why? Do I need an alibi?” He wasn’t about to explain to Hank that he’d been pouring his heart out to Dr. Perrin in the barn at 3 a.m.
“Your mother was found wandering Main Street at two in the morning.” Hank’s words landed like ice water down Boone’s back. “In her nightgown. No coat. No shoes. It was seven degrees.”
The world stopped spinning. Boone’s throat closed up. “What?”
“Mrs. Henderson found her outside the general store, calling your name. Said she was hysterical, claiming you’d been kidnapped and she needed to find you.
” Hank’s voice was cold and clinical now, the voice he used for police reports.
“By the time I got there, she was blue from the cold. She didn’t know where she was or how she got there. ”
His mother, wandering confused in the freezing night, while he sat in a barn feeling sorry for himself. While he drank himself stupid.
“Is she—”
“She’s fine. No frostbite, but it was close.
She’s lucky.” Hank stepped closer, crowding Boone’s space.
“This is the third time in two months she’s wandered at night.
Did you know that? No, you didn’t, because you’re out here playing ranch hand instead of taking care of the one person who never gave up on you. ”
The image of his mother standing alone in the snow, confused and calling his name, broke something loose inside Boone’s chest. A jagged shard of guilt, so sharp he could hardly breathe around it.
“I visit her every day.”
“During daylight. When it’s convenient.” Hank snorted. “She needs someone there at night. She’s scared, and when she gets scared, she looks for you. Always has, God knows why.”
Boone glared at him. “Too bad she doesn’t have any other family in town to help.”
Hank’s face twisted into something ugly. “Your mother gave up everything for Micah Callahan. She chose a drifter with a drinking problem over the Goodwin name.”
Boone pushed off the doorframe, straightening to his full height. Even with his pounding headache, he towered over his uncle. “That drifter built her a home. What did the almighty Goodwins ever do except turn their backs?”
“She made her choice,” Hank said, jaw tight. “She knew what would happen if she married him. Dad told her straight out—Micah Callahan or the family. Not both.”
“And Mom chose love over money. Must’ve killed you all.”
“Love?” Hank laughed, a harsh sound that scraped against Boone’s raw nerves. “Is that what you call that? That’s not what it was. He hit her, Boone. When he drank.”
“That’s a lie,” he growled, though something cold slithered through his gut. His father had been many things—unreliable, quick to anger, fond of the bottle—but he’d never raised a hand to Leonora.
Had he?
No. Hank had a way of turning rumors into facts when it suited him. Sure, Micah Callahan hadn’t been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d worked hard to give his wife and son a home and a happy life.
“Dad loved her.”
“Your father was a drunk who couldn’t hold down a job for more than six months. He’s half the reason Leonora is crazy now. You’re the other half.”
The self-righteous fuck.
Rage boiled up, burning at the back of his throat.
He rolled his fingers into fists until his nails dug into his palms. It would feel so good to put his fist through Hank’s smug face.
To see the pompous expression crumple under his knuckles until there was nothing left of that smirk but bloody pulp.
But he’d been down that road before. It had cost him four years of his life.
He sucked in a calming breath and turned away, unable to look at his uncle anymore. “Get out.”
“You can’t run from who you are, Boone.” Hank’s voice followed him. “That DNA you got from Micah don’t wash off. The drinking. The temper. The failure to be there when people need you.”
The words were a knife twist. His temper flared, hot and dangerous, but he tamped it down. He wouldn’t give Hank the satisfaction of proving him right.
“Your mother’s at BCMC,” Hank added. “They’re keeping her for observation today. I suggest you go see her, then pack up your things and move back home where you belong.”
Home.
The word felt hollow. That little house at the edge of town wasn’t home anymore. It was just the place where his mother was slowly disappearing.
Boone spun around, red-hot rage bursting through his fragile self-control.
“My mother needed her family, her home, sixteen years ago.” The words ripped from his throat, each one sharper than the last. “None of you even showed at Dad’s funeral.
Where was your concern when she needed help with medical bills?
With the mortgage? With a twelve-year-old boy who just watched his father die?
Where were you then?” He slashed a hand through the air.
“No. You know what? Don’t answer that. Just get the hell off this property before I forget you’re wearing a badge. ”
Hank’s hand drifted to his belt, to the holster that held his service weapon. A warning. “You threatening an officer, Boone?”
“I’m asking you to leave.” Boone forced his voice to level out, though every muscle in his body screamed to throw this man off the porch. “You’ve delivered your message. Now go.”
For a moment, he thought Hank might push it, might give him an excuse to unleash the rage boiling inside him. Part of him wanted it. Wanted the simplicity of a fight, the clarity of pain.
Instead, Hank adjusted his hat and stepped back. “You do what you want. You always have.”
Then he turned and walked away, boots crunching in the snow.
Boone slammed the door shut and pressed his forehead against the cool wood. His stomach churned with a toxic mix of hangover and guilt. The image of his mother wandering alone in her nightgown, barefoot in the snow, calling his name...
Christ.
He stumbled back to his room and sank onto the edge of the bed, head in his hands. The pounding in his skull intensified.
What kind of son was he?
What kind of man?
Just like your father.
The accusation rang in his ears, impossible to silence. He’d sworn he wouldn’t be like Micah. Promised himself he’d be better. Stronger. More reliable. But here he was, hungover on Christmas Eve, while his mother lay in a hospital bed.
He reached for his phone on the nightstand and dialed Bravlin County Medical Center.
After navigating a maze of automated options, he finally reached a nurse who confirmed his mother was there and stable, but heavily medicated.
They were holding her for an involuntary psych evaluation, and visits were discouraged for the first twenty-four hours.
Boone hung up and stared at the worn duffel bag on the chair in the corner. He’d never fully unpacked since arriving at Valor Ridge. Some part of him had always known this wouldn’t last. That he didn’t deserve it. That eventually, he’d screw up and have to leave.
Like now.
He stood, grabbed the bag, and began stuffing his meager belongings inside. Three shirts. Two pairs of jeans. Socks with holes in the heels. The picture of him and his mom from his boot camp graduation. His discharge papers.
He found a plastic bag in the kitchen, gathered his few toiletries from the bathroom into it, then added it to the duffel.
The sum total of his life fit into a bag smaller than some women’s purses.
His hangover still pulsed behind his eyes, and he cursed himself for it.
Hank was right.
He was exactly like his father.
The realization burned in his chest, settling alongside the shame of his relapse. His dad had chosen the bottle over his family, too. He’d spent most of Boone’s childhood passed out or raging, leaving Boone’s mom to pick up the pieces. After he died, Boone had sworn he’d never be that man.
Yet here he was.
The zipper on his duffel bag jammed, and he yanked at it with enough force to nearly rip the fabric. Anger flared hot in his chest—at Hank, at his mother’s illness, but mostly at himself. He’d known better than to drink again. He knew what alcohol did to men like him.
Boone glanced at the black Stetson hanging on the bedpost. His father’s hat. The only thing of Micah’s he’d kept after the funeral. He’d worn it every day since, like some kind of talisman against becoming the man who’d once owned it.
Fat lot of good that did.
He crammed the hat onto his head and grabbed his jacket, the worn leather creaking as he shoved his arms through the sleeves.
The cold bit at his face as he stepped onto the porch, duffel slung over his shoulder. His truck sat where he’d left it yesterday, covered in a thin layer of fresh snow. The sun was barely up, casting long shadows across the yard.
He threw his bag into the truck bed and climbed into the cab. The engine turned over with a reluctant growl, the heater blowing cold air that smelled faintly of antifreeze.
And then…
He just sat there, hands gripping the wheel, staring at the house, barn, and bunkhouse through the windshield.
He was doing the right thing. He was saving Walker from wasting more time on him. Saving Dr. Perrin from having to pretend he was worth helping. Saving his mother from wandering the streets at night, searching for a son she didn’t even recognize anymore.
Saving everyone from himself.
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. All he had to do was put the truck in gear and drive away. Simple as that. He’d be a ghost before Walker even realized he was gone.
So why weren’t his hands moving?