Chapter 20
TWENTY
WINNIE
Pheromone Trails
Patience has never been my strongest point, so it’s beyond frustrating to wait for West where he said he’d be when he’s not actually here.
The sun beats down on the back of my neck as I stare at a line of ants intent on climbing the edge of my shoe.
Eventually, I move the toe and they have to start their line all over again.
The things we do to entertain ourselves.
A shadow drops over my hunched form, cooling my sunburnt skin well after my deodorant has worn past its useful period.
“You’re supposed to be at Coyote Falls with Sally.” West hasn’t lost his grumpy in the last three days. If anything, our time apart has made it worse. Or something has.
I don’t look up at him, studying my line of ants. They’ve just made it to my shoe when I move it again, and they flurry about in circles, wondering where their line has gone. “I don’t do well with demands. Or instructions. Plus, Sally misses you.”
“Does she.” He doesn’t budge.
I move my shoe again.
“That’s cruel.”
“So was leaving without saying goodbye.”
“I left a message with Sally.”
I finally glance up at him and find his silhouette standing tall above me where I sit on the porch of Dallas and Avaline’s house.
They’re both out, so I have plenty of time for a showdown with this man, whatever form it’s going to take.
And it’s time for some home truths. “You ran away,” I say softly, unafraid to be honest with a man for the first time.
“Fuck, Winnie.” West’s voice strains as his heel snaps to the ground, disturbing my line of ants who scurry around the impression.
Now who’s the cruel one? “I’m not sweet. We both know that.”
“Yeah. I figured that part out.” His rigid frame never changes, not when I hope he might sit beside me or crouch to my level.
I shade my hand over my eyes to see him, the sun right above us both. “Cord’s impossible. You left him in as bad a mood as you’re in right now. I’m not dealing with you both. Come back and fix it.” It’s not a plea; it’s a directive.
“Cord can fix his own shit. I’m not his babysitter.” West is as stubborn as me. Worse, maybe. We clash, but also I respect him. Maybe that’s why we get along, at least sometimes.
“You’re also his best friend,” I remind him. “Don’t be like me, West. It’s—” I close my mouth, unwilling to say the words.
He laughs. The sound retorts, cruel and sharp between us. “What, Winnie? Are you willing to say that you’re alone, and that your life is filled with meaningless relationships? Because I feel like you were.”
I rise, ignoring my ants. “That’s the mark of a true asshole. Maybe you and Cord should get together. The things he said the other night—” My chest squeezes tight at the memory.
West steps closer, and for the first time I see his face, if only in part, as the strange angle of the sunlight throws the shadows over us into sharp relief. Tight lines around his mouth and eyes display his anger at both himself and me, but it’s the endless self-hatred that hurts.
That burns.
“West,” I whisper, reaching up to graze my fingers across the stubble at his jaw.
A muscle ticks there as he grips my wrist in a firm hand, not rough, pulling my hand away gently.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Winnie,” he grates out. “This is the life I have. I told you it was nothing. No home, nowhere to stay. Don’t think I have more than I do.” Coal-dark eyes blaze into mine, daring me to challenge that statement.
I lean into him while he’s pushing me away with everything that he has. “I never said I wanted you to have everything, Wilder West. Or that I need that stability. Have you seen my life?”
A hand rises to cup my cheek, his thumb stroking my skin. The warmth and security of his love floors me. My eyes flutter shut and I rest my cheek into his palm, if only for a second.
It’s all I get. He pulls back, stepping away. “I’ve seen your life, Winnie. You have a daughter. She deserves better than what we both can give her. It’s time one of us grows up.”
I open my eyes and watch his back, the lines hard and strong and fixed, rigid, just like him, as he strides away from me. Every step is sure and firm.
And every one cracks my freshly healed heart a little more until all that’s left is a pile of dust bearing the name of the drifter who wrote it there one night at Coyote Falls so many months ago.
“Go, Applehooves, go!” Sally calls to the bull in training that stands still beneath her and refuses to go anywhere as she flaps at it. “Come on, gee gee gee gee!” She makes clicking noises at it and then flops back. “Mommm. This one’s broken,” she shouts up at me.
I hang over the railing of the arena at Valiant Peak where the Invitational will be held tomorrow night. Sally and the calf look ridiculous, like tiny shrunken dots in the oversized space.
“That’s because its real name is ‘Poisoned Thorn,’” I call back to her, checking my sheet of the names Cord gave me earlier. “Try calling him that?”
“Is she still going?” Cord rests his elbows on the metal railing next to me. “Damn, that’s cute.”
I snort. “I mean, it’s cute because it’s going nowhere right now. If it leaves the ground, then I’m plucking your eyebrows in the middle of the night.”
“Ha. Lanie has dibs on things hair-related. You can take a number and get in line, Sissy.”
“How has she been at home?” Lanie and I crossed paths like ships in the night after I left.
My bestie moved back into my place for a brief reprieve until after the Invitational, wanting to stay out of the organizational mess.
Nomadic and used to solitude for most of the year, she and West have something in common—the people overwhelm for them both is real.
She hinted in a text message earlier she might try to stay longer, but I was half-asleep at the time and now can’t remember if I replied or not.
Cord frowns. “Lanie sleeps a lot, and she misses her wolves. Working at a screen level like a regular nine-to-five person isn’t her favorite thing. She has migraines, and cravings, so Levi and I are kept busy.”
Dammit. I didn’t stock up the fridge before I left.
Cloakton is big enough to have everything, and my place isn’t far from the store.
I cringe inwardly at the oversight, but movement in the arena draws my attention back to my offspring.
“I’ll bet. Go, Pathetic Thorn!” I holler, as the stupid horned beast trots in a circle—in reverse. What the hell was I worried about?
My fears are realized a moment later. Cord huffs a laugh as Sally finally calls the bull-to-be by his real name.
The damn thing takes off and rockets across the sawdust-laden arena with my offspring barely holding on. Cord cheers, while the rest of the Coyote Falls and Valiant Peak Invitational staff halt work to watch the center-stage spectacle unfold.
My stomach folds over onto itself as Sally gathers the leather reins in her hands, holds on, and manages not to tumble into the dust cloud billowing up behind her.
“Pull up!” I screech as Poisoned Thorn—who the hell named this thing?—loops around one end of the oval-shaped stadium and comes back for the return lap, ending up panting next to us, and collapses into the dust.
Sally stares up at me, the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face, as I catalog her for cuts, bruises, and breaks. My heart slams into my chest at a thousand miles a minute, my blood pressure skyrocketing just like the damn cow/bull thing heaving for breath below me.
“Off!” I flip a finger at her—a good one—and turn to glare at my brother. “No helmet?”
“It’s not supposed to go that fast?” Cord mutters weakly.
He’s still laughing, half-tottering to one side as he reaches a hand down to Sally in the pit, who reaches up onto her tiptoes to high-five him.
Their fingertips barely brush. Cordell groans, unable to reach back to rub his spine as he straightens. Or tries to straighten, but can’t.
I help lower all near six and a half feet of him into a metal bench seat in the front row set up for tomorrow night’s show, running my fingers along his muscles. “Dammit, I know nothing. West did all this,” I mutter, finding a tight muscle group and working to release it.
Cord draws in a sharp breath. “Okay, stop,” he manages.
I drop my hands. “I’ll call Lanie.” She oversaw most of his treatment after the last round of operations, though West was still there to bolster her when she struggled.
“Don’t you dare,” Cord threatens as he gets his ass sorted. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine,” I sass him right back.
“At least let me put some of that Tiger stuff on you that West used to use…” I hunt about in the kit that Cord carries with him at all times and dig it out.
“Here.” I press the small jar into his hands and unscrew the lid.
The scent of herbs slams me, but I ignore it.
I’m not much into holistic medicine, but this stuff works for Cord, so I’m here for it.
“How did you know about this?” Cord stares straight ahead, unflinching.
This is his pain face. I know it well. “There’s a color-coded jar in every bathroom in the homestead. And one in the kitchen. Sally tried to put it on her toast once last year. West just stopped her from eating it.”
“Ugh. That’s not goo—”
“Not safe,” I corrected him. “It’s my fault for not going through the house and checking that everything wasn’t higher up and away from her.”
“And mine.” Cord winces as I rub my fingers in circles over the area I hope is the worst and best for healing. And cross everything so that my ministrations work.
“You were in a brace, recovering. It wasn’t you.”
“It was, Winnie,” he says gently. “I had her for weekends when you were working. I need to be more aware if I’m going to be part of your family in a more active capacity.”
I swallow hard. “I mean, she loves you.”
“Even if you don’t.”
“Can I punch you? Because I wanna.” I shake my head, recapping the jar and sliding about to where he can see me without twisting and damaging what I aim to fix.
“Of course I love you. Especially when you’re being a big oaf.
Our family is screwed up, Cord. Yes, even after all the interventions and bringing Mom and Dad back. ”
Cord links his fingers together. “They only stayed here once.”
I lean gently against his side, trying to ensure I don’t hurt him.
“Yeah. They stayed once and then didn’t come back, so it’s probably just us for a bit.
But for the next big holiday, let’s fly them up again and try it again.
And again, until we wear them down. Or maybe we can do a road trip.
What in the hell is the worst that can happen if we leave Coyote to its own devices for a bit?
Isn’t Billy as strong as West at looking after the place? ”
I hate saying that, hate taking away what West did for him for years. Tears prick my eyes at what feels like the ultimate betrayal.
Cord stares forward to where Billy strides across the arena to talk to West. Dustan stands beside him in a set of aqua-glitter chaps over his jeans.
The three of them look perfect together.
Someone should draw the scenario out or make a postcard of it.
Picture-perfect, only of course it’s anything but.
West folds his arms, listening to whatever Billy says, nodding a few times.
One hand rises as he points out wherever he doesn’t like while Billy nods and listens.
Dustan toes dust bunnies in the dirt, blowing up a small tornado around them as he’s ignored.
If the kid isn’t neurodivergent, assessed unofficially from my time spent with him in the truck on our drive up here, I’ll be shocked.
I know it’s a short trip, but he’s energetic, pings with ideas, and flounders without stimulus.
I glance across at my brother. Not unlike someone else I know.
“Billy’s more than capable. Stronger than West in the job, even.” Cord swallows. “But West is doing what he does best. He’s out there, training and motivating.” My brother bites back whatever’s in his head that wants to come out his mouth.
I stare at him in wonder. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that before.”
He twisted to look at me without wincing. “Do what?”
“Not say something on your mind.”
Cord grins. “Being impulsive is something Lanie thinks is new to me.”
I cackle. “She’s so freaking wrong.”
Cord lets out a small groan as he drapes an arm around me.
“Now, don’t move because that’s the limit to my motion.
We’re gonna watch Sally safely ride the dammed calf because that stupid thing is well worn out now.
It only had one good dash in it, anyway.
So let’s sit here and pretend to be friendly for a bit.
And you’re gonna tell me what the hell you and West fought about earlier. ”
“It was yesterday.” I close my eyes and curse. “Dammit, Cord. How do you do that?”
“It’s a talent.”
I grump at him. “Fine. But you go first.”
“You eavesdropped. You know what we fought about.” Cord shifts on the metal seat. “There’s a hoodie of Lanie’s in the bag. I need support.”
“You’re a stubborn man who needs a pillow under his bent ass.”
“Yeah. That too.”
“I want all the details. Then I’ll tell you why West and I broke up for good.” I watch Sally gallop around the arena on Apple-Sparkle-Thorn or whatever in the hell it is that she’s renamed the damn baby bull.
“You love him.”
“So do you.”
Cord laughs at me. “This isn’t a who gets to keep West competition, Sissy.”
I grimace. “Don’t call me that. I hate it.”
“You used to love it.” Cord wedges the hoodie that I pass him under one butt cheek. “That does the trick.”
“Lots of things have changed in the last few years. I had Sally. I threw Brad out. You lived your best afterlife for a handful of minutes. And you know what?”
“I’m gonna hear it whether I want to or not, aren’t I?”
“West was there the entire time. He’s my safety net. Yours too.” My heart is heaviest as I force the words out.
Cord blows out a long breath. I count every second. “What’s your point, Winnie?”
I’m glad he’s dropped the nickname. “Neither of us know if we’re capable of surviving without him being there for us.”
“We can.” Cord’s denial is swift and ill thought out.
“You’re so full of shit.”
“And you have a broken heart, big chicken.”
“Do not call me big chicken ever again.” I glare at him. “Just because I call Sally ‘chicken.’”
“Deal.”
I stay in my brother’s embrace, my confession winding around us, filled with doubts and home truths that have been on my mind for years but that I’ve never voiced until now. And every breath I take etches a new chink in the armor I’ve built between me and the world.
Armor that’s untested without the additional barrier of West between me and it.
I have to try, because otherwise I’ll never know. Which means that he can’t be there when I do.
And that hurts most of all.