16
Jake watched Lexie make her way to the barn door and sidestep his mother before vanishing from sight. He furrowed his brow, trying to see the missing piece of the puzzle. Surely she wasn’t mad about how he’d carried her off earlier. She hadn’t seemed upset about it at the time, but maybe he’d gone too far. Maybe she didn’t like that he’d done it in front of so many people.
He was still piecing his thoughts together when he noticed both Hannah and Brooklyn staring at him with wide, expectant eyes.
“What?” he asked, his gaze bouncing between them.
“Aren’t you going after her?” Brooklyn asked as she gestured toward the door where Lexie had disappeared.
Jake looked in the direction she’d pointed, debating. “Maybe she just needs a minute,” he said.
“Get up, you idiot!” Hannah practically shouted. “Something’s wrong!”
The frantic tone of her voice spurred Jake to action. He scrambled out of his chair but had only moved a few feet before he was intercepted.
“Jacob! It’s good to see you. How is college going? Senior year, right?” asked an elderly man. Jake recognized him as one of his grandfather’s brothers.
“Yes, sir. It’s going well,” Jake said distractedly. He kept glancing toward the door, but his great-uncle started talking about his own days at Cypress Valley and how much the little town had grown.
“Uncle Jamison!” Hannah’s too-bright voice chirped from Jake’s right. “It’s fantastic to see you! How are all the grandkids?” Her smile was comically wide, and she bumped Jake with her hip, a silent command for him to run while he still could.
Jake took the opening and began to move more quickly toward the door. He avoided two more aunts and a handful of second cousins before making it outside, but Lexie was nowhere to be found. He made his way to the house and opened the front door cautiously. Hurried footsteps sounded above his head, and he followed them until he found Lexie in his old bedroom, frantically shoving a curling iron and a makeup bag into her duffel.
“Lex? What are you doing?” he asked, alarmed. She jumped at the sound of his voice.
“I’m—I’m sorry, Jacob,” she stammered, shoving another T-shirt into the bulging bag. “I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I just... I can’t. I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?” he asked as he watched her dart toward the dresser and pull a phone charger from the wall. She really was leaving.
“This, Jacob. All of this.”
“All of what?” he asked again, finally moving into the room.
Lexie whirled around and threw both arms wide, as if trying to encompass everything at once.
“This! The happy, loving family. The baking and the family games and the prayers before meals. It’s too much! Nobody actually lives like this. It’s like being a guest on The Brady Bunch!”
Jake pulled back, stunned. “Lexie,” he said. “Everyone loves you.”
“That’s because they don’t know me, and neither do you! I thought maybe you did, that all of this was real, but you’ve just got your head in the clouds.”
Jake’s chest tightened painfully, and he resisted the urge to rub it with his hand.
“What are you talking about? I do know you, Lex!”
“No, you don’t!” she said, her voice shrill. “You know an imaginary version of me, some perfect fantasy girl you fell in love with on the spot. That doesn’t happen, Jacob! Life isn’t a fairy tale!”
Jake’s thoughts whirled in a blinding vortex of color and sound, replaying all the ways he’d tried to show her how he felt, all the things he’d done to make sure this moment wouldn’t happen. All the things that had obviously meant nothing.
“Do you not trust me at all?” he heard himself ask, though it wasn’t what he’d planned to say.
“It’s not about trust. It’s about reality,” she said, her voice thick as she wrestled with the zipper on her bag. “You’re so blinded by daydreams that you can’t see what’s actually in front of you.”
“You think I don’t see you?” he asked, his volume rising. His mouth had officially gone rogue. “I have told you, over and over, how much I want to be with you. Do you think I’ve just been making that up?”
“I think you honestly believe it, but that doesn’t mean it’s true,” Lexie said, finally yanking the zipper closed and throwing the strap over one shoulder. The tears that had gathered in her eyes slid down her cheeks, but for the first time, Jake didn’t move to wipe them away. For the first time, he was angry with her.
“So, I’m nuts, is that it?” he demanded as she pushed roughly past him and headed for the stairs. Jake followed hot on her heels. “You want to know about the shooting stars, what I wished for that night? I wished for you! Every single time. Not for some imaginary dream girl. For you! You are everything I’ve ever wanted, Lex. I don’t know how many other ways I can say that!”
She charged down the stairs, and he followed a step behind.
“You wanted somebody to fight for you? Well, here I am!” he shouted, his hands in the air. “All I do, every day, is fight for you, but that’s still not good enough? Just tell me what you want!”
“I don’t know what I want!” she shot back, crashing through the front door and onto the porch.
“So, what, you’re just going to leave? Now, in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, with my entire family standing by to watch?” he asked, his feet pounding down the porch stairs and onto the gravel driveway. “What am I supposed to tell my parents?”
“I don’t know, Jacob! Tell them whatever you want,” she said as she strode toward her car which, unfortunately for Jake, bordered the open driveway. She’d be able to turn, whereas his truck was blocked in three cars deep. It would be hours before he could follow.
Jake felt frustration surge through him as she yanked her car door open and tossed her bag onto the passenger’s seat.
“Lexie, I love you! Why can’t you see that?” he demanded, grabbing her arm and snatching her away from the open car door.
Lexie flinched, and the fear that flashed across her face took Jake by surprise. His grip loosened automatically.
“Don’t do this,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “This was never going to work—you and me. We should have left things the way they were.”
Jake felt the blood drain from his face. He looked at her without breathing, hoping to see some sign, a single flicker, that she didn’t mean what she’d said, but he found nothing. He released her without realizing he’d done it. Lexie turned away quickly and slid into the driver’s seat of her Infiniti before quickly starting the car. She reached for the door, and he narrowly avoided being caught as she slammed it shut.
The crunch of her tires on the gravel was too loud in Jake’s ears as she maneuvered until she had a straight shot down the driveway. He watched her car pull away until it disappeared beyond the trees, and the tugging behind his sternum became painfully tight, stretching until it was hard to breathe. It hurt so badly he almost wished it would break.
“Well, looks like you don’t get everything you want after all.”
A low drawl from across the driveway brought Jake back to the yard, the house, the barn, the people who would soon come out of it.
Specifically, to the one who already had.
“What did you do?” he growled, turning on his cousin with all the anger he had left.
Drew shrugged, his face already covered in storm clouds. “I just told her the truth—that you’ve got high expectations, and she’s got a lot to live up to. Though, I’ll be honest, she freaked out more than I expected. That girl’s got issues.”
There was an odd moment where time seemed to hover. The steady rhythm of Jake’s own heartbeat was white noise in his ears, drowning out the singing of the birds and the creak of the old tire swing. He didn’t register the slip of loose gravel beneath his boots, and he barely noticed the soft fabric of Drew’s shirt collar in his hand. But he did feel the rattle in his bones when his fist connected with his cousin’s jaw, bringing the world around him sharply back into focus.
“Why do you hate me?” Jake shouted as Drew staggered backwards. His cousin looked up, eyes ablaze, and rushed forward with all the force of an angry bull. Both boys crashed to the ground in a heap.
“You’re the chosen one!” Drew grunted, taking aim. Jake felt the gravel beneath him rip into his skin at the same time his head whipped to one side, pain exploding where Drew’s fist made contact near his temple.
“The golden boy!” Drew hissed, drawing back for another hit.
Drew was bigger and stronger the way only years of constant physical labor could make him, but Jake had pure adrenaline on his side. Years of pent-up frustration surged into his hands as he drove both fists into his cousin’s gut, knocking the air from his lungs. He shoved hard, forcing Drew to the ground and rolling on top of him before slamming into his cousin’s face for a second time.
Several pairs of hands suddenly closed around his shoulders, dragging him backwards as he aimed again.
“Get off him, Jacob!” a deep voice yelled, but Jake was past the point of obedience. He lashed out blindly, flailing as he was hauled to his feet. Uncle Rob and Oliver grabbed Drew around the waist as he tried to scramble forward, obviously hoping to even the score.
“You get everything you want. Why wouldn’t I hate you?” Drew shouted as he strained against the hands that held him.
Logan Tanner stepped in front of his son. “Take a walk!” he commanded, shoving Jake toward the house.
Sawyer looped a supportive arm around Jake’s shoulders, but Jake flung him off, stalking toward the old garden shed. When he got there, he looked wildly around, his eyes landing on the bare spot against the siding where he’d stood with Lexie only hours before. He could almost see the indentation of her shoes in the grass, hear her voice in the air.
“This was never going to work—you and me. We should have left things the way they were.”
“I’ve got to tell you, that gut check was impressive,” his younger cousin said from somewhere behind him, though he sounded much farther away. “I don’t know how he didn’t see it coming. I saw it coming, and I was halfway across the yard.”
“I’m going in,” Jake snapped, ignoring his cousin completely as he turned on his heel and stalked toward the back porch.
“You want me to get Lexie? Where is she?”
“Gone,” Jake muttered. “Long gone.”
He was glad it was raining. The steel-gray clouds reflected his mood as they dumped sheets of water on the barren fields, washing the leaves from the trees and effectively flipping the world from autumn to winter in a single stroke.
Jake had been awake most of the night, alternatively pacing and staring at the ceiling in his father’s office. He could have slept in his own room, of course, but everything in there smelled like her. It was enough to drive him crazy.
He’d been over their argument a million times, trying to catch every word in his hands so he could turn them over and examine them from all sides, but somehow his memory always caught on Lexie packing to leave, moving like the house was on fire and she only needed to save herself. Everything after that felt blurred, like one continuous rush of motion, though bits and pieces came back to him, dancing like fireflies in the dark.
“I can’t do this. I can’t be here... Life isn’t a fairy tale.”
He rolled his neck, wincing with every movement. He had a huge scrape across one shoulder blade where the driveway gravel had torn his favorite sweater, and he ached from his neck to his knees. The knuckles of his right hand were a nasty violet color to match the bruise near his left temple, which had spread overnight to give him the worst black eye he’d ever had. Drew, however, would have two, and that fact gave Jake a childish sense of satisfaction.
The clock hit six, and just as he’d expected, there was a knock on the door that was neither polite nor quiet, despite the early hour.
“Can you see straight?” his father asked gruffly, striding into the room without waiting to be invited.
Jake answered with a grunt that his dad obviously took to mean yes.
“Good, get dressed. There are cows to feed.”
His dad stalked out, leaving the door open behind him. To say his father was unhappy with his behavior would be an understatement, but Jake was having a hard time caring as much as he usually did.
He didn’t even bother with clean clothes; he’d be soaked to the bone by the time he got back anyway. Instead, he pulled on an old pair of jeans and the shirt he’d played football in the day before. He reached for a red hoodie draped over a chair near the bookshelf and recoiled when he realized it was the one he’d given Lexie. She must have left it behind.
Jake stared at it for a long moment, letting memories play like a film without sound: Lexie curled up under his arm, Lexie laughing in the bed of his truck, Lexie combing her fingers through her hair after a long day. Lexie, in all her moods and all her shapes.
“I would rather wear one of your sweatshirts than any of Colt’s diamonds.”
She’d said that, but it obviously wasn’t true. Nothing he’d given her was enough.
He snatched the sweatshirt off the chair and stuffed it deep into his duffel. The motion was familiar; he’d done almost the same thing yesterday. But yesterday, the bag had been Lexie’s, and that package had been carefully wrapped. He wondered if she’d found it yet. And, with a stabbing pain in his chest, he wondered if it would matter.
Probably not.
He zipped the bag closed and turned on his heel, trying to forget.
“Now, Logan, this is not the first time Andrew and Jacob have fought.”
Grandma Ruby’s voice drifted down the hallway as Jake approached the kitchen.
“No, but it’s the first time they’ve done it as grown men in front of all their living relatives,” his father snapped.
“Andrew has had it coming for ages, and you know it,” she went on. “Now, should they have gone at it in the driveway while the whole family was watching, probably not.”
“They didn’t have to watch,” Jake muttered, pausing outside the kitchen door to grab a coat from the hall closet.
Grandma Ruby chuckled, even as Jake’s father glared at her from across the room.
“Look, son,” he started. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you boys over the last few years, but it’s a shame you can’t figure out how to get past it.”
His chair scraped the ground as he pushed it back, and then he headed for the front door without giving Jake a chance to answer. “We’re driving ourselves, for obvious reasons. You have two minutes to be in the car, or I’m making you walk,” his father added, disappearing through the kitchen doorway.
Jake heard the screen door snap shut and the engine of his dad’s work truck roar to life a moment later. Sighing, he went to the coffee pot and filled his thermos to the brim. As he tightened the cap, he caught sight of his reflection in the microwave door. His face wasn’t as swollen as it had been earlier, but that didn’t mean it was pretty.
“If something Andrew did is why Lexie ran scared, then he deserved every bit of what he got and more,” Grandma Ruby said, nodding her head with a decisive jerk.
Jake turned around, surprised. Lexie’s abrupt departure had been somewhat overshadowed by the mayhem that followed. He’d told his parents something had come up and that she’d needed to get back to campus, and they hadn’t pressed the issue. Even hearing her name made his chest ache.
“You think she was scared? I think she was glad to get out of here,” he muttered, snatching his coffee off the counter and hurrying toward the door.
The last thing he wanted to do was walk to the cattle barn in the rain.