14. Ben
BEN
I sat in the corner of the room, glowering at the man who was flirting with my wife. Ever since he walked through the door and smelled my food, he was batting his eyes at her like a damn woman. It wouldn’t surprise me if the man asked her to run away with him.
“Something on your mind, Pop?” Michael asked, taking a seat beside me. “Why are you sitting over here in the dark?”
I nodded my head in the direction of my wayward wife and the man she was currently laughing with. “Look at her, flirting with him for a little gym time.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Well, that’s what Ma does.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped, not liking what he was suggesting.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like you don’t know it. Hell, anytime you need something, you invite whoever it is over and have Ma whip up something tasty for them. She flirts, and you get what you want.”
“I do not!”
“Right, so that time you needed a discount on new saddles, you didn’t invite the salesman over for a friendly dinner?
Or how about when you had Larry from the lumberyard over to give you an estimate for the new barn, and then Ma just happened to walk out with a ham on a platter as she announced dinner was ready? ”
“That was different,” I muttered. “And she wasn’t flirting with them.”
“Think what you want,” he chuckled. “Besides, this is for her. You should be glad that for once, she’s getting something out of all the cooking she’s doing.”
Everyone around me had been telling me how I should be grateful for this and that, how I should be doing more for her.
And maybe they were right, but dammit, I was having a really hard time thinking about her needs after the last five years.
We’d lost so much, and through it all, everyone pushed me to just move on, to get over the fact that I’d ruined my family’s legacy.
But it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t shove aside all the hurt and anger that accompanied the visual when I walked out my door each morning.
There were no cattle, only a few horses left, and the ranch hands had all moved on to more productive work.
I was reminded every time I walked around the property, every time some tourist showed up for their “experience in the west”.
This was no longer my home. It was an amusement park.
“It’s not the end of the world, Pop.”
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I wasn’t even listening to him. Not when my wife was over there flirting instead of paying any attention to her husband.
“What’s not?”
“The ranch.”
I bristled at his flippant tone. “You didn’t lose it.”
“I lost something, too. I was in the military—”
“Not this again,” I sighed. “How long are you gonna harp about this? The government screwed you over, but it was just a job.”
“It was my life!” he snapped. “They took my career and ruined it. They called me a rapist! If you think for even one second that losing the cattle is anything like having your reputation ruined and your life turned upside down, you’re living under a rock.
That sentence followed me everywhere I went.
I couldn’t apply for a job without people wondering what the hell I had done to get a dishonorable discharge. ”
He huffed out a sarcastic laugh, shaking his head at me. “Yeah, you lost the cattle, but you still have everything to rebuild. You could make this place so much more than it was if only you’d pull your head out of your ass for five minutes and see all the people who are willing to help you.”
The last thing I needed was to be talked down to by my own son. I was done with this little get together. I was done watching my wife flirt with other men. But most of all, I was finished with my children pretending they knew how I should handle what had happened.
Swallowing the last of my whiskey, I set the glass down with a thunk and got to my feet. “Well, I guess you have all the answers, don’t you, son.”
“Pop—”
“Guess it’s time to turn over my keys to the ranch.”
“That’s not what I was saying!” He shot to his feet, stepping in front of me as I tried to walk away. “Pop—”
“Get the fuck out of my way,” I growled.
But the kid never did know when to back down. I stepped to the side, only for him to follow.
“Mike, don’t fucking push me.”
“Someone’s got to.”
I moved again, and when he stepped in front of me this time, I lost it, swinging hard. Pain shot through my wrist as it connected with his face. Gasps tore through the room, and Blake rushed over to her husband’s side. My other sons were already surrounding me, waiting for me to explode.
And I might have, if I hadn’t seen Clara through the crowd, staring at me in disbelief with tears in her eyes.
At that moment, I knew things had gone too far and escalated out of control.
I had never seen my wife look at me the way she was right now, and as I stormed out of the house, I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
Sitting by the river, I stared at the falls in the moonlight, watching as the water spilled over the rocks and splashed in the pool below. There was a time Clara and I used to sneak over here for a midnight swim. That was before we had kids, when we were still kids ourselves.
How had life become so twisted?
I had never once hit my children or even raised a hand to them.
The boys and I had had our fights over the years, but never once had I considered violence.
And it happened in front of not only my wife, but guests.
That would be something for the town to chew on over the next few days.
There was no way in hell that I’d escape the scrutiny of every single person within a twenty mile radius.
And I only had myself to blame.
In the distance, Liam’s truck bounced over the dirt drive as he headed home for the night. No doubt, he was having words with Bailey right now about what had happened. The last thing I wanted was to be anywhere near Liam’s house when he parked.
If I was, I’d get a lecture, if not a fist to the face, and even though I deserved it, I didn’t want my son to have the same regrets as I did.
So, I got off my ass and guided Susie away from the river, toward home. Even in the dark, she startled at everything, and it wasn’t until Liam’s truck was long past us that she even considered letting me ride her.
She really was a terrible horse, but Jeff loved her, and despite my grumpy demeanor, I even had a soft spot for her.
“There we go, girl. Almost home,” I said, patting her withers as we trotted toward the barn.
My eyes slid over the landscape until they reached the house where the last of the company was just leaving. I couldn’t see much, but I could imagine Clara on the porch, waving to everyone, wondering where the hell I was.
Was she worried about me? Pissed? Would she make me sleep on the couch tonight?
So many questions ran through my head as I brought Susie to her stall after getting her untacked. Giving her an apple, I gave her a good rubdown, dreading returning to the house, knowing anger was all that would find me tonight.
Finally, after fifteen minutes had passed, I worked up the courage to go home and face the music. If I was lucky, I’d get the cold shoulder. If she was really pissed, I’d be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future and eating dinner out of a can.
I really hoped it wouldn’t be the latter, but at this point, I knew there wasn’t much hope.
Stomping up the steps, I kicked off the dirt from my boots—something Clara always nagged me about— and stepped inside to a quiet house.
I’d expected to hear banging around in the kitchen and the scrubbing of pots and pans, but when I peered around the corner, there wasn’t a dish on the counter. The food was all put away and the table was set as it usually was for the morning.
Assuming she was upstairs, I headed over to pour myself a drink, only to find her sitting in the corner with a glass of her own.
“I didn’t think you would come home tonight,” she murmured.
“Just went out to clear my head.”
She nodded, peering down into the glass as if it would give her answers.
I’d never seen her like this before, so silent and angry.
It filled the room, seeping into my pores, settling deep in my gut.
I knew this was bad. Hell, I’d known it the moment I walked out of the house, but there was still a tiny part of me that hoped we could laugh it off and go back to…
Well, go back to the way we used to be.
“Clara—”
“I want you to stay in the mobile home tonight.”
Her words tore through me like a tornado, ripping me to shreds. “Say that again?”
Cold, unfeeling eyes stared back at me, and I sucked in a ragged breath, sure I would die right there on the spot.
“I can’t do this anymore. You’re so…angry all the time.”
Her words were nothing more than a whisper, but I felt every one like a knife slicing me open.
“I don’t know where my husband is, or who replaced him. This…shell of a man you’ve become is just too much.”
Slowly, I lowered myself into the chair, knowing if I didn’t sit, I would fall over. Never, in all my life, did I imagine that these words would leave her lips. Yet, I was sure I heard them.
“I’m not leaving.” The words were solid. True. “I will never leave this house, or you.”
“You already have,” she whispered as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I’m right here. Right fucking here!”
“No, some stranger is in your place, sleeping next to me at night, and walking in your shoes. The man I married would never accuse me of flirting with someone else or look at me the way you did tonight.” She slammed down her glass and got to her feet.
“The man I married would have never hit his own son!”
Shame washed over me, but the anger rose from deep in my gut—that natural instinct to fight back and refuse to take all the blame for what was happening.
“The man I was? What about the woman I married? Since when do you bat your eyes at other men? Or cook them meals to get your way?”
“Since always! That’s how we make deals around here! I do it for you!”
“Yeah? And what’s with all this gym time? Who the fuck are you trying so hard to look good for?”
She flinched back at my tone. Maybe I was crossing a line, but I was already there. I might as well go all the way.
“You know, I didn’t say anything when you wanted to make improvements to the house. It’s your money—”
“It’s our money,” she interjected.
“It was never my fucking money!” I roared. “That money was given to you for the day I failed, when you had to walk away. Well, I guess now’s your chance. You’ve already bought new clothes, started working out… What’s next? Did you already have your eye on someone in town?”
“Go to hell!” she shouted, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“I’m already there, baby. One foot in every fucking day I walk around this place, watching my ranch go down the drain. I proved them all right, huh, baby? They all said I would amount to nothing, and they finally got their reckoning.”
The sarcastic laughter that dripped from my lips was nothing compared to the stabbing pain I felt in my chest, knowing the life I once promised her was gone. Everything we’d worked so hard for was gone, and now she was replacing it bit by bit with the money her grandparents left for her.
“They were wrong,” she whispered. “I knew it then, and I still know it now, but if we have any chance of making this work, something has to change.”
“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job of that.”
“Not me. You! I can’t stand to wake up one more morning next to you and hear you grumble about how upset you are. Do you realize in the past five years, I haven’t seen you laugh once? You don’t smile. You’re constantly in a bad mood. I don’t think there’s anything about life you even like anymore!”
“Because I lost the very soul of this place!”
“You lost yourself!” she shouted. “And when the cattle left, part of you left with them. But Ben, this is life, and we can’t just mourn what we used to have forever. We need to move on. We need to find some peace.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Finding peace?”
“I’m trying to make myself happy again.”
“Without me.”
“Not without you.” She sighed heavily, shoving her fingers through her tangled hair. “For now.”
I didn’t understand. “What?”
“I need you to leave for now.” Tear-filled eyes met mine again. “I need you to go.”
That pain in my chest sliced me wide open as I realized what she was saying. “You want a divorce.”
A sob ripped from her throat as the tears overflowed down her cheeks. “No,” she gasped. “I don’t want a divorce. I just…need time. I need space from you.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat, barely able to speak. “You don’t love me anymore.”
“I do love you. I just don’t like you anymore.”
I wasn’t sure that was any better. Stumbling back a step, I gazed around my house, my own eyes filling with tears as I realized that the last of what I had was being ripped away from me. My wife didn’t want me around. My kids looked at me like I was a stranger.
And all the happiness that was once in this house was long gone.
“Ben…”
“I’ll go,” I answered gruffly, afraid that if I didn’t leave now, I would fall to my knees and beg her to take me back, to say that she still loved me and needed me.
But I was not a man who groveled. If she didn’t want me here, then I would leave. She could have the house, the whole damn property. Hell, I’d give her everything.
Not because I was angry, but because no matter how much she didn’t like me anymore, I was still one hundred percent in love with her.
I just didn’t know how to show it anymore.