27. Clay
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Clay
By midnight, the ranch is finally quiet.
Quiet and peaceful aren’t the same thing.
Quiet just means nobody’s saying what they’re thinking out loud. Peaceful means you can breathe, and I haven’t done much of that in weeks.
I sit on the edge of my bed with a duffel open at my feet, clothes shoved inside without much care. Jeans. Shirts. Socks. Belt. A pair of boots I probably won’t be able to wear right for a while, but I pack them anyway because leaving without boots feels wrong.
Basically admitting I’m not myself.
My bad leg throbs beneath the brace. It’s not healed enough. I know that. Doctor knows that. Hell, Rusty probably knows that, and he once tried to fight a garden hose for twenty minutes.
Doesn’t matter.
I can walk.
Not well, and definitely not without pain shooting through my leg every few steps, but I can still move under my own power.
Right now, that feels like enough.
I zip the duffel halfway, then stop.
The envelope sits on the dresser.
Dad’s handwriting is still there.
I should’ve burned the damn thing. I should’ve shoved it back where I found it and pretended I never saw it. Instead, I’ve carried it around in my head for weeks, letting it rot into every thought until it tastes of proof.
I push to my feet, careful with my weight. Pain bites up my leg, but I barely react anymore. It’s become part of the weather. There in the morning. There at night. There every time I move wrong or sit too long or forget for half a second that my body isn’t doing what I tell it to.
I cross to the dresser and pick up the envelope.
The paper feels soft from handling.
Stupid, how much damage paper can do.
I slide the documents out one more time, and swallow the bitterness crawling up my throat before I shove the papers back inside.
Then I grab a notepad from the drawer.
The pen doesn’t work at first.
Of course it doesn’t.
I scribble hard in the corner until ink bleeds through, then sit at the little desk near the window, the same desk I used when I was a kid pretending homework mattered more than climbing out after dark.
The house creaks around me.
Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard settles.
I freeze.
Listen.
Nothing.
No footsteps come down the hall.
No Boone knocking with that patience I can’t stand, or Dallas leaning in the doorway seeing too much before I’ve said a word. No Nash barging in with a joke that lands too close to truth, or Mom watching me with those quiet eyes that somehow always know when I’m slipping.
The house stays silent.
Better this way.
Goodbyes turn people soft, and soft turns into staying. And staying is the one thing I can’t survive.
I press the pen to the paper.
Mom,
The word sits there by itself, looking too small for everything I need to say.
I drag a hand over my jaw.
Writing’s not my thing. Never has been. Words work better when you can throw them out fast, dress them up with a grin, make them sound less true than they are. On paper, they just sit there. No escape with charm. No way to pretend they don’t mean what they mean.
I try anyway.
I found the bank documents. The account Dad left in my name.
I stop.
My chest tightens.
Outside, the yard is washed in moonlight. The barn stands black against the sky, familiar and solid. The kind of thing that stays even when people don’t.
I look back down.
I know what it means.
The pen stills against the paper.
For a second, doubt creeps in hard enough to make my chest tighten.
Maybe I don’t know anything about it. Maybe I’ve spent weeks turning silence into proof because it hurt less than asking.
Still, I keep writing, because it’s easier than reevaluating.
He knew I’d be the one who needed help. Boone had the ranch in his bones. Dallas had the head for keeping things running. Nash always could make something out of nothing. But me? I was always the one breaking things. Running off. Making more trouble than I was worth.
My grip tightens until the pen digs into my fingers.
The words blur a little.
I blink hard.
I appreciate what he tried to do. I guess. But I don’t want it.
That line comes easier.
I don’t want money set aside because he thought I’d fail. I don’t want to be a problem everybody planned around before I even knew I was one.
I’m giving it back to you. Use it for the ranch. Put it toward repairs, feed, the dude ranch, the kids, whatever makes sense. Anything but me.
I stare at that. That about covers it.
My phone sits beside the paper, screen dark. I haven’t looked at Josie’s messages in days. There aren’t any new ones. I know because I’ve checked, and checking an absence is a pathetic kind of habit.
She let me go.
That’s what I told myself.
She stood outside that clinic with her careful face and said she hoped the circuit gave me what I was looking for.
A blessing, a goodbye, but she’d already decided not to ask for anything from me.
Smart woman.
I rub a hand over my chest.
There’s an ache there that has nothing to do with my leg and everything to do with the fact that I wanted her to stop me, which is selfish as hell.
If she had asked me to stay, I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done.
Maybe I would’ve stayed and resented it later. Maybe I would’ve loved her for asking. Maybe I would’ve run anyway.
That uncertainty is the part eating me alive.
I don’t know what kind of man I am when someone asks me to be more than the easy version.
I only know what I’m good at. Leaving.
I bend back over the letter.
I’m going back to the circuit. Not riding yet. Don’t worry, I’m not that stupid.
A quiet laugh leaves me.
Lie.
I cross out stupid, then write reckless over it.
Better.
I need to be around it again. I need to remember who I am when I’m not sitting in this house, a stranger in my own skin.
I’m sorry for taking off this way. But if I say goodbye, you’ll look at me like you know something I don’t, and Boone will get mad, and Dallas will get quiet, and Nash will try to make a joke that makes me want to punch a wall.
That part's too honest.
I leave it.
Tell them I’ll call when I’m settled.
Another lie, maybe.
I stare at the bottom of the page.
Love, Clay
I write it before I can think too hard. Then I fold the paper and slide it into the envelope with the bank documents, and write Mom across the front. I set it on the bed, then I finish packing.
There isn’t much to take. My life fits too easily into bags. That used to make me proud. No roots weighing me down. No clutter. No strings attached anywhere.
Tonight it just feels empty.
I zip the duffel and sit, breathing through the pain in my leg. The brace is stiff. Sweat gathers under the straps. The doctor would skin me alive if he knew I was planning to sit in a truck for hours.
Good thing he doesn’t.
My crutches lean against the wall.
I hate them. I hate needing them. I hate that I can’t just sling the duffel over my shoulder and walk out a man who still owns his body.
Instead, it takes strategy.
Bag first. Crutch. Weight shift. Don’t twist. Don’t swear too loud.
I manage the hallway slow, every step careful and quiet. The house feels different at night. Bigger somehow. More honest. All the daytime noise stripped away until only the bones remain.
I pass Boone’s old room, now mostly used when his kids crash here.
Door closed.
I pass Dallas’s office corner, where a stack of folders sits under a paperweight shaped as a horse Lila made in school.
I pause there.
Stupid little clay horse. One leg shorter than the others. Painted purple and blue with a crooked black mane. Dallas keeps it as if it’s gold.
Because to him, it probably is.
I move on.
Downstairs is harder.
Every step sends fire through my leg. I grip the railing, jaw locked, moving one stair at a time. Basically an old man with too much pride and not enough sense.
Halfway down, I nearly slip.
The duffel knocks against the wall.
I freeze.
The sound seems huge.
I wait for lights. For Mom’s voice. For Dallas coming out with that look. For someone to catch me before I can make it clean.
Nothing.
The house stays asleep.
I keep going.
At the bottom, Rusty is waiting. He lies in the hallway near the kitchen, head on his paws, one ear up. His cloudy eyes track me because he’s been expecting this.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
Rusty’s tail thumps once against the floorboards, loud enough to make me wince.
The damn dog always knows when something’s wrong.
“Rusty,” I warn quietly.
He huffs.
I swear under my breath, then limp toward the kitchen. Every part of me aches now, sweat cold on my back. I set the envelope on the table, right where Mom will see it in the morning beside her coffee mug.
The sight of it there makes the whole thing feel final.
Good.
Final is what I need.
Rusty gets up, joints creaking, and follows me to the back door.
“No,” I tell him softly. “You’re staying.”
He looks offended.
“You hate trucks.” He thumps his tail again.
I crouch as much as my leg allows, which isn’t much, and scratch behind his ear. His fur is rough under my fingers.
“Keep an eye on them,” I mutter.
He licks my wrist.
That almost does it.
Damn dog.
I straighten before my chest can cave in over a red heeler with terrible manners. And then I leave.