Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Ranch
After a quiet dinner, Hadley and Declan went to our family’s guest cabin that was within walking distance of the main house. They currently lived there while their house was being built.
Muddy had texted that she wouldn’t be home until late because she was drinking bourbon with Lucy. The woman had been living in the hospital the past many days and clearly needed to blow off steam.
I sat in the middle of my bed with a wooden jewelry box in front of me. The paint was peeling and the hinges needed to be oiled so they didn’t squeak, but when I opened the lid, a smile bloomed across my face.
The jewelry box housed my most sentimental trinkets that I couldn’t bear to part with. I refused to bring them to New York out of fear that I’d lose or misplace them.
There was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called.
Bowman appeared in the doorway. He was still in a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt, but his cowboy hat was nowhere to be found and his blond hair was effortlessly mussed.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” I eyed him warily, unsure of his mood. During dinner, he’d been relatively quiet, but his eyes had sought mine often. “You gonna stand there holding up the doorway or come all the way in?”
He stepped across the threshold and gestured to the jewelry box I hadn’t closed. “What’s that?”
“Just some things of mine,” I evaded.
“What kind of things?”
“Bowman.”
“Powell.”
“Ah, so I’m back to being Powell, hmm?” I shut the lid and set the jewelry box on my nightstand.
He paused. “I wasn’t sure you remembered.”
Remembered that he’d called me Salem or that his voice had grounded me in a way I couldn’t have anticipated.
“I remember,” I murmured, my eyes meeting his. I patted my bed. “Sit. I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up at you.”
He walked over to the bed and sat at the end of it.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. It was . . . it’s been a lot. Being here.”
He rubbed his scruffy jaw. “Yeah. I can imagine.”
“And Dad waking up, it just . . .”
Opened something up inside me. Split me right down the middle and all of the anguish I’d been carting around poured out of me.
“That wasn’t just about your dad,” he said. “Was it?”
I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat. I shook my head.
“Did you tell Hadley?”
“Tell Hadley I had an epic meltdown and that you climbed into the shower while I was naked in order to comfort me?”
His eyes burned with intensity. “Yes. That.”
“No.”
“No? Why not?” he demanded. “Oh. I get it. You don’t have to mention me at all if you don’t tell her.”
“It’s not that,” I said quickly. “It’s Declan.”
“What about him?”
“It’s about what he said.” I chewed on my lip.
Bowman reached out and pulled at my lip to stop me from biting it. “What did he say?”
My skin zinged from his touch.
He dropped his hand and waited for my reply.
“He asked that I not stress out Hadley. That she’s got enough to worry about. And with the baby . . .”
“I see,” he said. “You call your friends? Have you told them?”
“About the meltdown? No. About my dad waking up? Yes. Hadley and I did a video chat with them when we were making dinner.”
We continued to stare at one another, like both of us wanted to say more but neither one of us wanted to cross the chasm.
“Have I thanked you?” I blurted out. “For the—ah—comforting?”
He flashed a smile. “No.”
“Thank you, Bowman.” My tone was sincere.
“You’re welcome, Powell.”
And just like that, the walls of my fortress were once again erected between us.
The front door opened. “Salem?” Muddy called out.
“I’m here!” I called back.
Bowman rose from my bed and quietly moved toward the bathroom.
I got up and went downstairs. Muddy’s head was in the fridge when I made it into the kitchen.
“What did you all have for dinner?” she asked.
“That plate is for you,” I said with a smile. “Trout, snap peas, and rice.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Fish?”
“Hadley’s choice. Variety is the spice of life, you know? Not all of us want game meat and beef.”
We looked at each other, and then both cracked up. She pulled the plate out of the fridge and took it to the microwave.
“How many drinks did you have with Lucy?”
“Just one,” she said. “I nursed it while I told her about Connor. By tomorrow morning, the whole town will know everything so I don’t have to keep rehashing it.”
“Lucy is Huckleberry Hill’s town crier.”
“Thank God, too.” Muddy put the plate in the microwave and placed the silicone cover over it before pressing the start button. “Sit with me?”
I nodded. “Another drink?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Now that I’m home, I have no place to go but upstairs. Is Bowman around?”
“His room, I believe,” I said.
The microwave beeped. She pulled out her plate.
“Kitchen table?” I asked. “I’ll get you another drink.”
“Den,” she clarified. “And we’ll close the sliding doors.”
“Uh oh. You mean business.”
We went into the den and I closed the doors while she got settled in her patchwork chair and set her plate on her lap.
“We haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk since you’ve been home,” she said.
“No,” I agreed. “We haven’t. But there have been some other more pressing issues.”
“Hmm.” She picked up her fork. “How are you doing, sugar?”
“Me? I’m okay. Better now that he’s awake. How are you doing?”
“I’m holding it together.”
“Because that’s what you do?”
“Yes. That’s my job. I’m the matriarch of this family. If I crumble, the whole house of cards collapses.”
I rubbed my temple. “Are you prepared?”
“For?”
“When he gets out of the hospital? His recovery? We don’t know how long it will take.”
She didn’t reply, but instead took a bite of fish.
After she swallowed, she looked at me studiously.
“I don’t expect it to be easy. Or short, for that matter.
Despite him being active and in good health, I don’t expect him to just spring back.
I don’t know what this will look like, but it’ll be harder on him than the rest of us. ”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“It’s not the same,” she said quietly. “What happened with your mother.”
I swallowed a painful lump in my throat. “No. It’s not the same. Her suffering came to an end.”
“And yours continued.”
I nodded.
“I’m worried about you, Salem.”
Normally, I’d push it away. I’d make a joke. I’d divert the conversation. But after the shower, something inside of me wasn’t so ashamed of being vulnerable. Not around the people who loved me most in this world.
“I know,” I said softly. “And I know I haven’t made it easy.”
“Who is easy?”
“Hadley. Hadley’s easy.”
“She’s challenging in her own way. We all are.”
I chuckled, but it wasn’t in humor. “Hadley came home and stayed. And she has no interest in anything other than this life, this land, and being with family. I envy her sometimes.”
“You, my dear, are a true pioneer.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners, the brackets around her mouth disappearing into her cheeks. “Pioneers adventure. They ask questions like what’s over there, what lays beyond those mountains?”
“Pioneers also died of dysentery and snake bites,” I quipped.
“What’s life without a little risk?” She winked and went back to eating her food for a moment. “You talk to your boss?”
I nodded. “He’s great. Very understanding. But there’s only so much time I can be away from my job before they replace me with someone more dedicated, more focused.”
“You are dedicated and focused. It was a relief, actually, to see you thrive in something you loved to do. Hadley told us how well you’re doing.”
I got up and went to the bar cart to pour myself a drink. “What do I do, Muddy? I can’t go back to New York while Dad is recovering. But if I stay, my entire life in New York might not be waiting for me when I finally get back.”
“You know, life is a funny thing.” Her fork clanked against an old, chipped plate. “The things we think we want . . . sometimes when we get them, they end up not mattering at all.”
“Like what? You’ve always wanted to be here. Same with Hadley. You two are made for this life. I’m not.”
“You know what else is funny about life?”
“What?”
“When you look back, you’ll realize there were things that you took way too seriously that ended up working out in the end anyway.”
“So why worry?”
“Pretty much. You’re not the worrier of the family, Salem. Leave that to Hadley.”
I snorted. “So, what is it you wanted to talk to us about? Will you give me a clue?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “It’ll keep until tomorrow. Why didn’t you go out tonight?”
“None of us felt like it,” I admitted. “Running on fumes. We’re all exhausted. And now that Dad is—well, not necessarily in the clear—but on the mend, it’s like we can all take a collective breath. I expect I’ll finally sleep well tonight.”
“You’re not sleeping well?” Her eyes twinkled. “Maybe you need to be getting more exercise.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll go for a run or something.”
“I didn’t mean that kind of exercise.”
“What kind did you—Muddy!”
She cackled. “Gideon still has the hots for you.”
“I’m not interested.”
“No? What about Bowman? He’s handsome. And right next door. I have a pair of ear plugs. The really good kind that expand in your ears.”
I stood up from my seat and grabbed my drink. “Good night, Muddy.”
“Good night, sugar.”