Kate
The next morning, my eyes itch and burn, and I glance over at where Austin’s slouched with his head tilted back and a cowboy hat covering his face.
Denny’s awake between us, playing a game on his phone.
He might’ve got even less sleep than I did; every time I woke up, I found him sitting there wide awake next to me.
He’d give me a gentle smile and a nod to confirm everything was okay, calming my nerves so I could let the rumble of voices down the hall lull me back to sleep.
My chest rises and falls in time with the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, keeping me sane as it keeps Jackson alive. It doesn’t get easier seeing him like this, covered in a blanket of tubes and wires with bandaging wrapped tight around his head.
“Want some coffee?” Denny asks softly once he notices I’m awake. “Was thinking I’d venture downstairs to find some.”
I lick my parched lips. Hospital air has a way of sucking the moisture from your skin. “A cup of Earl Grey would be nice, thanks.”
“Maybe put a shot of something in it for you?” He chuckles.
“Now you’re thinking.” I smile at him, clasping my fingers around the armrests and pulling myself up to a normal seated position.
“Hey, so, I called Dad last night after you two passed out.” Denny glances over at Austin to confirm he’s still asleep.
Mere days after their mom died, Bennett Wells decided it was too painful to be on the ranch, so he up and left.
At eighteen, twenty, and twenty-five, the three boys had no choice but to take on the multigenerational cattle ranch themselves.
It hit extra hard because their grandpa had passed earlier in the year, and not a single one of them really understood what it took to operate a ranch of that magnitude.
Dozens of employees, thousands of head of cattle, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.
Between the four of us, we managed. We all suffered and sacrificed during those first few years, but we survived.
The boys’ relationship with their dad, however, has never been quite the same.
Denny was the first to let him back in. Jackson held a grudge for a lot longer, but fond memories of growing up with a tight-knit family had him yearning to mend the broken bonds before Odessa was born, for her sake.
And since then, Bennett’s been around more—not a lot, but more.
But Austin took him leaving the hardest, by far. Honestly, I think we’d all given up on him ever forgiving Bennett, but he surprised us by making his first real effort to form a new relationship with his dad after talking to him at Denny and Blair’s wedding.
“Is he coming here?” Austin mumbles under his hat.
“Yeah, he’s on his way. Should be here pretty soon, so, uh…you gonna be good with that?” Denny tilts his head to get a read on his oldest brother. “Or are you gonna be an awkward motherfucker and make this room even more tense than it already is?”
“I’m fine,” Austin replies. “He should be here.”
I nod. “Thank you for thinking to call him, Denny.”
Leaning forward, I slip my fingers between Jackson’s and give a tight squeeze. We made it through the night. He’s alive, his brain is healing, and one day this entire experience will be nothing but a tiny blip in our story.
“Thanks for staying last night, guys,” I say…to all three of them, truthfully.
“I’m glad we did. I would’ve been awake and worried sick in the hotel room all night.” Denny slowly pulls himself to stand with a yawn that nearly forces his jaw to unhinge. “I probably would’ve called you a hundred times to confirm things were all good.”
The yawn works its way around the room, with Austin blinking back watery eyes, then I cover my gaping mouth with the back of my free hand.
“Coffee?” Austin asks.
“That’s exactly where I was planning on going. God knows I need it.” Denny stretches his arms above his head.
“I’ll come with you. I should give Red a call—make sure he’s got a handle on everything back at the ranch.”
I rub at the itchiness of exhaustion behind my eyes. “If you need to go back to the ranch today, I’ll be fine here, honest. I know that place doesn’t run on its own.”
The words barely leave my tongue before Austin’s shaking his head, unable to hide how stupid he thinks I am for even suggesting such a thing. “We’re here for as long as you are. Or at least I am. I know Blair might need help with the baby so—”
“Nope,” Denny interjects. “We’re staying here. Blair told me last night that she’ll kick my ass for ditching Kate at the hospital.” He hooks a thumb toward his brother. “He’s checking on Red because he’s a control freak. The guys have it handled.”
Red’s dad started as a Wells Ranch cowboy before any of the boys were even born, and even after town drama drove the Thompsons to move away, Red came back as soon as he’d graduated from high school and has been on the ranch ever since.
He might not be a Wells brother by blood, but in this family, that sort of thing has never mattered. He’s a brother.
In a gruff, tired-of-Denny’s-shit voice, Austin says, “I’m doing my job. My job is to make sure Red is doing his job.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same shit, control freak.” Denny rolls his eyes and takes a step toward the door. “Kate, you wanna come with us? Get some fresh air?”
My grip on Jackson’s hand tightens. “No, thanks. I’ll take that Earl Grey tea, though.”
I’m not sure I’ll be able to stomach it, given the way my stomach’s starting to grumble with familiar swells of morning sickness, but I’m so exhausted, I’m willing to try.
Denny smiles. “Right. With a shot or two of liquor, coming right up.”
“You think they sell alcohol at the hospital?” Austin makes a face.
“If there’s ever been a place where a lot of people could use a drink, it’s here.”
The two bicker about it as they exit the room and continue down the hallway. Eventually their voices fade away, and I tuck my chair in directly next to Jackson so my arm follows the path of his on top of the bed, and our shoulders bump into each other.
“If I weren’t pregnant right now, your brothers would’ve already driven me to drink. They bicker like an old married couple.”
I pet the bristly five o’clock shadow peppering his cheek, careful not to accidentally nudge the ventilator or anything else as I quietly remind my husband that I’m here, loving him, patiently waiting for him to come back to me.
“If anything, maybe their incessant arguing will make you wake up so you can tell them to knock it off. Or maybe you’ll wake up to tell me to shut up.
Not that you’ve ever done that before, even when I probably should shut up.
” I laugh under my breath. “I’ll never forget that first night we sat in the kitchen together, and when I finally let you get a word in edgewise the only thing you had to say was ‘You talk a lot, huh?’ ”
During my second night on the ranch, I’d had trouble sleeping.
When I strolled into the kitchen a little after two a.m., the poor guy had been trying to drink some chamomile tea to help with his insomnia.
Delirious with my crush on him, a lack of sleep, and an awareness that the old nightgown I was wearing wasn’t exactly sexy, I resorted to talking his ear off.
And after he made that comment—a supposed compliment that wasn’t clarified until much later—I slid off the countertop I perched on and scurried back to my room.
It was weeks before we found our way back into the kitchen in the middle of the night once again and our friendship began.
“This kind of feels like that, since you aren’t talking, so I’m left to freewheel.
And you know what? I actually don’t like to talk a lot.
I like to talk to you a lot. Back then we were strangers, and you’re so damn much like your dad and Austin, in that you don’t enjoy talking to people you don’t know well.
Especially back then—you were so shy. But now I love talking with you instead of at you…
. I miss your voice. I miss it so much, even though it’s only been a day.
We’ve officially turned into that obnoxious couple who can’t go a day without each other. ”
I finally take a breath and notice a stray tear that wiggled its way out to fall down my cheek. I nuzzle into his shoulder, letting his bare skin wipe away the wetness below my eye. And I stay there, relishing his warmth until I drift back to sleep.
The smell of Earl Grey tea wakes me up. I couldn’t have been asleep for long, and I feel it. Sandpaper eyelids drag against my eyes, and my vision requires multiple blinks to focus on Austin holding a massive, steaming cup in my face.
“Denny went to meet Dad in the parking lot.” He waits for me to grab the cardboard cup, then cautiously steps backward until he’s practically falling back into his usual chair.
“Are you sure you’re good with seeing him?”
His face screams ambivalence. “Yeah.”
My eyes narrow at him. Swear to God, sometimes I think dealing with the three brothers has been a bigger test for my patience than raising my own children. Denny’s voice carries, so Austin and I have time for a long gulp of our drinks and a deep breath before they come in.
Still not enough to prepare for the gut punch of hearing Bennett’s voice racked with despair in the same way the three of ours were yesterday.
He says nothing but Jackson’s name repeatedly.
Striding into the room, he all but ignores Austin and me, heading straight for Jackson’s bedside.
He crouches beside him, placing both hands over Jackson’s, and lets out a rattling exhale.
“The doctor said he’s doing pretty well…they just want to keep him sedated for a few days to let the swelling go down. But last night was the big test, and this guy”—Denny gives Jackson’s foot a firm squeeze through the blanket—“passed with flying colors.”
Bennett nods, chewing at his bottom lip. Then he looks up at me, and it’s my name laced with sadness when it leaves his lips.
He stands, and the next thing I know, Bennett’s arms are wrapped tight around me, tugging my head into his chest. He’s tall and still coated in ranch-earned muscle despite more than a decade of being away.
I breathe out a sob into the cotton of his shirt, and he presses a damp cheek to the top of my head.
If there’s anybody here who understands the pain of not knowing whether the love of your life will survive through the night, it’s him.
Granted, those circumstances were different. He had time to say goodbye. To prepare.
But is there ever such a thing as fully preparing yourself for the loss of your soulmate?
Bennett Wells is living proof there isn’t.
He barely survived the loss of his wife, and abruptly leaving the only home he’d ever known was his way of saving himself.
And of saving the boys, even if it’s something they’ll never understand.
Bennett was leaving that ranch one way or another, and at least this way he didn’t orphan his boys.
I get it now.
Without Jackson, I don’t know if I could stay at Wells Ranch.
I don’t know if I could sleep in the bed we shared.
Sit at the kitchen table and stare at his empty seat day after day.
Walk down the same front porch steps where I leapt into his arms the day I found out I was pregnant with Odessa.
Every square inch of that place is a memory, and if those memories were ever to become painful, I’d need to escape, too.
“How are you doing, kid?” Bennett asks as we slowly untangle our embrace.
The pad of my finger presses to the corner of my eye to collect tears. “Been better. But we’re going to be okay. He’s going to be okay.”
“He’s going to be okay,” Bennett echoes, turning to look over his shoulder at his son in the hospital bed. Then he twists to look at his other sons. “How are you guys holding up?”
Arms crossed tight against his chest, Austin pops a shoulder. “Tired as shit.”
“Yeah, I bet….” Bennett blows out a rough exhale.
The room’s real quiet. Real tense. To be fair to Austin, it hasn’t exactly been chipper in here since we arrived, save for a few funny moments, like when a nurse let out a loud fart in the hallway just outside the room and the three of us devolved into a fit of childish giggles.
Finally, Bennett glances around and suggests going on the hunt for another chair and Denny gestures toward his. “I’ve sat more in the last twenty-four hours than ever before. You can have my chair, old man.”
“Might be old, but I can still kick your ass six ways to Sunday,” Bennett mumbles but accepts the open seat.
“That’s not saying much,” Austin chimes in. “I watched Odessa take him out at the knees once.”
Denny points at Austin with a correction. “That was a cheap shot. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“My bad.” My hands move to cover my smile. “I told Odessa we don’t fight fair when it comes to fighting men.”
“I wasn’t fighting!” Denny says with a childish, spilling laugh. “She’ll have to teach Avery those moves in a couple years though. Apparently it’s frowned upon to punch teenage boys for breaking my daughter’s heart, so she’ll have to do it herself.”
Austin clarifies, “Not just frowned upon—illegal.”
“You just wait. If you and Cecily end up having a girl, you’ll share the same feelings me and Red have about this shit.”
Austin shrugs, not denying it.
“I’m glad I didn’t have daughters.” Bennett sighs. “But I think it’s pretty damn fitting you boys have them, given how much hell you raised with girls when you were younger.”
“I think it’s great. All these badass Wells daughters running the ranch in a couple decades.” I take a slow sip of tea, considering it. “Although I’m afraid Odessa will turn it into a barn cat sanctuary.”
Austin throws his hands up in the air. “Oh, so basically exactly what she’s doing right now.”
In the swell of laughter rippling through the room, the next breath of air feels so much lighter than moments ago.
I wish Jackson was awake to see this—the slow, thoughtful mending of a fractured relationship between Austin and Bennett—but I have hope that he feels it.
Hope that he’ll wake up and know deep in his soul how much love is around him.