Chapter Wild Black Briar
Wild Black Briar
When I was six years old, my dad moved us to the middle of nowhere, Wyoming.
It wasn’t until I saw the massive house and surrounding outbuildings through the narrow window of my daddy’s pickup that I realized there were no towns or neighborhoods where we were going.
My dad’s new boss owned the whole state—or at least a large portion of it.
I’d never been to Wyoming before. I was born in Texas, and I’d never been outside of Texas until that day.
I knew Texas.
I liked Texas.
I did not like Wyoming.
But my dad was good at his job, and so he’d left the only home I’d ever known, on the only ranch I’d ever known, and driven my mom and me north so he could be the right-hand man for Charles Lawson, Wyoming rancher and all around important man.
My mom had hated the idea of leaving Texas.
She couldn’t imagine raising me anywhere other than God’s favorite state.
But after we’d settled in, the main house chef had quit because she got tired of not being able to see her grown children, and my mom had filled in.
It had been temporary at first, but Mama was a good cook, and since she wasn’t classically trained, she made whatever Mr. Lawson wanted without giving him lip. And he liked that.
Being the only other child on the ranch besides Mr. Lawson’s own children was also new for me.
Our last home had lots of kids. We’d lived in our own house on our own property, but there had been plenty of friends to play with.
Neighbors who lived across the horse pasture came over all the time.
There were ten kids where Daddy had worked, little stair-steps from oldest to youngest.
And so I often went to work with him, sat in on their homeschooled lessons, and ran wild right along with them.
But now we were going to live in a house down the lane from the main house, up the hill from the horse pen and bunkhouse. Now I had to carpool to school with Mr. Lawson’s kids and do chores with them. I had to see them all the time.
And they were not like the kids I knew from Texas.
Mr. Lawson’s daughter, Torryn, was my age and nice enough. But her old brother, Beau, was two years older than us and too big for his britches—as Daddy liked to say. He was considered the heir to the Lawson empire, and he let everybody know how important he was.
My daddy warned me that the Lawson children lived differently than me. Differently than most. That they had different opportunities. Different priorities. Different privileges. But it wasn’t until I met Beau Lawson that I understood what true privilege was.
Not that he didn’t work hard. Mr. Lawson worked Beau harder than anyone else on the ranch. Even harder than my daddy. Or at least that’s what my parents said. But there was something about Beau that made him seem like he was better than everybody else.
Better than me.
I decided to stay away from him.
When I was ten, my blond hair got long, and I learned how to make my mama’s biscuits just the way Mr. Lawson liked them. I got to ride along with my daddy when he moved cattle and help with the horses.
That was also the year Beau Lawson decided we should be friends.
I was chasing the new barn kittens back into the box where they were supposed to sleep—so they didn’t get stepped on—when he approached me.
He was two years older than me and about a foot taller.
He’d been doing chores for his daddy since he was younger than me, so he was nothing but hard muscle on a bean pole of bones.
“You wanna go for a walk?” he asked, a long piece of straw dangling from his mouth, his eyes hidden behind his velvety Stetson.
I got to my feet slowly, wondering why the prince of the ranch had decided to talk to little ol' me. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I gotta go look for my sister. Thought you could help.”
Torryn was at piano lessons. Otherwise, she would’ve helped me with the kittens. But to Beau, I said, “Sure, okay.”
We walked around the nearest mile or so—climbing fences, jumping hay bales, sitting on rocks near the creek, and skipping rocks. He asked me to do the same thing the next day. And then every day after that.
When I was fourteen, he kissed me on the side of the horse barn. It was hot outside, even at night, but overhead, millions of stars twinkled, and all around us lightning bugs flickered.
He’d been gone with his friends all night, and I’d been mad. He was sixteen and could drive. I was some kid that he had to see every day because I lived where he lived.
He came to see me when he got home. I could smell beer on him, but he wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t even sure if he’d had anything or if it had just been the guys he was with. He found me before he even went into the main house.
By then, we spent most of our time together. He would find me after school or when I was helping my dad. Daddy would always release a long sigh and say, “Well, you better go, I s’pose.”
I used to stare at him, wondering at his tone—at the reason he sounded so tired every time Beau came around. My dad liked Beau. He liked all the Lawsons. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized he just didn’t like Beau around me.
But that night at the barn, Beau wanted to spend time with me after he got home, and it made me mad for some reason. Madder than I’d ever been.
“What’s wrong, Cass?” he asked when I’d given him the silent treatment longer than he could stand.
I cut a glare at him and tried to put my feelings into words. “You always want to hang out with me, Beau, but only on your terms. Only when it’s convenient for you. Have you ever considered what I’m doing? That I might be busy?”
“You don’t want to hang out with me?” He looked wounded, like the kittens when I didn’t feed them on time.
But I wanted him to take me seriously, so I rolled my eyes.
“Of course I want to hang out with you. But I also don’t want to just sit around waiting until you decide you want me.
You treat me like your dad treats my dad.
” Then my feelings and words clicked. “You treat our friendship like I’m the help. ”
He frowned. “I don’t think of you like the help, Cassidy. Not even a little bit.”
“Then why do you assume I’ll just always be around whenever you feel like paying attention to me?”
He’d taken a step closer, his hand landing on the side of the barn, just over my head. He was closer than he’d ever been to me. Closer than any boy had ever been. My stomach flipped with nervous anticipation, and something warm and tingly slid down my spine.
“I want to spend all my time with you, Cassidy Tate,” he said softly. “It takes work for me to stay away and give you space. I went to the river tonight because I didn’t want to smother you. Not because I wanted to hang out with those other idiots.”
He wanted to spend time with me?
I had never been the girl other girls wanted to befriend. Mama said it was because I was raised in a barn—not in a derogatory way. I was just used to a harder life than most of my peers.
Or so she said whenever I cried about not being invited to another class birthday party.
Torryn was my friend, but she always got invited to birthday parties because her daddy owned half of Wyoming.
Besides, we were the same age and the only two girls in a sea of ranch hands and cowboys. Of course we were friends.
Other than that, there was Beau.
But until that moment, I’d always assumed he’d found me like Torryn had—out of necessity. Out of obligation.
Out of some nobler instinct to make sure everyone on his ranch was happy, because one day he was going to be king, and he’d need the support of the common folk.
Plus, he was two years older than me. And while he drove a brand-new pickup, played varsity football, and had been nominated for Homecoming court, I was still figuring out what to do with my body, had yet to discover makeup, and would have been insulted if anyone at school had tried to force a plastic tiara on my head.
So his words weren’t just surprising. They were shocking.
But I was only fourteen, and I had no idea what to do with a boy—especially a boy like Beau Lawson—and his attention.
“I don’t want you to do that, Beau. I like hanging out with you, too.”
Half his mouth kicked up in an arrogant smirk that sometimes made me want to punch him—and sometimes made me want to sit down and drink a glass of water.
“I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying, Cass.
I like you. Really like you. And since you’re so mad at me, I think you might really like me, too. ”
I licked my suddenly dry lips and let him make his own assumptions without confirming or denying.
That smug look got even smugger. “So I think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. That way I can hang out with you all the time without feeling guilty.”
“You think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend?”
He nodded. “And I think you should let me kiss you.”
I gulped. Actually gulped. “My daddy is probably going to kill you.”
Beau leaned closer, erasing the last bit of space between us. “Worth it,” he whispered, and then pressed his lips to mine in a way that fundamentally changed me from the inside out.
Not because it was a good kiss. It was awkward and new. Unsurprisingly, I was a total amateur.
Surprisingly ,so was Beau.
We got better as the years went on.
When I was sixteen, I fell in love with Beau Lawson.
I’d been working up to it for years. Maybe for my whole life. But one afternoon, he was pitching hay in the barn, and he sensed my arrival. Late-day sunlight filtered through the open doors, and when I stepped into the cool shade of the horse pen, he looked up at me and smiled.
Something in my brain clicked.
He’d been looking at me like that since the day I met him. A little bit wonder, a whole lot of awe, and more affection than I’d ever felt from anyone.
My heart had shifted. Or maybe it settled.
I loved Beau Lawson.
I loved him with all of me.
Not in the way the girls at school loved him because he was hot and funny and too damn charming for his own good. Not in the way the cowboys loved him because he was fair and hardworking. Not in the way anyone else loved him.
I loved him in a way that felt untouchable, in a way that felt special and right, in a way I instinctively knew would dictate my entire future.
When he told me he loved me six months later, on a blanket under the stars in the north pasture, it only confirmed what I’d already known.
Beau Lawson had captured my heart, and he never planned to give it back.
When I turned eighteen, fresh from graduating high school, and considering what to do with my future—college or continue at the ranch—Beau started talking about marriage.
He was twenty and well on his way to learning the ins and outs of his dad’s business. I’d dragged my feet deciding on college because it physically hurt to imagine leaving him and this place behind, but now I needed to decide.
My parents wanted me to try school, to do something outside of horses and working the land.
Really, I knew they just wanted me to get some space from Beau.
They didn’t like how much he loved me, or how much I loved him.
They wanted me to see the world, find a life away from the constant, grueling, never-ending labor of ranch life.
They wanted me to get to know my own mind without Beau there to whisper his every thought and opinion in my ear.
And I was almost convinced they were right.
Not that I truly believed I would stop loving him, but I didn’t want him to regret choosing me when he had so many other options.
If I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want to regret choosing him either.
But then he drove me to Jackson Hole and took me ring shopping.
We didn’t buy anything, but the idea had been planted all the same.
A week later, he walked me out to the same pasture where he’d told me he loved me and talked about renting a tent, getting married under the stars, dancing the night away surrounded by lightning bugs and wildflowers.
College became a distant, fleeting thought. I decided it was foolish, and too costly, to consider.
Besides, Beau said he’d pay for whatever school I wanted to attend after we were married, if that was still something I wanted. I could even take time to decide, pick something that would pair well with raising our babies.
And then he pulled me close and kissed me until I was nothing but hopes and dreams.
When I was nineteen, I suspected he’d bought the ring. Instinct—and knowing him so damn well—told me he was hiding something from me. And when I pushed him to spill his secrets, his eyes would twinkle, and his mouth would lift in that same old cocky smirk.
I couldn’t wait to start our life together.
I couldn’t wait to wear the ring he’d picked out for me and stand by his side.
I couldn’t wait to have his babies and be his wife and help him run his empire.
He was the only thing I could remember loving with every single breath in my lungs. I wanted him and this life we’d planned and the brilliantly bright future ahead of us. Maybe I wanted it too much.
Maybe I wanted it so badly, I’d unwittingly sabotaged it all.
Because poor cowboy’s daughters didn’t move to the main house. Poor little cowboy’s daughters didn’t get the life they’d dreamed about or the ring that cost more than all the things they’d ever owned put together. Poor cowboy’s daughter didn’t get the happily-ever-after.
They got the alternative ending that should have been burned in editing.
When I was nineteen and a half, all of it ended. It crumbled. It turned to ash.
When things fell apart, I couldn’t face Beau. Couldn’t summon the courage to even look him in the eye.
I couldn’t explain the totality of how everything we’d wanted and dreamed of had been broken.
But I didn’t know how to go on living without him in my life either. Without him in my heart. So I did the only thing any sane girl trying to staunch the hemorrhaging of her heart with a flimsy tissue would do—
I ran.
I ran long and hard and disappeared in a way that made sure he could never find me. Never wanted to find me.
He would never understand why I had to leave. He would never understand how truly and completely our future was ruined.
And worse, because he wouldn’t understand, he would try to make it better. Make me better. And that was a reality I would not survive.
So I left him without even a goodbye letter, packed my things into my tiny pickup—the same one that used to be my dad’s, the same one that brought us here—kissed my parents goodbye, and hightailed it out of there while he was moving cattle with his dad.
I didn’t expect him to take it well. But hell, I never expected to see him again, so what did it matter?
I had loved him with all of me.
And that was why I had to leave.
The problem was . . . I was never supposed to go back.