Chapter 15 #2
“It needed doing at ten o’clock on a Saturday night?” Graham rolled his eyes with an exasperated huff. “That’s when Eli said he heard you out there. He thought someone was after the cattle.”
Dad’s reading glasses came off. He set them on the table with a soft clatter.
“I knew a man once who worked himself to the bone to prove he didn’t need anyone.
He reorganized everything he could reach and threw himself at every problem the ranch had because staying busy kept him from having to sit still with what he was feeling.
” A beat of silence pressed in hard, and every head turned to listen.
Dad picked up his glasses and turned them over in his hands.
“That man was me. About thirty-two years ago. And the thing I was running from was the fact I’d let pride keep me from telling your mother what she meant to me. ”
Mom rounded the table and draped her arm over his shoulders.
Luke couldn’t breathe. Air refused to move past his throat and every hair on his arms stood up.
The man he’d admired most, almost more than Grandpa, had a fault?
And he’d never known about it? It almost came as a relief to realize even Dad wasn’t perfect, but underneath it came a dizzying sense of shock.
“I almost lost her.” Dad set the glasses down and patted Mom’s hands where they rested on his shoulders.
“Not to another man, but to my own stubbornness. She’d been waiting for me to stop managing everything long enough to admit I needed her, and I’d been so busy trying to prove I was capable that I’d forgotten capable wasn’t what she wanted.
That’s the closest I’ve ever come to losing the thing that mattered most, and I would hate to see one of you make that same mistake, because it’s the only decision I’ve ever regretted. ”
Luke stared at the table. The wood grain blurred and steadied.
“Grandpa used to say that faith means trusting God enough to risk your heart.” Caleb spun a pen around on the table, his gaze locked on it.
“He didn’t say risk your plans or risk your comfort or risk being temporarily inconvenienced.
He said your heart.” He paused. “You’ve risked everything else this spring.
You’ve let go of all of it. But you’re still holding this one thing in a closed fist.”
Noah had gone uncharacteristically quiet, watching Luke with his chin in his hand.
“I don’t know that she’s staying.” His voice came out rough, all the raw feelings pushing their way out. “She has an interview in Billings.”
“So?” Graham shrugged and stole the pen from Caleb, only to fling it at Luke.
He caught the flying pen and set it on the table. “So, if she takes that job, asking her to stay is asking her to choose.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Noah sat forward with his elbows on the table. “You’re afraid she’ll pick her life over you. Which means you’ve decided you’re not worth the choice.”
Why were they suddenly so interested in his life? Not that they hadn’t been before, but he didn’t care for this dissecting of his emotions that left him feeling wounded and scared.
His chair scraped the floor with a hard screech as he stood. “Meeting adjourned.” He picked up his copy of the agenda, folded it, and shoved it into his back pocket.
Ranch meetings were supposed to be about the ranch. He hadn’t expected them to delve into his personal life. They’d made a few good points, though, and he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he checked on Claire.
He retrieved his keys from the hook by the door and drove to Oak Street.
The porch light shone bright and welcoming, along with the soft glow of a lamp in the front windows.
Last chance to change your mind. You could go home, toss and turn all night, and worry about it later.
No. He couldn’t do that again. He’d spent too many nights wrestling with his feelings and losing every time.
Tree branches rustled as he pushed through the gate and walked up the path, not stopping until he reached the front door and knocked once.
Waiting wasn’t the right thing. For him, waiting was giving free rein to fear wearing a patient face.
The door opened.
Granny Mama stood in the doorway in her housecoat, her reading glasses pushed up on top of her head, and a library book in her hand with her finger holding the page. She looked him up and down. “Awful late for a visit, Luke.” Warmth infused her tone even as she chuckled.
“Mae.” His hands curled at his sides, and he forced them open. “Is Claire home?”
Granny Mama studied him for a moment, her expression shifting with a mixture of kindness and apology as she shook her head. “She left about an hour ago. She’s driving to Billings tonight, so she’ll have extra time to prepare for her interview.”
Luke looked at the porch floorboards, half afraid to keep looking at the sorrow in Mae’s eyes. The boards he’d fixed sat solid under his boots. He pressed the toe of his boot against it once.
Granny Mama tilted her head, the movement barely discernable from the side of his vision.
The library book was lowered. “She’s been carrying a lot of weight these last weeks.
Trying to figure out what she wants versus what she’s supposed to want.
She loves this place, no matter what she’s told herself about Billings. ”
He looked up.
Granny Mama held his gaze with the steadiness of someone who’d been watching people make choices for seventy-some years and had developed clear opinions about which ones deserved to be made.
“She left an hour ago.” Something in her tone had shifted from reportage to direction. “Highway’s clear tonight.”
Luke stood on the porch step he’d fixed and looked at Claire’s grandmother in the doorway with her library book and her clear eyes and understood exactly what she was not quite saying.
She pulled her reading glasses down from her head.
“What are you going to do about it?” One corner of her mouth lifted.
“I’ve tried everything I know to do, and I’m thinking it’s someone else’s turn.
Meanwhile, I’m going to finish my chapter.
” She took a small step back toward the door and shut it in his face.