Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RHETT
T he day starts as normal as any other: a late-winter sunrise that bleeds oranges and pinks across the horizon, the whinnies and chuffs of horses in the barn as we move in to clean their stalls, the firm grip of the saddle between my thighs while a young stallion lets out his restless temper. We don’t have any new horses scheduled to come for a few weeks, and it’s a break we all need. Kasey takes the morning to catch up on admin work in the makeshift office while Wells and Layla take turns brushing and tacking the horses before letting them loose in the corrals.
Melody’s even having a good day—one of the best in weeks. Other than our meeting with Dad, I’ve mostly stayed away from the main house to give Brooks and his family the space they need to feel and process what the doctor had said on his last visit, but I almost wonder if he’d been wrong as I watch Brooks help her out to a rocking chair on the front porch where she can enjoy some fresh air. She’s pale and skinny and she looks tired as hell, but she’s smiling, and it breathes hope into me.
Especially as I catch the way Brooks beams at her.
Liam and Noah are at school, but James doesn’t start till September, so Mom brings him to the long driveway to help him practice riding his bike. It gives Melody a chance to see him sun-kissed and happy, and there’s so much pride and love in her face as she watches him fight his fear of falling. By all accounts, it’s a damn good day—the kind where peace swells and a steady calm takes hold, giving nothing to indicate the way it’ll end.
I suppose it’s no surprise when my thoughts turn to Olivia. Sometime around early afternoon, I catch Wells draw in close to Layla, sharing something that’s just for her. She tips her head back and laughs, open and carefree, and my chest tightens. I imagine an alternate reality where I take Wells’s place and Olivia takes Layla’s. Imagine the light of the sun on her face during golden hour, when the sky explodes into a roaring fire. I picture her hazel eyes watching me with tenderness and trust, and it lights me up.
I’d be so careful with her, so opposite of everything I’ve ever been.
I’d do anything to show her how much she’s beginning to mean to me.
Christ . I dig into my eyes with both thumbs until the pressure becomes painful. A few nights and a damn phone conversation with this girl and I’m already planning an entire fucking future, one that plants her smack dab in the middle of it.
“You good?” I hear Kasey call over the distance, and I look to find him in the open doorway of the tack shed, eyeing me with concern.
“Yeah,” I holler back. And then I tilt my head toward the house where Brooks and Melody sit, and watch Kasey do the same. When he looks back at me, he’s grinning. “It’s been a good day,” I add, just loud enough for him to hear.
He nods. “I see that.” He gives the porch another quick look before his grin grows, then he shakes his head and disappears back inside.
I wonder if he’s thinking the same as me—that maybe we can still be okay.
The kernel of hope inside my chest only grows as I finally head to my cabin to wash off the sweat and grime from the day. I have a lady to see, a smile to earn, and it might be my guilt over leaving her the other night while she slept or just the progression of my own tumble into the unknown, but I’ve never been more excited to get out the door and see someone in my life.
It’s when I finally jump on the bike and make it out of our driveway that I notice the dark clouds in the distance. There’s no mistaking the storm they’re going to bring, and it’s the first hint of the changing tides. I almost wonder if I should turn around to park the bike in the shed and borrow Mom’s Suburban, but I don’t have it in me to wait any longer.
I make it to June’s in less than ten minutes, instantly noticing another problem: the sheriff’s car is parked in the front row of the café. For a few long minutes, I sit on my rumbling bike and stare at it, trying to figure out what the fuck I should do. Seeing Sheriff Joe is the last thing I need. I don’t want to give him any damn reason to heckle me the way he loves to do. But I want to see Olivia more than I want to avoid him, so with a harsh exhale to blow the frustration from my lungs, I back my bike into an open spot and turn off the ignition.
The café is a warm relief from the dropping temperatures outside. I scan the dining room, the anxiety I always feel in town spiking harder than usual, and I deflate a little when I don’t spot Olivia. I do, however, lock eyes with our town’s finest, still dressed in his dark uniform after a day spent protecting Saddlebrook Falls from our overzealous senior community and maybe a stray cat or two. I watch him rise from his chair, an instinctual alarm clearly tripped from my mere presence. He angles himself toward me, mouth tipping up with a spiteful grin as he takes the first step away from his table where he’s eating dinner alone.
But then Olivia bursts through the swinging door from the kitchen and I forget about everything around me except for her golden hair and the freckles that splash her cheeks and the way her mouth breaks out into a surprised, uneven smile that shakes my whole world. I’m paralyzed by the force of the way she moves, my boots rooted to the ground in front of the café’s door, unable to do anything but watch her close the distance between us. This sweet girl, who makes me feel and want and hope , moves toward me with determined, confident steps, and I brace myself for her.
“Rhett,” she says through a crooked smile. It’s one I haven’t seen before, and my pulse leaps.
“Peaches,” I breathe, heart pounding like the fucking sucker I am.
“You look . . . good,” she says, pink tinging her pretty cheeks as she takes in the pearl-snap button-down I usually save for rodeos.
My mouth pulls wide. And I want to tell her she’s the best looking thing in this whole damn town, but movement over her shoulder distracts me, and I look up to find the sheriff frowning.
“Bennett,” he says coolly. “What a pleasure.”
It’s all it takes to shut me down as I frown right back at him. “Can’t say it’s ever a pleasure to see you.” I throw him a cold smile. “There a reason you’re competing with the staff to welcome me in for dinner?”
I notice Olivia’s expression change in my periphery, but my gaze is locked with Sheriff Joe’s, and I refuse to be the one who breaks. “I don’t know. Is there a good reason for you to be here?”
I snort. “I wasn’t aware I needed to prove my intentions to earn a plate of food.”
The furrow in his brow deepens. “Unfortunately, son, you’ve made a habit of stirring up enough trouble for just about everyone in this town, and I’m afraid I don’t trust any of your intentions at this point. So why don’t we just get to the part where you tell me why you’re here. Hell, maybe I can help you.”
“I’m not your son,” I bristle. For as much as the man always claims he’s only ever trying to deescalate a situation, he sure likes to push the buttons he knows will set me off. It’s one of the many ways he uses the front of his badge to fuck with me.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia says before I can respond. She looks confused, turning around to look at the sheriff standing behind her. “May I ask what this is about? Is there something wrong?”
He doesn’t so much as look at her when he replies, “Not yet. But I’m afraid it’s inevitable when it comes to this one.”
I want to fucking punch him.
I don’t know what I expected Olivia to respond with, but the deep scoff that rips through isn’t it. “His name, for the record, is Rhett. And unless he actually gives you a reason to bother him, I’d like to politely ask that you sit down and focus on your own dinner.”
The sheriff finally looks at her, brows rising in surprise. He definitely didn’t anticipate June Danvers’s daughter coming to my rescue. “I’m just trying to keep your mother’s place of business safe.”
“I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be,” she says with an icy tone that has me clearing my throat to cover a burst of surprised laughter, “considering I’m the one who asked Rhett to come.”
He narrows his eyes, looking back and forth between us. And then something akin to realization strikes his face, and he frowns again. “Olivia,” he says, giving her a pointed look. “I want to make sure you understand something. Rhett Bennett isn’t interested in settling down or changing his ways, not for any woman. Especially not for such a nice girl like you. Don’t let him fool you, sweetheart.”
I clench my fists at my sides, seeing red. “Don’t patronize her, you fucking prick,” I seethe, stepping toward him. What I would give to feel his face break from one good, solid hit.
“Rhett,” Olivia says softly, pressing a hand to my chest.
It’s enough for me to look down at her, my gaze snaring in her eyes. There’s a softness to them, an understanding. An unfamiliar emotion sinks into me, spreading out and down my spine.
“It’s not worth it,” she says simply.
I breathe deeply and take in the point of her nose, the curve of her rosy lips. With every passing second, the anger inside seems to dissipate like a dangerous mist yielding to the sun. And then I nod, stepping back to my original place. For her: I yield.
She turns to face the sheriff again, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring.
An uneasy smile creeps along his mouth as he shakes his head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he mutters before pulling his wallet from his back pocket. I watch as he shuffles out two twenty-dollar bills and hands them to her. “Thanks for dinner,” he says, and then moves around me to walk out the door.
A deeper exhale bleeds out of me when he’s gone.
“I’m sorry, Olivia—” I start to say, but she shushes me and takes my hand, pulling me toward the same empty booth she set me up in last time. I feel the attention of everyone in here but keep my focus on her until we reach the table.
“Want something to drink?” she asks as I sit.
I nod, eager to get this train back on its tracks. “Yes please.”
She’s still wound up when she returns with a soda, setting it on the table in front of me before sitting on the other side of the booth like she’s not still on shift. The café isn’t exactly full, but there are enough occupied tables that I’m sure she’s busy enough. “Is that what it’s always like for you?” she asks. “When you come into town?”
I shrug. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
She shakes her head. “That’s not okay, Rhett.”
I force a smile. “I’m not exactly innocent,” I remind her.
“Still, that doesn’t mean people can shit on you forever.” She’s genuinely pissed off, and I have to focus on untangling my straw from its wrapper so I don’t shoot over the table and kiss her. “The sheriff, of all people, has no right to treat anyone like that without a good reason. You weren’t even doing anything wrong.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a long history there. And it’s not just him hiding behind a position of power.” I think of the mayor too, how they both like to tag-team with their bullshit. I sink my straw into my soda and look at her. “It’s okay, peaches. Really.”
She shakes her head again, that stubborn fire I like so much still raging.
My phone vibrates on the table, skating across the surface in a jagged dance. I see Kasey’s name flash across the screen and reach down to silence the call.
“You don’t deserve to be treated like that,” she says somberly, and it pierces me right in the chest.
But the sound of my phone ringing again distracts me. It’s Kasey, again , and I frown. I know he’s working at the bar tonight . . . I wonder if something’s wrong. “Sorry, I need to take this.”
She dips her chin. “No worries. I’ll be right back.”
I watch her disappear into the kitchen as I swipe to answer the call, lifting the phone to my ear. “Kasey?”
There’s shouting on the other end of the line. A mix of voices that surge together in a chaotic frenzy that’s impossible to understand. “Rhett,” Kasey breathes. I’ve never heard him sound like that—so lost and defeated.
And then I hear it.
Brooks, in the background. Screaming.
My heart stops, eyes squeezing shut with an uncomfortable pressure.
No no no no . . .
“I’ll be right there,” I say.
* * *
I’ve never given much thought to my own mortality, despite knowing I’ve definitely kissed death a time or two. Between the drinking and fighting and speed of my bike, there’s no doubt I’ve come way too close to meeting whatever comes on the other side of this human existence.
Sometimes I’ve even scared myself. Once, back when I spent most Saturday nights selling pills with Colt to knuckleheads at the fairgrounds, we got swindled by our dealer after he decided to take our money and run without giving us any new product. Colt was prepared to accept the loss, but I got so worked up over the injustice that I jumped on my bike to chase the fucker down the highway. But he’d known I was behind him, and he’d gotten fucking close to running me right off the road.
Or there’s the time I picked a fight with the meanest cowboy I could find at the rodeo because I needed to burn off some pent-up anger—I don’t even remember why I’d been so bent out of shape. But that mean cowboy shattered my nose before I even saw him swing. In the span of seconds, I went from the wild frenzy of rearing my own fist toward him to waking up in a hospital bed with no recollection of what happened. Thank god Kasey had been there to get me some help.
Despite flirting with it over the years, the idea of death and dying isn’t something I’ve feared or obsessed over. We all live, and then we die—it’s one of the simplest promises that life can offer us. But I’ve also been relatively lucky enough that I haven’t had to experience the way death cuts into you, the way it breaks and shatters and shreds all traces of light, leaving you starved and empty and numb.
I’ve never known the true pain it causes for those left behind with a hole shaped like the one they’ve lost.
Until now.
I can hear the crying inside the house from out on the front steps: the high-pitched sobs of the boys, the deep and desperate moaning of their father. Pushing open the door, I find Kasey on the other side. He’s leaning against the wall, his hat clutched in his hand. When he looks at me, he shakes his head, and the panic in my chest grips tighter. Both Wells and Layla sit at the table in the kitchen.
“Where are they?” I ask, watching tears stream down Layla’s face as Wells stares hard at his hands.
“Her room,” Kasey answers.
I force myself to take the steps that lead me down the hall. Mom is hovering in the doorway of the bedroom Melody’s been housed in for weeks, her hand over her heart and her face utterly stricken. On impulse, I reach for her and pull her in close, wrapping my arms tight around her.
She lets out a quiet sob that presses against my sternum. “She’s gone, Rhett,” she cries, her shoulders shaking. “She just . . . she just died .”
With Mom tucked against my chest, I can see into the room, where Brooks and the boys are somehow all on the narrow hospital bed. All curled around her.
All of them crying, lost in the devastation.
I force myself to shut down the emotion that rises violently in my throat. “What can I do?” I ask, voice rough.
But Mom doesn’t answer me. Instead, she shudders out another sob, and I have to disentangle myself from her. Have to back away from what feels like my heart ripping open.
I turn back and march toward Kasey. “What can I do?” I ask him instead.
His eyes are shining from the light in the kitchen. “Ambulance is on its way. We just have to wait for it.” Saddlebrook Falls is too small of a town to have its own hospital—Williamson County Memorial is the closest one to us, and it’s a good half hour away. Under normal circumstances, we’d be doing what we can to meet an ambulance halfway for an emergency situation. But both Kasey and I know that won’t help Melody.
So, I just nod and try like hell not to put a hole through the wall.
“What happened?” I ask. I mean, fuck , she’d looked so much better today.
He scratches a thumb against his brow, a single tear cresting and falling onto his cheek. “She said she was tired and cold after the clouds rolled in, so Brooks got her back to bed for a nap. He went to pick up the boys from school and then horsed around with them out front for a little while before he came back inside to check on her and . . . she was already gone.”
A knot forms in my throat, so thick I almost gag.
My pulse thunders in my temples and I need something to focus on, something that will help.
I need something to do .
And then it hits me.
I walk back out the front door, my hurried steps carrying me beneath the darkening sky. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I take a deep breath.
I already know I’m going to hate myself for doing this, but of all of us, I’m the one who deserves it the most.