23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
CALEB
Three days since I had sex with Regan Marsh, and I haven’t slept right once.
I’m up before dawn. Before the birds. Before Bear lifts his head from the blanket at the foot of my mat. The clearing is gray and cold, September mornings sharpening into something that bites, and I pull on a shirt that smells like engine oil and yesterday and get to work.
Work makes sense. Everything else doesn’t.
I’ve got a transmission rebuild for Dale Cooper’s F-150, a rusted-out exhaust manifold from one of the trekking yard trucks, and a list of fencing jobs Ethan’s been on me about since July. Enough to fill sixteen hours a day if I don’t stop moving.
So I don’t stop moving.
Bear watches me from the workshop doorway.
He’s been doing that more lately, just sitting there with his head on his paws, tracking me while I work.
He doesn’t follow me around the way he used to.
His hips are looser. He eats without coaxing.
Two weeks ago, he let Mason scratch behind his ears without flinching.
He’s getting better.
Good. That’s good. That means fewer visits from the local vet.
I tighten a bolt and pretend the thought doesn’t upset me.
By Thursday, I’ve replaced the fencing along the south paddock, rebuilt Dale’s transmission, and started on a side job for a guy in Millerton who wants his barn doors rehung.
I eat standing up. Shower under the outdoor rig when it’s still dark.
Fall asleep in my clothes and wake up sore and grateful for it, because the soreness means I worked hard enough to stop thinking.
But it’s not working.
She’s everywhere I don’t look. Her truck in the clinic parking lot when I drive through town.
Her name in Maeve’s mouth at Sunday dinner, casual, like it belongs there.
The smell of antiseptic and vanilla that clings to the workshop bench where I haven’t wiped down because I’m not thinking about it.
At dinner, Ethan asks me to pass the salt, and I hand it over without looking up.
Luke mentions a gig next Friday. I say fine.
Josie bounces Grace on her knee, and the little girl grabs a fistful of my sleeve when I reach for the bread.
I untangle her fingers, and she laughs at me like I’ve done a trick.
Noah watches me from across the table, quiet, his fork paused.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve said about four words tonight.”
“That’s four more than usual.”
Nobody laughs. Maeve sets a plate of cornbread on the table and gives me a look I recognize from when we were kids, the one that says I see what you’re doing and I’m deciding whether to call you on it.
She doesn’t. Not tonight.
I leave before dessert.
Ben finds me on Friday morning.
He pulls up in his truck while I’m under the F-150, and I recognize the rhythm of his boots on the gravel. The sound is unhurried, deliberate. Ben never rushes. It’s one of the few things about him I can’t argue with.
“You missed band practice,” he says.
“I texted Luke.”
“You texted Luke the word ‘busy.’ That’s not really a conversation.”
I slide out from under the truck and wipe my hands on a rag. He’s standing with his arms folded, leaning against the bed of his pickup. Same Carhartt jacket. Same steady look. Ben hasn’t changed since I was eighteen, and he drove me to the recruiting office on the worst morning of my life.
“I had work,” I say.
“You always have work.”
“Because there’s always work to do.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Just stands there, watching me the way he watches the ranch accounts, patient, looking for the number that doesn’t add up.
“Maeve’s worried about you,” he says.
“Maeve worries about everyone.”
“Noah’s worried.”
“Noah worries about Mason. I’m not Mason.”
“Caleb.”
I throw the rag onto the workbench. “What?”
He drops his arms. Steps closer. His voice goes low, the way it does when he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear.
“Have you actually talked to her?”
It lands like a punch.
“I don’t need to talk to her.” I reach for the socket wrench. “I have proof.”
“You have a photo from a dark parking lot taken ten years ago.”
“It’s enough.”
“Is it?” He’s not arguing. He’s asking. Which is worse, because arguments I can win. Questions like that just sit there. “You were eighteen. Drew was seventeen. You looked at a grainy picture on a phone screen and you made the biggest decision of your life.”
“I made the right decision.”
“You enlisted the next morning.”
“And?”
“And you’re standing in a clearing in Tennessee rebuilding transmissions at six a.m. because a woman you haven’t talked to in ten years moved to your town and you’d rather strip an engine than look at her.”
Than touch her again.
I don’t say it. He doesn’t need to know about that. Nobody needs to know about that.
“Drop it, Ben.”
“I’ve dropped it for a decade.” His voice is calm.
It’s always calm. I’ve seen Ben lose his temper exactly once, and it was at a supplier who shorted us on feed grain.
Never at me. Never at family. “I respected your boundary. I’m telling you now, as someone who loves you, that boundary is killing you. ”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since she got here. You were starting to be fine before, and now you’re worse than I’ve seen you since you came home.”
The words hit harder than I want them to. Bear has come to the workshop door, head up, watching us with those dark, steady eyes.
“She cheated on me,” I say. Quiet. Like if I say it quietly enough, it’ll still be true.
“You don’t know that.”
“I saw it.”
“You saw a picture. In the dark. From fifty feet away. And you never asked her about it. Not once.”
The wrench is heavy in my hand. It goes down on the bench before I do something stupid with it, like throw it.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I know you don’t.”
“Then stop.”
Ben looks at me. Holds it. Then he nods, once, and takes a step back.
“I’ll tell Luke you’re coming to practice next week,” he says.
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You’re coming to practice, Caleb. The Wild Briar Boys need their drummer.”
He gets in his truck. Shuts the door. Rolls the window down.
“She asks about you, by the way.” He says it like it’s nothing. Like it’s weather. “Every time she’s at the ranch with the horses. Asks how you’re doing.”
He drives off before I can answer. Which is fine. I don’t have an answer.
On Saturday afternoon, I take Bear to the clearing behind the Airstream where the creek runs shallow over flat rock. The water is colder now than it was in August. Leaves float on it, yellow and rust-colored, caught in the eddies.
Bear used to hate water. Wouldn’t go near it. Regan suggested gradual exposure, ten minutes a day, no forcing, just let him see me near the water and decide for himself.
I didn’t ask for her advice. She gave it while she was examining his hips, casual, like she was talking about the weather. I told myself I wouldn’t follow it.
I followed it.
Now Bear stands in the shallows up to his belly. Tail moving slow. He looks back at me to check I’m still here, then drops his head and drinks.
His coat is thicker. His ribs don’t show anymore. The limp is almost gone. Last week, Regan told me, professional, matter-of-fact, that he wouldn’t need biweekly visits anymore. Monthly would be enough.
I said good.
She said good.
Bear sat between us, looking from her to me and back, tail sweeping the tile.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Neither of us moved.
Neither of us said anything else, and she turned back to her charts and I walked out into the parking lot and sat in my truck for three minutes before I could start the engine.
Monthly visits. That’s the right call. Bear is healing. The treatment is working. She’s a good vet, and the dog is getting better. I want Bear to be better.
Then why does it feel like losing something?
Bear shakes the water off his coat and trots back to me. Presses his wet head against my leg. I put my hand on his neck, and he leans in, heavy and warm.
“You’re a good dog,” I tell him.
He doesn’t care about the photo. He doesn’t care about ten years ago. He just stands there, dripping creek water onto my boots, trusting me because I showed up every day and didn’t hurt him.
Simple.
Everything else is so fucking complicated.
I walk back to the Airstream and light the fire. Dinner is rice and canned chili, eaten from the pot. Bear gets the last bite, same as always. The clearing goes dark around us, the pines turning into silhouettes, the sky above them bruised with late-September color.
The phone is in my back pocket. I pull it out. Open the photo.
Same grainy image. Same dark parking lot. Same girl wrapped around someone who isn’t me.
I look at it. Wait for the anger. It takes longer to come than it used to.
I close the phone, and Bear settles at my feet.
This is fine. This is how it has to be.
The fire pops. An ember arcs into the dark and dies. I sit there until the flames go out.