Chapter 4
LUCAS
Reality is suddenly sinking in. I came back to Montana to say goodbye to my dad and get a fresh start on life. By now, it’s pretty damn clear that I’m doing a shit fucking job.
I barely got a week with Dad before he passed.
It wasn’t anywhere near enough time for everything that needed to be said, for all the apologies and the wishes that things had been different, the gratitude for everything he did for me when I was a kid.
I guess that’s just what time was always like for us, though.
Never enough, always rushed, and then… gone.
My plan was to take some time to grieve and then pack everything up, sell what I could to put toward medical bills and my student loans, and leave town again.
But then Everett offered me a job, made it seem like he needed the help even though we both know he’s just trying to make sure I can stay upright.
I’m still surprised that he asked, considering how rocky things ended between me and Jenny back in high school, but I guess his loyalty to my dad has stretched its way to me.
Not about to let Al’s son fall flat on his face, kid. Lend me a hand for a bit, yeah?
And, well, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or any horse, really. Freaky fuckers.
Anyway, I took him up on his offer.
And things were fine.
I don’t know shit about anything on the ranch, but I’m good for manual labor, and that seems good enough for Everett. I feel kind of useless, but I stay busy, and I get a reasonable paycheck. I was willing to stick around, at least for a while.
And then Jenny came back last night and dug out all the most tender parts of my carefully buried heart.
She stomped over all of the messy emotions I’ve been ignoring for so long, and her attitude this morning has only made it harder.
I thought that giving myself last night to bitch and moan about it — to myself, I’m not sharing that with anybody else — would help, but it only made it worse.
It only made me fixate more on how much I wish things were different, but there’s nothing I can do to change the past.
I swore to myself over my coffee this morning that I’d leave well enough alone. But it didn’t go that way.
When I saw her outside the pasture, early morning sunlight on that gorgeous face, I just couldn’t help myself. I always thought she was prettiest when she was still exhausted and not finished with her first cup of coffee, and that hasn’t changed.
Neither has the fact that I can’t keep my damn mouth shut around her.
If I had just left her alone after she made it obvious she wanted nothing to do with me, at least I wouldn’t have gotten yelled at.
I don’t want to admit how deep her words cut, but…
well, I’m the only one who has to know that I’m walking around with an open wound where my heart should be.
Besides, it’s fine. Not like it ever belonged to anyone but her, anyway.
If she’s so dead-set on breaking it over and over again, there’s nothing I can do to stop her.
All I can do is keep my head down and not let my emotions get in my way.
I’ve got my dad’s affairs to take care of and my own life to figure out. And right now, I’ve got a chore list from Everett to keep me busy through the day. It’ll be enough.
It has to be.
I’ve only really got one task to get through today, but it’ll be long and boring, and I can only hope I’ll be able to stay focused and keep my mind from wandering.
The patch of fencing I need to reinforce in the back pasture is long, but at least I’ll be alone out there for the most part.
If I need to have a bit of a mental breakdown in order to get my head back on straight, that’ll be between me and the cows.
Just as I slide the staple gun into the bed of the truck, Wayne comes around the corner of the barn, whistling a merry tune. He really is as cheerful as I remember him, but it is nice how he’s less careless than he used to be. I guess a baby and a wife will do that for you.
“Cross!” he says, a wide grin on his face. “Need a hand, there?”
I glance between the pile of fencing materials and Wayne, then offer him an easy shrug. “Sure, if you’re offering. Skipping out on work?”
Wayne laughs as I start loading spare fence posts, handing them off to me so I can stack them in the truck bed.
“Letting the new kid run things for the day,” he says. “I’m considering him for partner, so I want to test him out a bit. I’ll swing by around lunch and see how everything’s going. Figured I’d keep busy until then.”
Right. This new, responsible Wayne has his own law practice, helping the locals out when they go up against corporations in court.
Damn. Everyone seems like they’ve got it all figured out these days.
I can’t help but feel like a bit of a failure, dragging my ruined football career and mountains of regret behind me.
“How are things treating you around here?” he asks. “Are you settling in alright?”
I know he’s trying to ask if I’m alright without saying it—someone does every day, veiled questions about how I’m doing, if I need anything. They all seem to expect me to be more torn up about Dad’s death than I am, but I don’t know how to explain that they all knew him better than I ever did.
I loved him, but he was closer to being their family than mine, really.
“All good on my end,” I reply cheerfully, hoping he won’t press any further. “Only thing giving me any trouble around here is Jenny.”
Wayne laughs heartily at that, just like I hoped he would, his attention diverted from checking up on my emotional state. I can talk about my feelings if I need to. I went to a therapist for a while after getting benched for the first time due to an injury. But that’s not what I need right now.
Right now, I just need to work.
“I can’t even imagine how hard she’s being on you,” Wayne says with a theatrical groan. “She damn near scalped me when I first came back home. Though if Dad didn’t toss me on my ass, she was going to. Don’t tell me she’s following you around bitching about how you do things?”
I chuckle, but shake my head. It is a very Jenny thing to do, but I don’t think she’s willing to be around me that much, even if it means getting to micromanage me.
“Nothing that bad. Chewed my ass out when I ran into her this morning, though,” I tell him with a scoff.
“I offered to help her find the new calf pen, but she laid into me. Spouted off all this shit about how I don’t know anything about the ranch or about her.
Guess we’re not going to be friends after all, huh? ”
Wayne laughs at my lame pass at a joke, not catching the seed of honest disappointment in my words. I sure was hoping that Jenny and I wouldn’t be at each other’s throats, but it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get what I want.
“Damn, and I didn’t even get front row seats?
You’re holding out on me,” Wayne says with a teasing grin.
“I feel bad for you, man. Seems like she’s really got it out for you.
Kind of nice not being the target for once, though.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Jenny can hold a grudge like she’s earning fucking interest on it. ”
I roll my eyes at him, but he’s right. “Trust me, Jenny’s the least of my worries. If she was going to beat me up, she’d have done it years ago.”
Not that Jenny would ever take a swing at me, but if it would make her feel better, I’d let her get one in for free.
I still don’t really get what she’s so pissed about after all this time, but I’ve always been weak when it comes to her.
I’d probably let her sink a knife into my gut if she asked me nicely enough, to be honest.
“Why’s she hate you so much, anyway?” Wayne asks, putting on a false casual look as he leans against the bed of the truck.
“She never told us what happened between y’all, just that you two broke up and she thinks you suck.
I like you, man, but if you cheated on my big sister, I have to deck you at least once for it. ”
The threat is even more laughable coming from Wayne. He was a hothead when we were younger, but I’m pretty sure the guy’s never even gotten close to a fistfight. He’s not a small dude, but he doesn’t have anywhere near the bulk I carry, and I’m nothing but muscle.
Lucky for both of us, nothing even remotely similar happened.
Like I’d be stupid enough to do something like that back in the days when I could still call Jenny mine.
“Nothing like that,” I say with a chuckle and a shake of my head. “We just broke up before college, different plans, different directions. That’s it. Don’t know why she’s still pissed about it, and I don’t care.”
Liar, my own brain hisses at me, ever helpful.
I couldn’t stop myself from caring about her even if my memories were wiped. She’s always had me wrapped around her pinky, and it seems like all this time hasn’t changed that at all.
I slide box after box of heavy-duty staples into the bed of the truck, not really caring where they wind up.
My mind is too messy to worry about something so trivial, and I’ll just have to yank them out again as soon as I get over to the pasture in the far back.
No use organizing everything carefully for such a short trip.
“What’s she even been up to, anyway?” I ask, unable to help myself. “She just hangs around here, does the books? Goes to Cali when she gets bored?”
To be fair, accounting is what she wanted to do—she was always a math whiz, understood everything that went straight over my head—so that’s not much of a surprise. I’m just surprised she’s still here.
Every time we talked about the future, she always talked about wanting to leave. Get off the ranch, maybe even out of Montana, but not too far away to visit regularly.
Back then, I would entertain the idea that maybe we’d move together.
I daydreamed about her finding her dream job and me travelling to play football, coming home on the off-season to find her hunched over her desk with a lamp on as she pored over paperwork.
Not exactly the most romantic dream, but it was the only thing that felt attainable.
The only thing that felt like I might actually be able to earn it.
“Thought you were just here for work?” Wayne asks, a slow, smug grin tugging at his lips.
I scowl at him, biting back the animal in my chest that wants to demand answers, starving for any knowledge about what Jenny’s been up to all this time.
How does she spend her time off? Does she have new friends?
Does she date? She certainly isn’t going to tell me, so I was hoping I could slake my thirst by getting Wayne talking.
Seems like he’s set on being an annoying little shit, though, just like I remember him.
He might’ve grown up, but he’s still Wayne.
“Just making conversation, shithead,” I toss back, doing my best to act like it doesn’t matter. “You’re the one who brought her up in the first place.”
It doesn’t matter. It can’t. I don’t have the privilege of caring about Jenny anymore, and she made that crystal fucking clear this morning.
“Uh-huh,” he drawls, amusement oozing off of him as he grins even wider.
“If you’re just going to stand there and laugh about your sister dumping me, at least make yourself useful,” I snap, grinning back to take the sting out of my words.
He snorts, but hefts up a roll of chicken wire to toss in the back of the truck without another word.
Thank fuck, because I can’t keep talking about Jenny if I want to keep my head on straight. I didn’t think she was even around in the first place, since she was off in California when I started working here, and I’m woefully unprepared.
Every glimpse of her is like a punch to the gut, a reminder of what I could have had if I’d been closer to what she wanted.
It’s hard not to blame myself sometimes, but Jenny was never shy about what she wanted.
She was pissed when I told her I was going off to Utah for a football scholarship, but she never tried to stop me.
If she wanted me to follow her, she knows I would have.
All she had to do was ask.
And… well, she didn’t ask.
That was enough of an answer for me, and I couldn’t bring myself to beg her to want me as much as I wanted her. Too late now.
It’s too late for a lot of things now. Better not to linger on any of them. I’ve got a life to piece together, after all. I can’t do that if I’m still chasing after a girl who barely wanted me in the first place.