Chapter Thirteen #3
Maggie brushed blonde curls off her forehead, then put both hands on her hips as she surveyed the carnage. “We still have to put this beast together. I probably should’ve just invested in one of those pre-lit trees.”
“Nah,” Tyler said. “These types last longer.” He picked up a branch and started fluffing it. “The pre-lit ones go up fast, and the lights are evenly spaced, but they’re a pain in the ass to troubleshoot when the wiring goes bad.”
“Oh man,” Owen groaned. “Remember last year when only half the lights worked on the twelve-footer Harry puts up in the great room?”
“I’ve never seen that spitfire get mad enough to…well…spit fire,” Tyler replied. He picked up a box of miniature, colored lights. “These babies are a cinch to troubleshoot, and my mom taught me a fun trick to make stringing the lights a breeze. Want me to share?”
Maggie had watched him with rapt attention and a smile on her face. “Absolutely.”
“I’ll show you.” He handed a box of lights to Owen. “Would you unwind these for me?”
“Sure.” Owen looked just as excited as Maggie to see him in action. Harry wouldn’t let them anywhere near the ranch trees, and they’d never decorated their cabins.
Tyler held up one of the longest limbs that would notch into the bottom row. “Start with the bottom and work your way up. Fluff each branch as you go, plug in the lights, and string up each row to make sure they work and are evenly spaced before moving on.”
“Now, that just makes too much sense,” Maggie said.
Tyler laughed. “There’s still plenty of room for chaos.”
“Only because you have perfectionist tendencies,” Owen said as he unwound the first strand of lights.
“I do not,” Tyler said, then proved the exact opposite over the next hour. He fluffed, locked the branches in place, fluffed some more, and then stepped back to take a better look. More fluffing would ensue before he arranged the lights in precise inner and outer circles for each row.
“Wow,” Maggie said, though he couldn’t tell by her voice if she was impressed or felt bad for him.
“You will have the prettiest tree in Trinidad.” Owen’s feelings for Tyler were as obvious as his sparkling eyes and smiling lips.
“You probably wish we’d wagered a bet on my fussiness,” Tyler teased.
Owen’s grin stretched larger. “Maybe.”
“And I bet you wished I’d thought to order pizza sooner,” Maggie added.
“Definitely,” Owen replied with a teasing grin for his mother.
“I’ll call it in now,” she said, then looked around the room for her phone. “Ah, I think I left it in the kitchen. Be right back.”
Owen crossed the room once they were alone and kissed Tyler hard on the mouth. “I want to buy a small tree for our cabin so I can see the lights reflecting on your bare skin when I’m loving you.”
Tyler’s heart raced from the heat in his voice. “Best. Christmas. Ever.”
Maggie reentered the room suddenly and called out Owen’s name. They jerked apart like guilty teenagers, and she grinned. “They’re only taking orders for carryout right now. Would you mind picking it up?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said.
Maggie ducked back into the kitchen to finish the order, leaving them alone again.
Tyler handed Owen a tree branch and said, “Get to fluffing.”
Owen pulled the tiny branches this way and that until he got it to look like the one Tyler had just fluffed. “How’s that?”
“Very good.” Tyler gave him a kiss.
They worked together and had half of the next row of branches completed by the time Maggie returned.
“They said twenty-five minutes,” she said. “I paid over the phone, so you just have to pick it up.”
Maggie joined them, and they finished the next two rows before it was time for Owen to leave.
He looked at Tyler with a raised brow that silently asked if he wanted to go too, but Maggie rested her hand on Tyler’s shoulder.
“He’s staying with me. If you’re lucky, we’ll have the tree up by the time you get back. ”
Owen looked a little uncertain, so Tyler sent him a reassuring smile.
“I won’t tell him anything embarrassing or grill him about his intentions for you,” Maggie promised.
“Owen’s my forever,” Tyler said without taking a break from arranging the branch in his hand. He looked up and smiled at Maggie. “There’s nothing to fear about my intentions.”
Maggie threw her arms around Tyler’s neck and squeezed him tight. When she finally set him free, Owen was gone. Tears filled her eyes, and her bottom lip trembled.
“Oh no,” Tyler said. “Not mom tears.”
Maggie giggled and wiped at her eyes. “I’m just so happy you’re both here.
I never dreamed I’d see Owen this happy and carefree.
He was always such a somber little guy.” She huffed a quick sigh and smiled sadly.
“Most of that is my fault. I wasn’t strong enough to be the mother he needed back then, but I am that woman now. ”
“He’s so proud of you,” Tyler told her. “I hope you know that.”
More tears filled her eyes, but this time, she didn’t wipe them away. “Not nearly as proud as I am of him. I just wish I could turn back time to save him from going to jail.” She tilted her head and considered her words. “But he met you.”
Tyler nodded. “We talk about it all the time. It probably sounds weird to someone who hasn’t lived through our experiences, but going to Arrowhead was the best thing that ever happened to us.”
Maggie rubbed his upper arm. “Do you mind if I ask how a sweetheart like you ended up in jail?”
“Owen hasn’t told you?”
Maggie shook her head. “He’d never betray your trust by telling a story that wasn’t his to share.”
Tyler considered that for a moment. He wouldn’t have revealed Owen’s past to his mom if she’d asked either. Maggie listened patiently as Tyler talked about his strict upbringing that didn’t allow for personal choices and how feelings of suffocation led to his rebellion as a young adult.
“I entered a rodeo without my parents knowing about it. They thought I was on a religious retreat with other young men from our church. I borrowed a friend’s horse and signed up for several events.
I won first place in more than half of them, landed in second or third in the others.
” Tyler’s chest tightened as he recalled the sense of freedom and euphoria he’d felt.
“A guy named Stuart Blackguard approached me afterward and said I’d make a killing on a rodeo circuit.
He claimed my clean-cut looks, good-ole-boy charm, and natural skills would draw in sponsors.
Stu made it sound like an endless party, and I yearned for the freedom his words promised.
I had siblings everywhere, lived under my parents’ constant watchful eyes, and felt like my dreams didn’t count because they didn’t align with the future my folks wanted.
Not a single damn thing belonged to me, not even free will. ”
Maggie smiled sympathetically and rubbed his biceps again. “What were your dreams, honey?”
Tyler had to stop and think. “You know what, Maggie? I’m not sure I had a specific goal beyond working with horses.
I’d never been allowed to plan them. We had family, the Bible, church, and our family plant nursery.
That was our entire existence from sunup to sundown, day after day.
While I didn’t know what the hell I wanted from life, I knew I didn’t want that. ”
She nodded. “And Stu offered you a shiny opportunity to discover who you were and what you wanted from life. I can understand how that would appeal to you. Did you have a terrible fight with your folks when you told them you were leaving?”
All the emotions Tyler had felt then—anger, fear, resentment—balled up and formed a lump in his throat.
Tyler swallowed hard to dislodge it, then started working on the next row on the Christmas tree.
Having busy hands would ease the anxiety building inside him, and just maybe, he wouldn’t fixate on the possibility of a similar fight when he came out to his parents.
“It was just terrible. No son of theirs was going to be a roughneck rodeo star.”
“So you left.”
“Yep,” Tyler said. “And I cut off all ties with them. I didn’t call home when I earned my first prize money and especially not when I got thrown from a horse the following week and had to spend my winnings on treatment.”
“Ouch,” Maggie said with a grimace. “I’m so sorry.”
“I was stuck again, but this time thousands of miles away. I couldn’t go home, or at least that’s what I told myself, and I couldn’t compete.
I worked odd jobs on the circuit while trying my best to rehab my knee.
” The next part of the story was the hardest, but Tyler forced himself to meet her empathetic gaze.
“A doctor prescribed opioids for my pain, and I got addicted to them. When he stopped prescribing them, I tried to drown the discomfort with alcohol, but it barely took the edge off. Stu wanted to help me feel better so I could get back out there.”
Maggie emitted a cute growl. “Sounds like Owen’s lowlife manager, Big John.”
Tyler nodded. “They’re cut from the same cloth, as my grandaddy likes to say.”
Maggie squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry for interrupting.”
“Don’t be,” Tyler replied. “I’m sure this is bringing up terrible memories for you too.
” He took a deep breath and continued. “Stu knew a guy who knew a guy who could get the prescription drugs for me. His dealer had a close connection with a pharmacist who filled fake prescriptions. And like Owen, I got caught up in an undercover operation. I was just too high to know it for a few days. When I somewhat sobered up, I pled guilty to the charges and landed up in the same jail as Owen.” Tyler reached for Maggie’s hand and said, “He saved my life. Owen protected me when I was too weak to take care of myself. He took me under his wing and showed me the type of kindness preached about in our church but rarely displayed in real life. He taught me how to trust and how to love. Owen is the only reason I reconnected with my family.”
“How?”