Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
EMMETT
It’s official. I’m a fucking dog.
Sure, I’m working on the Jeep, but I’m long past doing anything worthwhile today. Each day brings me a little closer to getting this thing running, I’m just wasting time, having tested a few things and replaced a worn part without success. There’s nothing more for me to do.
But I’m lingering, delaying as long as I can, hoping to catch Aspen when she comes home from her shift.
Hoping, for once in her life, she won’t work overtime.
I put away the tools, organizing them and cleaning up before I cross the garage to the utility sink, wetting my hands and forearms, scrubbing at the grease until there’s nothing but red skin.
Glancing over my shoulder, I scan the road and then check the time on the dusty clock hanging from the wall.
She should be home by now.
I can still hear her soft sigh as I tucked her into bed two nights ago and placed one lingering kiss on her soft lips before I forced myself to leave.
Hell, I had wanted to stay when she asked—more than I let myself want anything in a long time. But Aspen was exhausted, and I’m not exactly a peaceful sleeper.
So I left her pouting, knowing it was for the best.
Now I’m waiting . . . like a dog for a bone, because kissing her felt like finding myself—like finally coming home after years away.
Home hasn’t been anything more than an abstract concept to me for a long time. I’ve only ever had one. The trailer I grew up in wasn’t safe enough to call a home. It was just walls and a roof.
Before I burned it all down, my grandparents and Rory taught me what home actually felt like. It wasn’t the ranch or the house itself, it was belonging. Safety. Knowing there were people waiting for you at the end of the day.
Life with my parents wasn’t like the one I found on the ranch or the home Aspen built—there were no friends or sense of community.
There was a time when I could’ve had that, but I’ve long since given up on it.
The worst of it was losing Rory-=--watching what it did to my grandparents. But that wasn’t the end of it. One night changed all of us. The damage just kept spreading.
As if thinking about my past triggers it, my phone rings.
Not many people call me, few even have the number.
The ones that do are Carl and the nursing home where my grandma lives. Now Aspen, and begrudgingly, Denver, with all his horseshoe memes. Atlas, too.
Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t called sooner. A vise tightens around my ribs the same as it always does when the nurses call. This time though, it’s tighter, and twined with shame. I’ve been gone longer than normal with my injury stacking itself on top of the fire season.
And there’s only one reason I haven’t checked in sooner.
Somewhere along the way, Timberline Peak stopped feeling like just a place to heal.
That should’ve scared me into leaving sooner. Instead, I’ve been standing here, pretending I can hold onto both lives at once while people still count on me somewhere else.
My crew. My grandmother.
And I’m failing both.
Visiting her is difficult these days, but I still make a point to go whenever I can. Most of the time I’m not even sure it helps her anymore. Maybe I just do it to ease my own guilt.
It’s been months since she recognized me consistently. Some days she thinks I’m my father, and I never correct her. The truth only confuses and upsets her more.
Worse than that are the days she asks if Grandpa and Rory are coming too.
Those days hollow me out.
My thumb hovers over the screen while the phone keeps ringing. The nurses always tell me that showing up matters, even on the bad days. But when she’s frightened and combative, I can’t help wondering if my presence only makes things worse.
One final ring.
It’s about to go to voicemail.
I shake off the—What did Carl call it?—tunnel vision, and answer.
“Hello.” My voice comes out tight.
“Hi, Emmett. It’s Connie.”
Connie isn’t just a nurse, she’s been my grandmother’s friend since before I moved her into long-term care.
“Oh, hey.” I pace the garage to burn off the unease crawling through me.
“Where have you been, kid?” I was nineteen when Connie moved into the apartment next to my grandmother’s place, and in a lot of ways, was still a kid at the time. I was out of my depth, and she’d helped me navigate a lot.
“You know how it is during the fire season.”
She hums like a woman who’s heard every excuse in the book. “I do. But I’ve seen Carl around town.”
Well shit.
Like Timberline Peak, Coyote Creek—where my grandmother and some of the crew live one town over from Bramble—is brimming with its own small-town gossip mill.
Normally, I’m able to avoid it. My camper van is parked at the edge of town on a plot of land I lease from Vail Ward.
The loose association with the man who has Bramble by the balls is enough that most people steer clear.
But Connie knows me better than most.
“You’re really something, you know.”
“By something, you mean a delight?” I ask.
“A delight.” She laughs. “Do you hear him, Monica?”
“How is she?” I ask, every sharp edge rounding out. Only one—no, two—people have that effect on me. My grandmother and Aspen.
“If you came to visit you wouldn’t have to ask.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” I repeat. The want is more complicated. Of course I want to see my grandmother, but each visit leaves me feeling like a tree hollowed out by lightning.
“Is that because of the little incident you’re not telling me about?”
“Fucking Carl,” I grumble. “This feels like a HIPAA violation.”
“HIPAA doesn’t apply here. Besides, all he told me was you weren’t home, and you’d had an accident.”
“Still.”
“What the hell, Emmett. You didn’t think it would be good to give us a heads-up. You’re her only family. What if something had happened?”
“I’m not her only family. She’s got you, and you’re worth more to her than me.”
Connie’s exasperation bleeds through her huffed breath. “Monica would disagree.”
“Well, my grandma doesn’t exactly know what’s good for her these days,” I say sadly.
“Are you coming home, or is this disappearing act permanent?”
“I’m still restricted from driving, but my PT thinks I’ll be cleared next week.
I’m planning to head home for a visit, maybe as soon as next week.
” I scratch my jaw. I’ll need to work something out with Aspen to get there.
With the schedule she works, I hate the idea of asking for more of her time, but what choice do I have?
I need to get home, even if just for a few hours, to check up on things and bring the van back with me so I can get around on my own.
“And you’ll stop by to see her?”
“I always do.”
Connie hums her acknowledgement.
I came home after the fire season a few years ago and Connie pulled me aside, worried about my grandmother living alone.
After months of appointments, specialists, and tests, the doctors eventually diagnosed her with dementia. Later, they started using words like Alzheimer’s progression and cognitive decline, but by then, none of the labels really mattered. She still needed care I couldn’t give her alone.
For all my faults, I was true to my word. There’d been two non-negotiables for me when I’d moved her out of her house. Wherever she went, it had to specialize in memory care, and it had to be close enough for me to visit when I was home.
Luckily, the facility Connie worked at was the best in the state for memory care. Which also meant that while I was on the road during fire season, my grandmother still had a familiar face around.
“How is she?” I ask.
“Overall, pretty good. She’s been a little anxious today, and I thought hearing your voice might help.”
That vise that sits around my chest tightens. On her worst days, she calls out for people who aren’t alive anymore, or she wanders, looking for rooms that don’t exist in the memory care wing.
I swallow. “Is she . . . upset?”
“No, restless, maybe—” Her tone shifts to something lighter, reassuring. “She’s been asking about you all day.”
Remorse wedges itself between my ribs, sharp as the adze end of a pulaski. Of course she has. Her only living blood relative hasn’t been by to see her in nearly a month.
“And before you go beating yourself up,” Connie adds, “I don’t say that to guilt-trip you. I just wanted you to know she’s thinking about you.”
“You can tell her I’ll see her soon,” I say. “If you don’t think that will confuse her.”
“I think she’d love that,” she says. “Do you want to say hi? She’s right here with me.”
My palms grow damp. Phone calls are harder for her—fewer visual cues for her mind to hold onto.
Hearing her voice would make my whole week, and Connie wouldn’t put her through it if she thought it would do more harm than good.
“Yeah. If you think she’s up for it, put her on,” I agree cautiously.
There’s muffled movement, a distant conversation, and then the shuffle of the phone.
“Hello?” Her voice is whisper-soft but still filled with the same love I remember from the day the social worker brought me to the ranch.
“We don’t know each other yet, and that must be nerve-wracking for you. Hell, I’m fit to be tied at all this, but I’m glad you’re here. It might take some time, but my greatest wish is for you to feel safe and loved under this roof.”
And eventually, I did. Now I just want to give her the same.
“Hey, Grandma,” I manage, voice rougher than I want. “It’s Emmett.”
A soft inhale on the line. “Of course it is. I’d know my boy anywhere.
” For one perfect second, it’s just my grandma and me again.
It breaks me clean in half, and it takes me a second to work through the lump in my throat.
“It’s so good to hear your voice, I won’t even give you grief about how long it’s been. ”
“You’ve noticed?”
“Of course I noticed. What am I, senile?” She says it with so much indignation that I have to press my lips together to keep my laugh from escaping. It’s not funny, but it catches me off guard all the same.
“I’ll come see you soon,” I say. “Promise.”