7. Reese
Reese
Ten minutes after seeing Weston in that barn, I’m still struggling to breathe. To make sense of it all. He’d been so close. I could have reached out and touched him. A single press of my finger against his strong chest, just to assure myself that he really was right there.
Standing in front of me.
“I work here.”
Is he serious? I glance over toward where my mom is napping on the couch. She’s been asleep ever since I got back from the coffee shop, and the latte I bought her is sitting untouched on the coffee table.
My mind races back over the conversation with Pastor Reeves. He’d been adamant that I talk to my mom, and this is why. Because he knew that Weston was still working here. Everyone probably does.
Embarrassment heats my cheeks, and tears burn in my eyes. Mrs. Knox knows, which is why she’d stared at me that way. Same thing with Anastasia. Why couldn’t anyone have had the decency to warn me?
Why didn’t my mom tell me?
I push to my feet to head into the bathroom. Gripping both sides of the sink, I try to calm my racing heart. They all knew, and no one told me.
Not one, “Hey, by the way, your ex-husband works out at the ranch your mom owns.”
Then again, no one else knows we were married for those brief, wonderful two days.
It had been annulled before the ink on our marriage license was even dry.
Images slam into me, one after the other.
The courthouse in Charleston.
A white sundress.
His flannel shirt and dark jeans.
Two rings he made with wire from the ranch.
I suck in a ragged breath, barely able to breathe as the rest of that nightmarish week floods my memory. Bitter loss that poisoned what was between us, causing irreparable damage to our relationship.
God, please help me.
Tears stream down my cheeks.
I’d tried to be there for him after he lost his sister. I held him as he cried, listened as he raged.
And I know it’s selfish, but when I needed him to see past the mask I wore, he’d been so caught up in his own tidal wave that I was left to drown in mine. Of course, now that I’m an adult, I know it wasn’t really his fault.
How could he know I was breaking if I didn’t let him see?
The day after tomorrow will be nineteen years since we lost a baby we’d never get to meet. The result of one night, when neither one of us thought through what could happen. Ironically, I’d only pushed us to that point because a girl I considered my friend told me, if I didn’t, I would lose him.
Something I realized way too late was not true. Weston never pushed me into anything. He was patient, kind, and loving. He would have waited until we’d said ‘I do’ and not thought twice about it.
I was young and na?ve, though, leading me to panic and confide in someone I shouldn’t have. She’d convinced me that he was pulling away, and that the only way to save it was to go to bed with him. She convinced me that if I didn’t, I’d lose him for good.
So I did.
I pushed him.
Even when he told me he wasn’t sure we were ready.
I assured him we were.
And then everything fell apart.
I sink to my knees, then sit back against the wall, the pain hitting me like an arrow to the heart. It doesn’t matter that it’s been nearly two decades. It doesn’t matter that I’d only been a couple of weeks along.
The loss is still so heavy. So potent.
Especially because it was followed by losing the man I loved, too.
To this day, I’m still not sure how everything remained a secret in this small town. But I am so beyond grateful that it did. Pretending I was fine was the only way I knew to survive, so that’s exactly what I did.
Lord, I can’t do this. I can’t go through this again.
“Sugar?” A soft knock on the door has me jumping to my feet and turning on the water.
“Be out in just a second!” I call out in a happy voice faker than a plastic doll. I splash some water on my face and stare at my reflection.
Lord, please grant me strength.
After a few moments, I step out of the bathroom. My mom is in the kitchen, warming up the coffee I brought back in the microwave.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Oh, Sugar!” My mom smiles, and her eyes mist as she crosses over to give me a big hug. “How was the drive?”
“Not bad. I went to see Pastor Reeves.”
“Which is why Aragorn was here when I got home and you were not.” She reaches down and pats his head, and he stares up at her with love in his eyes. For holidays, my mom has been insisting on visiting me in Charleston. She claimed to have hired a temporary hand to watch the ranch.
But now I know that wasn’t entirely true.
Now I know why she insisted on coming to me rather than letting me come home.
Fresh anger surges past the joy at seeing my mom again, and I cross my arms. “Did you happen to forget to mention something to me?”
“What’s that?” The microwave beeps, so she rushes back into the kitchen and removes her paper cup. After giving it a quick stir, she takes a drink. “So good. Thank you for getting this. Anastasia’s lavender lattes are my favorite.”
“Seriously? You didn’t think to mention that Weston was back in town and working here?” Communication was never a strength in the Faye household, but this goes beyond even that.
This feels an awful lot like betrayal.
The woman is the picture of innocence as she stands there staring at me. “Did I not tell you?”
“No,” I reply. “You absolutely did not.”
“Are you sure?” She takes another drink of her coffee, and for a moment, I worry I’m getting a glimpse at possible memory loss. But then she lowers the cup, a guilty smile on her face. “Okay, in my defense, he did technically live and work here when you moved away.”
“Um, fine. But he didn’t stay. You said that he went into the Navy.”
“Sure, but he was still here a month or so after you left for Charleston.”
“You do not get out of this on a technicality, Mom. How long has he been here?”
She puts the cup back up to her lips and takes a drink. Then mumbles, “Seven years,” under her breath.
“Seven years!” I screech. “Are you kidding me?” I turn away, feeling the need to get air but also afraid I’ll go outside, and there he’ll be. Ready to turn my world upside down all over again.
“Sugar, I am so sorry. I’ve needed him, though. He’s the only reason this place is still running. In more ways than one.”
I can’t even dig into that last comment. Not now. “Then maybe it’s time to sell it,” I snap.
“Reese.”
I turn toward my mom. “What? I get here, and you’re passed out on the couch, clearly exhausted.”
She clenches her jaw. “I will not sell this ranch.”
“And why not? It’s not as though we’ve owned it for generations!” I yell. “It’s been in our family for a couple decades, and that’s it. You can sell, move to Charleston with me, and then—” I stop abruptly. Unable to finish that thought out loud.
And then I’ll never have to see Weston Hayes again. Which brings a wave of absolute devastation over me.
“Sugar, this ranch is my home.”
“It’s too much for you to manage alone.”
“Well, as you have seen and pointed out, I’m not managing it alone.”
“That’s not acceptable, Mom.”
“And why is that?” she asks, fire in her gaze.
My mom has never been a pushover. Honestly, the fiery temper I’ve worked hard to manage over the course of my life is courtesy of her.
“Weston Hayes has never been anything but kind and reliable. You never gave me a real reason why the two of you broke up, and I have to imagine that, if it had been so truly horrible, you would have said something.”
“I—” But the truth is, she’s not wrong.
It wasn’t anything specific that he did. Weston lost his sister on the day we got married. We hadn’t even had the chance to tell anyone we’d tied ourselves together for what I thought was eternity when he got the call from Anastasia.
Then, a matter of days later, we lost the baby.
He became depressed. Angry. We both were.
But where I tried to pick up and move forward, Weston was determined to die in his pit.
That anger turned to self-loathing, which then imploded our marriage before it really had the chance to start.
I felt alone in my own grief, and watching him self-destruct... I couldn’t handle it.
“Sugar, I’m sorry if having him here is hard. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
“Yeah, well. A little heads up before I humiliated myself in Anastasia’s coffee shop would have been nice.”
My mom visibly winces. “Had I known you were going there, I would have warned you. They’re all really close. She’s actually marrying one of the men he served with.”
“Yeah, met him, too.” I run both hands over my face. The silence stretches on as I try to gather myself. Man, seeing Weston again leveled me in more ways than one.
“He looks good though, doesn’t he?”
I drop my hands and glare at her. “Do you really think that’s helpful?”
She laughs softly. “Probably not. But it’s an observation I don’t imagine you missed.”
She’s not wrong, that’s for sure. Weston was always handsome, but the gruffness of his appearance suits him a whole lot more than I’m willing to admit.
My mom takes a deep breath, then reaches out to steady herself on the wall.
“Mom?” My annoyance disappears, and I step forward to grab her.
“I’m fine.” She smiles at me, but there’s concern etched into her expression. “Just getting older. It’s a gift, but it is not for the birds, you know.”
But the pallor of her expression and the distance in her gaze have pushed aside every bit of anger I had. “Come on, Mom. What’s going on?”
“I’m just getting older, Sugar. That’s all.” She smiles at me, but I see the hesitance in her eyes. The worry she’s fighting so hard to hide.
“Mom.” Fear creeps up my spine. Is that why Weston is here? Is something wrong with my mom, and she has desperately needed the help?
Seven years, though? If she’s been suffering this whole time, she would have told me, right?
“It’s just been little things here and there. I’m getting a bit forgetful, and sometimes, I struggle with things that used to be simple.”
“Such as?”
“I really don’t want to get into it.” She takes a deep breath.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I have. So far, they’ve ruled just about everything out and have no answers for me.”
“Mom.”
“Sugar, I really am okay. Until there’s something to worry about, I’ll just consider this part of getting old.” She reaches out and grips my hand in hers, then squeezes gently. “I will be just fine.”
As I stand here looking at her now, though, I can see the exhaustion. The weight of whatever it is she’s carrying. And for the first time since I got fired, I can see the good. Had I not gotten fired, I wouldn’t have come home.
Now I can take care of her.
But Weston.
Thinking of him deflates that idea like an old balloon.
With him working here and likely living at the cabin three miles up the road, chances are I’ll run into him again. Can I really risk that? Can I handle seeing him on a day-to-day basis for the foreseeable future?
“Sugar, don’t stress about whatever happened between you and Weston today.” She releases my hand and heads into the kitchen. “You know what today was. His mood always suffers a bit.”
“Today?” And then it hits me. How could I have forgotten? Grief burns hot and fast, only overburdened by the guilt. “The anniversary of Violet’s death.”
My mom smiles sadly at me. “It still weighs on him even after all these years.”
Just like the next week weighs on me. “I wish you would have told me he was working here.”
“What would it have changed? You made it clear you didn’t want me to tell you anything about this town.”
She’s not wrong. Whenever she’d bring up anything about Stormwatch Landing, I’d change the subject. Finally, when she tried to tell me something about Zane and Tessa, I’d interrupted and told her I didn’t want to know.
Hearing about their happy wedding was just too much for me. So, I’d begged her to keep it to herself, and she’d done just that. Whenever I made the trip here over the years, I made sure not to venture into town.
For the last two decades, I’ve heard nothing about this place or the people here. It made it easier for a time—to just pretend it didn’t exist.
Every inch of this place is crawling with memories I’d love to just bury forever.
“Sugar, if you want to talk about it—”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s been a long time since I saw him, that’s all.”
My mom nods tightly. “Well, I’m here if you change your mind.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Of course, Sugar.” As she takes her coffee into the living room, I follow, my mind still on a cowboy I have no business thinking about, and a past I seem destined to confront even though I’ve been trying to outrun it for nearly two decades.