Forty-eight
Cooper
For a few minutes, I wished the Sheriff would’ve come for me.
Because watching Peter fall into a thousand pieces tore something open in my chest. I hadn’t meant to move down the porch and watch uninvited, witnessing what was probably one of the darkest moments of his life, but as soon as Bea said Sheriff, morbid curiosity got the best of me.
Maybe I was bad friend for snooping, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the unfolding scene.
The words “divorce papers” were barely out of the Sheriff’s mouth before Peter crumbled to the gravel, Bea rushing up to slide her arms around his shoulders from behind.
He’d taken a crouched position, his fingers shoving deep into the roots of his hair, tugging at them as his shoulders heaved with distress.
The Sheriff stood there in awkward silence, waiting.
My feet pushed me forward until I could hear Peter murmuring over and over, “There’s a mistake. There’s got to be a mistake.”
“There’s no mistake, son.” The Sheriff helplessly glanced up at Tag, who stood beside me. “If you’re Peter Thompson then these are for you. I’m gonna need you to sign this paper to confirm that I delivered it.”
Peter didn’t move.
“I, uh, I can’t leave until you do.” He shifted in discomfort, clearly not enjoying this part of his job description.
Bea rubbed Peter’s back, whispering something to him.
And slowly, Peter stood up and reached out for the document and held out his hand until the Sheriff put a pen in it. His voice was husky and raw with anguish. “Does my signature finalize anything? Or does it just confirm I received it?”
“Just confirms.” He narrowed his eyes at Peter, his eyes darting to the cane, and I recognized the moment he put two and two together. His eyes widened with understanding, his expression softening with something that looked a little like pity.
Which pissed me off.
Peter asked, “Where do I sign?”
The Sheriff showed him the spot and Peter flicked his name across the page. He said a few more things to Peter, but Tag blocked my view, lifting a hand to clap me on the shoulder. “Best to give him some space.”
He stepped around me to return to the picnic table, and even though I figured Tag was right, something in my chest made it hard to breathe. I regretted the stuff I said to Peter about Sarah those weeks ago—all that crap about hoping another man would give her a good time. Why did I say that?
Questions swirled in my head. What had brought Sarah to this point? I remembered the trail ride we took together, and even though I recalled pieces of our conversation, nothing she said foreshadowed an ending like this.
What woman was worth this? The last few weeks, I’d watched Peter work his ass off, honestly putting in the effort to improve himself. Only to get kicked to the curb when he could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel?
As the Sheriff pulled down the driveway, Peter turned to Bea, burying his face in the top of her shoulder, a wave of grief quaking his body.
Anger pooled in my chest for my friend—he didn’t deserve this.
I knew for a fact that Peter sat on the barrel in the barn every night, pouring his heart out to her even though she blocked his phone number.
If she just called him, she’d hear how hard he was trying.
Was he not worth that?
Man, I wished my memory wasn’t as sharp as it was, because the moment that question flitted across my raging brain, all my demons broke free. I knew that pain—way more than I wanted to. Knew how much it hurt to work and work and work for nothing.
I wanted to give Sarah a piece of my mind.
Mentally, I added the pain of divorce to my running list of reasons to never get involved with a woman. In the quiet room at my rehab center, I resolved to never give someone that much power over me ever again.
Because no one stays.
At the end of the day, it’s every man for himself. And that was just the way of things. As commonplace as the sun and moon rising and falling in the sky.
And the sooner we all learned it, the better.
***
I stared at the book hovering in the air over my head, but my brain wouldn’t absorb the words.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, what happened at dinner greatly disturbed me.
And I couldn’t shake it from my mind—how easily a strong marriage could dissolve.
How one little accident could break people apart.
Maybe it was stupid, but I held the Thompsons in the highest regard.
They probably didn’t remember meeting me—I was a snot-nosed kid with an attitude the size of Texas—but I met their family when they visited the ranch for a summer vacation all those years ago.
I had the rare and unique privilege of trail riding with them in the middle of a work day.
In fact, I brought up the rear on an old horse named Lone Ranger.
And I remembered just watching them all laughing and carrying on.
They were a blend of chaos and peace, sunshine and rain. I remembered one of their boys getting stung by a wasp and the way his parents handled it—rubbing him on the back, gently encouraging him to take a deep breath, distracting him until he was laughing again.
I remember wondering if they just acted nice in public.
Wondering if that boy had ever familiarized himself with the local dumpsters. Or if he’d ever had to take a shit in a bathtub because the water got cut off. Or if he’d ever been traded for drugs.
But when the mom pulled out a food basket and laid out a lunch fit for a prince, I decided that boy didn’t know what any of those things were like. The mom and the dad fluttered between the pack of kids like a pair of robins around a nest, stuffing chirping mouths with giant worms.
I was so jealous.
Imagine my surprise when that same family came back into our lives with a vengeance, restoring every damn thing they touched like they were all a walking King Midas with gold in their hands.
Man, I hated it at first. Hated that people so good encroached on Tag, turning him into a settled, happy human that I was forced to despise because I couldn’t be any such thing.
But I met Hollie.
Then Peter—the boy that got stung by a wasp.
And I couldn’t deny that I cared about them both. They’d become my friends, and I started to hope that maybe happiness was attainable. If people as good and lovable as the Thompsons could appreciate someone like me, maybe I wouldn’t have to be miserable forever.
But even allowing myself to think that direction was stupid in the first place.
So I rehearsed my list of reasons not to care.
Why people were more trouble than they were worth.
Giving up on the book, I dropped it in the hay and rolled to my side, letting my gaze roam the cracks of the closed loft door.
When it was open, it faced the barnyard and provided a perfect birdseye view.
But it was chilly this evening, so I’d left it closed, using the booklight Hollie gave me to illuminate the space.
In that moment of silence, I heard when Peter took his spot on the barrel.
Normally, I listened to music while I was up here, but tonight, I didn’t have my headphones. His voice traveled up the loft ladder and into my space as if he were talking to me.
“Sarah…” His voice was hollow, shattered. “Sarah…I’m so…so sorry.”
He could barely force the words out as heartbroken sobs broke up his sentences.
“I don’t know…what to do…”
Those sounds carved a hole in my chest, hacking my disillusionment into a thousand pieces.
“Please…please forgive me…please…”
I was so close to throwing open the loft doors and spewing my dinner into the barnyard. Because if Peter Thompson couldn’t hold a relationship, what real hope did I have?
Eventually, his cries tapered off, leaving an eerie silence hanging over the barn like a fog. Slowly, I crept down to the ladder and eased myself through the hole. He looked awful—pink eyes and nose, disheveled hair, face puffy.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No.” He said, his voice rasping. “That hit me out of left field.”
“But you’re not changing anything about your plan, are you?”
He rubbed his lips together with a shake of his head. “I still have to try.”
I nodded, glad he wasn’t going to give up. “Nothing’s final. Not yet anyway.”
“I’ve hurt her over and over. I even kissed someone else which was just icing on the whole damn cake.” He shook his head. “I don’t blame her for wanting a divorce.”
Now that I knew Peter, him kissing someone other than Sarah felt so…odd to me. Not impossible, just really difficult to imagine. “I forgot Cody told me about that.”
His eyes flicked toward where I sat, not quite finding me—drifting to the left, just barely. “Do you know the details of what happened, by the way? No new memories of that night have resurfaced so I’ve hardly even thought about it.”
“I don’t know anything except what Cody said. You don’t remember anything?”
He nodded. “I remember a lot of it.”
“What parts?”
He tipped his face toward the ceiling. “I remember drinking a ton, obviously. I remember the game we played, laughing, playing some pool, the different bars we went to.”
“Do you remember me taking you home?”
His brow furrowed then he nodded. “Yes.”
“Hm.” I didn’t want to draw any conclusions but it did sound like Peter remembered the entire night aside from the woman he kissed. Again, not impossible. Just odd. “Was she mad about that?”
“Me kissing someone?”
“All of it.”
“Oh, yeah. She was extremely hurt. And she had good reason. Even some of the stuff I said to her before we left the open mic…” He shook his head. “I was being an idiot.”
“I’m glad you’re not backing off. You have a good plan in place. Things will turn out okay.”
Peter had spent a long time on the phone with a Denver florist and had some kind of beads rush-ordered from Etsy to the floral shop so that they could deliver the flowers with the gift.
If she didn’t call him after that, the only option would be to fly him out there and let them duke it out on their front porch.
“I’m worried she won’t call.”
“She’ll call.”
But my words brought him no comfort. No light rose in his eyes.
I excused myself to go to the bunkhouse then returned with his tennis shoes. Putting them in his lap, I said, “Let’s go.”
He sighed. “I don’t have the energy.”
“Dig deep then. You’re not allowed to wallow.”
He gave a tiny, exhausted laugh then lifted himself from the barrel.