Chapter 8 #3
And she knew that he had worried about that a lot. About being enough for them, doing enough for them, which was why they were in so many extracurricular activities.
He couldn’t be two parents, he couldn’t be their mother, but he could make sure they didn’t lack for anything, and he had certainly done that.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” he asked.
“For everything, Dad. None of this is your fault, and I feel like it’s just so disappointing and –”
“I’m not disappointed. For you, but never in you. What Alan did… He violated my trust in him, and he could come crawling back on his hands and knees and I would never forgive him.”
Her dad paused for a moment. “Unless you really wanted to forgive him.”
“I don’t. I couldn’t. Not that.”
“I understand that.”
Her dad’s words were hard and heavy then, and she realized that he was talking about his own experience.
But there were things that he wasn’t able to forgive.
It didn’t mean that he had been asked to forgive them, but she understood.
She understood because she felt the same.
Her pride would never allow her to let Alan come back to her, not after that.
She still hadn’t sorted through her own feelings, the weird doubt that she had been experiencing right before the ceremony.
She hadn’t figured out if it was normal, or if deep down, she hadn’t really loved Alan as much as she had hoped that she did.
But it was very hard for her to sort through, because she was just so disappointed in him now.
Because she felt like all the memories of him ever kissing her, telling her that he loved her, made her unclean.
“Yeah, you don’t have to worry. Alan could beg, and I wouldn’t take him back.”
Begging. Again, she tried not to think of herself begging.
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “You’re making the best of this situation. It’s what a good politician does.”
She also didn’t really consider herself a politician, she supposed, because she wasn’t interested in politics beyond what she was looking to do in Mustang River, but she would take the compliment, because to her dad it was one.
And most of all, she was heartened by the conversation. And he was so proud of her. And he wasn’t disappointed or angry just because it wasn’t perfect.
Of course, she knew that her dad was better than that, that he cared more for her as a person than he did about external achievements, but it felt really good to hear him say it.
That was when she decided she had to actually grow up and look at her campaign accounts.
At least.
Anna had put out statements, and had turned off comments in some places, which she greatly appreciated, so nothing was too insane. At least, nothing more than broader social media, which she had already made the mistake of immersing herself in last week.
She was done with all that. She had a dinner date to get to tonight, and that was the thing that really mattered.
She texted Walker to ask where they were going, but he didn’t respond.
To the point where she had to get dressed, get ready without having any idea where they might go, though she had a feeling that Anna was right in her guess of where he might take her, and she decided to lean into that.
Not that it really mattered. She was going to look her best wherever he was taking her.
He could take her to the burger shack outside of town and she would still wear a dress that was going to call attention to her. A revenge dress.
She had brought some great dresses with her for the cruise, and it was fitting that she used that to her advantage now.
She put on a dress that was tight and pink with a short hemline, one she probably wouldn’t have normally worn in Mustang River, but she wasn’t aiming for professionalism, she was aiming for a story.
She needed to look different. She needed to look better.
She had to look like she was having a full-on glow up as a result of Alan leaving her at the altar, and she had never been more resolved in anything in her whole life.
And she was a pretty damn resolved human being.
That guided her when it came to her makeup, and she did not go subtle.
Then she decided Anna couldn’t be the only one making statements.
She opened up her phone camera, stood in front of her full-length mirror and hit record. “Hi guys, it’s me!” She waved. “Just wanted to let you know I’m alive…Oh…and I’m going out tonight.”
Before she could overthink it, she uploaded the video to two different platforms. #Goingout #revengedress #jiltedbride #saveahorserideacowboy.
The last hashtag was probably overkill. But oh well. If they were going to do this they needed to do it, right?
She got 30,000 views in the first fifteen minutes the video was up.
With comments that showcased the exploding head emojis, fire, and ????.
But she wasn’t answering questions just yet.
By the time Walker knocked on the door of her cabin she was feeling like she was herself again.
She didn’t feel like a piece of crumpled up paper, or a ball of chewed up gum. Right now she felt like Beyoncé was back in the building.
She opened up the door, and she felt the moment that he saw her. She didn’t just experience it, it was like being hit by a freight train. And the look on his face was smoldering.
She couldn’t breathe.
She forced herself to breathe, because she didn’t need to be standing there looking like a fabulously made-up guppy.
Somehow, even though he was the one openly checking her out, she felt like she was the one that was being exposed. She didn’t like that at all.
“Making a statement?”
His voice was low and gravelly, and it made her feel like there were firecrackers being set off in the pit of her stomach. She could do without that.
She did her best to find all the inner confidence that she’d had back when she was a teenage girl, and she’d had no self-awareness and no rejection from men, at least.
Her mother’s rejection was a whole other issue, but she’d had confidence when it came to men.
She smiled. “If you have to ask, maybe it isn’t a loud enough statement.”
“It’s loud,” he said.
She felt a strange, climbing tension move through her body, and she wished that it wasn’t quite so powerful.
“You have no idea. I posted a teaser video.”
“Did you?”
“You haven’t seen it?”
“I don’t follow you.”
She smiled. “You’re missing out.”
He looked at his phone and swiped a few times. She could see the exact moment he spotted her video. He had his sound off, but she had captions on the video.
“I see. Ride a cowboy, huh?”
“It’s an expression in these parts.”
She moved past him and he caught her arm. “For what, exactly?”
Her heart pounded hard, like a trapped bird in a cage trying to escape. “Fucking, I think.”
Her breath rushed out of her lungs in a gust, and she felt suspended. Never had she ever said something like that to a man. Let alone to a man who was like her own twisted, sexual heaven and hell rolled into one.
It was dangerous. Playing with Walker in any capacity. Playing on the same team, trying to agitate him like they were opponents, all of it.
Because she didn’t feel neutral about him, unfortunately.
She hadn’t back then, and she didn’t now.
Just acknowledging that terrified her. She was standing there, mouth open, staring up at him, her heart fluttering wildly.
It was attraction.
Intense. Horrible. Overwhelming attraction.
But attraction didn’t have to mean anything, it didn’t have to do anything to disrupt your life, didn’t have to play into any of your decision-making. Those were decisions that she’d made a long time ago.
Walker was emblematic of that decision. Or rather, the fact that after all this time she had never gotten any closer to Walker, had never allowed herself to play with that particular brand of fire, was emblematic.
“We have reservations at La Befana.”
She tried to laugh. “Anna thought that you would.”
“Because she’s a good campaign manager. It’s definitely the place to go to be seen on a Friday night. If one is trying to engage the social elites of Mustang River.”
He said that last part dryly.
It was funny, because she supposed she was part of the class that would be considered the social elite of Mustang River, but she did have some awareness of the fact that it was a niche social group.
Because Mustang River was niche.
Of course, everything that she did here, her work, her campaign, it was her whole life, so it was the most important thing she could think of, even while knowing that in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t like most people would find this town to be all that important.
Wasn’t like most of them would find it impressive that her father had been the mayor of this tiny little community out in eastern Oregon?
But she didn’t really need to impress anybody.
Maybe he didn’t realize that.
He probably didn’t.
He seemed to carry a heavy amount of resentment inside of him. Against her, against the community. And as she followed him out toward the truck, the question that had been quietly forming low in her stomach escaped her mouth.
“Why exactly did you come back here?”
He opened up the driver’s side door, looked at her over the top of the cab of the truck, and then slipped inside without answering.
She opened her own door and got inside.
“Well, the giant ranch that I inherited is here,” he said. “The one that you’re currently staying on.”
“I get that. But still, it’s not like anyone in town was particularly welcoming to you. Or anyone in your family. You and Cody went away and made your fortune. You could’ve sold this land and gotten land anywhere.”
“All the better to enjoy our newfound wealth, by being in a place where people never thought we would amount to anything.”