Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Marlowe could feel something shift in the air and she looked up at Cody, who was gazing off toward the mountains, a thunderous expression on his face.
“Wait till you try Cody’s barbecue, if you haven’t already,” Lila said. “He’s always been a really good cook.”
Marlowe allowed her attention to be pulled back to Lila. “Has he?”
“Yeah.” Lila sat down in a folding chair out on the lawn and grabbed a can of Coke and opened it up.
She flinched when it popped and fizzed, then took a long sip.
“He used to make us the best stuff. We would sneak into the neighbor’s yard, they were next to the apartment complex, and they had a garden in the back.
And we would collect green onions and spinach leaves, some really good things, and take them back to the apartment, and he would put them in a special ramen that he made for us. ”
Her heart squeezed tight. Because Cody had been talking about that.
Going around and collecting cans, making food for as cheap as he possibly could.
He hadn’t mentioned stealing from the neighbor’s garden, but when he’d talked about it, she’d felt this incredible weight that he’d been carrying at the time.
The burden of having to keep everyone cared for.
And Lila thought of it as this happy memory where her brother had made delicious food. She didn’t look at it and see struggle and poverty because Cody had been the one to carry that.
Because Cody had been the one to take it all onto his shoulders.
He was such an extraordinary man.
He had been extraordinary every moment of his life.
But he didn’t like to hear nice things about himself, he didn’t want to dig into his own feelings. He didn’t realize. He just had no idea how much he was loved. How much he had impacted the people around him for good, and it was like he was afraid to know it.
“Before school, he would brush my hair, he learned how to braid, even though they were pretty bad. But he tried his best. And Walker used to shoplift candy from the grocery store. Cody never shoplifted. But Walker did it all the time.”
“I guess you could argue taking veggies out of the neighbor’s garden is sort of like shoplifting.”
Lila wrinkled her nose. “I guess. But he never cut very much. I’m sure they didn’t even notice.”
“It sounds like both brothers took really good care of you.”
“Yeah. They did.”
“Didn’t Nolan spend a lot of time with you guys growing up?”
“Yeah. He did,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “He did punch this guy who was bullying me once.”
“What?”
“I was in middle school. This guy, who was in high school, kept following me around and harassing me. Saying kind of crude sexual things to me. Because of my mom.” She took a sharp breath.
“Because my mom famously had three kids and wasn’t married, you know, they figured she was a slut, and I probably was too.
So, I guess he thought he could badger me too…
I don’t know. But Nolan beat the crap out of him once. ”
“Oh,” Marlowe said, looking across the way at Nolan, who was standing there talking to Cody, drinking a beer.
She didn’t know him very well, hadn’t had the chance to get to know him very well, just a few scattered encounters, but one thing she could see was that he was fiercely loyal to the Graysons. As was Zane.
Because Cody was loyal to everyone in his life. Because he did his best to make things better for the people around him. But he seemed hell-bent on not letting any of that goodness touch him.
Oh Cody.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she took it out, just in case it was something to do with the hotel. But it wasn’t. It was an email from her lawyer.
The papers have been served. So now you just have to await his response.
She felt a wave of relief wash over her. She was almost divorced. They didn’t have assets, so if he didn’t contest anything, they could probably do it all remotely.
And that was one big moment of clarity.
She was closing the door on that chapter of her life. And really, truly embracing this new chapter. She felt… Strong. Everything felt clear. This was her life now.
She looked at Cody again.
His profile was strong, his shoulders broad, his hands capable, as he cooked for all these people that he cared for.
He was just so beautiful.
So perfect.
And Marlowe didn’t think that being with Cody would fix every broken thing inside of her, she didn’t think that being with him would make every moment of her life into some sort of fairytale.
But it would make it better.
She could stand on her own two feet. She could stand alone.
But she wanted to stand with Cody.
Then, surrounded by the family that he had created with all that goodness inside of him, Marlowe realized.
She was in love with Cody Grayson.
It was stupid. It was too soon. It was absolutely not the right time, and he had told her that for him it never would be.
But it didn’t matter. Because she wasn’t looking for the easy thing, the same thing, the convenient thing. She wasn’t looking for roots. She thought about the wild mustangs and the way they flew across the landscape. Effortless. Free.
She didn’t want safe. She wanted to fly.
She had come to Mustang River to find something new.
And she had found more than that.
Finally, she had found love. Real love. The kind that made things magical, not just love that existed to serve as a Band-Aid for issues it couldn’t quite heal.
And she knew right then that she was willing to risk anything to have it.
Because safety wasn’t her goal anymore.
She wanted to live.